The Group Managing Director of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation, Malam Mele Kyari has intervened and settled the two year old rift between Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) and Belema community in Niger Delta region of Nigeria.
The highlight of the settlement, according to information reaching us was that representatives of Shell and Belema shook hands and embraced one another in the presence of Malam Mele Kyari and the nation’s minister of State for petroleum, Timipre Sylva.
As at October 2018, the Pan Niger Delta Elders Forum (PANDEF), alleged forceful invasion of Belema flow station and gas plant by security operatives on alleged orders of Shell, to forcefully resume oil exploration on the facility.
Two months earlier, the host communities of OML 25, otherwise known as the Belema field, had shut down the Belema flow station and continue to occupy it over some issues and differences with SPDC bordering on neglect and underdevelopment of the community by the oil firm.
We are told that South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa apologised on Saturday for the xenophobic attacks against foreigners living in South Africa, particularly persons involved in business who are seen by the ordinary South African as enemies. He reportedly did this in Harare, Zimbabwe, at the funeral ceremony of former President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Most appropriately, the South African President was booed. He was offering too little too late, and other Africans have every reason to think that South Africans having behaved badly deserve to be booed and even shut out of the African Union, or reported to the International Criminal Court (ICC), as has been recommended in certain quarters. More than a week after the attack on foreigners on the streets of Johannesburg and elsewhere, it has now occurred to the South African President to send envoys to Nigeria and six other African countries. Jeff Radebe, South Africa’s Minister of Energy has visited Abuja to apologise to the government and people of Nigeria.
It may be in keeping with diplomatic traditions to do this, but Africans in unison must make it clear that the hate-driven attack on immigrants in South Africa is totally unacceptable. What we know is that there is a tacit acceptance and promotion of a culture of hate by the South African authorities. That is precisely why it took so long for the South African President to take the matter seriously. Before now, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Grace Naledi Pandor told the world that Nigerians in South Africa are criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers. Deputy Police Minister Bongani Mkongi said no other country would tolerate 80% of its businesses being dominated by foreigners as is the case in South Africa. South African Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula boasted, irresponsibly, that there is nothing South Africa can do about the xenophobic attacks because South Africa is an angry nation.
These were the disturbing messages that came out of South Africa as immigrants were attacked, their shops were pillaged and plundered and Africans from other parts of the continent fled in all directions. Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo – government and nationals – expressed their anger in various forms but South Africa was studiously in denial. The only voices of reason in the midst of that crisis, as far as I could see, were Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters who condemned the deplorable conduct of South Africans; Mangozuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu Chief who gave a useful speech in which he reminded his compatriots of the sacrifice made by other Africans to free the black South African from apartheid. Then, of course, there is the testimony by many South African women, on social media – bold women who rose in defence of Nigerian men, who have been accused in this xenophobic crisis that they are taking over South African businesses and also marrying South African women to the discomfiture of the average South African male.
Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have been so regular and so persistent since 1994, after apartheid. Objection to white rule and domination has been replaced by resistance to the presence of immigrants on South African soil, and this has played out as black on black violence, the hegemony of hate and intolerance, a kind of reverse, umbilical apartheid with the immigrant as victim. The matter is serious. It is disturbing. It is unacceptable. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s apology does not solve the problem. His decision to send envoys across Africa is belated. Is he sincere? I don’t think so. Has he shown required leadership and sincerity of purpose. No. The South African authorities have a responsibility to protect foreigners on their soil. They have failed woefully. Accusations of xenophobia may be difficult to accept, and indeed embarrassing, and hence all that talk about criminality coming from South African officials, but the truth is that South Africa must see this crisis as an opportunity for reflection, review and penitence, and to ensure that these xenophobic attacks do not happen again.
President Ramaphosa’s apology can only make sense if he goes further to take concrete steps to put an end to the growing culture of hate in South Africa. He must match his apology with action. What programme(s) does he intend to put in place to heal a South African nation whose people appear so alienated, confused and disturbed? Are there any concrete ideas on the table to address an issue that goes straight to the heart of South Africa’s relevance, and may be Ramaphosa’s eventual legacy? I doubt if there are any. It seems to me that the big problem is not necessarily the outsider but the failure of the post-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) leadership in South Africa and the emergent black middle class. The apartheid regime was constructed to dehumanise, de-personalize, and violate the black South African. The end of apartheid in 1994 has not made much difference. The emergence in power of a black-dominated African National Congress, the ruling party, after apartheid may have given the impression of a power shift, but in real terms, the black South African has not yet seen the dividends of a post-apartheid South Africa. In the last general elections, the African National Congress (ANC) recorded its worst performance since 1994. The party is divided. It is led by corrupt people who cannot agree on ethical standards either within the party or outside of it. Unemployment rate is over 28%. The people who have benefitted from the end of apartheid represent a very small percentage of the black population. Many black and colored South Africans live under conditions worse than what they faced under apartheid. Nelson Mandela, the first post-apartheid President of South Africa was a universal icon who gave everyone hope. He talked about a rainbow nation and preached unity and reconciliation. Years after Mandela’s death, the average South African can no longer see the rainbow clearly. Most of the young people wielding pangas and sticks and burning down shops belonging to foreigners do not have a sense of history. Many of them were born after the Mandela era. Their hate is borne out of sheer ignorance. Those who know the history have refused to teach them. They just do not know that once upon a time in that same South Africa, a black man was the equivalent of nothing.
