The opening of 14 airports for domestic flight operations and the sale of electricity to three neighbouring countries worth about $81.48bn in the last two years, while many Nigerian households and businesses have continued to suffer blackout are some of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Punch reports that the Nigerian Government on Sunday announced that14 airports were now opened for domestic commercial flight operations.
The Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, who announced this in a tweet through his official Twitter handle, said that the airports had resumed full domestic flight operations.
The ministerial approvals for private and charter operations in and out of the 14 airports were not required, as the public would be informed of the other airports in due course.
According to the minister, the 14 airports include the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos; Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja; Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano; and Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa.
Others are the Sam Mbakwe Airport, Owerri; Maiduguri Airport, Maiduguri; Victor Attah Airport, Uyo; Kaduna Airport, Kaduna; and Yola Airport, Yola, the Margaret Ekpo Airport, Calabar; Sultan Abubakar Airport, Sokoto; Birni Kebbi Airport; Yakubu Gowon Airport, Jos; and Benin Airport, Benin.
The newspaper says that three neighbouring countries bought a total amount of electricity worth $81.48bn from Nigeria in the last two years and that many households and businesses in the country have continued to suffer blackout.
The invoices given to the Republics of Togo, Niger and Benin for the electricity supplied to them from Nigeria in 2018 and 2019 totalled $81.48bn, an analysis of data obtained from the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission has shown.
Niger bought electricity worth $26.03bn in the two-year period while Togo and Benin imported $55.45bn electricity from Nigeria.
Power generation in Nigeria has been hovering between 3,000 megawatts and 4,500MW in the past few years, despite the privatisation of the sector in 2013.
The Sun newspaper reports that Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke, of the Federal High Court, Lagos, has rejected an application to stop the Federal Government from auctioning 10 marginal oil fields which licenses have been revoked.
Justice Aneke had dismissed an application for interlocutory injunction filed by the operators of affected marginal oil fields which intended to restrain Federal Government from auctioning them.
The affected operators are Associated Oil & Gas Limited, Dansaki Petroleum Limited; Bayelsa Oil Limited; Bicta Energy and Management Systems Limited: Del-Sigma Petroleum Nigeria Limited; Sogenal Energy Limited; Independent Energy Limited; Sahara Energy; African Oil & Gas Limited and Goland Petroleum Limited. While defendants in the suit are the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and the Director, Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR), Mr Auwalu Sarki,
Delivering ruling on the application, the court held that the operators of the affected Marginal Oil Fields failed to convince the court on why the order ought to be granted.
The newspaper also reports that the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC) yesterday joined other stakeholders to reject the recent order by the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) to property owners and their agents to charge 6 percent Stamp Duty on all tenancy and lease agreements.
The TUC President, Quadri Olaleye, said the Congress vehemently rejects the FIRS order as it views the move as another ploy to further impoverish Nigerians.
“Sometimes we wonder if there is any milk of human kindness left in our leaders. Should enforcement of stamp duty on house rent and Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) be on priority list of the FIRS at a time the country is experiencing housing deficit and millions of Nigerians have lost their jobs?,” he queried.
Olaleye noted that till date, several countries are still giving out palliatives to cushion the effect of the coronavirus pandemic.
According to him, some countries, apart from giving out palliatives also took responsibility of the citizens utility bills including power, water and data among others.
The Vanguard reports that as the Nigerian government gets set to replace the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) with a new economic plan, the Nigerian Economic Sustainability Plan (NESP), reports from both government sources and private sector assessment have indicated massive failures in the ERGP across almost all the target points.
The newspaper gathered that rather than build on the expected gains as originally envisaged in the plan, the Ministry of Finance has been forced to totally trash the plan as the results of the efforts made as well as estimated N6.4 trillion capital expenditure outlay in its three years life did not yield any strong gain to build upon.
The ERGP is a medium term plan set for 2017 to 2020, developed to restore Nigeria’s economic growth at the backdrop of the negative growth recorded in 2016 when the economy formally went into recession.
GIK/APA