The dismissal by the Nigerian Government of claims that international flight tickets has been dollarised, with foreign airlines allegedly rejecting naira as currency of sale is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Guardian reports that the Nigerian Government, yesterday, refuted claims that international flight tickets had been dollarised, with foreign airlines allegedly rejecting naira as currency of sale.
The Head of the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) and Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) said none of the foreign carriers had notified the concerned agencies of any changes in ticketing modalities.
Similarly, they said that the regulatory agencies and service providers were yet to introduce new charges on operating carriers, contrary to claims in some quarters.
There have been reports in the media that some foreign carriers like Turkish Airline, Lufthansa and Delta have started selling tickets only in foreign currency. The move was to evade the forex liquidity crisis in Nigeria, coupled with alleged upward review of charges by the authorities.
Shortly after conducting the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, on tour of the new terminal at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos, Director General of the NCAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu, said naira remains the statutory currency of sale in the aviation sector.
Nuhu noted that the regulation mandates operating airlines to notify the NCAA where there are significant changes, but none has approached the apex regulator on dollarisation of flight tickets.
“In fact, on one of the airlines that is claimed in the social media to be selling in dollars, I actually got its ticket purchased today in naira in preparation for the ICAO event coming up next month. I bought the ticket ahead of time so that I can get a lower price. So, we are not aware of dollarisation where airlines have demanded dollars for the purchase of tickets,” Nuhu said.
The newspaper says that raging insecurity in Nigeria has pushed about 18 million children out of school and forced approximately 11,536 schools to close their gates to students since December 2020, according to Head of Secretariat on Financing Safe Schools (FSS), Halima Illiya.
Speaking yesterday, in Abuja, at the national stakeholders’ engagement forum on financing safe schools, with the theme, ‘Financing safe schools in Nigeria: Issues and strategic options’, she revealed that efforts are ongoing to launch a national action plan on safe school financing next month.
“As part of this commitment and to stem increasing attacks on education, it became necessary to develop a national plan that will incorporate state-level plans, as well as Federal Government’s sectoral plans with emphasis on ensuring adequate budgetary allocation to create safe learning and teaching environment and restoring confidence in the education system,” she said.
She hinted that in order to guarantee the success of the initiative, several activities had been held with various agencies of government, including the military and other security agencies, Ministry of Education, governors and development partners.
Illiya stressed that the stakeholders’ forum was another vital step in the process to harvest experiences, inputs and suggestions of key stakeholders to develop a robust national document supportive of every citizen.
In his remarks, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Finance (Special Duties), Shehu Aliyu Shinkafi, said the closure of schools had led to Nigeria being declared as having the highest out-of-school children.
“This crisis led to the High-level Forum on Financing Safe Schools – Creating Safe Learning Communities held in April 2021, which resulted in the Abuja Compact 2021. The ministry, as part of its commitment at the summit, constituted a steering committee and secretariat for the Financing Safe Schools to engage critical stakeholders in the quest to develop and launch a national plan for Financing Safe Schools, thus, valued action plans and strategy papers from relevant critical stakeholders at the federal level to harness and aggregate state level.”
The Punch reports that the Federal Government has introduced the rotavirus vaccine into routine immunisation to protect against rotavirus infections among children in the country.
Rotavirus is the leading cause of severe, dehydrating diarrhoea in children less than five years.
According to the World Health Organisation, rotaviruses are double-stranded RNA viruses of the genus Reoviridae.
Speaking during the commencement of the vaccination in Abuja on Monday, the Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said improving children’s health is a priority.
Ehanire, who was represented by the Director, Public Health Department of the Federal Ministry of Health, Dr. Morenike Okoh, said, “The Government of Nigeria, with the support of our donors and partners, especially GAVI, has spent huge amounts to fulfill routine immunisation vaccines for Nigerian children. This is because improving the health of our children remains a priority for this administration.
“We therefore ask parents and caregivers to leverage this privilege to ensure that their children are vaccinated against all vaccine-preventable diseases.”
Also speaking, the Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, described rotavirus as one of the leading causes of diarrheal disease in the world, adding that it is responsible for over 40% of diarrhoea in children.
The newspaper says that the award-winning novelist, Chimamanda Adichie, has said Nigerians do not have enough leaders to look up to in the current system.
Adiche made this statement during her keynote address at the ongoing Annual General Meeting of the Nigerian Bar Association at the Eko Hotel on Monday.
The conference, themed “BOLD Transitions” is scheduled to hold between August 19 to 26, 2022.
Adiche, during her speech, said young citizens were finding it difficult to have heroes for mentorship.
She said, “We are starved of heroes. Our young people do not find people to look up to anymore.”
The speaker said it was important for everyone to speak out against injustice and tyranny even if they were called troublemakers.
She said, a bold transition must embrace audacity and innovation. They have called me troublesome. Although, it is never enjoyable to be called troublesome. I never set out to provoke for its sake. But I refuse to silence myself for the fear of what I might inadvertently provoke. It has always been important to me to say what I believe, to call out injustice.
“Federal and state security dragging journalists to prison is tyranny. A journalist ill-treating his domestic staff is tyranny. The rape of young boys and girls is also tyranny. It is tyranny when state governments do not pay pensioners until they slump and die as broken people. The physical harassment of lawyers and some some judges is tyranny. The use of the law by some people to oppress the poor people is tyranny.”
Adiche said Nigerians must be fair in their criticisms before peace can thrive. She said they should become responsible before holding the leaders responsible.
She said, “As long as we refuse to untangle the knot of injustice, peace cannot thrive. If we don’t talk about it, we fail to hold leaders accountable and we turn what should be transparent systems into ugly opaque cults.
There’s need for resurrection. We cannot avoid self-criticism but criticise the government. We cannot hide our own institutional failure while demanding transparency from the government.”
In her closing remarks, she advocated for an uncorrupted judicial system and called on the NBA to leverage technology in judicial process and the administration of justice in the country.
She said, “Nigerians are disillusioned because they know of the decline of professionalism in some sections of the legal profession. As the NBA continues to fight the abuse of power, it must also look inward not to be corrupted.
“One way is to simplify legal procedure. We deny justice when we delay justice. Technology should also be used. It is time for the full use of technology in the administration of justice.”
GIK/APA