The first task before Cyril Ramaphosa is to build a truly rainbow nation on a foundation of unity, reason, justice and service delivery. He needs to do this because the inheritors of Mandela’s legacy are clearly running South Africa aground and giving a bad name to the black man in Africa. This is the original source of the bad conduct of those South Africans who are killing their fellow Africans. They are busy blaming outsiders for the problems that have been created by their own leaders who don’t even have the decency to say the right things and who utter nonsense habitually. They have more or less disappointed the Madiba, with perhaps the only exception of Thabo Mbeki, whose Pan-Africanism contrasts sharply with the insularity and clownishness that we have witnessed from Jacob Zuma to Ramaphosa.
South African blacks are complaining that foreigners are taking their jobs and women because post-apartheid, no sustainable, productive effort has been made to enlarge the black middle class in South Africa. Social mobility remains a problem. Educational standards for blacks have not improved significantly. The few who have crossed the social mobility line are selfish. They have imposed on their own kinsmen such terror and wickedness worse than that of the white architects of apartheid. Those young South Africans venting their anger on Africans and other immigrants in their country are nonethe4less picking on the wrong target. Their problem is not the man from Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, India, Italy, Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, Angola, or Democratic Republic of Congo, let them look for their enemies in the South African parliament, the Presidency and government departments across the country. Those are the real enemies of South Africa not the Mozambican who runs a corner shop in the suburb of Johannesburg; not the Nigerian who believes that a South African woman is the sweetest thing since the apple in the Garden of Eden.
Apologies alone will not be enough. The South African government must embark on a national healing process. The Black South African is not done yet with the anger or the pains of apartheid, and the slowness of post-apartheid recovery. When he finishes chasing the outsider away, he will turn his gaze and anger on his own compatriots, and the Mandela legacy would have been ruined. President Ramaphosa must take South Africa through a new process of healing and reconciliation, South Africa needs an anger-management programme for its citizens on a very large scale. It is bad enough for an individual to slip into depression; it is worse for an entire country to be depressed. South Africa is in the grips of an obvious clinical depression. History may well help. The young South African who is attacking foreigners needs to be taught the history of his own country and present reality. South Africa is a free country today because liberals and progressives across the world stood up to condemn the evil of apartheid: a system that treated the black South African as a non-person on his own soil. The black man in South Africa today can go to a mall, sit in the same bus with a white person, inter-marry freely, in fact feel like a human being because other Africans supported the liberation heroes of South Africa. Here in Nigeria, civil servants had to surrender part of their salaries to support the anti-apartheid struggle. Many musicians: Fela, Bongos Ikwue, Sonny Okosun, Majek Fashek, Onyeka Onwenu, the Mandators, Ayinla Kollington, Sunny Ade waxed records to condemn the dehumanization of the black man in South Africa. Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Ugandans decried the maltreatment of our brothers and sisters in South Africa. Today, the same South Africans whose parents and grandparents were saved from the clutches of white oppression are proving to be a generation of ingrates. History saves a nation. South Africa must teach its young population the history of their country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa should not just send envoys to other African countries. He should personally embark on a diplomatic shuttle across Africa. He should also have a national address devoted to the challenge of xenophobia. He must resist the push by the hawks within his own administration who nurse xenophobic ideas and who in particular convert their sentiments to state policy. His Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Defence Minister, and Deputy Minister of Police should be fired. They may be good people ordinarily, but they have proven to be very bad diplomats and spokespersons. Ramaphosa must make it clear that these persons do not speak on this subject for either the government or the people of South On Monday, September 16, President Cyril Ramaphosa is said to have sent Jeff Radebe, Minister of Energy to apologise to his brother, President Muhammadu Buhari for the attack on Nigerians in South Africa. Radebe reportedly told President Buhari that 50 suspects have so far been apprehended and that the South African government will not tolerate xenophobia. Radebe is a very experienced politician. I have no doubts that he would manage to convince President Buhari. But as he returns to South Africa, after what is clearly a reciprocal exchange of special envoys, President Buhari must tell him that the matter between Nigerians and South Africans is now beyond the Presidential Villas in Abuja and Pretoria. This is one mismanaged case in which international relations has gone from official corridors to the streets. Mr. Radebe should also tell President Ramaphosa not to listen to those advisers who believe that Nigeria is over-reacting. The only solution is that no Nigerian or Nigerian business should ever be harassed or attacked again in South Africa. It is within South Africa’s rights to determine and enforce its immigration laws but if any foreigner manages to set up home or shop in South Africa, then the country itself has an international responsibility to protect all persons within its territory. President Ramaphosa and his team must take that duty seriously.
I should end this commentary by commending the outflow, in fact the overflow, of patriotism by Nigerians over the attack on Nigerians in South Africa. This is not the first time the attacks would happen. There were cases of xenophobia in South Africa in 1994, 2008, 2015, and now 2019, but this time Nigerians have set aside political differences, and ethnic and class sentiments and insisted that an attack on one Nigerian is an attack on all Nigerians. If the Nigerian government had declared war and called out volunteers, there would have been a ready army of citizens ready to fight the South Africans. Nigerians don’t always praise their governments. But there seems to be a consensus of opinion that President Muhammadu, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Nigeria’s Diaspora Commission got it right this time by making it clear that every Nigerian life matters, including the lives of those Naledi Pandor and her likes regard as criminals. The hero in all of this melodrama, however, is Allen Onyema, the CEO of Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, which provided aircraft to evacuate Nigerians, free of charge from South Africa. He deserves a Presidential handshake and a national honour.
