The qualities expected of any aspirant for the highest political office in Nigeria in 2023, according to the Sokoto state governor and chairman of the Governors Forum of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party dominate the headlines of Nigerian newspapers on Tuesday.
The Vanguard reports that the Sokoto state governor and chairman, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP Governors’ Forum, Aminu Tambuwal has said Nigeria needs as President a leader with a broad view and inquisitive mind as the nation inches gradually to the 2023 general elections.
Tambuwal, who stated this in Lagos at the 63rd birthday anniversary of legal luminary, Richard Akinola, Tambuwal also noted that the country needs a man capable of harnessing the potentials of Nigerians for the good of the land.
Speaking on “Security Challenges in Nigeria and Its Implication for Sustainable Development”, Tambuwal maintained that it would take a leader with competence to fix the rot bedeviling the Nigerian state.
To curtail the insecurity challenges in the land, Tambuwal stressed the importance of intelligence gathering and surveillance “so that law enforcement agents can be proactive and reasonably predict potential crime with near perfect accuracy rather than being reactive.”
The scourge of insecurity, he noted, calls for a new approach premised on credible intelligence gathering.
He said: “Nigeria needs a leader that is versatile, one that has friends and associates across the length and breadth of this country; a leader with a broad world view and not a parochial and provincial politician.”
ThisDay says that the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, has described as false the $10 million bribe allegedly offered to members of the two chambers of the National Assembly to pass three per cent host community development fund.
Lawan stated this while briefing State House correspondents after a closed-door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa, Abuja on Monday.
The Senate president frowned on the way and manner that some citizens had been spreading fake news and misinformation against the National Assembly and the government.
An online news medium had reported that the leadership of the National Assembly had been allegedly accused of taking bribe to pass the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).
According to the online news medium, the Senate President, Lawan, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, were paid in dollars to ensure the passage of the PIB which was signed into law on August 16 by President Buhari.
However, the Senate president said: “People say anything or everything about the president, about the administration, about members of National Assembly, they call us names and this is part of the intangible dividends of democracy.
“But we are determined to ensure that the space is wide open for everybody to say whatever he wants to say,” he added.
The Punch reports that the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Ms Kristalina Georgieva, has said that the organisation begun allocating Special Drawing Rights of about $650bn on Monday.
This was contained in a press statement on the IMF website on Monday. She was quoted in the statement, as saying, “The largest allocation of Special Drawing Rights in history – about $650bn – comes into effect today.
“The allocation is a significant shot in the arm for the world and, if used wisely, a unique opportunity to combat this unprecedented crisis.” She added that the allocation would provide extra liquidity to the global economy.
Georgieva was quoted as saying, “The SDR allocation will provide additional liquidity to the global economic system – supplementing countries’ foreign exchange reserves and reducing their reliance on more expensive domestic or external debt.
“Countries can use the space provided by the SDR allocation to support their economies and step up their fight against the crisis.”
The newspaper says that the Federal government on Monday disclosed plans to unveil the Medium-Term National Development Plan 2021-2025 in October.
According to the Minister of State for Finance, Budget and National Planning, Clem Agba, the plan is aimed at lifting millions of Nigerians out of poverty and ensuring economic stability, development and good governance.
The development plan is coming 10 months after the expiration of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (2017-2020). The ERGP which was introduced in 2017 by the Federal Government was deployed to restore growth, invest in people and build a competitive economy.
It was also targeted at growing the Gross Domestic Product of the country by seven per cent in 2020, driven by strong non-oil sector growth anchored by agriculture and food security energy, transportation and industrialisation.
However, findings show that the Federal Government failed to meet most of its targets. For instance, beyond a GDP growth rate of seven per cent, the ERGP was aimed at ensuring a 9.90 per cent inflation rate, oil production of 2.5 million barrels per day, 11.23 per cent of unemployment rate among others to be achieved in 2020.
The Sun reports that Lagos, Ogun, Kaduna and other parts of the country have been thrown into darkness as the Electricity Transmission System popularly known as the national power grid has suffered yet another collapse.
The latest collapse is the second in the last 26 days. The collapse which occurred around 1.00pm on Monday has disrupted business and household activities in other major parts of Nigeria.
The collapse, which occurred around 1pm on Monday, was confirmed by two of the electricity distribution companies in the country.
The grid had on July 28, 2021 suffered a total collapse, which the Transmission Company of Nigeria attributed to the loss of 611 megawatts at two power stations.
Eko Electricity Distribution Company, in a message sent to its customers on its Facebook page, said, “We regret to inform you of a system collapse on the national grid that’s causing outages across our network. “We are working with our TCN partners to restore supply as soon as possible. Please bear with us.”
The Guardian says that despite boasting of a 206 trillion standard cubic feet of gas reserves and topping major countries,
Nigeria’s per capita consumption of gas is the lowest in the sub-Saharan African region, Ministers of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylvia has said.
He stated this at the 2021 yearly sub-Saharan African Oil and Gas Conference tagged ”The future of Upstream and Deepwater Development, Advancing Digitisation and Gas Development Options in Sub-Saharan Africa” and organised by Energy & Corporate Africa.
With the rapidly growing population of Nigeria, expected to outnumber that of the USA in about 20 years, Sylvia feared that the upsurge in the continent’s population could be challenging if not treated as an opportunity.
“According to UN predictions, the present global population of 7.6 billion people will grow to 8.6 billion in 2030, 9.7 billion in 2050, and 10.6 billion in 2060. And in the year 2100, there will be 11.2 billion people on earth.
“A small number of countries will be responsible for the majority of the global growth. Half of the world’s population increase is anticipated to occur in just five nations in Africa between 2017 and 2050.
They are Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, the United Republic of Tanzania, and Uganda,” he said.
GIK/APA