The report of resurgence of mass abduction of pupils and the warning by the Nigerian Government that schools in 14 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja are at risk of attacks by bandits and insurgents is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that against the backdrop of the resurgence of the mass abduction of pupils, the Federal Government has said schools in 14 states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, are at risk of attacks by bandits and insurgents.
The National Coordinator of Financing Safe Schools in Nigeria, Hajia Halima Iliya, confirmed to The PUNCH on Sunday, that the data of at-risk schools had been collected for intervention.
Iliya declined to identify the states, but the Commander of the National Safe Schools Response Coordination Centre, Nigeria Security, and Civil Defence Corps, Hammed Abodunrin, said they included Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Benue, Yobe, Katsina, FCT, Kebbi, Sokoto, Plateau, Zamfara and three others.
Fifteen pupils of an Islamiya school in Sokoto State were kidnapped in the early hours of Saturday, less than 72 hours after 287 schoolchildren and teachers were abducted from the LEA primary school and the Government Secondary School both at Kuriga, in the Chikun Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
However, 28 of them were on Sunday reported to have escaped 259 in captivity.
A few days before the Kaduna incident, 200 female Internally Displaced Persons were taken away by terrorists in Borno State.
Iliya further disclosed that the Federal Ministry of Education and the NSCDC had conducted some training for their men, adding that the Nigeria Police had trained senior officers, including all divisional police officers across the country on Safe Schools.
According to her, the security forces have commissioned equipment that would be deployed to various state commands for the operations.
“Data of at-risk schools from 14 states, including the FCT have so far been collected for intervention. The Defence headquarters and DSS (Department of Security Services) are expected to mainstream Safe Schools through capacity building of their officers. N15b was provided and released as takeoff in 2023; utilisation is still ongoing,’’ she stated.
The newspaper says that crude oil earnings by the Federal Government increased by about N449.93bn in the months of December 2023 and January 2024, an analysis of data in the latest reports on Nigeria’s oil production, on Sunday, showed.
Although the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission has yet to release oil production figures for February 2024, its latest data so far indicates that Nigeria’s oil output maintained a northward movement in the months of December 2023 and January 2024.
The country’s oil production (excluding condensates) increased by 3.88 million barrels in December 2023, when compared to what it pumped in the preceding month of November.
Data from the Country Economy, a global economic and statistical firm, put the average cost of Brent, the benchmark for crude oil, at $77.63/barrel in December 2023.
Therefore by increasing production by 3.88 million barrels and multiplied by $77.63/barrel, the country earned additional $301.2m in December, representing N244.79bn at the official average exchange rate of N812.7/$ in December 2023.
Again, Nigeria produced 2.81 million more barrels of crude oil (excluding condensates) in January 2024 than what was produced in December 2023, as the average cost of Brent crude in January was $80.12/barrel.
This therefore implies that the Federal Government grew its crude oil earnings in January by $225.14m. At the average official exchange rate of N911.19/$ in January, the $225.14m translates to N205.14bn.
A summation of the increased earnings in December 2023 (N244.79bn) and January 2024 (N205.14bn) showed that the Federal Government earned additional N449bn during the two-month period.
The Vanguard newspaper reports that the Federal Government on Sunday disclosed that the phenomenon of brain drain, often referred to as ‘Japa Syndrome’, has deprived Nigeria of its top talent in the health sector, with no fewer than 16,000 doctors leaving the country in search of better opportunities abroad.
The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof Ali Pate, disclosed this during an appearance on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Sunday.
Pate lamented that Nigeria has witnessed a generation of young doctors, health workers, tech entrepreneurs, and various professionals abandoning the country for better opportunities abroad.
His words: “In the last five years, the country lost about 15,000 to 16,000 doctors to the Japa syndrome, while about 17,000 had been transferred,” he said.
“There are about 300,000 health professionals working in Nigeria today in all cadres. I am talking about doctors, nurses, midwives, pharmacists, laboratory scientists, and others. We did an assessment and discovered we have 85,000 to 90,000 registered Nigerian doctors.
“Not all of them are in the country. Some are in the diaspora, especially in the US and UK. But there are 55,000 licenced doctors in the country.
“The issue overall, in terms of health professionals, is that they are not enough. They are insufficient in terms of the skill mix. Can you believe most of the highly skilled professional doctors are in Lagos, Abuja, and a few urban centres? There is a huge distribution issue.
The newspaper says that major companies in Nigeria spent about N635.2 billion on power generation and utilization in 2023 amidst rising energy costs and its attendant impact on businesses.
This represents a 41.5 per cent Year-on-Year (YoY) increase compared to N448.76 billion spent in the corresponding period in 2022.
Details of the cost show that the bulk of the expenditure was on diesel and related cost of independent power generation.
Latest statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed that the average retail price of Automotive Gas Oil (Diesel) paid by consumers in December 2023 was N1,126.69 per litre in December 2023, an increase of 37.76 percent from N817.86 per litre in December 2022.
On a month-on-month basis, this increased by 6.74 percent from N1,055.57 per litre in November 2022.
Also, the average retail price of Premium Motor Spirit (Petrol) rose by 225.85 per cent to N671.86 within the same period from N206.19 per litre in December 2022, following the removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Tinubu, which triggered major energy crisis in the country. Likewise, comparing the average price value with the previous month (November 2023), the average retail price increased by 3.53 percent from N 648.93.
Among the companies reporting sharp rises in power costs are BUA Foods Plc, BUA Cement Plc, Dangote Cement Plc, Fidson Healthcare Plc, Chemical and Allied Products (CAP) Plc, Neimeth Pharmaceuticals Plc, Aluminium Extrusion Industries Plc, Juli Plc, Lafarge Cement Africa Plc, Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, NASCON Allied Industries Plc and Livestock Feeds Plc, all in the manufacturing sector.
Others are Wema Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc, Cornerstone Insurance, Transcorp Plc, Transcorp Hotels Plc, NPF Microfinance Bank Plc and Abbey Mortgage Bank Plc from the services sector.
GIK/APA
Nigeria: Press zooms in on warning that schools in 14 states, Abuja may be attacked, others