President Buhari with L-R: Mr Austin Braimoh, Chairman Police Commission Alh. Musiliu Smith IGP (Rtd), Justice Clara Ogunbiyi, AIG Lawal Bawa (Rtd) and Barr. Rommy Mom as he receives Annual Report of Police Service Commission in State House on 17th Sep 2019
President Muhammadu Buhari has challenged members of the Police Service Commission to redouble their efforts in ensuring that the Nigeria Police Force delivers on its responsibilities.
Speaking today, September 17 while receiving the 2018 Annual Report of the Commission at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, President Buhari said: “the Commission has the most challenging responsibility of carrying out oversight responsibilities of the Police Force.
“The people that comprise this commission are mostly personally known to me and some of them have been through the mill as it were, therefore I expect them to put the Police in order. I personally believe that the Inspector General is doing his best …the Police are always in the frontline and unless we get the police working effectively, the security of this country will remain in doubt.”
He said that, by the mandate of the Commission, the task of appointment, promotion and disciplinary control of officers of the Nigerian Police Force, except the Inspector General, fall under it.
“Your assignment is enormous and calls for sacrifice and commitment especially now that almost every country is faced with severe internal security challenges. Nigeria is no exception,” President Buhari added.
The President praised the Commission for new ideas introduced into the workings of the Force: “I am aware that you have put policies in place to reposition the Police Force in the areas of merit-driven promotion and prompt disciplinary actions. Government will require that you redouble your efforts and ensure that the Police Force receives the required assistance for optimum service delivery.
He called on the Commission to ensure harmonious working relationship with the Police Force.
“I wish to see close communication and understanding between you and the Nigeria Police. This is necessary for the overall efficiency and effectiveness in securing the country,” said the President.
Earlier in his address, Alhaji Musiliu Smith, the Chairman of the Commission who led other members to State House, had intimated the President that, in line with his (President’s) specific directives, the management was gradually putting together a productive Nigeria Police Force, which will attract the endorsement of all Nigerians and also receive the acclaim of the policemen themselves.
He requested for the intervention of the President in overcoming the funding constrains of the Commission as well as securing better office accommodation.
Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, has commended the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on its commitment to the rebuilding of the three most-affected Boko Haram States of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe in the Northeast.
UNDP’s Resident Representative in Nigeria, Mohammed Yahya, had told the Minister during a courtesy visit to the Ministry in Abuja that there was a stabilization facility to take care of the affected states in the areas of infrastructure development including roads, houses, clinics and police stations, among others.
Yahya said that the UNDP had already resource mobilized $64 million for the region in a period of eighteen months with 50 percent coming to Nigeria.
“The Stabilization facility is a by-product of the Regional Stabilization Strategy adopted last year with approval for Nigeria as the largest contributor.
“We were able to launch it in Berlin where your predecessor, former Minister of State, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, represented Nigeria and committed that Nigeria would support the implementation of the facility in the country.”
He said that the effort through the stabilization facility was to convince the community that governments at the federal and state levels were very much interested in ensuring their development and moving them from the concept of crisis to getting the entire region back on its footing.
“So, we hope to show our commitment to Nigeria and see how Nigeria herself is able to contribute to the budget of the programme.”
The minister expressed appreciation to the UNDP on the stabilisation facility and stressed the need to bring back the broken down infrastructure in the three states.
“That will bring a lot of succor to our people; give them meaning to life and a new hope. We will work with you to ensure that those projects come in very quickly.”
He said that the Ministry would be interested in how the UNDP could deploy technology and capacity building in assisting it to develop the new national development plan that would succeed the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) in 2021. The ERGP will come to an end in December 2020.
The United States of America has fingered Iran in the fiery Sunday attack on key Saudi Arabian oil facilities that raised new war worries and sent energy prices spiraling worldwide.
American officials released satellite images of the damage at the heart of the kingdom’s crucial Abqaiq oil processing plant and a key oil field, alleging the pattern of destruction suggested Sunday’s attack came from either Iraq or Iran rather than Yemen, as claimed by Iranian-backed Houthi rebels there.
A Saudi military spokesman later made the same accusation, alleging: “Iranian weapons” had been used in the assault.
Iran rejected the allegations, and a government spokesman said there was “absolutely no chance” of a hoped-for meeting between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Trump at the UN General Assembly next week.
For his part, Trump sent mixed signals, saying his “locked and loaded” government waited for Saudi confirmation of Iran being behind the attack while later tweeting that the US didn’t need Mideast oil “but will help our Allies!”
Downplaying any talk of imminent US military action, Vice President Mike Pence’s chief of staff, Marc Short, told reporters at the White House that the president’s language was “a reflection” that his administration was advancing policies that protect the US “from these sorts of oil shocks.”
“I think that ‘locked and loaded’ is a broad term that talks about the realities that” the US is “safer and more secure domestically from energy independence,” Short said.
The new violence has led to fears that further action on any side could rapidly escalate a confrontation that’s been raging just below the surface in the wider Persian Gulf in recent months. There already have been mysterious attacks on oil tankers that Washington blames on Tehran, at least one suspected Israeli strike on Shiite forces in Iraq, and the downing of a US military surveillance drone by Iran.
Those tensions have increased ever since Trump pulled the US out of Iran’s 2015 agreement with world powers that curtailed Iranian nuclear activities and the US re-imposed sanctions that sent Iran’s economy into freefall.
