The assurance by Nigeria’s Minister of Information and Culture that the worst of insecurity in the country is over dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Guardian reports that the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, has reassured Nigerians that the worst of insecurity in the country is over. He hinted that although there might still be pockets of attacks nationwide, he pointed out that the situation can never be worse.
He made the submission at a joint press briefing with three other heads of ministries, including Ministers of Defence, Bashir Magashi; Police, Dr. Mohammed Maigari Dingyadi and Interior, Rauf Aregbesola.
Also at the briefing were Chief of Defence Staff, General Lucky Irabor and chief executives of agencies under the Ministry of Interior.
The purpose of the forum, Mohammed stated, was to inform Nigerians on the security situation in the country. He noted that while the most populous black nation might not be there yet, the military and other security agencies, nevertheless, have succeeded substantially in containing insecurity.
The minister said: “As far as the daunting security challenges we face are concerned, we can tell you that the worst is over. Never again will terrorists and bandits and their cohorts hold sway in our country.
The minister urged anyone with useful information about kidnapped persons to report to relevant authorities.
Contrary to the present practice where Nigeria depends on operators for production data to determine daily volume and oil earnings, the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC), yesterday, said it would commence the installation of its own flow meters on oil production facilities and pipelines in the upstream sector.
The move, though radical, considering that the nation has always depended on data from oil producing firms, has been approved by President Muhammadu Buhari, and is expected to save the nation billions of dollars lost through inaccurate meters and dependence on oil companies for data.
Although claims that Nigeria does not know its daily oil production have once been discarded, the NUPRC Chief Executive Officer, Gbenga Komolafe, confirmed that the nation relies on production data from operators, rather than the regulator sourcing its own data from its own installed meters.
This confirms claims that some oil producing firms may have been shortchanging the country for many years, just as Komolafe noted that earnings lost to such activities run into billions of dollars.
By depending on operators’ data, Nigeria only does not know how much is being produced from its reserves, it has also lost billions of dollars in potential revenue from under-reported volumes.
It would be recalled that some operators are still in court over inaccuracies bordering on contradictory reported volumes from flow meters in the same export pipeline.
The Punch reports that the Federal Government on Monday announced that it had inaugurated four technical working groups to review and implement a strategic roadmap for the resuscitation of ailing enterprises across the country.
It outlined the groups to include those to work in the automobile, housing (bricks and clay), mines and steel, as well as oil palm sectors.
Inaugurating the groups on behalf of the Federal Government in Abuja, the Director-General, Bureau of Public Enterprises, Alex Okoh, said the initiative was in consonance with the ease of doing business in Nigeria target and the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.
Okoh disclosed this in a statement issued in Abuja by the Head, Public Communications, BPE, Ibeh Chidi.
The BPE boss, who was represented by the bureau’s Director of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Ignatius Ayewoh, noted that the event was a culmination of the efforts by various stakeholders which started in 2018 to revive non-performing privatised enterprises across the country.
He said the BPE in discharging its supervisory duties on privatised enterprises through the instrumentality of result-based monitoring and evaluation, discovered that about 16 per cent of the privatised companies were non-performing.
Okoh said the result of the findings was submitted to the National Council on Privatisation in 2018 and to the Senate Committee on Privatisation in 2020, as this led to a meeting of the relevant stakeholders in the ailing enterprises in July 2018.
The newspaper says that the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Matthew Kukah, has declared that there is no problem between the two major religious groups in the country, Christians and Muslims.
Kukah, who spoke on TVC News Breakfast show on Monday, said the problem of the country is with irresponsible leaders who use religion as a tool of oppression, rather than for liberation.
“There is no problem between Christians and Muslims. There is a problem with irresponsible leaders who don’t want to govern properly, irresponsible religious leaders who have now seen religion as a tool of oppression, instead of a tool for liberation.
“This has been the thrust of my argument because these are two areas of study. With all sense of modesty, I have spent a good part of my life studying theology and studying religion and society,” he noted.
The clergyman, while responding to questions on the roles of religion and ethnicity in the politics of Nigeria, explained that the country had failed at building governance that put the welfare of citizens above anything else.
He said, “If you are watching a football match or any game at all, that’s why there are referees. If the referee does not do what needs to be done and allows supporters to jump onto the field, you can see for yourself that referees are punishing coaches who overreach themselves by stepping even if it is just one inch, into the field. They are punished; sometimes they are taken off the pitch.
“Now, this is really what a state is supposed to be because, without the state, it will be all of us against each other. And that is why the state is called a leviathan. You put so much power so that the state can protect us. The Nigerian state has proved itself to be incompetent, grossly malfunctioning, unwilling to commit to the welfare of citizens as the principal basis of governance.”
The cleric further asserted that citizens must carry a ‘Nigeria land’ mentality, which presupposes the knowledge of shared interests, adding that the Nigerian system is only about politics, and not science.
The septuagenarian spoke about the need to have a country where the rule of law is placed over religious or ethnic sentiments, noting that Nigeria operates a democracy and not a theocratic government.
The Nation reports that the Federal Government has suspended its planned implementation of the five per cent tax on telecommunications services, Communications and Digital Economy Minister Isa Pantami announced yesterday.
Pantami’s announcement came barely a month after stakeholders, including Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), subscribers’ groups – National Association of Telecom Subscribers (NATCOMS) and Association of Telephone, Cable TV and Internet Subscribers of Nigeria (ATCIS) (MNOs) kicked against the idea.
They said it would be one tax too many for operators who have more than 41 levies and dues to pay to the three tiers of government.
The tax on voice calls and text messages (Short Message Services), among others, was to be imposed on behalf of the Federal Government by the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS) government.
The Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning had pushed for the implementation of the tax based on the passage of a law by the National Assembly.
Announcing the suspension yesterday, Pantami said the step was informed by the need for stakeholders to critically look at developments in the industry so as not to over-burden the sector with taxes.
GIK/APA