The Nation Newspaper

Tag: emergency

  • Buhari seeks emergency powers to tackle economy

    Buhari seeks emergency powers to tackle economy

    President to meet Saraki, Dogara

    Bill to rescue economy ready

    President Muhammadu Buhari will be seeking emergency powers from the National Assembly to push his planned stimulus for the economy.

    The objectives of the action-plan on the economy, which is in recession, include shoring up the value of the naira, creation of more jobs, boosting of foreign reserves, reviving  the manufacturing sector and improving power.

    Government sources said the decision to seek emergency powers for the President was based on a proposal from the economic team headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. The team reviewed the various policies so far introduced and how they have affected the economy.

    The economic team, it was learnt, gauged the mood of the polity and decided that unless there is an urgency which some of the extant laws will not permit, “the recession may be longer than expected and Nigerians will not get the desired respite, which is the goal of this government”.

    An executive bill titled: “Emergency Economic Stabilisation Bill 2016” is to be presented to the National Assembly when the Senate and the House of Representatives resume from vacation on September 12.

    In the bill, the executive will be asking for the President to be given sweeping powers to set aside some extant laws and use executive orders to roll out an economic recovery package within the next one year.

    Buhari will be seeking powers to:

    • abridge the procurement process to support stimulus spending on critical sectors of the economy;
    • make orders to favour local contractors/suppliers in contract awards;
    • abridge the process of sale or lease of government assets to generate revenue;
    • allow virement of budgetary allocation to projects that are urgent, without going back to the National Assembly.
    • amend certain laws, such as the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) Act, so that states that cannot access their cash trapped in the accounts of the commission because they cannot meet the counterpart funding, can do so; and
    • to embark on radical reforms in visa issuance at Nigeria’s consular offices and on arrival in the country and to compel some agencies of government like the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), the National Agency for Foods Administration and Control (NAFDAC) and others to improve on their turn around operation time for the benefit of business.

    The extant law on procurement does not allow contract award earlier than six months after decision. Part of this is a mandatory advertisement of the contract for six weeks. The economic team has found this to be unacceptable, given our present circumstance.

    Although the president has the power to order the sale or lease of any government asset to raise cash, “the procedure is cumbersome and long”. The draft bill is meant to ease the process. The government source said about nine government assets may be leased or sold to generate around $50billion to shore up the nation’s foreign reserves and the value of the naira against the United States dollar.

    The source said: “Nigeria may be broke at the moment but we are not a poor country, given our assets and capability.”

    About N58 billion is trapped in UBEC’s coffers because the states cannot access it as a result of the key condition, which is the payment of 50 per cent counterpart funding. The government is seeking an amendment to the law so that states will pay only 10 per cent as counterpart funding.

    The objective is that state governments will have access to cash to develop education. This will facilitate creation of jobs since contracts will be awarded for the projects.

    As for contract awards, the government, by the provisions of the law, cannot mobilise contractors with more than 15 per cent of contract sum. This is considered to be undesirable by the economic team given the pace the government wants to move in turning the economy around and in the provision of critical infrastructure. The bill will seek to allow the government to mobilise contractors with 50 per cent of contract sum.

    The move to get government agencies to fast tract their operations is to enable foreign investors to come into the country without the current bottlenecks.

    Consular offices will now be expected to make visas available within 48 hours and visitors, especially tourists who intend to pick up visas at the entry point, will be able to do so.

    Time wasting at the airport with duplication of agencies screening incoming passengers is to be eliminated. Those leaving the country should go without hassle.

    For the power sector, the government plans to truck gas from source to the power plants to enable them get what they need for generation.

    A government source said: “This may be more expensive but it is a price to be paid for Nigerians’ comfort”.

    It was learnt that President Buhari will engage the leadership of the National Assembly before their resumption to solicit support for the bill’s quick passage.

