The report that the first set of Nigerian evacuees from Ukraine landed in Abuja aboard a Max Air flight on Friday morning dominates the headlines of Nigerian press on Friday.
Channels Television reports that the first set of Nigerian evacuees from Ukraine landed in the country aboard a Max Air flight on Friday morning. They were airlifted from Romania where they had taken shelter in the wake of the conflict in the Eastern European nation.
They were received by government officials at the private jet terminal of the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. The returnees, mostly students, underwent documentation after which they are expected to return home.
Government officials told Channels Television that the evacuees will be given some stipends and are expected to also self-isolate at home in line with the COVID-19 protocols.
According to the report, more Nigerians are expected in the country in the coming days as Russia’s invasion of its neighbour continues.
The Guardian says that the Minister of State, Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has stated that the Federal Government and regulatory authorities are making efforts to address fuel scarcity by ensuring that supply disruption is overcome.
The minister made this known to newsmen on Thursday in Abuja after a meeting with some key leaders in the petroleum industry.
Sylva spoke shortly after meeting with Malam Mele Kyari, Group Managing Director of the NNPC Ltd. and Mr Farouk Ahmed, Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA), among others.
“This kind of supply disruptions are like accidents, they are not desirable, we do not expect them to happen but they happened once in a while.
“This administration has done well as far as fuel supply is concern. I am quite happy to hear from the NNPC GMD and CEO of NMDPRA on all they have been doing to ensure the scarcity is controlled.
“From what they have told me, in few days there will normalcy, everybody is putting efforts to ensure that supply disruption is overcome.
“On my part as Minister of State, I share their commitment to ensure that this problem is totally overcome.
“From all the figures shown to me the supply is there, so why are they hoarding it, in the next few days we will be able to overcome those unscrupulous elements and make sure products get to Nigerians,” he said.
The newspaper reports that the Government of Netherlands has disclosed plans to mobilise six million Euros worth of private investment into Nigeria’s vegetable value chain to increase access to finance for farmers, traders, processors and SMEs.
The Ambassador of the Netherlands to Nigeria, Harry Van Dijk, who disclosed this, yesterday, during the launch of the Horti Nigeria Project in Abuja, said the focus of the project is to boost vegetable production for the domestic market and make it more sustainable.
According to him, the Horti Nigeria project has four components and they include mobilising investment into the horticulture sub-sector, increasing production of 60,000 smallholder farmers in Kano and Kaduna.
Other components include, increasing greenhouse technologies in Ogun and Oyo state and off-taking the market to Lagos state and enhancing sector coordination and business-to-business linkages, so as to contribute to improvements in federal and state horticultural policies.
The Ambassador, however, lamented a deficit of 13 million metric tonnes of tomatoes despite the nation’s huge potential in Nigeria.
The Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Dr Mohammad Abubakar while unveiling the programme, expressed concerns that Nigeria is not one of the leading tomato exporting countries, despite being rated as one of the leading producers in Africa, attributing it to low yield resulting from seed type use.
The Sun says that in a dramatic twist, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC), Limited has cancelled Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited $1.6bn oilfield asset sale to Seplat Energy Offshore, a wholly owned subsidiary of Seplat Energy Plc.
According to a letter signed by the Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NNPC, Mr. Mele Kyari and addressed to Exxonmobil, NNPC reiterated its resolve to take over Exxonmobil share of the assets.
“We are aware that you reached an agreement to divest from onshore and shallow waters JVs,” the NNPC stated “clearly that we are interested.
”This announcement was coming barely one week after Seplat announced that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the entire share capital of Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (“MPNU”) from Exxon Mobil Corporation, Delaware for the operations of its onshore and shallow water assets for $1.2billion.
NNPC’s decision effectively means that the Sales Agreement between Seplat and ExxonMobil may have to be reviewed. According to industry observers, the NNPC which is the major shareholder in the Joint Ventures with ExxonMobil, may have exercised its right of first refusal on the assets as part of a new era which will focus solely on building the long-term profitability of the NNPC Ltd.
The Punch reports that the Director-General, Nigeria Country Department, African Development Bank, Mr. Lamin Barrow, says that 32 per cent of flagged project operations, meant to be financed by the bank, failed to meet loan effectiveness and first disbursement conditions as of December 2021.
He said this at the 2022 Country Portfolio Performance Review Workshop in Abuja on Thursday. Barrow said, “Despite the progress made in the past year, we need to move fast in ensuring that the new projects reach implementation stage at a faster pace.
“Admittedly, start-up delays – attributed to delays in meeting loan effectiveness and first disbursement conditions – accounted for 32 per cent of flagged operations as at end December 2021.
There are low-hanging fruits that we can pluck by moving faster in processing the signature of 4 public sector projects approved in 2021.”
According to him, there have been some increases, however, in the pace of project implementation since 2019.
“This difficult operating environment notwithstanding, there has been some modest gains since the last CPPR. For instance, the pace of project implementation has picked up in 2021 as evidenced in the cumulative disbursement rate, which increased from 57 per cent in 2019 to 66 per cent in 2021.
The newspaper says that Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo has said that in a bid to close the infrastructural gap in the private sector, the Federal Government invested an estimated N300bn in the sector in 2021.
In his keynote address at the inauguration of the Bankers House in Abuja on Thursday, Osinbajo also disclosed that the government had invested N1tn seed capital to launch the N15tn InfraCo project.
The Bankers House is an edifice erected by the Chartered Institute of Bankers in Nigeria to house its Abuja office.
The VP disclosed all these while emphasising the importance of the private sector to the growth of the Nigerian economy.
According to him, the success of the development programmes and reforms of the government are largely reliant on the private sector, adding that the government is willing to do whatever it takes to support the sector.
The VP said, “The Federal Government has stepped out in front with robust investment in critical infrastructure, roads, rail, power, and broadband connectivity. “Last year, in our bid to close the current infrastructure deficit we invested an estimate of N300bn.
GIK/APA