The rejection by the Senate to further amend the electoral law as requested by President Muhammadu Buhari and the denial by the Federal Ministry of Aviation that Qatar Airways has been chosen as the preferred bidder for Nigeria’s national carrier, Nigeria Air are some of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Guardian reports that contrary to expectations that the Senate would succumb to the request by President Muhammadu Buhari to further amend Electoral Act 2022 by deleting section 84(12), lawmakers yesterday, roundly rejected the request, fueling commendations from various quarters.
This followed the failure of the Electoral Act Amendment Bill to scale through second reading on the floor during plenary, despite earlier posture by the Senate President, Ahmed Lawan, that the amendment must happen, regardless of a court order, barring it from doing so.
Surprisingly, the proposed law, “A bill for an Act to Amend the Electoral Act 2022” was overwhelmingly rejected.
Before a voice vote on the bill, which nays had it, several lawmakers spoke against the further amendment of the Act and urged the Senate to abide by the court ruling, which stopped the National Assembly from tampering with the electoral law.
President Buhari had, in a letter to the National Assembly last week, asked the federal lawmakers to amend the Act, by deleting Section 84 (12), which, according to him, constitutes a “defect” that is in conflict with extant Constitutional provisions.
The section required political appointees to resign their appointment before participating in primary elections as either delegates or candidates.
A Federal High Court in Abuja on Monday barred President Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and the Senate President from tampering with the Act.
The newspaper says that the Federal Ministry of Aviation has refuted report that Qatar Airways has been chosen as the preferred bidder for Nigeria’s national carrier, Nigeria Air.
The report, according to the ministry, came just two days after the issuance of a Request For Proposal published in local and international news media.
The ministry said the report is not only false but also capable of discrediting the process for establishment of the airline and discouraging interested parties.
A statement signed by Director Public Relation in the ministry, James Odaudu, said: “We wish to state that throughout the process leading to the publication of the Request for Proposal, the guiding principle has been transparency and accountability, which we promised will remain till the final delivery of the project, and by which we stand.
“We wish to state categorically that no corporate entity or individual has been appointed or selected, or even preferred for the project, as the process for selection has just started with the Request for Proposal.”
It added: “All interested partners and the public are therefore advised to discountenance the report and proceed with their proposals, as we assure them of our unalloyed commitment to transparency and accountability till the end of the process.”
The Nation reports that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) and MultiChoice Group Limited, Africa’s biggest pay-TV provider, yesterday agreed to an out-of-court settlement on the $4.4 billion tax dispute.
According to the terms of the deal, the South African company will withdraw lawsuits and the FIRS will conduct a forensic audit of MultiChoice’s accounts to determine its tax liability, it said in a statement without providing further details of the settlement.
MultiChoice went to court last year to challenge the penalty imposed by the tax authority, which said the owner of the DSTV service evaded taxes and denied auditors’ access to its servers.
Last year, FIRS had engaged some commercial banks as agents to freeze and recover N1.8 trillion from accounts of MultiChoice Nigeria Limited and MultiChoice Africa.
The FIRS had explained that the decision to appoint the banks as agents and to freeze the accounts was as a result of the Groups’ continued refusal to grant FIRS access to their servers for audit.
The service said it also discovered that the companies persistently breached all agreements and undertakings with the Service.
In a statement, Executive Chairman FIRS, Muhammad Nami, was quoted as having said: “The companies would not promptly respond to correspondences, they lacked data integrity and are not transparent as they continually deny FIRS access to their records.”
The newspaper says that the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) disbursed over N98 billion to female entrepreneurs in Nigeria as at last month.
The Managing Director of the bank, Mr Tony Okpanachi, made this known Abuja yesterday when the bank celebrated the International Women’s Day.
Okpanachi stated that “gender equity is crucial to meeting development goals, reducing human suffering, and solving our biggest environmental problems”.
Women across the world, he said “continue to suffer from gender inequality, including child labour, forced marriages, gender-based violence, sexist policies, as well as barriers to participation in education and employment”.
Okpanachi identified the stereotypes and biases that women have to contend with to include “Women Can’t Be Leaders; Women Are Irrational; Women Can’t Handle Huge Responsibilities and many more”.
For a society to make progress, Okpanachi stated: “We must challenge these preconceived notions.”
The Punch reports that the Federal Government on Wednesday said its inability to meet the oil production quota allocated to Nigeria by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries was due to the lack of investments in the oil and gas sector of the economy.
It said the lack of investments was due to the recent spate of exits by International Oil Companies such as Shell and ExxonMobil from Nigeria’s oil and gas sector.
Nigeria’s OPEC quota is pegged at about 1.8 million barrels per day but in the last few years, the country has struggled between 1.3 and 1.4 million barrels per day.
Speaking at the ongoing CERA Week in Houston, Texas, the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, said the speed with which IOCs were withdrawing investments in hydrocarbon exploitation had contributed significantly to Nigeria’s inability to meet its OPEC target.
He was quoted in a statement issued in Abuja by his media aide, Haratius Egua, as saying, “The rate at which investments were taken away was too fast.
“Lack of investments in the oil and gas sector contributed to Nigeria’s inability to meet OPEC quota. We are not able to get the needed investments to develop the sector and that affected us.”
Sylva also cited security challenges as another major factor that contributed to the lack of significant growth of the sector, adding that the drive towards renewable energy by climate enthusiasts had discouraged funding for the industry.
The newspaper says that telecommunication companies may delay the commercial rollout of fifth-generation technology due to the weak purchasing power of their customers as a result of inflation.
In a panel session during The AfricaNXT Conference 2022, the Nigerian Communications Commission disclosed that Nigerians might have to buy new devices in order to be able to enjoy 5G services or use alternate broadband devices.
The NCC team that spoke during a panel session said most devices present in the nation do not have 5G capabilities. They added that in two years, there would be one billion 5G devices in the world.
According to GSMA, the industry organisation that represents the global interests of mobile network operators, most people in Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries spend 100 per cent of their income on entry-level Internet-enabled handsets. Ericsson in its ‘Mobility Report: November 2021,’ disclosed that 5G subscriptions would hit 660 million globally in 2021. It added that counties like Nigeria would begin to have discernible amounts of 5G subscriptions by 2022.
In an interview with our correspondents, experts have said rising inflation may hamper the commercial rollout of 5G services in the nation as consumers may not have enough disposable income to buy 5G devices.
GIK/APA