  • Fire guts UCH emergency unit

    Fire guts UCH emergency unit

    A massive fire gutted the Accident and Emergency Unit of the University College Hospital, Ibadan on Tuesday, destroying the central air conditioning systems and other equipment.
    The blaze, which started around 4:15pm at Medical Store Casualty Unit of the Accident and Emergency Unit according to eyewitnesses, was said to have been caused by a gas explosion from the Central Air condition.
    The University of Ibadan (UI) fire truck was first on ground to quell the fire before the Oyo State Fire services came to join them with two fire trucks and was able to stop the fire around after 5pm.
    There were no casualties reported, but the incident caused chaos in the hospital and patients were evacuated to nearby facilities.
    While inspecting the damaged facilities, the Chief Medical Director of UCH, Prof Temitope Alonge said the fire started around after 4pm during his hospital rounds.
    He said:”I was at the second floor of the theatre complex building when I heard shout of people crying for help and I smokes coming out of the ward and I came around immediately to help.”
    Alonge confirmed that there was no casualty and nobody was injured, be it a staff or patient.
    “What I understood happened was that earlier in the day the head of electrical department noticed that the solar panel switch had a fault and it triggered a spark and they attended to it, but since it was not directly coming from the main supply from Ibadan Disco they decided to put on the power supply, so the spark ignted the insulator around the central air conditioning system and that was the beginning of the problem.
    “Since our central Air conditioner has stop working for a while, I believe it was the spark from the solar panel that ignited the insulator around the central air condition,” he said.
    The CMD said he was very emotional with the type of response that the staff of the hospital gave to stop the fire, adding that they climbed the roof to stop the fire.

  • Ekiti ripe for emergency

    SIR; One newspaper described Ekiti as an impenetrable fortress for the Federal Government going by Governor Ayodele Fayose’s boastful shenanigans. Fayose’s untrammelled hubris has always been predicated on his mouthed indissoluble alliance with “the people”.

    But according to the last dossier released by Tope Aluko, Fayose must have been the least governor with any modicum of respect for Ekiti people. Aluko quoted Fayose’s retort at his attempt to persuade him to do something to alleviate the suffering of Ekiti people thus “don’t worry, Ekiti people are easy to deceive because by the time you buy them ponmo(cow skin) and booli (roasted plantain), you have stolen their hearts”

    This revelation has further evidenced the demeaning etymology of stomach infrastructure in Ekiti and the overweening resolve of a petulant governor to dehumanize a peace loving people.

    Moving forward from Aluko’s confession on Ekiti-gate particularly to the extent that sensitive materials of INEC such as ballot papers and result sheets  were delivered to PDP chieftains to allow for the manipulation of the poll long before the first ballot was cast, the exercise demands further investigation and prosecution of those culpable.

    Fayose’s”people”are the Okada riders and hoodlums who have nothing at stake in Ekiti.

    Although a state of emergency is not yet exigent, the Federal government must not shy away from it whenever the governor becomes too lawless in his violent enterprise.

    Constitutional immunity does not guarantee a vicarious exoneration. Let Fayose enjoy his immunity but all suspects in the Ekiti-gate are to be made to face the law as a way of preserving electoral integrity in the Nigeria.

     

    • Bukola Ajisola,

    Victoria Island, Lagos.

  • Health Minister to hospitals: Save lives first in emergency

    Health Minister to hospitals: Save lives first in emergency

    Health Minister Prof Isaac Adewole, Friday directed tertiary hospitals across the country to save patients’ lives first during emergency cases before demanding for money.

    Adewole, spoke during a facility tour of the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), said people’s lives were more important than the money being demanded before treatment.

    According to him, accidents, among other emergency cases can occur at anytime, so patients should not be refrained from accessing treatment.

    Adewole advised hospitals not to allow patients stay beyond a day at the Accident and Emergency (A and E) ward to enable them have room for other new patients on emergency.

    He urged LUTH management to ensure that the poor receive treatment, stressing that the hospital should operate a social system to enable it know those that are genuinely poor.

    “We cannot continue to turn poor patients away from the hospitals. The poverty indicator shows that 60 to 70 percent of Nigerians is poor. This means about 100 million people are poor in Nigeria. So, we will provide basic care through the primary health care (PHC) system for Nigerians,” he said.

