The directive of the Nigerian police boss to officers and men of the Force to use their firearms for self-defence, not to kill and the alarm raised by the Sultan of Sokoto over the brazen attack by bandits in Northern Nigeria are some of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
ThisDay reports that the Inspector General of Police, Mr. Mohammed Adamu, has urged officers and men of the Force to use their firearms for self-defence, not to kill.
Adamu, who arrived at Ogun Command Headquarters, Eleweran in a Police Chopper yesterday, also advised them to be professional always while performing their duties.
Addressing men and officers of the command, Adamu enjoined them to be “courageous, firm and professional” in discharging their duty.
He assured they will not only enjoy health insurance while in active service, but also in their retirements.
He said: “Don’t be discouraged, come out in full and perform your duties, nobody can do it, it is your constitutional responsibility and you must do it. No amount of intimidation can prevent us from doing our job.”
The Vanguard says that the Sultan of Sokoto, Saad Abubakar III, has raised the alarm over the brazen attack by bandits in the North, claiming they have overrun the region in their activities.
According to the Sultan, the North is the worst place to be in this country, because bandits go around in the villages, households and markets with their AK 47 openly and unchecked.
The religious leader, who raised the alarm in Abuja yesterday at the fourth quarterly meeting of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council (NIREC), expressed regrets that the security situation in the North is not given enough media coverage.
He said: “Security situation in northern Nigeria has assumed a worrisome situation. It is regrettable that no strong media platform could report this story to the world.
“Few weeks ago, over 76 persons were killed in a community in Sokoto in a day. I was there alongside the governor to commiserate with the affected community.
“Unfortunately, you didn’t hear these stories in the media because it’s in the north. We have accepted the fact that north doesn’t have strong media to report the atrocities of these bandits.
The Punch reports that the House of Representatives, on Thursday, hailed the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) for presenting its budget to the National Assembly for the first time.
This was just as the Group Managing Director, NNPC, Mele Kyari, told the House that all the refineries had been shut down as vandals, thieves and weakness of the pipelines were frustrating supply of crude to the facilities.
Kyari also told the House that all the pipelines supplying commodities to the depots across the country had been shut due to security reasons.
The NNPC had earlier in June 2020 made history by publishing its audited financial statements for the first time since 43 years of its existence. Kyari made the revelations when he appeared before the joint House Committees on Petroleum Resources (Upstream, Downstream and Gas) for budget defence.
The newspaper says that President Muhammadu Buhari has said the tariff shortfalls in the power sector being borne by the Federal Government are no longer sustainable.
Buhari said this on Thursday at the inauguration of Eko Electricity Distribution Company’s Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition-Distribution Management System Centre in Lagos.
He said the SCADA system would help EKEDC monitor and respond more quickly to faults and reduce outage durations, thereby improving the quality of service to customers.
Represented by the Minister of Power, Mr. Sale Mamman, the President said his regime remained committed to addressing the liquidity challenges that were adversely affecting the power sector’s viability.
The Sun reports that President Muhammadu Buhari has appealed to the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to consider the weight of the responsibility of the nation with “200 million poor people, with severe deficit in infrastructure” when sharing oil production cuts.
According to him, countries like Nigeria have peculiar challenges facing them amid large population and immense deficit in infrastructure.
The advice was coming after OPEC had two weeks back revised down its expectations for global oil demand for yet another month, as the renewed spike in coronavirus cases in major economies is slowing down oil demand recovery.
In its closely watched Monthly Oil Market Report (MOMR), OPEC cut its global oil demand forecast for this year by 300,000 barrels per day (BPD) compared to last month’s estimate, and now sees global oil demand at slightly above 90.0 million BPD this year, down by 9.8 million BPD compared to 2019.
The newspaper says that the Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, (NNPC), Mr. Mele Kyari, has warned that Nigeria may be denied fresh oil and gas investments if it fails to pass into law, the Petroleum Industry Bill, 2020.
The NNPC boss gave the warning on Thursday at a 2021 budget defence session before the Joint Committee on Petroleum Upstream, Petroleum Downstream, and Gas Resources noted that without the passage of PIB, no one will invest in this country (Oil and Gas Industry), again.
The warning came as the House of Representatives Wednesday vowed to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) before the end of the first quarter of 2021.
The Chief Whip of the House and chairperson of the ad-hoc committee on PIB, Tahir Monguno, gave the assurance on Wednesday at the inaugural sitting of the committee.
The House had on Tuesday passed the bill for second reading and referred it to the committee for a public hearing.
The Nation says that the Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) on Thursday warned that if urgent actions are not taken by government to reduce the high cost of grains and other challenges facing the poultry industry, the industry may shutdown completely by January next year.
Addressing reporters in Abuja, its National President, Ezekiel Ibrahim said the industry which is worth over N10 trillion, provides over 20 million direct and indirect jobs to Nigerians.
He explained that with the attendant fallouts and the grains supply situation in the country, the prices of maize went up from N95,000 per ton to N165,000 per ton in June, 2020, while soybean is selling between N215, 000 to N250,000 per tons currently.
“The government supported the industry with the release of 5,000mt of maize at subsidised prices expecting that the price of maize will fall or stabilise during the harvest season,” he said.
GIK/APA