Benchmark Brent crude prices gained nearly 20 per cent in the first moments of trading today before settling down to over 10 per cent higher as trading continued. A barrel of Brent traded up US $6.45 to $66.67.
That spike represented the biggest percentage value jump in Brent crude since the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War that saw a US-led coalition expel Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait.
US benchmark West Texas crude was up around 10 per cent. US gasoline and heating oil similarly were up.
The attack halted production of 5.7 million barrels of crude a day, more than half of Saudi Arabia’s global daily exports and more than 5 per cent of the world’s daily crude oil production. Most of that output goes to Asia.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels, who have been targeted by a Saudi-led coalition since March 2015 in a vicious war in the Arab world’s poorest country, maintain they launched 10 drones that caused the extensive damage. They reiterated that Saudi oil sites remained in their crosshairs, warning foreign workers to stay away.
US officials say that the damage done to the north-facing parts of the facilities suggest the attack instead came across the Persian Gulf from Iraq or Iran. American officials have yet to offer substantial evidence to support their claims, though Iran in the past has relied on hard-to-attribute attacks or proxy forces to launch assaults against its enemies.
At a news conference, Saudi military spokesman Col. Turki al-Maliki said, “All the indications and operational evidence, and the weapons that were used in the terrorist attack, whether in Buqayq or Khurais, indicate with initial evidence that these weapons are Iranian weapons.”
Al-Maliki offered no immediate evidence to support his allegations, which came after Trump said the US awaited word from Saudi Arabia about who it suspected launched the attacks.
Iraqi Premier Adel Abdel-Mahdi said he received a call today from US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who confirmed that the attack didn’t come from Iraq. The State Department did not immediately acknowledge what was discussed. Iraq is home to Iranian-backed Shiite militias who aided it in its fight against the Islamic State group.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi again denied the US claims today, telling journalists the accusation was “condemned, unacceptable and categorically baseless.” Government spokesman Ali Rabiei meanwhile said a Trump-Rouhani meeting in New York as of now wouldn’t happen.
“Currently we don’t see any sign from the Americans which has honesty in it, and if the current state continues there will be absolutely no chance of a meeting between the two presidents,” Rabiei said.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry, while expressing “grave concern” about the attack, warned against putting the blame on Iran, saying that plans of military retaliation against Iran are unacceptable.
US satellite photos released overnight appeared to show the attack on Abqaiq, the world’s largest oil processing facility, may have struck the most sensitive part of the facility, its stabilisation area. The Washington-based Centre for Strategic and International Studies has said the area includes “storage tanks and processing and compressor trains — which greatly increases the likelihood of a strike successfully disrupting or destroying its operations.”
At 5.7 million barrels of crude oil a day, the Saudi disruption would be the greatest on record for world markets, according to figures from the Paris-based International Energy Agency. It just edges out the 5.6 million-barrels-a-day disruption around the time of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, according to the IEA.
Though the world’s overall energy demands in the past were smaller, the Saudi outage has sparked concern among analysts of prices pushing to $80 a barrel and beyond. Publicly traded airlines, whose major costs include jet fuel, suffered globally. That could in turn push up prices on everything from travel to a gallon of gas at the pump.
Saudi Arabia has pledged that its stockpiles would keep global markets supplied as it rushes to repair damage at the Abqaiq facility and its Khurais oil field. However, Saudi Aramco has not responded publicly to questions about its facilities.
Stabilisation means processing so-called sour crude oil into sweet crude. That allows it to be transported onto transshipment points on the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, or to refineries for local production.
Fernando Ferreira, the director of geopolitical risk at the Washington-based Rapidan Energy Group, said rebuilding that infrastructure “will take many months.”
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has thumbed up for the fight against corruption which the government of President Muhammadu Buhari waged in its first tenure, even as he hinted that the next level as the second term got under way would be technologically base.
“The Next Level is to deepen the fight against corruption especially in government procurement processes and government delivered services. We believe that technology and automation will help, moving things away from the discretion of the desk officer, to the agnostic electronic platform.”
Speaking today, September 16, at the opening session of the 2019 Annual Management Conference of the Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM) in Abuja, the nation’s capital, Professor Osinbajo said that the government aims at ensuring that every Nigerian is able to obtain passports and drivers licenses and others without having to pay bribes or suffer needless delays.