    He lamented poor funding of the health care, saying there was chronic underfunding of the sector.

    Moreover, Nigerians and the media should take the fight to increase health budget to the front burner because health is wealth. “The sick cannot make the country strong,” the minister said.

    He charged patients with minor ailments to visit primary health care (PHC) centres rather than going to teaching hospitals.

    Prof Adewole said Nigeria needs 140 radiotherapy machines, adding that the seven machines now available were inadequate.

    “Only two or three presently work at a time.  Poor power supply has marred our effort to keep the machines running regularly. If power improves, the equipment will last longer,” he said.

    He charged people to improve their lifestyle, exercise and eat healthily.

    Besides, they should have regular checkups.

    “Many late cancer cases cannot be cured

  • Towards our emergency economic conference

    Towards our emergency economic conference

    While there will be need for short-term interventions in the nation’s economic problems at the forthcoming conference, emphasis should be on long-term solutions

    The President should call an emergency economic conference with experts to be invited – consumers, producers, labour unions, university experts, professors, etc. I think we really need an emergency economic conference, a rescue operation, bringing as many heads as possible together to plan the way forward…The economic condition of the nation of the people does not deteriorate overnight, something came before that deterioration. A certain prolonged and unchecked process of attrition which was neglected in the past is now knocking on the door.—Wole Soyinka

    It is remarkable how some minds think alike even when they are so far apart in physical terms. Professor Soyinka’s call during his visit to the Minister of Information and Culture on February 18 for an emergency economic conference is reported to have been preceded by the decision of the 65th National Economic Council meeting of January 28th, according to a senior federal government official. While the FEC version was originally designed to be constituted by government officials from the central and state governments, Soyinka’s version of a national brainstorming session calls for inclusive approach that goes beyond just representatives of federal and state governments. As there is no space for a conference that can include all citizens, today’s piece is a distillation of comments from regular readers of this column, especially those who are not likely to get invited to this important national meeting on policies that can advance citizens’ welfare.

    Our country is not new to national conferences on issues of concern to citizens from time to time. The federal military government of General Ibrahim Babangida declared a national debate on whether the country should take an IMF loan. Judging by the number of newspaper cuttings on the subject, pundits declared that the nation was opposed to any IMF loan with conditionalities, particularly adoption of Structural Adjustment Programme. In the end, the military president agreed to IMF’s conditions for any financial assistance and soon after SAP became a lasting part of the country’s economic culture. It is now too late to assess the rightness of each side of the 1975 national debate.

    President Olusegun Obasanjo also responded during his second term to calls for a national conference on the polity, popularly known then as the call for Sovereign National Conference (SNC). Obasanjo’s National Conference on Political Reforms ‘came and went’ as we say in the vernacular. About nine years after Obasanjo’s conference, President Goodluck Jonathan also convened a national dialogue one year before the election of 2015. The conference also held for months without leaving any trace on the country’s political culture. Some of the delegates to the conference, particularly those from the Yoruba region, have argued forcefully that the conference would have changed the political and economic trajectory of the country were President Jonathan allowed to implement the conference recommendations during his second term, a tenure which majority of citizens deprived him of by voting for General Buhari. Others have countered this argument with the claim that the recommendations of the conference are too perfunctory to make any difference in the fortunes of the country.  Now the Jonathan conference, like the Obasanjo one before it, is an item in the nation’s archive or museum.

    Whether the conference is an all-comers conference or an assembly of top government officials and their favoured economic eggheads and whether it is an emergency conference or the first of periodic conferences on how to salvage the nation’s economy after a precipitous fall in oil revenue, the 2016 economic conference under the presidency of General Buhari must address not only the effects of the fall  in the price of oil and of decades of stealing of public funds by politicians and civil servants; it must also address the cause of noticeable decline in the economy.

