Thursday, 2 March 2017
Xenophobic attacks: Delta govt, Police halt picketing of South African firms
By Festus Ahon
ASABA—Delta State Government and the state Police Command, yesterday, aborted moves by members of the National Association of Nigeria Students, NANS, Zone B, to attack Shoprite and other companies with South African interest in the South-South and South-East regions.
The aborted attacks by the students body was in retaliation of the killings of Nigerians and other blacks in South Africa.
But the state government and Police authorities which got wind of the planned attack by the students, led by the zonal coordinator, Pedro Obi, intervened and appealed to them to shelve the picketing of firms with South African interest in the two geo-political zones.
Speaking to newsmen after the aborted protest, Obi said the students succumbed because of the regard they have for the state government and Police authorities, adding that Shoprite and other companies with South African interest also have “Nigerian interests and we are not ready to put more Nigerians into further hardship.”
Condemning the xenophobic attacks, Obi frowned at the nonchalant attitude of the South African government to the killings of Nigerians in that country.
He urged President Jacob Zuma to stop playing politics with the lives of innocent Nigerians and frowned at the “snail pace of the Nigerian government in handling the xenophobic attacks.”
It will be recalled that the national leadership of NANS had last month mobilized students against businesses with South African interests in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, in the wake of the killings of Nigerians in South Africa.
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NNPC accuses DISCOs, TCN of frustrating stable power supply
By Michael Eboh
Abuja— The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, accused Distribution Companies, DISCOs, and the Transmission Company of Nigeria, TCN, of frustrating stable power supply in the country.
It also stated that the country currently had enough gas to generate up to 4,800 megawatts (MW) of electricity and 6,000 megawatts by the second quarter of 2017.
Group Managing Director of the NNPC, Mr. Maikanti Baru, stated this at the Oloibiri Lecture Series and Energy Forum, organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers, SPE, in Abuja.
Baru noted that Nigeria was currently producing an average of 8.0 billion standard cubic feet, scfd, per day of gas, of which 1.3 billion scfd was utilised for domestic consumption; 3.5 billion scfd for export; 2.5 billion scfd for re-injection/fuel gas use, while about 700 million scfd was flared.
He said: “As we speak today, there is enough gas to generate about 4800MW and 6000MW by second quarter 2017 based on our gas supply plan, but the power sector is presently struggling to evacuate 4500MW power due to DISCOs’ incessant rejection of allocated load and transmission line constraints.”
Baru disclosed that despite the difficult environment in which it operates, the NNPC was committed to ensuring adequate gas supply to meet Nigeria’s industrial growth.
Also speaking, Mr. Dada Thomas, President, Nigerian Gas Association and Managing Director, Frontier Oil Limited, lamented that the country had not been able to harness its God-given gas resources optimally for domestic use.
According to him, the country is using a little amount of the gas it has, with the bulk of it being used by the power plants within the country’s poorly regulated power value chain that is threatening to bankrupt entity in the chain.
He said: “If we must unlock gas development, we are going to connect the dot of the production location, producers to the consumers and it is going to take a lot of money.
“If we are trying to actualize the gas master plan, we are going to need at least $10 billion.”
He further identified the five top issues bedeviling the gas industry to include insecurity, lack of sanctity of contracts, low pricing, power sector illiquidity and lack of infrastructure. For 40 years, we have been bedeviled by the same problem day in day out. We cannot go on like this.’’
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Mr President’s health issues
By Donu Kogbara
MR President flew to London on January 19. His office described this trip as a “medical vacation”; and he’s still in the UK, receiving treatment.
His absence has generated endless speculation and plenty of gossip. Ever since he left Nigeria, various media and non-media fora have been ablaze with rumours about the nature of his illness, the length of time he’s likely to spend away from his desk in Abuja and the possibility that he will never return (at one point a couple of weeks ago, someone was irresponsibly spreading the false claim that he had died).
There have also been numerous stories about the aides and relatives who are allegedly controlling access to him, the people who are allegedly being prevented from seeing him; and so on.
I have mixed feelings about this situation. Sometimes I think that the Presidency’s communications team should be less uptight and more transparent and jolly well tell us exactly what is wrong with our Oga-At-The-Top. After all, Muhammadu Buhari is a public servant, so shouldn’t the state of his health be a public matter?
But sometimes I wonder whether every gory detail is the general public’s business. In other words, does he not deserve privacy? Is it not enough that we have been informed that he is ill? Why does anyone who is not a member of his family or a particularly close or particularly senior government official or political associate need to know more?
