The suspension of the eight-month strike by the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) after intense negotiations with the government and the House of Representatives dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Guardian reports that the Academic Staff Union of University (ASUU) has finally suspended the strike it embarked on since on February 14, 2022.
ASUU ended the strike following intense negotiations with the government and the House of Representatives.
The Guardian gathered that the decision to suspend the strike was taken at the end of ASUU National Executive Council meeting which was held at the ASUU secretariat in Abuja.
“Yes, it has been called off,” a reliable source told The Guardian.
After the discussions with the government, ASUU president Prof. Emmanuel Osodeke had said the union could call off its strike in a few days.
“In a few days, we will put this strike to an end. Let all of us working together and the members of the House of Representatives working together, put a beautiful end to this thing we have started so that every Nigerian will be proud that we have the universities we can be proud of,” Osodeke said.
“We also extend our appreciation to the President for intervening in the ASUU strike. And I want to appeal that in future we should not allow strike to linger. Strike should not go beyond two days; if the way the National Assembly has intervened.
“If we had done that long ago, or those in charge of Labour and Education had done exactly this, we would not have stayed more than two or weeks on the strike.
“Strike is all over the world, UK, U.S. all over, but they don’t allow it to last. So, once again, thank you very much and we hope that working together, in the next few days, we can put an end to this particular imbroglio in the Nigerian educational system,” he added.
The newspaper says that Nigeria’s poor crude production output continued to linger and was last month reflected in its declining rig count and production volume, as reported by the latest data from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Specifically, Nigeria’s rig count dropped to seven from 10 in August, even as the reported volume showed a production volume of 938,000 barrels a day, down from 972,000bpd reported in August. There are hopes that the volume will improve with the resumption of activities at Forcados terminal.
On Wednesday, the cartel made a substantial cut to its global oil demand growth forecast for both this year and 2023 in response to a deteriorating economic outlook. The revision comes less than a week after OPEC+ coalition agreed to a 2mn b/d crude quota cut driven by the same concerns.
While other producers have been recording a boom as a result of high prices, Nigeria and other countries lagging in their production output will maintain their quota under the cartel’s agreement.
Nigeria’s output has declined steadily since the first quarter of 2020, when the country produced roughly double the amount, according to the NUPRC data.
The government blames rampant theft on the pipelines that crisscross the Niger Delta for shutting down wells and killing off investment. Production of three major export grades – Bonny, Brass and Forcados – has shriveled in recent months, with none of them accounting for more than 8,000 barrels per day in September.
Nigeria aims to add 500,000 barrels a day to its production by the end of November, mainly by resuming operations at Shell Plc’s Trans-Niger pipeline and Forcados terminal, according to the Group CEO of NNPCL, Mele Kyari.
Yesterday, Shell confirmed readiness to resume export operations by the end of this month when ongoing essential repairs would have been completed.
“In addition to the repairs, we are working to remove and clamp theft points on the onshore pipelines to ensure full crude oil receipt at the terminal,” SPDC’s Media Relations Manager, Abimbola Essien-Nelson, said in a statement on Wednesday.
The Pinch reports that there was wild jubilation in the South-East on Thursday following the Court of Appeal judgment which quashed the terrorism charges preferred against the leader of the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu.
Across parts of the South-East states, people celebrated openly on hearing the reports that the court had discharged Kanu, who has been in custody since June 2021 when he was arrested in Kenya and brought to Nigeria to face prosecution for leading an outlawed organisation and clamouring for the Republic of Biafra.
However, there are strong indications that the Federal Government may appeal the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
A senior official in the Ministry of Justice confided in our correspondent that the government would study the ruling and take a decision on it.
“All options are on the table; we will study the order but we will likely appeal it. The court only discharged him, it did not acquit him,’’ the director stated.
Reacting, the Special Assistant on Media and Public Relations, Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Dr. Umar Jibrilu Gwandu, in a statement said, “The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice has received the news of the decision of the Court of Appeal concerning the trial of Nnamdi Kanu. For the avoidance of doubt and by the verdict of the Court, Kanu was only discharged and not acquitted.
“Consequently, the appropriate legal options before the authorities will be exploited and communicated accordingly to the public. The decision handed down by the court of appeal was on a single issue that borders on rendition. Let it be made clear to the general public that other issues that predates rendition on the basis of which Kanu jumped bail remain valid issues for judicial determination.
“The Federal Government will consider all available options open to us on the judgment on rendition while pursuing determination of pre-rendition issues.”
The newspaper says that the President of the World Bank Group, David Malpass, has said that the bank will work with the International Monetary Fund to assess Nigeria’s debt sustainability.
Malpass said this during the 2022 annual meetings opening press conference in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
He said, “We will work with the IMF on an assessment of the debt sustainability of Nigeria but it will be up to Nigeria itself to interact with the various creditors, which include bond holders, official creditors, that are engaged in Nigeria.”
Earlier, the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, had disclosed that the Nigerian government was in talks with the IMF and the World Bank to restructure the country’s debts.
She said: “It is a fact that Nigeria’s debt has increased over the last three to four years and this increase in debt was occasioned by the different kinds of exogenous shocks that the country faced which is not unique to Nigeria.
“The situation we have by our 2023 projection is that we will be needing to use about 65 per cent of our revenue to service debt. Unfortunately, the cost of debt service is rising because of the rising interest rate globally, which is resulting also in higher debt service costs.
“But our projection from the debt sustainability analysis is that Nigeria is able to cope with its debt service in 2022 as well as in 2023. We have been engaging financial institutions to look at the opportunity to restructure our debt to further stretch the debt service period to give us more fiscal relief.”
However, the World Bank Group president said that Nigeria was yet to request the common framework for debt restructuring.
He said, “With regard to the debt restructuring, the World Bank works closely with the IMF on debt situation. Nigeria has not asked for the common framework under the G20 process. That process has been slow acting in Chad, Ethiopia and Zambia. There are some signs of movement in Zambia but still challenging. Nigeria and Ghana did not ask for common framework treatment.”
GIK/APA