    For decades, Nigeria has been governed by short-termist leaders. The dominance of short-termism as guiding principle of government policies has left many traces on the polity and economy. For example, while the flow of petrodollars was assured and abundant, no effort was made to use such funds to create the type of infrastructure that can sustain a post-oil reality. No ruler worried about the danger of petroleum losing its historical charm to international buyers, the possibility that petroleum could lose its cutting-edge status as the driver of modern civilisation, or the possibility that some of the usual customers of Nigeria, such as the United States, could become oil exporters.

    Short-termism was not limited to political leaders and civil servants in a country that spent close to half a century talking about the imperative of diversifying its economy to reduce reliance on petroleum export, without plucking the political courage to do anything to diversify the economy until the sudden drop in petroleum revenue crept on the nation at night. Many of our rulers who had property in the United Arab Emirate, for example, watched that small federation use its oil revenue to build world-class infrastructure and to diversify its economy to the point of becoming the first place of choice for Nigerian elite in search of pleasure, luxury goods, and property. Citizens, especially those in the middle-class, also demonstrate the proclivity for short-term gratification over long-term solutions to problems, by making choices that indicate preference to avoid problems than to search for solutions. When the government failed to provide good secondary and tertiary education or good hospitals, millions struggled to look for solutions by moving to Ghana, Britain, the United States, or United Arab Emirate. When the government failed to provide modern mass transit system, citizens rushed to buy Okada and Keke Maruwa. When the government failed to provide proper policing of the community, groups created militant organisations and vigilante groups to pretend to secure their communities or even regions. When electricity supply could not sustain manufacturing, many manufacturers moved to Ghana. When most state governments refused to provide essential public service in the various regions, their residents saved up money to migrate to Lagos State.

    While there will be need for short-term interventions in the nation’s economic problems at the forthcoming conference, emphasis should be on long-term solutions. Justifiably, conferees are likely to worry about the foreign exchange rate and the value of the naira. Citizens are likely to hear hair-splitting arguments about  boosting the value of the naira in the black market through immediate formal devaluation, conferees must give attention to the fundamental issue of the meaninglessness of focusing on the value of the naira in relation to the dollar if the economy is not diversified to include manufacturing of many items that are imported and which have caused problems of balance of payment for the country since the fall in revenue from petroleum and the vacuuming of the nation’s treasury by rulers and public servants. Conferees from states must also not fail to examine the sustainability of decades-long system of governing states solely with allocations or transfers from the so-called federation account.

    In particular, governors from states and their economic advisers must not focus on lamenting the effects of fall in oil revenue. They need to address the cause(s) of the new reality and join others to think as if the end of the age of petroleum is at hand. There is a need for the economic conference to look at the political dimension of the country’s economic failure, in view of the decline in oil revenue that had sustained 36 states as sites of consumption (rather than centres of production) for decades. Macro and micro economic theorists at the conference should examine the need for a new political philosophy that calls for fiscal federalism that can empower states or clusters of states to justify existence of such levels of government in a country cited in international taxonomy of governments as a federation. No sustainable solution is likely to emerge from panel-beating the effects of the nation’s underdevelopment without coming to terms with causes and without borrowing Achebe’s imagery about not only focusing on ‘drying our bodies but also finding out where the rains started to beat us.’

  • German firm trains WAUU staff, students on emergency management

    A German-based company, Randmed Pharmaceuticals, has trained some students and staff of The West African Union University (WAUU), Cotonou, Republic of Benin on emergency management and first aid medical response.

    The programme, which was held at the weekend on the campus of WAUU, is under Randmed’s Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) arm for Africa, Africa Medical Capital (AMEDICAP), through its maiden edition for tertiary institutions across the African continent.

    Project Manager of AMEDICAP, Andreas Reiner, who met with the management of WAUU earlier before the training session, emphasised that many avoidable deaths occur in Africa owing to lack of effective emergency management, which necessitated its (AMEDICAP) set-up as a response squad to give Africans effective and professional training on the subject matter.

    The training session was attended by the management staff  of WAUU including the President, Dr Bishop Adeyemi; Registrar, Alhaji AbdulKabir Onifade; Sub-Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology, Mrs. Benedicta Egbuharan and Head of Nursing Science Department, Dr Djibril Nadjim among others during which some medical equipment and defribillator, a diagnosing machine on emergency health management,  were presented to the institution.

