The resolve of the Nigerian Senators to climb down on their threat to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to veto the Electoral Act 2010 (Amendment) bill is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.
The Guardian reports that after some chest-thumping and tough-talking, Senators, yesterday, climbed down on their threat vow to override President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision to veto the Electoral Act 2010 (Amendment) bill.
In its place, President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, said the red chamber would consult with the House of Representatives on how to respond to the President, cancelling the earlier decision that the majority of Senators were gathering signatures for the purported bid to override the President.
Lawan made this known after the Senate emerged from a closed-door executive session to deliberate on the President’s decision to withhold assent to the electoral bill.
The Senate President noted, yesterday, that the provisions of the 1999 Constitution do not permit the chamber to exclusively take any action on such matters in the absence of the House.
The House had, however, embarked on recess on Tuesday, adjourning plenary till January 2022. The Speaker had also prevented similar moves from representatives, urging them to wait till resumption next year.
Lawan stated that a joint position would be reached with the House after due consultation with Nigerians to determine the appropriate line of action after both chambers reconvene from the Christmas and New Year break.
The newspaper says that Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), yesterday, ended the diplomatic row as they agreed to reinstate flight services across both ends.
While the UAE granted Nigerian flag carrier, Air Peace, seven weekly slots to Dubai, the Federal Government reciprocated, reinstating the 21-weekly winter schedule earlier granted to Emirates.
The Federal Government a fortnight ago, reduced Emirates Airlines’ 21 slots a-week to just one, in reciprocity of similar treatment meted to Nigerian flag carrier, Air Peace airline that requested for three slots but got only one a-week.
In response, Emirates Airlines pulled out of the Nigerian route indefinitely. As at last week, the UAE modified its stance on welcoming Air Peace airline into the Arab country, with an approval of seven weekly slots into the Dubai International Airport, Dubai.
The Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA), in a memo to the General Civil Aviation Authority (GCAA) in UAE and Emirates yesterday, confirmed the approval of 21 weekly flights into Lagos and Abuja airports.
The Director-General of NCAA, Capt. Musa Nuhu, said the approval was granted following consultations with stakeholders and the correspondence received from Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, offering Air Peace airline daily slots at Dubai Airport.
The Punch reports that the Centre for Promotion of Private Enterprise has said that the Federal Government’s N17.1trn budget for next year will be difficult to fund, describing it as “too ambitious”.
The Chief Executive Officer, CPPE, Dr Muda Yusuf, said this on Wednesday at a press briefing in Lagos, titled ‘The economy and business environment in 2021 and an agenda for 2022’.
According to him, the 2022 budget is not reflective of the country’s present economic reality and will further plunge Nigeria into more borrowing that will exacerbate an already alarming debt profile.
He said, “Even with the original budget, we are talking of a deficit of over N6tn; and even with that, many people expect that the deficit will even go higher than that, because every now and then, we are being told that the government has a revenue problem. Look at the rate at which we are borrowing.
The borrowing is likely to increase because we are going into the last lap of the administration.” “I’m not sure it will be easy to fund this budget.
It’s too ambitious a budget. Secondly, there is no political will to deal with the issue of expenditure, because we are just throwing everything into it, as if we have to make sure that everybody is happy, and yet we don’t have the capacity to fund it.
The Sun says that the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on Wednesday, said it generated N203.73 billion from the sale of white products in the month of July 2021 through its subsidiary, the Petroleum Products Marketing Company (PPMC).
The national oil company also revealed that total revenues generated from the sales of white products for the period July 2020 to July 2021 stood at over N2.563 trillion where PMS contributed about 99.67 percent of the total sales.
Similarly, it said 1.544billion litres of petroleum products were sold and distributed by the PPMC, in the month of July 2021 with PMS accounting for 99 percent of total volume. Total sale of petroleum products for the period July 2020 to July 2021 stood at 19.535billion litres and Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) accounted for 99.73 percent of total volume, the report stated.
The NNPC also indicated a 5.23 percentage increase in the average daily gas supply to power plants in the month of July 2021 which stood at 759million standard cubic feet of gas per day (MMSCFD), equivalent to power generation of 3,250MW against the June 2021 figure of 721mmscfd to generate 3,181MW.
According to the report, national gas production in July 2021 increased by 3.99 percent at 232.69Billion Cubic Feet (BCF).
ThisDay reports that the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) has committed about $55.5m towards the development of Special Agro-Processing Zones (SAPZ) in the territory.
The Mandate Secretary, Agriculture and Rural Development Secretariat in the FCT, Mallam Abubakar Ibrahim disclosed this at a media briefing on the activities of the secretariat.
The FCTA is expected to provide the framework for the take-off of the AfDB and IsDB supported Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zones projects in which the FCT will be developing the livestock sub-sector.
The project is to unlock the country’s agriculture sector potential and promote industrialisation through the development of strategic crops and livestock.
“I am happy to note that the Boards of the AfDB, IFAD and the ISDB, have all approved the Nigeria SAPZ Project on the 13th, 16th and 18th December, 2021, respectively. In the first phase, the ISDB is investing a minimum of $55.47m in the FCT SAPZ.
“We are committed to making this a resounding success and shall provide the needed counterpart contribution to complement this investment”, he said.
The FCT Administration has also stated it is keying into the programme of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development by engaging the Agro-Rangers squad of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).
The newspaper says that Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has partnered the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria (SMEDAN) to establish an SME Digital Academy.
The SME Digital Academy is a public-private partnership initiative being driven by the NCC, SMEDAN, and Sapphital Learning Limited, a leading digital learning platform, essentially to provide micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) owners with digital skills to enhance their entrepreneurial skills.
The partnership also aims to equip entrepreneurs and start-ups with the necessary digital skills required to navigate the increasingly digitised world.
Speaking at the launch, which took place at the NEXIM House in Abuja recently, the Executive Vice Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, said the setting up of the scheme was based on the realisation that in today’s global economy, a borderless educational and economic system would be the next stage of the digital economy.
Represented at the launch by the NCC’s Director, Digital Economy, Dr. Austin Nwaulune, the NCC boss noted that, while the collaboration between the NCC and SMEDAN was a step towards economic diversification, digital technologies were key in the implementation of this initiative.
He said the NCC had continued to work towards providing information and communications technology (ICT) support to various sectors in the country.
GIK/APA