The alarm raised by former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo over population explosion in the country, while stressing the need for proper population management is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
ThisDay reports that the former President Olusegun Obasanjo at the weekend cautioned against population explosion in Nigeria, while stressing the need for proper population management.
Speaking in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital during a mentoring session with students of some selected schools across the country, Obasanjo raised the alarm that Nigeria’s population was becoming a liability due to its improper management.
He said unless something urgent was done, Nigeria might be declared the third-largest country in 2050.
The mentoring session with students was tagged “Raising the next wave of innovative leaders through entrepreneurship.”
Obasanjo called for population management in the face of the geometric population explosion without a corresponding socio-economic development, a situation which he said has slowed down national development.
Obasanjo, while fielding questions from the students on mentorship, highlighted service to fatherland, integrity, loyalty and good moral standing as some of the virtues that could sustain them in their chosen careers in life.
Speaking on the state of the nation, the former president expressed worry over the management of the population of the country.
The former president, however, said population could either be an asset or a liability.
According to him, population by itself may not be a liability “if we do what we have to do, but if we don’t do what we have to do which we are not doing now, the population will be a liability.”
The newspaper says that former President Goodluck Jonathan has said with all the issues bedeviling Nigeria, incidents of mental health had suddenly become a challenge as most Nigerians were currently traumatised by the happenings in the society.
He has also expressed concern over the increasing crime wave in the country, stressing that most of them were caused by consumption of drugs.
Jonathan expressed his views during a courtesy call on him by the Chief Executive Officer of the Albino Foundation, Jake Epelle, its management and partners to appreciate him for paying the bills of persons with albinism to undergo surgery against cancer overseas.
According to him, most areas of the health system needed to be revamped to meet international standards.
“Most of these crimes perpetrated are drug-induced because no sane Nigerian will just go and commit crime except he is high on something. Imagine starting your day with the news of killing in the morning, it leaves an impression on your mind. We need to also look into issues of mental health.
“Now, we have cults in primary and secondary schools; then, it was in tertiary institutions, but you now see children in these schools thinking of how to kill their mates. This is sad.”
Earlier, Epelle appreciated Jonathan for being the first President to pay the bills of persons with albinism to secure treatment
The Punch reports that the landing cost of Premium Motor Spirit being imported into Nigeria surged by more than 60 per cent between December 2020 and mid-June this year, although the pump price of the product remained unchanged.
From an average of N143.60 per litre in December, the landing cost of petrol rose to N231.98 per litre on June 16 this year on the back of the rally in global oil prices and the depreciation of the naira against the dollar.
The Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency had in March this year released a pricing template that indicated the guiding prices for the month.
The template, which showed that petrol pump price was expected to range from N209.61 to N212.61 per litre, was greeted with widespread public outcry and was later deleted by the agency from its website.
The pump price of petrol has remained at between N162 and N165 per litre at many filling stations in Lagos since December. The template, which was based on an average oil price of $62.22 per barrel for February and an exchange rate of N403.80 to a dollar, showed that the landing cost of petrol was N189.61 per litre.
The newspaper says that the Central Bank of Nigeria is providing N60bn for one million electricity meters that are meant for free distribution to unmetered power users across the country, the Federal Government has said.
It disclosed this in a document on some of the achievements of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in six years. In the document, which was sighted by our correspondent in Abuja on Sunday, the government stated that the N60bn was for the first phase of its National Mass Metering Programme.
It said there had been a nationwide rollout of electricity meters to all on-grid consumers, as this was inaugurated in August 2020, adding that the CBN had released funds for this.
“The CBN is providing N60bn for the first phase, with a target of one million meter installations. So far more than 500,000 meters have been delivered to the Discos (distribution companies), and more than 280,000 installed,” the government stated.
Sunday PUNCH had reported that the World Bank and the CBN were fully providing funds for the estimated six million electricity meters required to close the metering gap in the Nigerian power sector.
The Sun reports that early hopes of Nigeria’s refining capacity growing by 1,862,000 million barrels per day (bpd) has further been dashed as 40 firms are currently in possession of dormant refinery license, a Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) refinery status report has revealed.
Latest data from the DPR on the status of refinery licenses as at May 2021, further revealed that the 40 refineries are all with no active refinery license/approval.
The DPR refinery license status report indicated that as at May 2021, a total of 68 refineries license and approval had been granted, out of which 40 are inactive.
A further breakdown of the number of license and approval granted by categories are; eight License to Establish(LTE), 25 not active License to Establish(LTE), 19 Approval to Construct/Relocation(ATC/R), 15 not active ATC/R and 1 License to Operate active license/approval.
The 40 refineries with not active refineries licenses/approval are; Platinum Hydrocarbon Resources Mondonat Nigeria Limited, Southfield Petrochemical and Refinery Limited, Don Mac Limited, Shepha Petroleum and Petrochemicals Company Limited, Energia Limited, Associated Worldwide Company Limited, All Grace Energy Limited, Kainji Resources Limited, Aiteo Energy Resources Limited.
The Guardian says that the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC), yesterday, said it would commence payment of liquidation dividends to uninsured depositors, creditors and shareholders of 14 liquidated banks.
The affected banks are City Express Bank, All States Trust Bank, Allied Bank, Commerce Bank, North-South Bank, Cooperative and Commerce Bank and Nigeria Merchant Bank.
Others are Hilltop Microfinance Bank (MFB); Olomoyoyo MFB, Evo MFB, Ngwegwe MFB, Bekwarra MFB, Argungu MFB and Edet MFB.
The Director, Communication and Public Affairs Department, Bashir Nuhu, of the Corporation said this in a statement. Stakeholders of eight of the closed banks are to receive their first round of liquidation dividend payments while those of the other six are to be paid additional sums due to them as part of their liquidation dividends.
He advised eligible stakeholders of the banks to visit the Corporation’s offices nationwide for the verification of their claims or do so on its website.
Also, Nuhu said the Corporation has commenced the verification of depositors of 22 MFBs whose licences were recently revoked by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). The verification exercise is aimed at ascertaining the insured sums to eligible depositors.
GIK/APA