The presentation of 2023 budget estimate of N19.76 trillion to the joint session of the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari dominates the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Guardian reports that security has been beefed up at the main gates to the National Assembly as President Muhammadu Buhari presents the 2023 budget estimate of N19.76 trillion to the joint session of the Assembly.
A crop of security agents including the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Department of State Services (DSS), Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) and Sergeant at Arms were seen manning the entrances to the complex.
The newspaper quoted the report by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that only accredited journalists with tags, covering the assembly and essential staff of the National Assembly were granted access to the building.
It added the joint session will begin by 10 a.m at the temporary chamber of the House of Representatives.
The newspaper says that it was pomp in Lagos on Tuesday as a new scheduled carrier, ValueJet Airline, rolled out operations with some interesting packages to cheer up the troubled local travellers.
Smarting from the challenges of fare hike, the start-up – a hybrid model that combines features of low-cost and legacy carriers – offers local air travellers some of the cheapest airfares, beginning from Monday.
At the colourful unveiling, the airline said the venture targets some of other 95 per cent Nigerians that had never had opportunity to fly, either due to high fares or capacity.
And to mark its grand entry, the carrier is offering customers free tickets on its first set of flights.
Chairman of ValueJet, Adekunle Soname, said the company’s business model was poised towards ensuring that Nigerians have access to affordable flights through competitive pricing.
Soname said: “Our mission is to reinvent air travel with our unique value proposition of safety, comfort, convenience, experience, and high value for money. We are pleased to be able to make air travel more affordable to everyone, underlined by our payoff line, ‘Wings for Everyone’.
At the moment, the airline operates to and fro Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt and Asaba airports. Expanded operations before the month’s end will cover Warri, Benin, Yola, Jos and Owerri.
“Our fleet of modern and efficient CRJ 900 aircraft is ready. We can boast of a resolute professional workforce, which is among the best in the industry to deliver end-to-end customer experience backed by modern technology,” he said.
The Punch reports that the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry has said demands by multiple regulatory agencies and high production costs are kicking manufacturers out of business.
In a statement signed by its Director-General, Dr Chinyere Almona, the chamber noted that over the last few decades, the challenges of production in the economy had grown progressively, largely because of the quality of infrastructure, which is why the risk of industrial investment is high and continues to increase.
The statement said poor power supply remained a major burden on businesses and had been one area in which the trend since independence had suffered decline.
It added that the security situation in the country deteriorated in 2021, reaching very worrisome and frightening dimensions.
The statement said, “Over the last few decades, the challenges of production in the economy have grown progressively, largely because of the quality of infrastructure, which is why the risk of industrial investment is high and continues to increase.
“The various policy interventions have not had the desired impact on the sector. Unless there is effective and sustained protection and support for the sector, and a dramatic improvement in infrastructure, the outlook for the sector will remain gloomy, particularly for the small-scale industries. Most SMEs are constrained due to the rising cost of production.”
According to the statement, the Federal Government needs to sustain its targeted interventions in selected critical sectors like agriculture, manufacturing, export infrastructure, tackling insecurity, and free up more money from subsidy payments.
The LCCI also urged the Federal Government to tackle oil theft to earn more foreign exchange, borrow from cheaper sources to reduce the burden of debt servicing, and take a decisive step towards removing fuel subsidies.
The newspaper says that the Federal Government has inaugurated a committee to provide adequate safety measures in securing train and other railway infrastructures, The PUNCH learnt.
The PUNCH reported that the terrorists attacked the AK-9 Abuja-Kaduna train passengers on March 28, 2022.
The terrorists had planted explosive devices along the rail track, which exploded, causing the train to derail and leading to the death of eight passengers.
Speaking in a telephone interview on Thursday with our correspondent, spokesperson Ministry of Transportation, Yakubu Mahmood, said a committee had been setup by the Federal Government under the chairmanship of the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry, Magdalene Ajani.
He, however, said the committee was yet to submit its report.
“There is a committee set up by the Federal Government under the chairmanship of the Federal Ministry of Transportation, but it is yet to submit its report.”
PUNCH reported earlier that the Managing Director, Nigeria Railway Corporation, Fidet Okhiria, when asked whether there had been a reduction in vandalism of rail infrastructure, said: “I cannot confirm that now because it is one thing to hear about it and another thing for it to be happening and you are not hearing about it.
“This is because it can be happening and you won’t know about it immediately because what we’ve discovered is that most of the time before you discover, it might have happened about a month ago. But on the Zamfara axis, I think the police are doing very well. They have been arresting vandals massively.
“Those vandals are so daring, to the extent that we lost a technical officer recently to track vandalism. He was shot. He heard about the activities of vandals on a track and he went there without the police and he was shot. But after that, the police have really come up and have arrested about seven of the vandals,” Okhiria said.
GIK/APA