Tag: minister

Information and Culture Minster  Lai Mohammed has described  the protection of human rights as a cardinal objective of the Buhari administration.

Violation of rights is ,therefore, not a government policy, the minister said at a High-Level Roundtable organized by the Atlantic Council, an American think tank on international affairs, in Washington, DC, on Thursday.

The minister said the picture of impunity and complete disregard for extant laws and international obligations painted by Amnesty International, in a recent report, is not a true reflection of the character and ethics of the government of Nigeria or any of its agencies.

Since the counter-insurgency war started in 2009, Amnesty International has issued periodic reports on alleged human rights violations by the Nigerian military, with the latest of such reports bordering on violations of human rights and International Humanitarian Law by the Nigerian Armed Forces and other government agencies.

Alhaji Mohammed  enumerated  some of the  measures taken by the administration  to address human rights violation in the course of the counter-insurgency operations.

These include the establishment of Human Rights Desks in all military formations, the quarterly HumanRights/Military Dialogue, Training on Mainstreaming Human Rights into Counter-Insurgency Operations, and Court Martials of officers indicted for human rights violations.

‘’Very soon, the Federal Government will adopt a National Policy on the Protection of Civilians in conflict situations to further strengthen and entrench its constitutional practice of Protection of Civilians,’’ he said.

The minister also spoke on the counter-insurgency operations, insisting that Boko Haram has been badly degraded, hence it is incapable of carrying out organized massive attacks beyond using women and  children to carry out suicide bombings against soft targets.

He said: ’’Many have queried how we could say Nigeria is winning the battle against Boko Haram when the insurgents have continued to carry out deadly attacks. However, to understand this, it is necessary to put things in context.

“When President Buhari was being sworn into office  May 29, 2015, 24 local government areas making up a territory three times the size of Lebanon were firmly in the hands of Boko Haram.

“They hoisted their flag, collected taxes, installed their own emirs and administered a large swath of the territory. That is history now as not an inch of Nigeria’s territory is being administered or controlled by Boko Haram.

‘’Before the advent of this administration, Boko Haram could carry out attacks anywhere in the North East and beyond at a time of their own choosing. They attacked the UN Complex, the police  headquarters, motor parks and a military barrack in the capital city of Abuja. That is now history.’’ he said.

Alhaji Mohammed also told the Roundtable that the incessant farmers-herders clashes were neither religious nor ethnic in nature, as they have been portrayed in some circles.

His words: “There is no question that this (conflict) is driven mostly by an  increased contest for dwindling natural resources like land and water.

“This has been worsened by demographic pressure and climate change. Nigeria’s population in 1960 was 45 million, and this has ballooned to about 200 million in 2018, but the available resources have not grown at all. If anything, they have shrunk.”

The Nigeria Health Ministry has backed Ferring’s heat stable formulation of carbetocin as effective for prevention of excessive bleeding, also known as postpartum haemorrhage (PPH) after vaginal birth.

Results from the CHAMPION clinical trial conducted by the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of collaboration with Ferring and MSD for Mothers were published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) last week.

Health Minster Professor Isaac Adewole said the WHO recommendation of carbetocin was a welcome development.

He spoke at a health forum on eradication of Polio in Kano at the weekend.

Adewole said the heat-stable formulation was capable of lowering incidence of death among Nigerian women during childbirth.

“Given that PPH still account for 18 per cent of death during childbirth in Nigeria, it is a welcome development and we are ready to work with relevant bodies to propagate it,” he stated.

Data from the WHO has it that every year, 14 million women are affected by PPH.

Although most deaths are preventable, PPH is the leading direct cause of maternal death worldwide, causing approximately 70,000 deaths per year.

 

Workers were put on notice yesterday not to expect an early salary this month.

Reason: Governors’ meeting with the Federation Accounts and Allocation Committee (FAAC) ended in a deadlock.

If the issues are not resolved, Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun said,  salaries may be affected in the states.

FAAC members, she said, felt that some of the costs presented by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) could not be justified, hence they decided that rather than approve the accounts, the negotiations will continue.

She said President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo were briefed and supported the Ministry of Finance and the commissioners for finance not to approve those accounts until further explanations on some of the costs being implemented are given.

The revenue sharing meeting ended in a deadlock on Wednesday – for the third time since January 2018.

The National Economic Council (NEC), presided over by Prof. Osinbajo, has demanded explanations from the NNPC for unclear costs the corporation made from FAAC.

Finance Commissioners, who converged on Abuja with the expectation  to collect their states’ share of the monthly allocation, reportedly walked out of the FAAC meeting as they protested the deductions.

Mrs. Adeosun, who chairs FAAC, said she brought the matter to the NEC, which is chaired by Osinbajo. Governors, Central Bank Governor and others are members.

Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the NEC meeting, Mrs. Adeosun said: “Also, in my capacity as chairman of FAAC, I briefed governors on the deadlock that we have got currently in the federation account and explained what happened. And there was quite an extensive debate on what to do.

“For the purpose of this briefing, we operate NNPC as a business. We have invested public capital in that business and we have expectations of return and when that return falls lower than our expectations then the owners of this business which in this case is the Federal Government and states, need to act. So, that was what caused the deadlock yesterday (Wednesday) and we really felt the figures the NNPC was proposing for FAAC were unacceptable. We felt that some of the costs couldn’t be justified and so we have decided that rather than approve the accounts, we will go back and do further work.

