The report of plans by the Academic Staff Union of Universities to embark on an indefinite strike to press home their demands one month after it suspended a nine-month-old strike is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The Guardian reports that the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) says it would soon embark on an indefinite strike to press home their demands one month after it suspended a nine-month-old strike.
Dr Lazarus Maigoro, Chiarman of the University of Jos chapter of the Union, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Jos.
The report by News Agency of Nigeria said that the union suspended a nine-month-old industrial action in December 2020.
According to the report, ASUU embarked on an earlier strike over the failure of Federal Government to address all the issues raised in the 2009 agreement it entered with the union.
Maigoro, who described the Federal Government as an “unfaithful spouse”, said the union would not relent until the standard of education is uplifted in the country.
“The government’s pattern of response to issues is that of a serial promise breaker.
“Like an unfaithful spouse, they are unable to match their words with action which is affecting the education sector negatively.”
The newspaper says that one year after the Federal Government imposed the National Identification Number and Subscribers Identification Module card (NIN-SIM) verification and linkage exercise on Nigerians, with the hope of curbing rising insecurity in the country, nothing concrete has so far been achieved in stemming the tide of attacks.
Noble as the exercise appeared at the outset, especially driven by the need to have a robust national database in the country, the snag however, is that over 415 days after the policy came to being on December 16, 2020, the security situation in the country has not fared better.
Indeed, activities of kidnappers, armed robbers, bandits, insurgents and fraudsters have increased, subsequently dealing a great blow to the objective of the policy.
Perhaps, too early to call, but going by the manner in which the policy was imposed on Nigerians, especially at a time the country was battling second and third waves of COVID-19, and the promise made by the Federal Government that with NIN linked to SIMs, criminal activities in the country would reduce drastically, it is disturbing that as of today, nothing of such appeared to have happened.
In other words, criminal elements still collect ransoms, running into millions of Naira, while more people have become vulnerable to SIM swap frauds.
Painfully, activities of terrorists have ravaged the Northwest, Northeast and gradually making inroads into North Central, despite desperate measures already taken like telecoms blackout in some few Northern states. It is not also hassle-free in the entire Southern region as fraudsters, highway robbers and SIM swap criminals are smiling to the bank at the expense of their victims.
In 2021, a report from SBM Intelligence claimed that 10, 366 people were killed, while an average of 13 persons were abducted daily in the country. SBM Intelligence is a leading research consultancy group, versatile in the area of primary data gathering.
The Sun reports that to deepen Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) penetration in West Africa, the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank) through its subsidiary, Fund for Export Development in Africa (FEDA), on Thursday said it has invested in Ecow-Gas B.V. (Ecowgas), a special purpose vehicle designed to achieve that objective.
The investment follows a realization that limited power supply from the grid has plunged Africa’s industrial sector into severe energy shortages, leading to high production costs, inefficient operations and reduced global competitiveness, amongst scathing development.
The regional bank thus reckons that off-grid solutions were required to address the aforementioned challenges and put Africa firmly on the path to energy sustainability.
Commenting on the development, the President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Afreximbank, Prof Benedict Oramah said that FEDA’s investment in Ecow-Gas, in partnership with a leading international oil company, will support the creation of the infrastructure to provide access to cheaper and cleaner fuels for underserved industrial customers across the region using LNG.
This, he explained, will also promote efforts to minimize carbon monoxide emission by replacing environment-polluting fuels currently in use.
ThisDay says that the federal government has explained that proceeds of the N250 billion sovereign Sukuk issued last December by the Debt Management Office (DMO) would be released as part of the 2021 capital expenditure.
This is in line with the Appropriation Act, which had been extended to March 31, 2022, by the National Assembly.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, who stated this in Abuja, yesterday, also disclosed that a total of N3.4 trillion had been released for capital projects as of November 2021.
Speaking at the symbolic cheque presentation ceremony of the N250 billion Sukuk proceeds to the implementing ministries, the minister disclosed that since the emergence of Sukuk as a financing window for infrastructure in September 2017, a total of N362.557 billion had been given to the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing (FMWH) to fund key road projects.
Ahmed stated that in view of the significant milestones recorded in the use of Sukuk to reconstruct and rehabilitate road infrastructure, with visible evidence, the government decided to incorporate other ministries with critical road projects into the Sukuk funding structure. She said:
The Punch reports that Nigeria’s four major aviation unions on Wednesday vowed to ground activities in the sector from Tuesday, February 8, 2022, over the failure of the Federal Government to release the negotiated conditions of service of aviation agencies since 2013 and the non-implementation of the National Minimum Wage/consequential adjustment since 2019.
In a notice of industrial action jointly signed by officials of the unions and issued to aviation workers, the associations said flights and related activities would be brought suspended.
The unions include the National Union of Air Transport Employees, Air Transport Services Senior Staff Association of Nigeria, Association of Nigeria Aviation Professionals, and the Amalgamated Union of Public Corporations, Civil Service Technical and Recreational Services Employees.
“By this notice, all airlines, ground handling companies, aviation security/logistics, in-flight catering, and other aviation-related businesses, as well as the traveling and general public, are hereby notified that aviation services will be unavailable as from the given time until the issues are fully resolved,” they declared.
The aviation workers’ union recalled that they had earlier sent ultimatums to the Federal Ministry of Aviation and its six agencies about workers’ concerns but nothing was done.
GIK/APA