APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The report that a torrent of criticisms, yesterday, from Nigerians and election observers as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rescheduled vote counting for states till Monday, 48 hours after the presidential elections is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Monday.
The Guardian reports that despite heightened hope, optimism and assurances over the electronic transmission of results, it was a torrent of criticisms, yesterday, from Nigerians and election observers as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rescheduled vote counting for states till today, 48 hours after the presidential elections.
The announcement was made by INEC National Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, shortly after the result of Ekiti State was read at the International Conference Centre, Abuja venue of the 2023 presidential election collation center. Yakubu said the gathering would reconvene today at 11:00 a.m.
The opening vote count for the election was held across 176,606 polling units, which was overshadowed by widespread reports of delays, technical issues, attacks and voter intimidation, INEC announced the 2023 presidential election results for Ekiti State.
INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Ekiti, Ayobami Salami, and Collation Officer for the election in Ekiti, Prof. Akeem Olawale Lasisi, who is Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Health Sciences, Ila Orangun, Osun State, reeling out the results, said Asiwaju Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won all the 16 Councils of the state, polling 210,494 votes followed by Atiku Abubakar of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 89,554 votes.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) polled 11,397 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) polled 264 votes; 1703 votes were canceled due to the bye-pass of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and over-voting.
Yakubu said the Commission was expecting the results of the other 35 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), before adjourning the national collation.
The Commission noted that it was fully aware of the challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV). This was contained in a statement by the National Commissioner and Chairman of, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye.
According to him, the portal was only experiencing challenges and not sabotage, adding that the IReV is secured while INEC is working to address the problems.
The newspaper says that the Minister of State Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, has again blamed vandals and thieves for the dwindling revenue from the nation’s oil and gas sector.
With Nigeria’s debt already hitting N77 trillion as foreign exchange scarcity, usually from the oil sector combined with other economic indicators to widen the disparity between naira and other major currencies to record high, the dismal outlook from the oil sector remains a critical contributor to the failing economic situation in the country.
Sylva, in a release, however, insisted that the Federal Government was determined to end the trend through improved investments and security along the major oil and gas pipelines in the Niger Delta region.
He denied that 40 percent of the volumes of crude losses did not come from measurement inaccuracies, as claimed in the public.
Sylva said the major sources of crude oil losses have primarily been theft, pipeline vandalism and production deferment as a result of pipeline non-availability.
“It is a known fact that the major losses of crude oil in the country have been through theft and destruction of oil pipelines. Again we also know that some of the oil infrastructure is old and decayed and cannot perform at maximum capacity. And there is also the issue of lack of investments in fossil fuel in the country and the drive towards renewable energy has really hampered new investments in this sector,” he said.
The Punch reports that the imminent removal of subsidy on Premium Motor Spirit, popularly called petrol, high unemployment rate, insecurity, poverty, unstable electricity, and bad roads, among other challenges, await the incoming President of Nigeria.
On May 29, 2023, the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), shall hand over to whoever emerges as President in the ongoing general elections in Nigeria.
Citizens across the country went to the polls on Saturday and Sunday to elect a new president for Nigeria.
Among the top contenders include the Labour Party’s Peter Obi; Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party; Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress; and Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party.
These contenders had reeled out their manifestos, which contained how they would tackle the myriad challenges confronting Nigeria.
But experts in various economic fields said the problems across the country currently, were more humongous than what the presidential hopefuls had projected to address.
The results of elections cast on Saturday and Sunday are currently being collated in states and the Federal Capital Territory.
Nigerians are anxiously awaiting to see who would emerge victorious, with the expectation that the elected President would deliver on his promises by addressing the myriad of problems bedeviling the nation.
Analysts also explained that the challenges confronting Nigeria were more deep-rooted than the solutions proffered in the manifestos of the presidential candidates.
The newspaper says that capital importation into the country for the production and manufacturing sector crashed by 48.42 percent in 2022, according to findings by The PUNCH.
The PUNCH observed that foreign investments in manufacturing businesses in the country fell from $100.97m in January 2022 to $52.08m in November 2022.
This was according to the Capital Importation by Nature of Business data from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The decline in foreign investment occurred as manufacturers struggle with a rising debt profile and interest rate hikes, among other issues.
The PUNCH reported that operators in the nation’s manufacturing sector saw their combined debts to Nigerian banks rise from N4.09tn in December 2021 to N5.33tn in November 2022, according to the CBN’s Sectoral Analysis of Deposit Money Banks’ Credit.
The CBN hiked the interest rate five times within a period of a year as manufacturers’ debt rose by N1.24tn in 2022.
In its November 2022 CBN Update, which was released last month, the apex bank acknowledged that there would likely be an increase in business costs, which could further drive up inflation.
The report read in part, “CBN understands the market is currently very tight due to the tightening (i.e., the consecutive four increase of MPR). The bank knows that the cost of new businesses and production will increase, and by extension could be said that this will also fuel further inflation.”
GIK/APA