Vice President Osinbajo admitted that how to do these efficiently is the implementation challenge, “and of course, we are open to advice from the gurus. “Next is the question of moving more towards consistency in applying merit as a first consideration as opposed to quotas as a first consideration in public appointments. Every part of Nigeria has great talents. Even If we are picking talents from every State, that choice should be merit driven. The civil service has in the past three years insisted on examinations for promotion and even for permanent secretaries, that process must be maintained and final choices per state should follow the order of merit. There are many open questions on implementation. Again, over to you. “The issues of capacity in Human Capital Development, affordable health care for all, education, especially getting out-of-school children into the school system, education of girls, and relevant educational curricula, are front burner issues today.” Part of Professor Osinbajo speech is reproduced here: Health care for all cannot come from budget allocations alone. As of last week, we had taken major steps in the provision of our universal coverage policy. In 2018, we implemented the allocation of 1% of the CRF to healthcare. Consequently, we launched the first phase of the BASIC HEALTH CARE PROVISION FUND with the disbursement of N6.5 billion to the first 15 qualifying States and the FCT. The money goes to Social Health Insurance Agencies in the States to reduce the hardship of patients making out-of-pocket payments for healthcare. The Next Level is the implementation of compulsory health insurance for all Nigerians on a co-payment basis with government. We are working at the level of the National Economic Council to achieve Mr. President’s June 20th charge to State governors to ensure full implementation of free and compulsory education in the first nine years of the school life of every Nigerian child. The extensive use of technology, focusing on getting girls into schools, introducing mainstream subjects into the Quranic School system, and implementation of the STEAM curricula are some of the main components of the educational plans that we have going forward. Some of you are familiar with the Homegrown School Feeding Programme. That programme has been particularly helpful in ensuring an upward trajectory in education enrolment in primary schools all over the country. Today we are in 32 States and feeding over 9.8 million children. There are many implementation challenges in how to ensure high quality education on scale. At the moment several programs including technology solutions are in use or being considered in various States. We need to efficiently identify the best options and apply them on scale. The implementation of policies and programmes to address the challenges of poverty and wealth creation, jobs for millions of young active people now and in the future require collective thinking and action. While we have created appreciable value in agriculture, with the Anchor Borrowers programme by adding new jobs and acreage in paddy rice, sorghum, millet, cassava and yams, we recognize that it is in the agro-allied value chain that the greatest value lies for jobs and improved productivity. So, for a crucial component of our mechanization of agriculture, we have a programme with the Brazilian government, they are making available a $1 billion facility to provide equipment, where we intend to build service centres in every local government to render extension services, leasing of farm equipment and provision of improved inputs. In addition to that, there will be six assembly plants for tractors and other equipment. The enhancing of commerce in agriculture by the building of rural roads for access to markets and commodity exchanges are also priority items. The truth is that in every development plan to create the number of quality of jobs that we want, we will have to do a lot with what our agricultural outcomes are. What our plans are and how they are implemented, especially in the agro-allied value chain are important. The expansion of opportunities in manufacturing with the completion of the first phase of the special economic zones in Enyimba City in Abia, Lekki Free Trade in Lagos and the Funtua Cotton in Katsina are priorities and good progress has been made thus far. We already have investor-indication in the Afro-Exim Bank and the AfDB. The IFC is also supporting the initiative. In addition, we are in collaboration with the Bank of Industry, investing in infrastructure, in small business and commercial clusters all over Nigeria. Examples are, Leather works clusters, shoe making, food processing clusters, printer clusters etc. These are to benefit from the provision of power, equipment, and other infrastructure. Under what is described as our Energizing Economies scheme, we licensed and ensured the provision of power on a willing-buyer-willing seller basis to large and medium scale markets, such as Sabon Gari in Kano, Ariaria in Abia, and Sura market in Lagos. We intend to continue with the Energizing Economies scheme. We also have the Energizing Education scheme where we are licensing private power producers, providing power to 37 universities and 7 Teaching Hospitals. We believe that we can resolve some of the power problems by decentralizing power generation and distribution such that not just the DISCOS and GENCOS will be involved, but that anyone willing to produce power are able to do so, and we are able to license more people who can produce power, especially on a willing-buyer-willing-seller basis. It was in providing a better scope for jobs, especially for young people in technology and innovation, that we have been facing some of the critical challenges, especially with access to credit. Today, there are many startups and innovation, but in a country our size, the question is providing credit on scale and on an accessible basis. So, the Bank of Industry has about N10 billion that it has put aside for innovation in technology. But N10 billion is not enough for a country our size. So, we are talking to the AfDB, they are putting together a $500 million facility for innovation and for startups in technology, and we think that can give a lot of impetus to a lot of the talents that we see today in technology and innovation. We have also started a technology and entertainment advisory group, where we have a lot of the young people who are in technology and entertainment, advising government directly on the policies that are required for ensuring that technology and innovation is not stupefied by regulations. For example, a lot of the Fin-Tech companies are basically doing banking type transactions, but they can’t be regulated or licensed like banks. So, there is a need for a policy review in that area. What we have tried to do is to provide those kinds of policies working closely with the Central Bank. With respect to small businesses, we have seen quite a bit of work being done, especially with the MSMEs; and already we have done MSMEs Clinics in 24 States, and we have also established one stop shops for regulatory approvals in some zones. The clinics which are attended by all regulatory authorities has been an eye opener for them, as they hear and see the problems of small businesses first hand. This is quite important because so many small businesses have been complaining about getting approvals from NAFDAC, SON, CAC etc. So, the clinics are important in ensuring that the regulatory agencies themselves understand what the issues are and that has led to some of the changes we see today. It was in the process of thinking through the problems of access to credit for informal traders and businesses, and especially petty traders, the so-called-bottom-of-the-pyramid in the commerce chain that we developed with the Bank of Industry, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme, or what is better known as the MarketMoni and TraderMoni schemes. Thinking through the budget in a democracy with the large numbers that we have, obviously, what our focus should be on how to ensure that the bottom of the pyramid, which is the largest number, get some help and are empowered to do their own business as well. One of the very important things is how countries as large as ours, and with the levels of poverty that we have, are able to structure their budgets in such a way as to cater for that bottom of the pyramid. That is something that has always escaped us and we cannot seriously talk about the welfare of the majority without budgets that think through the questions that address the welfare of the majority. What we have seen so far is that both schemes have greatly enhanced access to credit, improved the inventories of petty traders. It is evident that if we don’t find solutions to some of those issues, it will more or less become difficult to take people out of poverty. And we have seen some of these schemes work in other parts of the world. We have seen these schemes work in India, taking large numbers of people out of poverty. We think that these schemes will work here if they are faithfully and diligently implemented. What we have been able to do so far is 2 million people; we are merely scratching the surface. There is some cheering news, the programme recently won the AfDB prize for financial inclusion. And we think that there is room for improvement. How do we scale up? We found that there is diligence in repayment, people found that they will get more when they repay their loans. Let me speak quickly to what will be done differently on implementation of government plans in this dispensation. After the Presidential Policy Dialogue preceding the inauguration of Ministers, the President developed a list of specific mandates for each ministry. Each of those mandates has clearly spelt out action points. Every minister has a mandate with action points, some of the mandates have 7 or 8 points. The ministers are to render their first reports on performance in December. So, in some sense we are moving to a more measurable way of determining where ministers are going and what they ought to do. Of course, there would be challenges of funding, clarity of plans etc. The full and effective performance of these mandates is, of course, an implementation challenge. We look forward to your contributions on the journey.
