The report that troops of the 199 Special Forces and 222 Battalions, Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) in coordinated military airstrikes have killed 200 Boko Haram terrorists, including five commanders, on the fringes of Sambisa Forest in Borno State is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Guardian reports that troops of 199 Special Forces and 222 Battalions, Operation Hadin Kai (OPHK) in coordinated military airstrikes have killed 200 Boko Haram terrorists, including five commanders, on the fringes of Sambisa Forest in Borno State.
In sustained operations to clear the North West of banditry and terrorism, at the weekend, troops of 1 Division, the Army has neutralised three bandits and terrorists along Sabon Birni, Dogondawa-Kuyelo and Farin Ruwa.
In Kaduna State, the Nigerian Military School (NMS), Zaria, over the weekend, graduated 220 soldiers for the 2022 session.
The coordinated joint military operations of September 1, 2022, in Borno state also led to the neutralisation of top five commanders of the terror group. They are Abou Hauwa, Amir Shettima, Akura Buri (Nakif), Abou Zainab and Abou Idris.
A counter-insurgency expert in the Lake Chad region, Zagazola Makama, stated, yesterday, in Maiduguri: “An intelligence-led aerial and ground operations targeted the terrorists’ hideouts in the Gaizuwa border, comprising Gabchari, Sheruri, Mantari and Mallam Masari villages in Bama Local Council of the state.
He said the ground troops had, during the raid, stormed a hideout of the terrorists at Gafchari, where they engaged the bandits in a gun battle, which led to the killing of over 30 insurgents, while others escaped with gunshot wounds towards the forest.
The newspaper says that the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, at the weekend in Gombe, said Nigeria’s march towards attaining 95 per cent digital literacy in 2030, as contained in the National Digital Economy Policy and Strategy (NDEPS), 2020-2030, now looks more promising than ever.
Pantami, who presided over the graduation of participants at a two-week Digital Job Creation Training for the North-East in Gombe, which was facilitated by the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), said “the reason we train citizens is because digital skills are no longer considered a luxury, but necessities required in any business you do. If you want to be successful, you need to have digital skills.’’
According to the Minister, “ICT is not just an independent sector but the key enabler of all other sectors today. It enables opportunities in education, in health, in agriculture, in security, in defence, in manufacturing, in trade, in investment and in industry.”
He, therefore, urged the participants to adopt innovation-driven enterprises and to utilize the training they have received to improve their economic status and make Nigeria a better place.
“We have to utilise ICT in order to make our country a better place. We must use ICT even for our personal economic benefits amongst others. Therefore, we want to encourage you not to waste your time online but rather to use the knowledge you have acquired to make Nigeria a better place and at the same time, derive many economic benefits from it,” he said.
The Punch reports that the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited on Sunday insisted that daily supply of Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, across the country was 68 million and offered to submit itself for forensic audit of PMS supply and subsidy management.
On Friday The PUNCH reported that the Comptroller-General of Nigeria Customs Service, Col. Hameed Ali (retd.), said NNPC could not justify the volume of petrol being consumed in Nigeria daily to warrant the over N6.34tn subsidy payment on the commodity annually.
Ali had argued that the NNPC could not scientifically prove the 98 million litres/day consumption it was claiming, alleging that the nation’s oil company was supplying an excess of 38 million litres of PMS daily.
But in a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday by the Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, NNPC, Garba-Deen Muhammad, the oil firm stated that between January and August 2022, “the total volume of PMS imported into the country was 16.46 billion litres, which translates to an average supply of 68 million litres per day.”
It added “Similarly, import in the year 2021 was 22.35 billion litres, which translated to an average supply of 61 million litres per day.”
The company said the average daily evacuation (depot truck out) from January to August 2022 stood at 67 million litres per day as reported by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority.
It said daily evacuation (depot loadouts) records of the NMDPRA do carry daily oscillation ranging from as low as four million litres to as high as 100 million litres per day.
The newspaper says that power generation dipped by 642.4 megawatts on Sunday when compared to the quantum of peak electricity produced on the grid the preceding day, as the Federal Government confirmed a fire incident at its Adiabo 330/132/33kV substation in Cross River State.
Data obtained from the Federal Ministry of Power on Sunday in Abuja indicated that the quantum of off-peak power produced on the national grid on Saturday was 3,310.5MW, while peak electricity on the same day was put at 4,446.7MW.
But this dropped to 3,804.3MW by 6am on Sunday, indicating a power generation decrease of 642.4MW.
This came as the government through its Transmission Company of Nigeria said a fire incident occurred on Saturday at its Adiabo 330/132/33kV substation in Cross River State.
The General Manager, Public Affairs, TCN, Ndidi Mbah, however, stated that engineers from the transmission company were “working assiduously to restore power supply to Calabar.”
This, she said, was “after a substation fire incident which occurred on September 3, 2022 at its (TCN) Adiabo 330/132/33kV substation in Cross River State.
“Presently, TCN engineers are replacing the affected equipment so as to ensure the restoration of power to affected areas.”
The Nation reports that should Vice President Yemi Osinbajo push through talks on debt-for-climate (DFC) swap with some creditors, Nigeria may get reliefs on its $100.06b external debt.
The Presidency said yesterday that the Federal Government was upbeat on reaping huge benefits from the DFC arrangement being sold to the global community by the Osinbajo-led delegation.
Prof Osinbajo tabled DFC swap deal last week in the United States (U.S.) at different fora and events, including at the White House.
In statement by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity in the Office of the Vice President, Mr. Laolu Akande, the Presidency said the debt reliefs would be in billions of dollars.
According to the statement, the idea, described as fresh thinking in Washington D.C by senior American government officials, is already receiving positive appraisals even as the vice president explained the potential for significant debt cancellation for African countries.
During the meetings with top U.S. officials right after his speech at the Centre for Global Development (CGD), Osinbajo further pushed DFC idea, which he first proposed at the CGD.
He said: “The proposed Debt-for-Climate swaps would be a very useful intervention and helpful as it will reduce debt burdens, while advancing the Climate Change objectives of the international community.”
GIK/APA