  • A national emergency – 2

    Looking at the new dispensation and the PDP’s potential role as a credible alternative, the horizon is still hazy. Possibility of new outspoken national leaders, young national Turks from the north, rising up to prominence, seems remote for now.

    Looking at the much heralded but highly politically inexperienced ex-policeman, Nuhu Ribadu and his fickle political tendencies, what really are his antecedents, his contributions to this nation? What can he point to as relics of his achievement in national life?

    Largely incorruptible, yes, but what are his achievements, to becoming a political warhead in a new cause? As the anti-corruption Czar, he certainly filled many political office holders with fear but the conviction rate of the big cows were minimal. He fell to being a lackey of the government that hired him and stayed out of hurting some sacred cows and letting many unconvicted felons go scot free. Despite his much publicized national admiration, certain things from his past will always hurt him politically and he seems not the type to indulge in political drudgery and political mudslinging. But there is still however a thinking that the man that can unseat the present president must be a suave educated young northerner. Someone like Ribadu. Someone well groomed, focused, highly articulate, a national figure, forward-looking and a workaholic like Babatunde Fashola.

    But a presidential candidate will come in much later. The PDP needs a national leader now, perhaps a figure from the South. A visionary, who can present articulately, an alternative national platform, a rallying cry of civil opposition to the present occupants of Aso Rock. The present natural leader of the PDP, the deputy senate president has ruled himself out of this position. The two other visible easterners of the party, the acting chairman and the publicity secretary, who had arrogated to themselves the leadership of the party, don’t necessarily look charismatic and the type that go the whole hog. They seem hardly the ones to rally a complex nation like Nigeria. Never mind that Ahmed Gulak has succeeded in raising the blood pressure of the acting chairman to truncate his quest to perpetually live on illegally as an unelected, unappointed leader of a national party.

    I’m tempted in my quest for a credible opposition alternative to turn my searchlight on a southern state which has a huge PDP following and have produced exemplary governors in this political dispensation. He has many harsh critics but many will also agree that Governor Donald Duke was visionary and a forward-looking leader. His concepts of government and ideas can see him take up office in 10 Downing Street. Duke is a potential national leader. His years as governor laid a foundation for his next political level. The years that followed his administration are largely unsung across the nation. It is debatable the footprints his successor made. Perhaps pedestrian, perhaps blazing a new trail. But the new man in there now, the professor, is just like the political son of Duke; Ideas, vision, action. He is suave, presidential and seems a good dreamer. Apart from Fashola, never seen any Nigerian governor who hit the ground running after his inauguration. Prepared to lead.

    But both Duke and Professor Ayade are high admirers of the ruling general. They appear too close to posit any raw opposition and alternative to him. I guess they don’t even want to be seen largely opposing and contradicting him. Wise policy if you are not that ambitious. But these men are inherently endued to rally the opposition troops with a civilized viable alternative that will draw the crowds.

    The nearby state of Akwa Ibom has a huge political figure though heavily censured by a section of his kinsmen and elders. They wanted and love all the iconic development that Godswill Akpabio gave them but they wanted him to be a kitten, a man they can order to kneel before elders and assault like the once naïve Chris Ngige. In other words, he would only open the state’s treasury, award viable contracts as these certain men bid him to. Governor Akpabio is presidential, he can be an African equivalent of General Marshall who got Europe out of the ashes. He brooks no nonsense, he can smash glasses. He can get massive things that benefict the lot of the people done and empower them just like the hugely loved Ibori. He is daring, highly intelligent and a true African politician and leader. See Wikileaks. He understands local politics. He knows the terrain of political patronage, has tremendous goodwill and is not known to be stingy, close-fisted.

    Godswill Akpabio, a power broker and a good one at that, is accused of installing his protégé by those who all along were his protégé and those who wanted to install their protégé and failed. The Jagaban has successfully installed two of his protégé as successors now, the Atlantic Ocean did not submerge Lagos. But the rising star Godswill Akpabio is presently playing nice with the ruling party. He seems comfortable with the present castrating bi-partisanship of the Senate leadership. Perhaps, at least for now.

