Nigerian press zooms in on CAF awards swept by Nigerian players, others

APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The CAF awards swept by Nigerian players yesterday in Marrakech, Morocco, with the continent’s best soccer star, Victor Osimhen, named African Footballer of the Year for his exploits for his club, Napoli and country, Nigeria, in the 2022/23 season, dominate the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Guardian reports that 24 years after Nwankwo Kanu’s triumph as the continent’s best soccer star, Victor Osimhen, was, yesterday, in Marrakech, Morocco, named African Footballer of the Year for his exploits for his club, Napoli and country, Nigeria, in the 2022/23 season.
Osimhen, who led Napoli to their first Italian title 33 years after the great Diego Amando Maradona achieved that feat for the Italian side, beat Morocco’s Achraf Hakim and Egypt’s Mohammed Salah to take the crown.
To make it a double sweep for Nigeria, Super Falcons’ Asisat Oshoala, a serial winner of the award, was once again declared the African Women’s Footballer of the Year.
Nigeria’s night of glory started with the Super Falcons, who defeated Morocco and South Africa to win the Women’s National Team of the Year. The team’s goalkeeper, Chiamaka Nnadozie, soon followed with the Women’s Goalkeeper of the Year diadem, with the Women’s Club of the Year Award going to Mamelodi Sundowns of South Africa. The men’s category went to Al Ahli of Egypt.
Fittingly, Nnadozie’s award was announced by former Super Falcons’ goalkeeper, Precious Dede. But it was not so sweet for Super Falcons star, Deborah Abiodun, who had a sterling performance at the 2023 Women’s World Cup, as she was beaten to the Young Player of the Year Award (women) by Morocco’s Nesryne El Chad, while Senegal’s Lamine Camara won the men’s category.
The Goal of the Year award went to Mahmoud Kahraba of Al Ahli, Egypt, As expected, Morocco, who went all the way to the Qatar 2022 World Cup semifinal, won the Men’s National Team of the Year Award. They defeated Senegal and The Gambia to the crown.
The newspaper says that the value of corruption and illicit financial flow in Nigeria and other African countries was yesterday estimated at $88.6 billion yearly. The capital flight estimate, courtesy of the Director General, African Development Bank Group (Nigeria), Lamin Barrow, is a major drain on capital and revenues on the continent, undermining productive capacity and prospects for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the African Union’s Agenda 2063 Goals.
Barrow, at an executive training programme on ‘Enhancing Accountability, Transparency and Curbing Corruption and Illicit Financial Flows in Africa’ in Abuja, said the financial morass, made worse by the lack of accountability and transparency, create a vicious cycle of a fiscal sinking hole in Africa’s public resources.
He recalled that the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in its Economic Development in Africa Report 2020, noted that one-sixth of the continent’s aggregate government revenues derive from corporate tax and 10 per cent of that revenue ($6.7 billion) was lost to tax avoidance.
“The report estimated capital flight from Africa at $88.6 billion yearly for the period 2013 – 2015, representing 3.7 per cent of Africa’s GDP), whereas total official development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct investment (FDI) for the same period stood at $48 billion and $59 billion, respectively.
“The report further suggests that between 2000 and 2015, the total illicit capital flight from Africa amounted to $836 billion, which is more than Africa’s total external debt estimated at $770 billion, in 2018. Africa is therefore a ‘net creditor to the world’,” Barrow said.
But as governments lose revenues through Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) and corruption, he added, they are also forced to resort to more borrowing, which may also be stolen due to weak public financial management systems.
“Corruption and IFFs, therefore, fuel the debt vulnerabilities witnessed in many African countries,” he said. Addressing in-training public finance managers under the Public Finance Management Academy for Africa (PFMA), Barrow, said sound public financial management and cooperation at all levels would be required to overcome these challenges.
He said governments must ensure that revenue mobilisation, accountability, transparency, anti-corruption and anti-IFFs institutions are adequately resourced to perform their functions effectively. To this end, the capacity and independence of the Supreme Audit Institutions and parliamentary oversight committees should be strengthened, while the voice and watchdog role of the media and civil society is protected.
The Punch reports that the Federal Government, through the Ministry of Solid Minerals Development, is exploring collaboration with the World Bank to unlock financing and technical support for the development of the mining sector.
This was revealed in a statement signed by the minister’s Special Assistant on Media, Segun Tomori and made available to The PUNCH on Tuesday.
Speaking during a courtesy visit to the Solid Minerals Minister, Dele Alake, on Monday, World Bank Country Director for Nigeria, Shubham Chaudhuri, expressed satisfaction with the renewed focus on the development of the nation’s mineral resources by the current administration.
Chaudhuri stated that Nigeria is well positioned to make the mineral sector a major contributor to its GDP since the country has the majority of economically viable minerals.
He reiterated the readiness of the bank to partner with the ministry on financing specific intervention areas and ensure effective implementation of projects.
He also added that the bank is not restricted to providing financing alone, asserting it can offer technical assistance to improve mining operations in the country.
The newspaper says that Nigeria witnessed another collapse of its national grid on Monday, leading to a crash in power generation from 4,032.8 megawatts around 1pm to 43.5MW at about 2pm the same day.
Power generation figures obtained from the Transmission Company of Nigeria showed that electricity on the system moved up to 115.4MW around 3pm, before rising further to 240.9MW at about 4pm on Monday.
It climbed to 544.9MW at 5pm and continued the upward trend, as TCN strived to restore the national grid on Monday afternoon till in the evening.
Commenting on the development, the spokesperson of the transmission company, Ndidi Mbah, confirmed the collapse of the grid, but was quick to state that the system was restored by TCN engineers.
“The grid experienced a collapse today (Monday). Presently, it (supply) has been restored except for the Jos axis, which will soon have supply within the hour. The collapse happened by 13.49pm this afternoon. It is now fully restored by 18.51pm,” she stated.
Nigeria’s power grid witnessed series of collapses in September this year, as power consumers lambasted the managers of the system for the incessant crash of the grid.
On September 20, 2023, The PUNCH reported Nigeria witnessed another round of widespread blackout across the country the preceding day as the national power grid collapsed again, making it the third grid collapse in about five days during that period.
GIK/APA