APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The assurance to the international community and Nigerians of free, fair and credible elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Punch reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reassured Nigerians and the international community of free, fair and credible elections.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, gave the reassurance when he received Commonwealth Election Observer Mission to Nigeria, led by former South Africa President, Thabo Mbeki, at INEC headquarters in Abuja on Monday.
”INEC understands the enormous benefits of conducting credible elections, not just in Nigeria but the African continent.
“Election in Nigeria is huge and we understand. As I said, the responsibility rests on our shoulders.
“We also understand the benefits of credible elections. It will not only bring peace and good governance to our country but the positive effects on our sub-region.
“I want to assure you that we will never let Nigeria and the international community down,’’ Yakubu said.
Yakubu also commended the Commonwealth Observer Mission’s contributions to the development of Nigeria’s electoral system.
He said that Nigeria had benefited a lot from the Commonwealth through the implementation of recommendations in its reports on Nigeria’s previous elections.
“We have benefited from your previous election observation reports. So many of the innovations introduced over time are benefited from your observation reports.
The newspaper says that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Gambian National Petroleum Company for oil exploration and crude market expansion, among others.
Both partners signed the MoU at the headquarters of NNPC Ltd in Abuja, as the national oil company continued to expand its oil production drive within and outside Nigeria.
The firm tweeted that the agreement was for collaboration in the oil and gas sector, adding that NNPC Ltd’s Executive Vice President, Business Services, Danladi Inuwa, and GNPC’s Managing Director, Baboucarr Njie, signed on behalf of the two national oil companies.
“Areas of interest include new frontier exploration, crude oil market expansion opportunities and transfer of technology towards the quest for more energy security for both countries and the West African sub-region,” NNPC Ltd stated.
NNPC Ltd has been expanding it exploration for crude oil, as it recently announced that it found crude in Nasarawa State.
The Group Chief Executive Officer, NNPC Ltd, Mele Kyari, announced on Thursday that the oil firm would commence the drilling of crude oil in Nasarawa State on March 21, 2023.
He explained that exploration for crude oil in Nasarawa State actually commenced since late 2010.
He disclosed this during a courtesy call on the Nasarawa State governor, where he also appreciated the state government for supporting the oil company in it activities.
Kyari said, “We started exploration work in the areas that we will now focus on since late 2010. Exploration work is always a tedious activity, you gather data, interpret them, make sense out of it and ultimately you’ll decide to test the outcomes.
“We have established a petroleum environment technically, we have seen our data, many years of work, most of them done very recently. Let me also say that it is during the tenure of this government. And I must say clearly that the encouragement we received from Mr President enabled us to get to the conclusion that we are today.
“And the end result is that we have seen a great potential for finding hydrocarbon in Nasarawa State. To confirm this, we are going to start drilling on March 21, 2023, and we are very optimistic that it will be a successful exercise.”
The Guardian reports that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has a duty to apologise to Nigerians for the failure in implementing the redesign policy of the naira and swapping old currencies with the new N200, N500 and N1000 notes.
In its editorial entitled “Currency swap: How not to run a country”, the Guardian noted that the government has an even more sacred duty to apologise for the unprecedented, horrendous hardship it has needlessly brought on the citizenry.
“And the government must accept full blame for standing governance on its head and spearheading deep conflict within the federation, as manifested in the dissonance in the president’s directive to Nigerians to spend only the new notes (notwithstanding their unavailability) except the old N200; vis-à-vis the directives of many state governors asking their citizens to spend and accept both old and new notes, in accordance with the order of the Supreme Court delivered on February 8 and reiterated on February 15, 2023.
“The ensuing confusion has left no citizen in any doubt of President Buhari’s lack of grip on effective governance. In the tardiness of his government, even the simplest of policies tend to turn sour and distasteful because of horrendous execution.
“The current monetary policy failure is the latest indication of Buhari’s refusal to learn from past errors. While currency redesigning may be well-intentioned, especially against vote-buying ahead of the general elections, handlers miscalculated the overarching effect on the masses and ran afoul of the common good of the country.
“Across the board, Nigerians are in dire straits. But with restiveness mounting in cities and governors’ daggers drawn with the presidency to cook up a constitutional crisis just days to presidential elections, there is a growing apprehension that the avoidable crisis might be tailored at disrupting a seamless transition in May – beginning with the general election,” the editorial said.
The newspaper says that with more Nigerians using electronic payment channels as a result of acute shortages in cash circulation in the economy, financial institutions have been advised to strengthen their e-payment platforms.
He added that the congestion and resultant system downtime are negatively affecting the commercial activities of merchants as transactions have become slow, delayed and sometimes incomplete due to the fact that the country’s banks were never ready for the level of surge they are currently experiencing.
The ICT expert called on banks to implement measures that would ensure all electronic payment channels process simultaneously, quickly and efficiently.
Ede said, “the rising demand on the digital channels of banks calls for increased investment in reliable payment systems that speedily deliver on transactions.
“To alleviate the congestion on payment channels, banks should carry out an audit of payment channels to identify gaps and loopholes in the system with a view to phased resolution. This first step will ensure that banks raise the standards of experiences they provide to customers and ensure that customers remain at the centre of their business models.”
He urged banks to consider upgrading their server, network and hardware infrastructure to handle peak-time operations, adding that this move will ensure that all electronic payment channels can process transactions swiftly and efficiently.
Ede advised the financial institutions to enhance their security protocols to ensure that all electronic payment channels are secure, protect customer data and prevent fraud.
According to him, there may also be a need for financial institutions to expand their existing payment channels to accommodate more transactions. Ede said PPC’s expertise in the deployment of high-end ICT and engineering infrastructure has assisted several organisations in the public and private sectors to create secure, robust and scalable systems suitable for a broad range of commercial uses.
Indeed, it is not yet uhuru for Nigerians, especially with the use of the Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) platforms in the last three weeks.
GIK/APA