    Someone once said that a high number of past and serving northern and western state governors, are presidential materials in the making but never is any of their counterparts from the east. Just look at them. The one exception probably was one who gave his godfather a bloody nose and enough hell. He got things largely going on. He was full of zest, he could talk, was an intellectual and had the mind to move mountains. But alas it seemed the perks of office ensnared him and he turned out to be working largely for himself.

    I am wont to lose faith if the ruling party will ever have a credible opposition. But in my distress, I thought of another alternative political centre (AAPC). If ever Nigerians are going to see any genuine alternative rise, an opposition to protect us from unfettered tyranny and a militarily-styled democracy, it might, very might just take an implosion in the ruling party. The hens might just come home to roost. Just like this ruling party balkanized the PDP and formed an alternate political centre, (APC), Nigeria might get another alternative in the form of disgruntled members of the ruling party, pushed out and alienated by the present kitchen cabinet and by its increasingly bizarre manners and decisions. These will necessarily align with outside forces especially segments of the civil society and the PDP for a storming of the political Bastille. If it does happen, the present occupants of Aso Rock will start reading their dictionary to find out the true meaning of accountability. It might just be an AAPC to save this democracy.

     

    • Barrister Chima is a public affairs commentator.
  • N100m capital base: CBN, Finance Houses hold emergency meeting

    N100m capital base: CBN, Finance Houses hold emergency meeting

    The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) yesterday met with finance houses operators to enable both parties discuss the way forward for the industry.

    The emergency meeting, it was learnt, followed last week’s expiration of the December 31 deadline given by the regulator to operators to either meet the new N100 million capital base for the subsector or suspend operations. The initial September 30, last year deadline was shifted to allow more operators comply.

    The Nation gathered that with tight liquidity in the market, many operators are yet to secure funds to continue their business and this may lead to the exit of several fringe players.

    A source at the Financial Houses Association of Nigeria (FHAN), an umbrella body for the sector, said many of the operators had not secured the funds required to stay afloat.

    “The N100 million minimum capital base looks small, but surprisingly, not many operators have been able to get it. I see many of them closing shop after the deadline lapses,” the source said.

    CBN Director, Other Financial Institutions Supervision Department, Ahmad Abdullahi had instructed that operators that fail to meet the deadline will be forced to close shop, or move into new business requiring low capital base.

    He said the subsector also operates on a ratio of non-performing loans to total loans now pegged at maximum of 10 per cent. He said Finance Houses shall consult at least two licensed credit bureaux to obtain credit information on borrowers.

    He said the finance companies’ sub-sector was envisioned to operate at the middle tier of the financial system, to cater for the financial needs of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), adding that they were also expected to leverage on the resources from the banking system among other sources of funding.

    He explained that the CBN had in a bid to sanitise the sub-sector, revoked the licences of 208 finance companies and cancelled the approvals-in-principle of 462 others due to the distress in the sub-sector.

    By 2012, there were 116 FCs in the records of the CBN; 51 licences were revoked by the CBN in September, 2012 thus leaving a balance of 65 FCs with valid licences.

    “The idea is to have finance companies that are strong and virile to perform the functions they were set up to per form. The objective of shareholders in the operation of finance companies is to make profit, but for the CBN, it is to have stable and strong finance companies,” he said.

    Abdullahi said the CBN will continue to sanction finance companies that do not have the licences, but are in operation as such would ensure that the subsector is run efficiently to the benefit of the economy.

    He advised finance companies to maintain a database of their customers and generate quarterly risk management reports to be submitted to the CBN. “Finance companies shall be permitted to participate in accessing and disbursing funds to SMEs via relevant vehicles/ intervention funds set up by the CBN, the Federal/State Governments and other relevant bodies. The CBN shall continue to provide support towards capacity building in the Finance Company sub-sector,” he said.