Regional Security Officer and the Cluster Control and Compliance Manager of the Fidelity Bank Plc, Ibadan zonal Office, has handed over one Olumide Agbabiaka, a sales agent of the bank to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for having allegedly stolen N137 million belonging to a bank’s customer.
Olumide Agbabiaka was alleged to have suppressed, diverted and stole the money from a customer’s personal corporate account in Ibadan and that the offence was committed between January and July 2017.
The suspect was the account officer attached to the customer who had been visiting the business premises of the victim weekly to collect cash which he was expected to lodge in the customer’s accounts, domiciled in the bank’s Challenge branch.
It was alleged that instead of depositing the money at different times, he remitted only a portion and on many occasions, diverted the whole sum to personal use, and that in order to cover the criminal acts, the suspect would issue fictitious bank slips to deceive the customer that he truly deposited the sums.
“This continued until the customer reviewed the statement of his account and reconciled same with the cash collection register.”
The petition, which the detecting officer wrote to the EFCC said that the fraudulent activities were later discovered, leading to him being handed over to the EFCC.
The EFCC’s spokesperson, Tony Orilade who confirmed the development today, September 16 in a statement, said: “so far, the EFCC investigators have established a prima facie case of diversion and stealing against the suspect.
“Further investigations also revealed that he had used the suppressed sums to build houses, purchase cars, invest in fixed deposits and insurance policies.”
Tony Orilade said that the suspect also gave part of the stolen money to people as friendly loans, adding that some of the items had been recovered and registered as exhibits.
He said that the suspect would be charged to court after investigations have been concluded.
Delta state has again, emerged the winner of the 2019 edition of the National Youth Games (NYG) held in Ilorin. They gathered 104 medals comprising 41 gold, 32 silver and 31 bronze.
The 2019 edition win meant that Delta had won all five editions of the game since its inception in 2013.
Team Lagos placed 2nd on the medals table after garnering 72 medals: 22 gold, 36 silver and 14 bronze medals. Bayelsa came third with 45 medals: 17 gold, 6 silver and 22 bronze medals.
Akwa Ibom placed fourth on the table with 41 medals comprising 16 gold, 12 silver and 13 bronze medals.
Edo placed 5th on the medals table with 30 medals of 13 gold, 7 silver and 10 bronze medals.
The 2019 edition, which is the 5th edition, had 3,893 athletes drawn from 33 states and the FCT who competed in 34 sporting events.
New 238 athletes were discovered to be nurtured by the Federal Ministry of Youths and Sports.
Yobe state won the Best behaved state while Akwa Ibom won the best kitted team.
“A comprehensive analysis of crime statistics on major cities across the world would reveal that Abuja has one of the lowest crime rates and remains indisputably one of the safest capital cities in the world.”
These were the words of the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, while reacting to deluge of stories making the rounds recently that Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory was under kidnapping and armed robbery siege.
A statement today, September 16, by the Force Public Relations Officer, Frank Mba, quoted the police boss as condemning the recent speculations in some sections of the media, particularly the Social Media, of an upsurge in crime rate within and around the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
The Inspector General of Police insisted that the Federal Capital Territory is safe, secure and not under any form of siege even as he admitted that like other climes across the World, Nigeria as a country has its security challenges.
He stressed that the FCT Police Command has a robust anti-crime architecture which is continually re-jigged to effectively tackle prevailing and emerging crimes.
He enjoined all law-abiding citizens and visitors alike to go about their lawful endeavours without any fear or apprehension.
President Muhammadu Buhari has assured the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that Nigeria stands in solidarity with it in the drone attacks yesterday on the refinery plants at Khurais and Abqaiq.
A statement by the senior special assistant to the President on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu said that Buhari described such attack as an economic warfare.
“The identities of those who sent the drones to attack the Saudi refineries, and from where, may not yet be known. Still, these attacks similarly represent economic warfare aimed at damaging a government, but, in reality, always and only damaging innocent citizens’ livelihoods: those with no place, nor cause, to be harmed,.”
The President recalled that Nigeria once experienced attacks on its own oil facilities, saying that those who sought, by doing so, to undermine governments of the day did not succeed then and would not succeed at any time.
“The attackers of Saudi Arabia will win no friends in the international community for their actions– whoever they may be, and however certain they be in their cause.”
