The lamentation by child advocates in Nigeria that there is little to celebrate as the country ranks bottom six globally in child welfare, and bottom 10 for girls flourishing, an index that may be exacerbated by the pandemic and cultural inhibitions of the girl-child is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Guardian reports that as Nigeria joins the rest of the world to commemorate the International Day of the Girl-Child (IDGC) today, child advocates in the country have lamented that there is little to celebrate as the country ranks bottom six globally in child welfare, and bottom 10 for girls flourishing, an index that may be exacerbated by the pandemic and cultural inhibitions of the girl-child.
They also warned that the country may remain underdeveloped if it fails to address the problems of marginalisation, abuse and exploitation of the girl-child. They maintained that girls should be entitled to a life free of violence and discrimination, and deserve equal opportunity for access to education and health to prepare them as future leaders.
Secretary of the Lagos State Domestic and Sexual Violence Response Agency, Titilola Vivour-Adeniyi, pointed out that the issues hampering the girl-child are still very much in place and the last few years have seen a steady rise in the number of girls being sexually abused and suffering other forms of abuse and molestations.
According to her, 2,146 girls have suffered abuse in the last two years while almost 300 suffered defilement and rape.
“Girl children are facing emotional abuse, molestation, harassment, child abuse, neglect and zero parental care in addition to the already pre-existing issues they face. We have to do more to stem this deplorable number of rising abuse our girl children are facing and it behooves everyone to play their part.”
Parenting educator, children’s rights expert and Co-founder S.A.F.E@ for Children Society, Taiwo Akinlami, said, “the Nigerian girl child is seriously endangered and under threat. Available statistics show that Nigeria has over 23 million female children and less than half of this number have access to education or basic things of life.
The newspaper says that the Federal Government has endorsed plan by Seplat Energy Plc to spearhead transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy and end gas flaring in 2024.
The endorsement came at the second yearly Seplat Energy Summit in Abuja, themed, “Global Trends in Energy Transition: the African Perspective.”
It attracted experts from private and public sectors, including top government functionaries, ministers, governors, members of the National Assembly, royal fathers from Seplat Energy’s host communities, leaders of public and private institutions, investors and heads of shareholders.
Seplat also seized the opportunity of the summit to announce a change of name from Seplat Petroleum to Seplat Energy Plc and unveil its new logo.
The Chairman of Seplat Energy Plc, A.B.C. Orjiako, said the change reflects the company’s belief that the greatest opportunity ahead is to supply the right mix of energy for Nigeria’s rapidly growing population.
In his opening remarks, he unfolded his company’s plan to transit to cleaner energy by ending gas flaring in its operations, six years ahead of government target. According to him, Seplat Energy will end gas flaring by 2024, and will ensure replacement of firewood in homes with Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG), a cleaner energy source.
ThisDay reports that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has failed to make the latest list of the world’s highest income-grossing oil companies, both nationally-run and privately-owned.
The list was compiled from the organisations’ 2020 audited financial statements. But NNPC yesterday said although the repair of roads was not within its direct purview, it was willing to fix some roads across the country to ease the movement of petroleum products.
The offer by the national oil company came following a threat of industrial action by the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG) over increasing number of bad roads in the country.
However, the Petroleum Tanker Drivers (PTD) of NUPENG yesterday suspended the planned strike, which was earlier scheduled to commence today.
The latest list of the world’s highest income-grossing oil companies showed that although a number of the 10 highest-earning oil and gas companies in 2021 lost billions in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic and trade war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, big deals and discoveries were still made, further aided by recovering oil prices from the last quarter of last year.
The Sun says that the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) has condemned foreign airlines who are involved in back-catering, saying the act could reduce employment opportunities for Nigerians.
This is even as it has threatened to shut down operations of the airline operators concerned if they fail to correct the anomalies.
Chairman, NLC, Lagos State chapter, Funmi Sessi, in an interview with Daily Sun, said the airlines were capitalising on the COVID-19 pandemic, even though such acts would never be condoned in their respective countries.
According to her, labour, through NLC Lagos, has discovered that foreign airlines are now in the habit of back-catering.
“This is an approach whereby they don’t take their food from Nigeria but bring their own food from their own countries,” she said.
She noted that before the pandemic, the act was not prevalent as there were mutual arrangements between the airlines and the industry in Nigeria.
The labour leader said lack of local suppliers providing catering reduces employment opportunities for the populace.
The Punch reports that the budget deficit has risen to N20.64tn under the President Muhammadu Buhari, according to analysed data from the budget office. The data covered periods from 2016 to 2020.
According to the budget office, more than N7.97tn was borrowed from foreign and domestic sources to fund these deficits. According to Investopedia, a budget deficit occurs when expenses exceed revenue and indicate the financial health of a country.
The budget office said the Federal Government generated a revenue of N3.42tn to fund the budget in 2020. It said total government spending for the year was N10.02tn, 0.43 per cent above the N9.97tn budgeted.
Hence, the budget deficit for the year was N6.59tn (14.17 per cent of the 2020 GDP), and this was partly-financed through domestic borrowing of N2.06tn. In 2019, the Federal Government generated a total of N4.12tn to fund the budget.
For the year, total expenditure was N8.29tn, a decrease of N618.14bn (6.93 percent) from the annual projection. Budget deficit stood at N4.18tn (2.9 percent of 2019’s GDP), and was partly-financed through domestic borrowing of N912.82bn. In 2018, a total of N3.48tn, excluding other funding sources, was generated in revenue to fund the year’s budget.
The newspaper says that the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry have expressed concern over the plan of the Federal Government to impose more taxes and levies as stated in the revised 2022 budget.
The Director-General of MAN, Mr Segun Ajayi-Kadir, said in a statement obtained by our correspondent on Sunday that the proposed excise duty on carbonated drinks would ‘further strangulate’ the manufacturing sector already burdened with multiple taxes, levies and fees.
The Director-Deneral of the LCCI, Dr Chinyere Almona, said in a statement from the chamber that government-owned enterprises which were regulators of their operating environments might be disposed to inhibit the functioning of the sectors they play in from the expectations the government had on them as listed in the budget. Ajayi-Kadir said,
“The proposed excise duty on carbonated drinks means further strangulation of the manufacturing sector that is already burdened with the multiplicity of taxes/levies and fees. “The industries operating in this segment are already operating with extremely low margins. So the planned excise duties will push most of them over the edge.
GIK/APA