Nigerian press focuses on reactions to Buhari’s independence anniversary broadcast, others

In his 60th Independence Anniversary broadcast yesterday President Buhari said “it makes no sense for fuel to be cheaper in Nigeria than in Saudi Arabia, where it sells for N168 per litre.”



The Nigerian Government had in March said it removed fuel subsidy, consequently pushing up the price of petrol from N148 to over N160.

According to the report, many Nigerians have expressed dissatisfaction with the timing of the hike, considering the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economy.

The newspaper says that the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (FMARD) has estimated that Nigeria spends $5 billion to import foods annually out of which $1.5 billion goes to importation of milk and other dairy products.

The Permanent Secretary, FMARD, Abdulkadir Mu’azu, stated this at a workshop of Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations Technical Cooperation Project (TCP), with focus on the implementation of the national livestock transformation plan in Niger and Kaduna states.

Mu’azu, who was represented by Winnie Lai-Solarin, Acting Director, Animal Husbandry Services in the ministry, said the huge bill was due to the long neglect of the livestock sector which has put a lot of burden on the import bill of the country.

According to him, about $5 billion worth of food is imported annually into the country, out of which milk and dairy products accounts for between $1.2 billion to $1.5 billion. Muazu said the challenges of the livestock sector include poor breed quality, farmer conflicts, and banditry.

In the African region, for instance, African airlines’ traffic sank 90.1 percent in the last one month, though slightly improved over a 94.6 percent decline in July.

Capacity contracted 78.4 percent, and load factor fell 41.0 percentage points to 34.6 percent, which was the lowest among regions.

In a similar vein, the International Air Transport Association (IATA), has downgraded its traffic forecast for 2020 to reflect a weaker-than-expected recovery, as evidenced by a dismal end to the summer travel season in the Northern Hemisphere.

IATA now expects full-year 2020 traffic to be down 66 percent compared to 2019. The previous estimate was for a 63 percent decline.

 

The newspaper says that US President Donald Trump has tested positive for Covid-19, upending the already tense US election, but was described by his doctor on Friday as feeling “well” and able to perform his duties while quarantining.

 

Trump, 74, first announced on Twitter that he and First Lady Melania Trump, 50, had tested positive for the virus.

“We will get through this TOGETHER!” he wrote.

The extraordinary setback for Trump had immediate political consequences just 31 days before election day, forcing him to cancel campaign trips and adding new volatility to a contest already steeped in tension.

Trump’s challenger, Democrat Joe Biden, is well ahead in the polls and has made criticism of the Republican’s handling of the coronavirus — and frequent downplaying of the pandemic’s seriousness — a key issue.

ThisDay reports that Fitch Ratings has revised the outlook on Nigeria’s long-term foreign-currency issuer default rating (IDR) to stable, from negative.

It also affirmed the country’s IDR at ‘B’. According to a statement, the revision of the outlook reflects a decrease in the level of uncertainty surrounding the impact of the global pandemic shock on the Nigerian economy.

It pointed out that oil prices have stabilised, while global funding conditions have eased and domestic restrictions on movement have started to be relaxed.

“Nigeria has navigated external liquidity pressures from the shock through partial exchange rate adjustment combined with de facto capital flow management measures and foreign-currency (FC) restrictions, while disbursement of external official loans has supported the level of international reserves,” it said.

The Punch reports that $1.6bn Lagos-Ibadan railway project will be completed in December this year or early January 2021, the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, announced on Thursday.

Amaechi, who disclosed this during a live television programme that also had the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, in attendance virtually, said he would work with Fashola and the Lagos State Government to move heavy duty trucks away from roads.

During the programme, which was monitored by our correspondent in Abuja, Fashola, while responding to a question, insisted that Nigerian roads would not last without the construction and usage of functional rail lines.

“I am his biggest champion when he (Amaechi) is presenting his request in the cabinet for the rails because I know that without the rail the roads will not last,” Fashola said.

The Sun says that poultry industry, which reportedly lost about N1.5 trillion to the Coronavirus pandemic, said the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) took the right step by granting import waivers to four companies.

President of the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN), Mr Ibrahim Ezekiel Mam said the import waiver was a follow up to President Muhammadu Buhari’s intervention when he granted the association 5,000 metric tons of maize from the country’s strategic grains reserve.

He said PAN was in total support of the maize importation as part of the measures by the Federal Government to bridge the supply gap forced on local farmers by several factors, including flooding, which has ravaged several farms and the Covid-19 pandemic.

The PAN President further said: “A lot of damage was done to our farms by Covid-19. Day-old chicks, for instance, were lost due to suffocation as the result of multiple checkpoints on the highways and curfews imposed by the state governments,” adding that farmers had to quickly bury their chicks and bury eggs because the demand and supply chain was affected by the nationwide lockdown.