The report that more international carriers are gearing to join the Emirates Airlines which announced, on Thursday, the suspension of its flight operations in Nigeria from September 1, 2022 is one of the trending stories in Nigerian newspapers on Friday.
The punch reports that more international carriers are gearing to join the Emirates Airlines which announced, on Thursday, the suspension of its flight operations in Nigeria from September 1, 2022, our correspondents gathered.
The British Airways has already reduced their flight frequencies to Nigeria, as the airline informed its passengers on Thursday of an imminent hike in the cost of its flight tickets.
The international airlines are halting operations in Nigeria and raising airfares because of their inability to repatriate funds to their home countries.
In June this year, The PUNCH reported that the International Air Transport Association expressed concerns over the decision by the Federal Government of Nigeria to block foreign airlines from repatriating ticket sales revenue running into $450m (N188.6bn) into their respective countries.
Nigeria gets about 90 per cent of its United States dollar from the sale of crude oil. However, the country has consistently not been able to meet its approved crude production quota on a monthly basis due to massive oil theft.
This has severely impacted on the country’s foreign exchange earnings, making it tough for the Central Bank of Nigeria to make dollar accessible for repatriation by foreign airlines with operations in Nigeria.
As a fall-out of the continued inability of Emirates Airlines to repatriate its funds, the carrier announced in a statement on Thursday that its flight operations in Nigeria would be suspended from September 1, 2022.
The newspaper says that the Federal Government spent nothing less than N13.17tn between 2016 and March 2022 under the government of President Muhammadu Buhari, an analysis by The PUNCH has revealed.
Findings by The PUNCH also showed that during the same period, the government budgeted N4.4tn for education amidst constant criticism by stakeholders, including the Academic Staff Union of Universities, about the low funding of the sector.
According to the information from the Debt Management Office, from 2016 to March 2022, servicing local debts gulped N10.77tn, while the government spent N2.40tn ($7.84bn) to service external debts.
The amount spent on external debt servicing was converted to Naira at the CBN’s exchange rate for the year. For instance, the naira-dollar average exchange rate for 2016 was N197 and N305 in 2017 respectively. It was N305 in 2018 and N360 in 2019. It closed at N380 and N420 in 2020 and 2021 respectively.
From January to December, a total of N1.23tn was spent to service the country’s domestic debts in 2016, during the same year N369.60bn was budgeted for education.
The figure for domestic debt servicing rose to N1.48tn in 2017 while the budget for education in the same year was N550bn.
In 2018, the country’s domestic debt servicing bill rose to N1.8tn with education at N605.8bn.
The cost of domestic debt servicing came down a bit in 2019 to N1.69tn with N620.50bn budgeted for education.
In 2020, debt servicing rose again to N1.85tn with education gulping N671.7bn. By 2021, domestic debt servicing rose to N2.05tn with education gulping N742.52bn.
Between January and March 2022, Nigeria spent N668.69bn on domestic debt servicing, while it spent $548.79m on external debt servicing while education gulped N923.79bn.
The Guardian reports that with the adoption of the Fifth-Generation (5G) network set to outpace all previous generations of mobile technology, it is expected to have $7 trillion worth of economic value by 2030.
Research from InterDigital and ABI Research claims the exceedingly large amount of coin will be generated as 5G ‘fuels a proliferation of connected devices from smartphones to consumer electronics to enterprise applications and beyond.’
The research pointed to applications such as AR/VR and immersive content, enterprise-enabling features like including low latency, deterministic networking, and advanced Internet of use cases.
According to it, 5G can feel like it has been slow to get off the blocks in terms of the impact registered on wider society, but the report reckons the adoption of 5G is outpacing all previous generations of mobile technology in terms of subscription rate and operator rollout, and is gaining significant traction from the enterprise world.
It noted that the ‘private 5G addressable market’ is expected to grow quickly, mostly driven by the energy and utilities, healthcare and manufacturing sectors. The report also claims 5G will support the roll-out of digital spaces, smart cities and smart public services, but that governments and local authorities need to ‘remove the barriers to ubiquitous 5G access.’
It stated that the next stages of 5G will see more activity and innovation around the areas of AI, non-terrestrial networks, MIMO enhancements, unmanned aerial vehicles, and reduced capacity devices.
The newspaper says that there were indications, yesterday, that the insistence by members of Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) to be paid for the six months that the strike has lasted was affecting negotiations between the two feuding parties in apparent allusion to the Federal Government’s ‘no-work-no-pay’ policy.
Specifically, the current administration maintained that it would not bow to the “whims and caprices” of the university lecturers, who are demanding payment of outstanding salaries, to check future and needless strikes.
Minister of Education, Adamu Adamu, disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari rejected it outright when he presented the report to him.
At the ministerial media briefing organised by the Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Adamu submitted: “All contentious issues between government and ASUU had been settled except the quest for members’ salaries for the period of strike to be paid, a demand that Buhari has flatly rejected.”
He said the President’s position had been communicated to the lecturers, who are being awaited to call off the strike.
The minister claimed the union was yet to indicate willingness to end the industrial action, adding that the rejection was to curb excesses of trade unions.
He lamented that despite trillions of naira already expended by government on education sector, the university-based unions have continued to maintain hard position.
The minister hinted that ASUU had begun consultation with members to come up with its next line of action.
The Nation reports that global airlines regulator – International Air Transport Association (IATA), has berated the Nigerian government for holding over $464 million belonging to foreign carriers.
The global body said the unfair practice by the Federal Government has prompted Emirates Airlines to stop flying into Nigeria effective September 1, 2022.
In a statement signed by IATA’s Regional Vice President for Africa and Middle East, Kamil Alawadhiit said: “IATA is disappointed that the amount of airline money blocked from repatriation by the Nigerian government grew to $464 million in July. This is airline money and its repatriation is protected by international agreements in which Nigeria participates. IATA’s many warnings that failure to restore timely repatriation will hurt Nigeria with reduced air connectivity are proving true with the withdrawal of Emirates from the market.
“Airlines cannot be expected to fly if they cannot realise the revenue from ticket sales. Loss of air connectivity harms the local economy, hurts investor confidence, impacts jobs and peoples livelihoods. It’s time for the Government of Nigeria to prioritise the release of airline funds before more damage is done.”
The Middle East carrier had said it will suspend all flights from Nigeria effective September 1, 2022.
The carrier cited ongoing difficulties in repatriating trapped funds by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
GIK/APA