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Minister of State for Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanade Agba, has commended the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) on its commitment to the rebuilding of the three most-affected Boko Haram States of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe in the Northeast.
The United States of America has fingered Iran in the fiery Sunday attack on key Saudi Arabian oil facilities that raised new war worries and sent energy prices spiraling worldwide.
Regional Security Officer and the Cluster Control and Compliance Manager of the Fidelity Bank Plc, Ibadan zonal Office, has handed over one Olumide Agbabiaka, a sales agent of the bank to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for having allegedly stolen N137 million belonging to a bank’s customer.
Delta state has again, emerged the winner of the 2019 edition of the National Youth Games (NYG) held in Ilorin. They gathered 104 medals comprising 41 gold, 32 silver and 31 bronze.
President Muhammadu Buhari has assured the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia that Nigeria stands in solidarity with it in the drone attacks yesterday on the refinery plants at Khurais and Abqaiq.
Nigeria, Xenophobia And Ramaphosa’s Apology, By Reuben Abati
It may be in keeping with diplomatic traditions to do this, but Africans in unison must make it clear that the hate-driven attack on immigrants in South Africa is totally unacceptable. What we know is that there is a tacit acceptance and promotion of a culture of hate by the South African authorities. That is precisely why it took so long for the South African President to take the matter seriously. Before now, South African Minister of Foreign Affairs Grace Naledi Pandor told the world that Nigerians in South Africa are criminals, drug dealers and human traffickers. Deputy Police Minister Bongani Mkongi said no other country would tolerate 80% of its businesses being dominated by foreigners as is the case in South Africa. South African Defence Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula boasted, irresponsibly, that there is nothing South Africa can do about the xenophobic attacks because South Africa is an angry nation.
These were the disturbing messages that came out of South Africa as immigrants were attacked, their shops were pillaged and plundered and Africans from other parts of the continent fled in all directions. Rwanda, Nigeria, Zambia, Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo – government and nationals – expressed their anger in various forms but South Africa was studiously in denial. The only voices of reason in the midst of that crisis, as far as I could see, were Julius Malema of the Economic Freedom Fighters who condemned the deplorable conduct of South Africans; Mangozuthu Buthelezi, the Zulu Chief who gave a useful speech in which he reminded his compatriots of the sacrifice made by other Africans to free the black South African from apartheid. Then, of course, there is the testimony by many South African women, on social media – bold women who rose in defence of Nigerian men, who have been accused in this xenophobic crisis that they are taking over South African businesses and also marrying South African women to the discomfiture of the average South African male.
Xenophobic attacks in South Africa have been so regular and so persistent since 1994, after apartheid. Objection to white rule and domination has been replaced by resistance to the presence of immigrants on South African soil, and this has played out as black on black violence, the hegemony of hate and intolerance, a kind of reverse, umbilical apartheid with the immigrant as victim. The matter is serious. It is disturbing. It is unacceptable. President Cyril Ramaphosa’s apology does not solve the problem. His decision to send envoys across Africa is belated. Is he sincere? I don’t think so. Has he shown required leadership and sincerity of purpose. No. The South African authorities have a responsibility to protect foreigners on their soil. They have failed woefully. Accusations of xenophobia may be difficult to accept, and indeed embarrassing, and hence all that talk about criminality coming from South African officials, but the truth is that South Africa must see this crisis as an opportunity for reflection, review and penitence, and to ensure that these xenophobic attacks do not happen again.
President Ramaphosa’s apology can only make sense if he goes further to take concrete steps to put an end to the growing culture of hate in South Africa. He must match his apology with action. What programme(s) does he intend to put in place to heal a South African nation whose people appear so alienated, confused and disturbed? Are there any concrete ideas on the table to address an issue that goes straight to the heart of South Africa’s relevance, and may be Ramaphosa’s eventual legacy? I doubt if there are any. It seems to me that the big problem is not necessarily the outsider but the failure of the post-apartheid African National Congress (ANC) leadership in South Africa and the emergent black middle class. The apartheid regime was constructed to dehumanise, de-personalize, and violate the black South African. The end of apartheid in 1994 has not made much difference. The emergence in power of a black-dominated African National Congress, the ruling party, after apartheid may have given the impression of a power shift, but in real terms, the black South African has not yet seen the dividends of a post-apartheid South Africa. In the last general elections, the African National Congress (ANC) recorded its worst performance since 1994. The party is divided. It is led by corrupt people who cannot agree on ethical standards either within the party or outside of it. Unemployment rate is over 28%. The people who have benefitted from the end of apartheid represent a very small percentage of the black population. Many black and colored South Africans live under conditions worse than what they faced under apartheid. Nelson Mandela, the first post-apartheid President of South Africa was a universal icon who gave everyone hope. He talked about a rainbow nation and preached unity and reconciliation. Years after Mandela’s death, the average South African can no longer see the rainbow clearly. Most of the young people wielding pangas and sticks and burning down shops belonging to foreigners do not have a sense of history. Many of them were born after the Mandela era. Their hate is borne out of sheer ignorance. Those who know the history have refused to teach them. They just do not know that once upon a time in that same South Africa, a black man was the equivalent of nothing.