  • Buhari urged to declare emergency in agric sector

    Buhari urged to declare emergency in agric sector

    A member of the Seventh House of Representatives, Bamidele Faparusi , has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to declare an emergency in the agriculture sector owing to dwindling oil revenues.

    He also backed the removal of oil subsidy as mooted by the Federal Government and supported by the All Progressives Congress (APC) National Leader, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu.

    Faparusi described the fund as opportunity for some fraudulent Nigerians to amass ill-gotten wealth.

    Speaking in Ado Ekiti yesterday, Faparusi praised Buhari for the proposal to develop agriculture, mining and tourism sectors to fund the budget, adding that prompt declaration of emergency in agriculture would make the seemingly tall dream to come to fruition.

    Faparusi, who represented Ekiti South Federal Constituency 2 between 2011 and 2015, said the declaration of emergency in agriculture would afford the government an opportunity to give the sector an attention as an alternative to oil and to create more job opportunities for Nigerians.

    “Declaration of emergency in agriculture is long overdue. The President is facing two challenges now. One, oil revenue is fast dwindling and two, he proposed to finance the 2016 budget through other sources apart from oil and agriculture is the better alternative.

    “The emergency will help in voting more money to revive the sector. The late Obafemi Awolowo developed the Western Region depending on proceeds from cocoa, palm oil, rubber and coffee and looking at the vast opportunities in agriculture across Nigeria, the country tends to gain more if there is more investment in agriculture,” he said.

    Faparusi  lauded the Federal Government for saying that savings from oil subsidy removal would be used to develop agriculture and mining sectors.

    He described the proposal as the best for the country for now.

    The ex-lawmaker said every state in the country must join the fray to develop agriculture, tourism and mining sectors following the country’s plummeting economic fortunes.

    “Government pays more than one trillion naira annually on oil subsidy, despite what we witness is scarcity. The pump price is now sold for between N120 and N150 naira.

    “If the Federal Government can remove the subsidy and use it to fund agriculture, mining and tourism, this will palliate the sufferings of the people , because there will be employments, food security and low food price.

    “Payment of oil subsidy has not in any way paid off, except we are deceiving ourselves. With this dwindling oil revenue in the international market, the best option is to remove oil subsidy and develop other critical sectors to re-energise this dying economy,” he said.

    Faparusi appealed to all the civil servants at the state and federal levels to fully embrace farming programmes to be initiated by the federal government, to make Nigeria a beacon in food production globally.

  • Create special lanes for emergency vehicles

    SIR: A Monday morning it was, when I heard sirens and at the same time saw this fire truck flashing its light along Iyana Dopemu area of Lagos. The driver of this truck was blowing his siren, doing everything he could to get out of the heavy gridlock in this area, but he had his truck stuck. With the attitude exhibited by this man, it was obvious he was on a rescue mission.

    But most disheartening was that no one could stop so that the fire truck could zoom by safely and efficiently. Cars were moving even the one I boarded also was included. To compound issues, passengers on board were warning the driver not to stop; they were all lamenting they don’t want to lose their jobs by getting to work late.

    To me it makes perfect sense that if you see an ambulance or other emergency vehicles with sirens blaring, one should pull over and let them pass as anything contrary to this might cost the life of a victim or destruction of property. It seems I am all alone in this school of thought.

    One thing I am quite sure of is when he finally gets through he would not only be delayed, he would have been frustrated and worried, and might drive carelessly ahead. Apart from this, the situation of things at the place where his attention was needed by then might have gone out of hand.

    If the Lagos State government and other states where the Bus Rapid Transits (BRT) are present could operate dedicated lanes, which makes BRT systems run at faster speeds than conventional buses in regular traffic, there is nothing stopping both the federal and state government from thinking towards this direction for our emergency vans.

    There is nothing like by-passing traffic as quickly as possible to potentially save a life or property. Creating these lanes would help reduce ways in which lives and properties are lost in this country and would also help measure the effectiveness of our emergency system.

    Like the BRT lanes, motorists must not be allowed to ply such lanes if eventually they are created.

     

    • Solomon Odeniyi,

    Lagos.