The confirmation of the first cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus in the country by the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Guardian reports that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has confirmed the first cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus in the country.
Director-General, Dr Ifedayo Adetifa, who disclosed this in a statement in Abuja, said that two cases of the variant were discovered through genomic sequencing and linked the cases to two passengers from South Africa.
He observed that the two patients were asymptomatic and contact tracing had begun.
“In line with the routine travel tests required of all international travellers and genomic sequencing at the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control through its National Reference Laboratory, Abuja, confirms Nigeria’s first case of the Omicron variant,” Adetifa said.
“Genomic sequencing of positive cases from routine day two testing for travellers to Nigeria identified two cases of Omicron variant among travellers from South Africa who arrived in Nigeria last week. Retrospective sequencing of previously confirmed cases among travelers to Nigeria also identified the omicron variant among samples collected in October 2021”.
Omicron variant, a new strain of the coronavirus disease, was reported by South Africa and first detected in Botswana.
It has appeared in well over a dozen countries, stoking global fears about a coronavirus pandemic that has killed more than five million people and savaged economies worldwide.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has classified Omicron as a variant of concern.
Canada on Tuesday banned travellers from Egypt, Nigeria and Malawi over fears of the
The newspaper says that the World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, yesterday, spoke extensively on the planned removal of subsidy on Petroleum Motor Spirit (PMS), lingering foreign exchange crisis, rising sovereign debts and other macroeconomic issues, suggesting that the removal of subsidy may not remarkably cause a spike in inflation.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to The Guardian, Chaudhuri, who has served in his current capacity since 2019, said historical data, including statistical analyses carried out by the World Bank, have not shown that there would be a remarkable rise in inflation should Nigeria remove fuel subsidy and PMS price increases.
Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, had last week said the government would scrap the controversial social scheme next year and replace it with N5,000 monthly transportation grants to about 40 million poor Nigerians for a year.
The statement has expectedly raised fresh debate on the subsidy scheme, which is said to have gulped trillions of naira. Labour, the organised private sector (OPS) and other stakeholders have described the proposal as absurd.
The Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) said the plan was an open invitation for unrest and revolt, while the Trade Union Congress (TUC) expressed shock that government could come up with the idea when negotiations on subsidy removal were yet to be concluded. The Senate, on its part, said the grant proposal was not captured in the 2022 budget, wondering how the government intends to implement it.
The Punch reports that the pump price of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, may go higher than the projected N340 per litre in February 2022 when the Federal Government removes its subsidy on the commodity, oil marketers said on Tuesday.
Also, it was gathered that both independent and major oil marketers were perfecting plans to resume PMS imports once the government halts the subsidy regime. They, however, expressed worry over the fluctuation in foreign exchange rates and how this would impact on petrol price next year.
For about four years, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has been the sole importer of petrol into Nigeria. Marketers stopped importing the commodity due to their inability to effectively access the United States dollar for imports.
Last week, the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Mele Kyari, announced at a World Bank event in Abuja that petrol would sell for between N320 and N340 per litre from February 2022 by which time the Federal Government have removed the subsidy.
He explained that Nigeria would be out of the subsidy regime in the first quarter of next year, stressing that subsidy would have been eliminated this year but was stalled due to certain conditions.
The Sun says that the Federal Government has stated that it will further strengthen the framework for concessions and public private partnerships (PPPs) by 2022 to improve its economic growth,
Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, stated this during the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX)’s Capital Markets Conference which held in Abuja, on Tuesday. Osinbajo, while speaking at the conference themed; ”The future ready capital market: Innovating for Nigeria’s sustainable recovery”, said the NGX can spur the growth of the economy and must be prepared to work with the country’s AfCFTA negotiators especially as it is progressing towards setting the rules in the services sector.
He noted that the government has looked at Rules of Origin adding it was high time the exchange partners with the government to get the very best deals possible for all its partners all over Africa.
He further said the recently approved Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) contains robust strategies for achieving growth.
“The MTEF envisages that the economy will grow from about 3 per cent this year, rising to 6.33 per cent in 2025. Next year, the FG will further strengthen framework for concessions and public private partnerships especially as they relate infrastructure”, Osinbajo said.
ThisDay reports that the scarcity of liquidity has forced banks and merchant banks to aggressively depend more on the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) for short-term liquidity needs, leading to N24.53 trillion borrowing from the apex bank between January and November 2021.
This represents a 315 per cent increase when compared to N5.91trillion borrowed in the previous year.
The central bank has two short-term lending windows for banks and merchant banks, namely the Standing Lending Facility (SLF) and Repo lending.
While the CBN lends money to banks through the SLF at interest rate of 100 basis points (bpts) above the Monetary Policy Rate (MPR) of 13 per cent, it also lends money to the banks through Repurchase (Repo) arrangement, which involves the purchase of banks’ securities with the agreement to sell back at a specific date and at higher price.
Data from the CBN official website showed that banks’ and merchant banks borrowing through the SLF rose by 315.2per cent to N12.23trillion from N5.17trillion, while borrowing through Repo arrangement moved to N5.15trillion from N735.14billion the previous 11 months.
On the heels of aggressive borrowing, the Nigeria’s real Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 4.03 per cent (year-on -year) in the third quarter (q3) of 2021, compared with 5.01 and -3.62 per cent in Q2 2021 and Q3 2020, respectively.
GIK/APA