Also, why all this fuss and bother about access to Mr President being controlled as if there is something sinister about limiting access to a patient or something sinister about vetting his guest list?
Is it not normal for access to ANYONE who is ill to be controlled by their staff or nearest and dearest? When ordinary people (never mind heads of state) are suffering from ailments or simply recuperating, is it desirable for every Tom, Dick and Harry (or Tunde, Emeka and Ibrahim!) to be allowed to see them?
Mr President has been photographed with various VIP visitors, including key APC personnel – the Senate President, the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, etc. Must he see everyone who wants to see him at any time, never mind at a time when he’s frail?
When I was kidnapped and released by my abductors after two weeks of heavy stress and hell, I was amazed by the number of people who felt aggrieved about the fact that I didn’t take calls or respond to emails for several weeks.
It was as if their feelings were more important than my trauma!
Having said all of this, isn’t it a BIG shame that Nigerian Presidents are still running abroad for medical reasons?
I’m told that there are some highly competent specialist doctors in Nigeria. And I’d have expected Buhari (who has made much of his modest, ascetic, abstemious tendencies) – of all people – to keep costs down by getting treatment at home.
He claims to be a man of the people and friend of the Talakawas and the penniless. And it would’ve been nice if he had spent the past couple of years beefing domestic hospitals up, so that he and everyone else could get the best possible treatment on Nigerian soil.
Meanwhile, Buhari spoke with his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, last week on the telephone for the first time since he took off to London.
Adesina, who confirmed the conversation on Facebook and Twitter, said that
until then, he’d only spoken to third parties who are with the President in London and that:
“Not once did I ask them to take the phone to him, deliberately so, because I didn’t need to speak with him to validate the fact that he was alive. And since he is on vacation, he has a right to his privacy.”
Anyone who is disgruntled about being fenced should take a leaf out of Adesina’s book because he has the right attitude and realises that it’s about the person who has problems, not about him!
Drama as Senate screens 82-year-old ambassadorial nominee
THE Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, on Wednesday, screened an 82-year-old non-career ambassadorial nominee, Justice Sylvanus Nsofor (retd.), who refused to recite the National Anthem when he was asked to do so. The senators were shocked but Nsofor was eventually asked to take a bow and leave the venue.
I am much less shocked by his recalcitrance than by the fact that a man of that age is still on the job market! How selfish can anyone be?!!!
He was a Judge of the High Court of Nigeria, a Justice of the Court of Appeal, and a Lecturer of Law at the Holborn College of Law in London .
So he’s immensely accomplished. But surely it is time for him to forget about career ambitions and stand back and hand the baton to younger generations.
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Wednesday, 8 February 2017
Germany to deport 12,000 Nigerian asylum seekers (Read full details)
Nigerians deported
Except something providential happens, over 12,000 Nigerians seeking asylum in Germany risk being deported next year.Germany’s Global Head of Programmes, Migration and Development, Dr. Ralf Sanftenberg, dropped the hint yesterday during a courtesy call on the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to the President on Foreign Affairs and Diaspora, Mrs. Abike Dabiri-Erewa in Abuja.
Sanftenberg, who led a delegation from Germany’s Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, was on a site assessment mission for assisted-voluntary returnees of Nigeria’s irregular migrants in his country.
The mission is saddled with the responsibility of coordinating the Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM), which offers returnees support service and knowledge transfer.
“We have over 37,000 Nigerians in Germany and more than 12,000 of them are asylum seekers. There is a little chance for their applications to be moved and they may be forced to come back to Nigeria next year,” he stated.
According to the envoy, about 99 per cent of them are likely to be denied asylum status since Nigeria is not considered one of the war-ravaged countries.
Sanftenberg, however, noted that if they were willing to return home voluntarily, they would be assisted through a support programme organised by the German government.
A member of the delegation, who is a consultant to the programme, Stephanie Alofokhia-Ghogomu, urged the Nigerian asylum seekers to return home. Alofokhia-Ghogomu, who was also a voluntary returnee, said she had spent half of her life in Germany, adding that she had to return home to contribute to the development of Nigeria.
Dabiri-Erewa commended the German Chancellor, Angel Merkel for her professional handling of illegal migration in the country.“So, we will look forward to seeing what you want to do in terms of setting up German migrant services in Nigeria,” she added.
The presidential aide urged the affected Nigerians to return home and take advantage of the assistance being provided by the German government.“For Nigerians in Germany, who may wish to return, there is a better place for them at home to help them live a better live. Germany has the Ministry of Internal Affairs and budget for the returnees. And there are services that would be provided through the German government which they can enjoy,” Dabiri-Erewa stated.
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