The first task before Cyril Ramaphosa is to build a truly rainbow nation on a foundation of unity, reason, justice and service delivery. He needs to do this because the inheritors of Mandela’s legacy are clearly running South Africa aground and giving a bad name to the black man in Africa. This is the original source of the bad conduct of those South Africans who are killing their fellow Africans. They are busy blaming outsiders for the problems that have been created by their own leaders who don’t even have the decency to say the right things and who utter nonsense habitually. They have more or less disappointed the Madiba, with perhaps the only exception of Thabo Mbeki, whose Pan-Africanism contrasts sharply with the insularity and clownishness that we have witnessed from Jacob Zuma to Ramaphosa.
South African blacks are complaining that foreigners are taking their jobs and women because post-apartheid, no sustainable, productive effort has been made to enlarge the black middle class in South Africa. Social mobility remains a problem. Educational standards for blacks have not improved significantly. The few who have crossed the social mobility line are selfish. They have imposed on their own kinsmen such terror and wickedness worse than that of the white architects of apartheid. Those young South Africans venting their anger on Africans and other immigrants in their country are nonethe4less picking on the wrong target. Their problem is not the man from Mozambique, Zambia, Tanzania, India, Italy, Rwanda, Nigeria, Uganda, Angola, or Democratic Republic of Congo, let them look for their enemies in the South African parliament, the Presidency and government departments across the country. Those are the real enemies of South Africa not the Mozambican who runs a corner shop in the suburb of Johannesburg; not the Nigerian who believes that a South African woman is the sweetest thing since the apple in the Garden of Eden.
Apologies alone will not be enough. The South African government must embark on a national healing process. The Black South African is not done yet with the anger or the pains of apartheid, and the slowness of post-apartheid recovery. When he finishes chasing the outsider away, he will turn his gaze and anger on his own compatriots, and the Mandela legacy would have been ruined. President Ramaphosa must take South Africa through a new process of healing and reconciliation, South Africa needs an anger-management programme for its citizens on a very large scale. It is bad enough for an individual to slip into depression; it is worse for an entire country to be depressed. South Africa is in the grips of an obvious clinical depression. History may well help. The young South African who is attacking foreigners needs to be taught the history of his own country and present reality. South Africa is a free country today because liberals and progressives across the world stood up to condemn the evil of apartheid: a system that treated the black South African as a non-person on his own soil. The black man in South Africa today can go to a mall, sit in the same bus with a white person, inter-marry freely, in fact feel like a human being because other Africans supported the liberation heroes of South Africa. Here in Nigeria, civil servants had to surrender part of their salaries to support the anti-apartheid struggle. Many musicians: Fela, Bongos Ikwue, Sonny Okosun, Majek Fashek, Onyeka Onwenu, the Mandators, Ayinla Kollington, Sunny Ade waxed records to condemn the dehumanization of the black man in South Africa. Ghanaians, Zimbabweans, Ugandans decried the maltreatment of our brothers and sisters in South Africa. Today, the same South Africans whose parents and grandparents were saved from the clutches of white oppression are proving to be a generation of ingrates. History saves a nation. South Africa must teach its young population the history of their country.
President Cyril Ramaphosa should not just send envoys to other African countries. He should personally embark on a diplomatic shuttle across Africa. He should also have a national address devoted to the challenge of xenophobia. He must resist the push by the hawks within his own administration who nurse xenophobic ideas and who in particular convert their sentiments to state policy. His Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Defence Minister, and Deputy Minister of Police should be fired. They may be good people ordinarily, but they have proven to be very bad diplomats and spokespersons. Ramaphosa must make it clear that these persons do not speak on this subject for either the government or the people of South On Monday, September 16, President Cyril Ramaphosa is said to have sent Jeff Radebe, Minister of Energy to apologise to his brother, President Muhammadu Buhari for the attack on Nigerians in South Africa. Radebe reportedly told President Buhari that 50 suspects have so far been apprehended and that the South African government will not tolerate xenophobia. Radebe is a very experienced politician. I have no doubts that he would manage to convince President Buhari. But as he returns to South Africa, after what is clearly a reciprocal exchange of special envoys, President Buhari must tell him that the matter between Nigerians and South Africans is now beyond the Presidential Villas in Abuja and Pretoria. This is one mismanaged case in which international relations has gone from official corridors to the streets. Mr. Radebe should also tell President Ramaphosa not to listen to those advisers who believe that Nigeria is over-reacting. The only solution is that no Nigerian or Nigerian business should ever be harassed or attacked again in South Africa. It is within South Africa’s rights to determine and enforce its immigration laws but if any foreigner manages to set up home or shop in South Africa, then the country itself has an international responsibility to protect all persons within its territory. President Ramaphosa and his team must take that duty seriously.
I should end this commentary by commending the outflow, in fact the overflow, of patriotism by Nigerians over the attack on Nigerians in South Africa. This is not the first time the attacks would happen. There were cases of xenophobia in South Africa in 1994, 2008, 2015, and now 2019, but this time Nigerians have set aside political differences, and ethnic and class sentiments and insisted that an attack on one Nigerian is an attack on all Nigerians. If the Nigerian government had declared war and called out volunteers, there would have been a ready army of citizens ready to fight the South Africans. Nigerians don’t always praise their governments. But there seems to be a consensus of opinion that President Muhammadu, Nigeria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Nigeria’s Diaspora Commission got it right this time by making it clear that every Nigerian life matters, including the lives of those Naledi Pandor and her likes regard as criminals. The hero in all of this melodrama, however, is Allen Onyema, the CEO of Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, which provided aircraft to evacuate Nigerians, free of charge from South Africa. He deserves a Presidential handshake and a national honour.