The report of the latest figures on Nigeria’s power grid performance showed that the quantum of electricity generated on the grid had continued to fluctuate, as it fell by 903 megawatts on Monday, April 18, 2022 is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Wednesday.
The Punch reports that the latest figures on Nigeria’s power grid performance released on Tuesday showed that the quantum of electricity generated on the grid had continued to fluctuate, as it fell by 903 megawatts on Monday, April 18, 2022.
Nigeria’s electricity grid has been characterised by some sort of instability lately, witnessing about four different grid collapses in less than two months.
A document on the country’s 24-hour grid performance, obtained from the Federal Ministry of Power in Abuja on Tuesday, showed that the fluctuation of electricity generated on the grid had yet to abate.
It was observed that while peak power generation on the grid at 22.00 hours on April 17, 2022 was 3,829.7MW, it crashed to 2,926.8MW at 03.00 hours the next day.
This implies that power generation on the national grid crashed by precisely 902.9MW on Monday, April 18, 2022, before moving up again to a peak of 4,066.1MW at 21.30 hours.
The newspaper says that the Presidency and the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation on Tuesday passed the buck over the refusal of ministers, ambassadors and aides to the President to resign ahead of the governorship and presidential primaries of the All Progressives Congress which commence on May 25.
This is just as the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, on Tuesday declared his intention to contest the presidential election. Just like the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, who joined the presidential race last week, Ngige also refused to resign.
A senior official at the Presidential Villa told The PUNCH that the SGF, Boss Mustapha, ought to have issued a circular stating a deadline on when appointees of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), should resign.
The official noted that across the 36 states, the secretaries to the state governments are the ones issuing circulars and guidelines for appointees seeking elective office.
“It is not our job in the Presidential Villa to ask anyone to resign. It is the job of the SGF to do so. So, you should direct your inquiries to the SGF. Please do not write my name inside your paper because I don’t want to be drawn into this controversial issue,” the official said
However, an aide to the SGF told The PUNCH that as an appointee of the President himself, it was not the job of Mustapha to issue such a directive unless he was ordered by the President to do so.
The Guardian reports that Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka, yesterday censured President Muhammadu Buhari for granting a presidential pardon to former governors of Plateau and Taraba states, Joshua Dariye and Jolly Nyame respectively, who was jailed for stealing billions of naira, describing the President’s action as rotten egg squashed against Nigerian faces, which they shall not forget or wipe off in a hurry.
President Buhari had last Thursday granted pardon, under the prerogative of mercy, to Dariye and Nyame, who were serving various prison terms.
Soyinka, in a statement yesterday, titled: ‘A Putrid Presidential Easter Egg,’ said he shared in the bombshell dropped on Easter against the President by Rev. Matthew Kukah.
He said he was impelled, however, not to miss an opportunity to add his own Easter drop to the “overflowing vessel of pietistic sentiments, if only to reassure Christians – and also Muslims in turn – that even we, non-believers, do partake of that same ethical communion to which most humanities aspire.
“Also, your Easter sermon opens up yet again those sluices of juridical hypocrisy to which we dare not cease to draw attention. Such, in the immediate, remains the plight of two young men – Mubarak Bala and the musician Yahaya Sharif – one serving a sentence of 25 years, the other actually sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy.
“That word ‘blasphemy’ comes into its authentic mode, in my view, whenever anyone violates a solemn oath of office. Its penitent ally becomes even redoubled when such violators are pampered with the prerogative of mercy.
“Permit me to call special attention to the following from your (Kukah) sermon: ‘Religious leaders…. must face the reality that here in Nigeria and elsewhere around the world, millions of people are leaving Christianity and Islam. While we are busy building walls of division with the blocks of prejudice, our members are becoming atheists, but we prefer to pretend that we do not see this. We cannot pretend not to hear the footsteps of our faithful marching away into atheism and secularism. No threats can stop this, but dialogue can open our hearts.”
The newspaper says that President Muhammadu Buhari, yesterday, in Abuja, urged Nigerians to resist agents bent on causing breakdown of law and order in the country, assuring that no individual or group will be allowed to destabilise the country.
‘’We have the land, we have the resources, and we have the people. But I do not know why people will allow themselves to be successfully subverted to destabilise their own country,’’ the President said at an Iftar dinner with governors, ministers and heads of government agencies.
Buhari, who thanked the governors and ministers for honouring his invitation to break the Ramadan fast, expressed confidence that, in spite of the current security challenges, the country will succeed.
The Sun reports that the African Export-Import Bank on Tuesday released the consolidated financial statements of the Bank and its wholly owned subsidiaries, collectively referred to as the Afreximbank Group for the year ended December 31 2021, showing that the Group’s total assets grew by 13.4 per cent from $19.3 billion as at December 31, 2020, to about $22 billion as at 31 December 2021.
The bank reported that the progress was primarily due to the 11.5 per cent growth in net loans and advances and a 12.1 per cent increase in cash and cash equivalents to $18.2 billion and $3.1 billion respectively. With significant growth in guarantees and letters of credit, in line with strategy, total assets and guarantees of the Group rose from $21.7 billion in 2020 to $25 billion as at December 31, 2021.
Professor Benedict Oramah, President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, in a statement, added that the regional financial institution achieved a 10.1 per cent increase in the bank’s net income from $351.7 million in 2020 to $387.3 million in 2021 largely due to a solid growth in operating income in 2021.
He, however, revealed that the Group’s net income of $375.8 million was slightly lower than the net income reported by the Bank ($387.3 million) mainly because of the pre-establishment expenses incurred by the subsidiaries.
GIK/APA