The report of rising operational costs occasioned by aviation fuel price hikes, foreign exchange shortage, among others may push the base economy flight ticket to N100,000 is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Punch reports that domestic airlines under the aegis of the Airline Operators of Nigeria have said that rising operational costs occasioned by aviation fuel price hikes, foreign exchange shortage, among others may push the base economy flight ticket to N100,000.
The spokesperson for local airlines/Chairman, United Airlines, Professor Obiora Okonkwo, made the disclosure during an exclusive interview with The PUNCH on Wednesday in Abuja.
Aside from the lingering aviation price hike crisis, the airline chief said local operators were being compelled to source foreign exchange from the parallel market at high rates due to a lack of adequate supply from the Central bank of Nigeria via the commercial banks.
Consequently, he said an increase in the base economy flight ticket to at least N100,000 might be inevitable for all domestic airline operators if the current situation persists.
Okonkwo said, “Obviously, it is inevitable. I can tell you that all the airline operators, in the last three months, have been losing money, a huge amount of money. There is too much stress on the operational fronts for them to break even. Even if the aviation fuel is made available, there must be a review to reflect the minimal operational cost. We are offering patriotic services to the nation and understand the essential part of it. We are part of this economic development process in Nigeria but it is coming at a very huge sacrifice.”
The newspaper says that the World Bank has said it is set to disburse a total of $30bn to fund existing and new projects in Nigeria and other countries as part of a global response to combat the ongoing food security crisis.
According to the bank, it is working with countries on a $12bn new projects fund for the next 15 months.
It said the projects are expected to support agriculture, social protection to cushion the effects of higher food prices, and water and irrigation projects.
It added that most of the funds would go to Africa, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and South Asia.
The global bank disclosed this on Wednesday when it announced how it plans to be part of a comprehensive, global response to the ongoing food security crisis.
It stated that it intends to roll out this fund in existing and new projects in agriculture, nutrition, social protection, water, and irrigation.
It said, “This financing will include efforts to encourage food and fertilizer production, enhance food systems, facilitate greater trade, and support vulnerable households and producers.”
World Bank Group President, David Malpass, said, “Food price increases are having devastating effects on the poorest and most vulnerable.”
The Guardian reports that Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has condemned “the manipulation of the justice system to favour influential politicians facing corruption charges in Nigeria.”
Falana stated this, yesterday, in a paper, titled, ‘Sentencing Rich and Poor Convicts In Nigeria: An Unbalanced Scale’, delivered as the Inaugural Public Lecture of the Department of Public and International Law, Faculty of Law, Ajayi Crowther University, Oyo, Oyo State.
Falana said: “Some personalities in the society seem to be the ‘untouchables.’ Since they have the money, they can influence and manipulate the justice system in their favour. Consequently, such persons commit crimes and get away with them. Owing to corruption and abysmally compromised system, they could even have the backing of the government.”
He said: “Some persons convicted and sentenced and jailed were never found in any correctional centre, while unemployed young people serve prison terms in lieu of rich convicts.”
Falana, who faulted the attitude of the government in cases involving the rich, said: “For political reasons, the trial and conviction of the rich are often interfered with.”
The paper reads in part: “Judges could even be coerced into favouring those rich offenders against their own will. But there is often no one to speak for the poor, who often have no voice of their own. On the few occasions that the rich are convicted, the president and state governors usually grant them pardon.”
The newspaper says that the Federal Government, yesterday, declared that it was not nursing any intention to ban Facebook over alleged inciting statements by the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
Nigeria’s Minister of information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, made the clarification while fielding questions from newsmen at the end of the Federal Executive Council meeting (FEC), presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the State House, Abuja.
Specifically, the minister had at a meeting with a team from Facebook in Abuja on Tuesday, asked the social media platform to stop IPOB from using its platform to “incite violence.”
Mohammed had claimed that people had been killed due to the group’s activities.
But responding to rife speculation that government intends to ban the social medium as it did to Twitter, the minister reacted negatively.
He said: “I had a very fruitful meeting with Facebook yesterday (Tuesday). At that meeting, we expressed our displeasure that Facebook was becoming a power of choice for those who stay outside Nigeria, in particular, to incite violence, killings, burning of government properties, and killing of soldiers and policemen.”
The Sun reports that as part of the economic diversification initiatives of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, the Federal Government and the Czech Republic on Wednesday launched a Call for Public Proposals on Delta-2 Programme worth $16.2 million Co-funding Research and Development (R&D) project.
The Delta-2 Programme is the cooperation model of the Technology Agency of Czech Republic TA CR, running from 2020-2025, through which TA CR sponsors applied research and innovation of manufacturing companies and innovative institutions, with Nigeria becoming one of the new beneficiaries of the programme.
Nigeria’s NASENI and Czech Republic’s TA CR had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in Prague in 2014, on some critical areas of technology transfer and innovations which had resulted in the Co-Funding of Czech-Nigeria Bilateral R&D Project on Delta-2 Programme.
Speaking at the programme launch, Executive Vice Chairman/Chief Executive of the National Agency for Science and Engineering Infrastructure (NASENI), Prof. Mohammed Sani Haruna, said the call for Public Proposal for the Delta-2 programme was one of the projects to be implemented under the bilateral agreement between the two countries.
According to Prof. Haruna, the priority areas of the MoU which include Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Research, agricultural and Food Technology, Mining Industrial Development among others were unable to take off earlier due to bureaucracy until the Presidential Implementation Committee (PICTT) on Technology Transfer/Information Exchange between Nigeria and Czech Republic, PICTT was inaugurated by President Muhammed Buhari in November 2020.
He said, “The PICTT would be sourcing technologies from the Czech Republic’s manufacturing companies; tertiary; research; and development institutions. The sum of CZK 250 million (250 million Czech Koruna, approximately US$10.5 million) has been a allocated as research fund by the government of the Czech Republic, through the TA CR and will be supplemented by NASENI on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria to the sum of 2,000,000,000 or US5.7 million”.
GIK/APA