The Peace and Inclusive Security Initiative launched by the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to tackle insecurity, conflicts and violence in the country is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Guardian reports that the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) has launched a Peace and Inclusive Security Initiative (PISI) to tackle insecurity, conflicts and violence in the country.
The Chairman of NGF, Dr Kayode Fayemi, while launching the initiative in Abuja, said that there was urgent need for consensual action on security governance.
Fayemi, who is also the Governor of Ekiti State, said the launch of PISI heralded an important milestone for NGF as it seeks to build a more inclusive and collaborative platform to drive an urgent country-wide response to the security challenge Nigeria was facing.
“One of the key areas where there is urgent need for consensual action today is security governance, given the escalation in the spate of violence and coordinated criminal activities that have undermined government authority and waned public trust in recent times.
“The level of insecurity across parts of the country is not only eroding citizens’ safety and peoples means of livelihood, it is also threatening the expression of the rights of all Nigerians.”
Fayemi said the security crisis had been attributed to several factors – including an oversized population and the proliferation of small arms and light weapons in the country.
He also listed rising ethnic conflicts, with different ethnic groups subsumed in conflicts and pitched against one another and mass displacement of persons from their areas of residence.
The newspaper says that the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control has detected a confirmed case of the SARS-CoV-2, known as the Delta variant in Nigeria.
The NCDC Director-General, Dr Chikwe Ihekweazu disclosed this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
According to the report, the deadly Delta variant is recognised by the World Health Organisation as a variant of concern.
The WHO said that the Delta variant was ‘dangerous’ and continued to evolve and mutate, and thus requiring constant evaluation and careful adjustment of the public health response.
Ihekweazu said the variant was detected in a traveller to Nigeria, following the routine travel test required of all international travelers and genomic sequencing at the NCDC National Reference Laboratory, Abuja.
“As part of Nigeria’s COVID-19 response, NCDC has been working with the Nigerian Institute of Medical Research (NIMR) African Centre for Genomics of Infectious Diseases (ACEGID) and other laboratories within the national network to carry out genomic sequencing.
”This is to enable the detection of variants of concern and initiate response activities,” he said.
The Punch reports that while the combined oil output from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies rose in June, Nigeria posted the heaviest drop in crude oil production as the country faced significant operational issues.
The group, known as OPEC+, added 540,000 barrels per day of crude in June to a market hungry for oil as summer kicked off, according to the latest S&P Global Platts survey. Nigeria produced 1.48 million bpd in June, its lowest level since January, compared to 1.55 million bpd in May, the survey found.
Some of the country’s large oil fields, especially those in the Niger Delta like Bonny, Escravos, Brass River and Qua Iboe, were said to be pumping well below their full capacity due to either technical problems or maintenance.
OPEC’s 13 members pumped 26.19 million bpd in June, up 480,000 bpd from May, mostly due to Saudi Arabia’s continued unwinding of its voluntary extra production cut.
The group’s nine non-OPEC partners, led by Russia, produced 13.27 million bpd, a rise of 60,000 bpd from May. Despite the production gains, higher quotas for the month meant OPEC+ compliance was at 110.16 per cent compared to 111.45 per cent in May, the survey found.
The newspaper says that the United Nations Industrial Development Organization has partnered with the Federal Ministry of Environment and the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria to foster industrial energy efficiency in Nigeria.
UNIDO declared its commitment towards improving IEE and resource efficiency and cleaner production in the country during a workshop in Lagos.
The Minister for Environment, Dr Mohammed Abubakar, represented by the ministry’s Director, Pollution and Control, Charles Ikea, said the successful application of IEE and RECP contributed to global efforts aimed at controlling negative impacts on the planet coming from the use of natural resources in production, generation of industrial pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions.
He said, “This project will make significant contributions to Nigeria’s quest for the reduction of GHG emissions from industrial facilities and impact positively on our nationally determined contribution. It will create cleaner and more efficient production processes and energy efficiency that would improve industries’ resilience in uncertainties of energy costs.
“It will also increase the competitiveness of manufacturing companies in the country, place the country’s economy on a low-carbon path, and enable Nigeria to fulfil its obligations under the various multilateral agreements that she is a signatory to.”
The Sun reports that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) is going all out to recover outstanding N1.8 trillion tax liability from the accounts of Messrs MultiChoice Nigeria Limited (MCN) And MultiChoice Africa (MCA).
To this end, the Service has appointed some commercial banks to recover the debt directly from the companies’ accounts. A statement signed by the Executive Chairman FIRS, Muhammad Nami, noted that the decision to appoint the banks as agents and to freeze the accounts was as a result of the Group’s continued refusal to grant FIRS access to its servers for audit.
“It was discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements and undertakings with the Service, they would not promptly respond to correspondences, they lack data integrity and are not transparent as they continually deny FIRS access to their records.
Particularly, MCN has avoided giving the FIRS accurate information on the number of its subscribers and income. The companies are involved in the under-remittance of taxes which necessitated a critical review of the tax-compliance level of the company,” he explained. Nami added that the group’s performance does not reflect in its tax obligations and compliance level in Nigeria.
ThisDay says that the Department of Petroleum Resources (DPR) will in the coming weeks, unveil a collaborative strategy called Maximum Economic Recovery (MER), aimed at strengthening the oil and gas industry as well as ensure the sustainability of the sector.
The Director of DPR, Mr. Sarki Auwalu, announced this in his keynote address at the ongoing Nigeria Oil and Gas Conference (NOG 2021) holding in Abuja, with the theme: “Fortifying the Nigeria’s Oil Gas Industry for Economic Growth and Stability.”
Auwalu said the strategy would articulate key delivery programmes to guarantee stability, growth, and development of the industry in line with the federal government’s aspirations.
“As part of our mandate to strengthen industry and ensure sustainability, the Department will be unveiling an industry collaborative strategy for Maximum Economic Recovery (MER) for the Nigeria Oil & Gas sector within the next weeks.
“This strategy will articulate key delivery programmes to guarantee stability, growth, and development of the industry in line with Government aspirations whilst leveraging the National Oil and Gas Excellence Centre (NOGEC) commissioned by Mr. President in January this year as the techno-economic resource centre to drive industry safety, value, and cost efficiency,” he said.
GIK/APA