The approval of fresh external loans of $1.5 billion and €995 million for the Federal Government by the Senate despite public concerns about the country’s rising debts is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Guardian reports that despite public concerns about Nigeria’s rising debts, the Senate yesterday approved fresh external loans of $1.5 billion and €995 million for the Federal Government.
The loans were approved by the lawmakers after considering and adopting the report of the Senate Committee on Local and Foreign Debts, chaired by Senator Clifford Ordia (Edo Central). This is in spite of inflation being at 18.17%, a record high in four years.
The loans were part of the external borrowings President Muhammadu Buhari had requested in May 2020, for the Red Chamber to approve for financing various priority projects of the Federal Government and to support the state governments facing fiscal challenges.
The loan approval came as experts continue to express worry over the country’s rising debt profile, which is said to have made the country’s fiscal position increasingly fragile.
Ordia, while presenting the report, said $1.5 billion will be sourced from the World Bank to finance critical infrastructure in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), while the €995 million to be sourced from the Export-Import Bank of Brazil is to finance the Federal Government’s Green Imperative Project to enhance mechanisation of agriculture and agro process in Nigeria to improve food security.
The newspaper says that Telecommunications firm, MTN is committing about $10 billion in the next five years to improving infrastructure, especially telecoms on the continent.
The firm, which operates in about 17 African countries, with the largest market being Nigeria, said investment in the telecommunications industry is only going to increase in the years ahead.
The President and Chief Executive Officer of MTN Group, Ralph Mupita, disclosed this during the latest episode of ‘Connecting Africa’ when he spoke with CNN’s Eleni Giokos, who was exploring how Africa’s telecommunications industry is transforming business and gearing up for a more interconnected continent.
Mupita was one of the CEOs of several major telecommunications companies in Africa interviewed on how their products facilitate trade. Mupita said: “Investment in the telecommunications industry is only going to increase in the years ahead. We are going to spend approximately $10 billion over the next five years to ensure that Africa has the infrastructure to power its growth.”
The Punch reports that the United Kingdom has said that all asylum and human rights claims from Nigerian nationals are considered on their individual merits in accordance with its international obligations.
The British government states that it has a proud history of providing protection to those who need it, in accordance with its international obligations under the Refugee Convention and European Convention on Human Rights.
The British High Commission stated this on Wednesday, in response to inquiries by The PUNCH on the Federal Government’s allegations that the UK’s asylum offer for persecuted members of the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra undermined Nigeria’s security.
The UK Visas and Immigration had released new guidelines to its decision makers on how to consider and grant asylum applications to IPOB members whose founder, Nnamdi Kanu, is operating from London.
Kanu, who holds both Nigerian and British passports, fled Nigeria in 2018 after troops invaded his country home while he was facing trial on treasonable felony charges for criminal conspiracy, intimidation and membership of an illegal organisation.
It further said the UK must also consider if the arrest and prosecution of IPOB members for clamouring for the break-up of the country were acts of prosecution, not persecution.
“Those fleeing prosecution or punishment for a criminal offence are not normally refugees. Prosecution may, however, amount to persecution if it involves victimisation in its application by the authorities,’’ the 56-page document noted.
But the Nigerian Federal Government frowned on the UK immigration guidelines, describing them as support for terrorism.
ThisDay says that the Senate has directed its Committee on Ethics, Privileges, and Public Petitions to probe the alleged killing of some Nigerians of Enugu State origin resident in the Republic of Togo.
The killing probe was sequel to a petition issued to the upper legislative chamber by Concerned Igbo-Eze North Youths, which was presented by former Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, at the plenary yesterday.
In the petition entitled: ‘Complaint against the Gruesome Killing of Our Indigenes/Citizens in Togo’, signed by Solomon Onu and Witness Asoanya, convener and the secretary-general of the body respectively, they called the attention of the Senate to the alleged murder of Mr. Sabastine Onyeneke, Nnamdi Odo, and Ogbuanya Nathaniel in the West African country within few months.
The group appealed to the Senate to step in to unravel the killings and ensure that justice is served.
The group said: On January 24, 2021, Mr. Ossai Sabastine Onyeneke, 39, was strangled and stabbed to death in Lome, Togo. Until his death, Onyeneke worked with the Swedish maritime business giant, Bureau Veritas, in De L’cam, Togo. As if that was not enough, on February 6, 2021, Nnamdi Odo from Umu-Agama community in Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area was also killed in the Agoyi area of Togo.
“It is noteworthy that apart from these, in November 2020, a young man named Ogbuanya Nathaniel from Obimo in Nsukka LGA was also murdered in Togo.”
It added that they were very pained by the failure of the Nigerian Government, particularly the Nigerian embassy in Lome to protest the killings of these Nigerians to the Togolese authorities.
The newspaper reports that the recent lifting of the ban on new SIM card by the federal government will ease communication.
Nigeria has a large population of telecoms subscribers, which reached over 200 million as at January 2021, with a teledensity of 104.89 percent.
The figure, which keeps rising on a weekly basis, has placed Nigeria as the country with the fastest growing telecoms market in Africa and the entire world.
However, one unique feature about Nigerian subscribers is that each adult Nigerian has a minimum of two mobile phones with four SIM cards, because each mobile phone built for the African market, comes with two SIM slots. So on the average, an adult Nigerian has four lines (SIM Cards) from different telecoms service providers.
Citing insecurity in the Nigerian telecoms space, where kidnappers use unregistered SIM cards to contact the families of their victims for ransom, the federal government, in December last year, placed a ban on the sale and activation of new SIM cards, and mandated the telecoms industry regulator, Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), to enforce SIM registration and linkage with the National Identification Number (NIN).
GIK/APA