The trip to the UK by President Muhammadu Buhari for routine medical check-up on Tuesday and the row caused by the proposed N27 billion intervention fund earmarked for the aviation sector are some of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Guardian reports that President Muhammadu Buhari will on Tuesday leave for London, United Kingdom, for a routine medical check-up.
This was announced in a statement issued, yesterday, by the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina.
Before departing the country for the UK, President Buhari would meet with security chiefs in the morning. He is expected back in the country in the second week of April 2021.
Buhari had embarked on several medical trips between 2015 and 2019. During one of his trips in 2017, he spent 103 days in London with the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, acting as president.
The newspaper says that the proposed N27 billion intervention fund earmarked for the aviation sector is causing a row in the industry.
While stakeholders expressed displeasure over the release of only N5 billion out of the N27 billion, some operating carriers complained of being left out of the disbursement.
Following complaints, the House of Representatives Committee on Aviation has pledged to look into the matter.
The Federal Government earlier shared the sum of N4 billion bailout funds among about 18 scheduled and non-scheduled local carriers, to cushion the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. Aviation service providers got N1 billion.
The Guardian learnt that the special intervention was thrown open to all airlines with valid Air Operating Certificates (AOCs) and distributed according to the size of the carrier. The parameters, however, made some ‘dead’ airlines beneficiaries of the COVID-19 stimulus package.
The N5 billion was, however, a far cry from the N27 billion earlier proposed for the sector. The latter that got proposed to some of the operators was to support airlines and also fast-track the establishment of a private sector-driven national carrier.
ThisDay reports that President Muhammadu Buhari yesterday canvassed the need for Nigeria to remain as an indivisible entity despite its diversity, saying that way, it will be a better and stronger nation.
The president also dismissed agitation for breaking up Nigeria and restated his administration’s commitment to keeping the country as one.
Buhari, in a speech he delivered virtually at a colloquium in Kano to mark the 69th birthday anniversary of the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Bola Tinubu, described the celebrant as a consistent advocate of unity and cohesion in the country.
Like the president, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; Kano State Governor, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje; and Tinubu also harped on the need for unity and national integration.
Buhari said: “Despite occasional inter-ethnic tensions in our national history, it seems to me that we have all agreed on one point that, notwithstanding our diversity of ethnicity, culture, language and religion, Nigerians are better together; even stronger together.”
According to him, his experience of working in all parts of the country showed possibilities of a strong, united nation.
The Punch says that the Foreign Direct Investment inflow to Nigeria dropped to $65m as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2020 from $780m as of the end of third quarter.
Figures obtained by our correspondent from the Central Bank of Nigeria’s economic report in the fourth quarter revealed.
Part of the report read, “Foreign Direct Investment inflow declined to $0.65bn, relative to $0.78bn in the previous quarter, as both equity and reinvested earnings declined during the review period, occasioned by the lingering insecurity challenges and uncertainty surrounding the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.”
The report stated that foreign capital inflow improved during the review period, driven, largely by inflow for the purchase of money market instruments, signifying renewed confidence in Nigeria’s money market.
As a result of this development, the net liability incurred during the review period increased to $1.78bn, relative to $0.33bn in the third quarter of 2020.
The Sun reports that palpable fear has gripped major oil marketers that their multi billion Naira investments in the downstream sector are increasingly coming under intense threat over Nigerian government’s inability to grant them licenses to resume importation of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), popularly called petrol.
Among the major headaches of the aggrieved marketers is the current fuel importation monopoly being enjoyed by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) which has continued for the last two years and which they claimed was putting most their investments in the downstream sector in harmsway.
The oil marketers who spoke to Daily Sun said that although they have always supported the Federal Government’s policy of downstream deregulation, they are however miffed that the NNPC has remained the sole importer of white products for the entire nation, stressing it was high time the issue was reviewed to allow the private sector, especially the major marketers to activate their huge investment in the sector.
According to them, deregulation would allow market forces determine the price of petrol as against the price fixing module of the Federal Government, through the Petroleum Products Pricing Regulatory Agency (PPPRA).
The newspaper says that President Muhammadu Buhari has assured that his administration will leverage Nigeria’s robust gas resources, currently estimated at 600 trillion standard cubic feet, to urgently industrialise and diversify the economy away from petroleum, gradually being discarded for cleaner energy sources from gas.
This was as the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Mr Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo, hinted that projections show that from now till 2045, global investments of more than $12 trillion will be needed in the upstream, midstream and downstream in the gas sector.
Speaking in Abuja on Monday as he virtually launched “The Decade of Gas in Nigeria” initiative Buhari noted that the rising global demand for cleaner energy sources has offered Nigeria an opportunity to exploit gas resources for the good of the country.
He noted that all the opportunities provided by gas will be fully explored. The President told participants at the Pre-Summit that while his administration has prioritised gas development and recorded remarkable progress, it is well known that Nigeria is a gas nation with a little oil, although the country has focused on oil over the years.
GIK/APA