“So further negotiations and interactions are going on with NNPC, as we speak. However, we did brief both Mr. President and Mr. Vice President on the deadlock and asked for their support and their forbearance in this because the consequence of this is that salaries might well be delayed in many states as a result of this. But we feel that in order to get to the accurate figures that we need, we have asked for forbearance and the governors and the Federal Government are all in agreement that we need to get to the bottom of those figures.

“In particular, now that the oil price is now $76 per barrel in the spot market, which means that bonny light is about $78, we want to be aggressively putting money away into the excess crude account. So we are very conscious that this period, this window of relatively high oil price might not last and we will like to be able to save. If we cannot get into the federation account the sort of revenues we are expecting, then we will not be able to save. So it was a very important point really underscored by all the governors and they really want action taken and they are fully in support of the positions of the Federal Ministry of Finance and the commissioners for finance not to approve those accounts until we get further explanations on some of the costs being implemented.

On the issue with the NNPC, Mrs. Adeosun said: “Based on oil price, oil quantity, you can pretty much calculate what you are expecting to see in the federation account and if the figure is less, then the right question that any stakeholder must ask is, why.

“So we have been going back and forth with NNPC to try and understand these figures before we can accept them. Remember that the FAAC figures have to be formally accepted by the Federation Account Committee and we were simply not comfortable with the quantum of some of the deductions made and, therefore, we could not approve those figures. So even as we speak, there is an interface going on between the commissioners forum, Ministry of Finance, office of the accountant general, CBN and NNPC, but we hope to be able to convene FAAC within the next few days.”

While giving updates on the balances of the federation accounts, Adeosun said: “Items to note on the excess crude account is that in May we had an additional credit of $80.6 million that accrued into the excess crude account.

“The balances on the excess crude account $1,916,742,289.60, stabilisation N18,892,864,216.65, Natural Resources N133,715,427,387.37.”

Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State, who briefed the press alongside Mrs. Adeosun, disclosed that the NEC approved the financial report of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) for 2016 and update for 2017.

He said the report indicated a positive profitability over the past five years, at about $8m per year; and $1.25m as assets at a rate of 6.6% return on assets.

He said: “At the meeting today, we did take the annual reports and accounts of National Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) for the year ended 2016 and an update on 2017 activities.

“The main issue was the NSIA report on five years so far of profitability in all forms with core profits of about N26.28 billion, which is about $88 million in 2016. NSIA also reported that the total profit on that management was about $1.25 billion for most part of the year but they had received an extra of $250 million that was received  in the third quarter of 2017.

“It also did report that the returns on assets was up to 6.6 per cent in dollar terms, which we considered to be quite good in terms of returns. It is actually shifting its focus now to infrastructure and direct investment locally in the country, which is of great benefit to us as a nation.

“The 2017 activities of the NSIA also include the implementation of Presidential Fertiliser Initiative (PFI) in 2017. They commenced the construction of free health projects in Lagos, Kano and Umuahia, Abia State. They continued with the work, the funding of the work on the second Niger bridge in which they had been involved in the past.

“They also did invest and own 13 per cent of Bridge Academy Ltd, a network of schools which delivers high quality, affordable primary education to lower income earners and it is hoped that they will do that too in other states of the federation.

“They also did invest in Babagona, an agricultural franchise that empowers small holder farmers across the country, and in 2018, they intend to focus on executing infrastructure investment across the nation which includes roads, investment in agriculture and health.

“We are hoping that all this will impact on infrastructure development and development of industrial real estates across the country. Council eventually resolved that the account of NSIA presented to us should be approved and council so approved.”

The NEC also resolved that a Committee comprising governors of Kano, Osun, Delta, Anambra, CBN Governor and the Minister of Education should look into what needs to be done urgently in the education sector at the state level and report back to the Council.

The minister of Education said this was in recognition of the fact that more investment is needed in the education sector, while emphasising that collaboration among the Federal, States, Local Governments, Private Sector and Development Partners is very necessary, as the standard of basic education at the state level has fallen drastically.

Governors wanted N40b after collecting N147b, says NNPC

The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation  (NNPC) yesterday cried out over how governors  insisted that the corporation must remit additional N40 billion after paying N147 billion to the Federation Account Allocation Committee  (FAAC ) for June.

NNPC spokesman Ndu Ughamadu described the situation as “very unfortunate considering that NNPC  is exiting the cash call phenomenon.”

According to him, the  agreement the NNPC has with the goverrors is that FAAC be given N112 billion monthly.

This , he said, however, will be subject to sufficient  funds from sales of domestic crude oil allocation for the corresponding month after meeting cash call obligations on JVs, deductions of PMS cost under recovery and pipeline maintenance.

He noted: “Incidentally, due to the posture of governors, the NNPC was able to raise 147 billion Naira this month(June) for the governors by taking from the amount meant for settling cash call obligations.

“Sadly, however, the governors wanted additional  40 billion Naira.”

•Govt reacts to Brookings Report on extreme poverty

The Federal Government said yesterday that its massive investment in the development of infrastructure will reduce the poverty level in the country.

In a reaction to the Brookings Institute Report that Nigeria had overtaken India as the country with the largest number of extreme poor, Minister of Trade and Investment Okechukwu Enelamah said: “I think first, we need to understand when we get these reports that there are reports that are lagging in indicators which means, people are reporting on history. There are reports that are leading indicators which means that they are forward looking and of course, there reports that capture generally what you do which is current. They are actually dealing with what is current. So, when you get reports from Brooking institutes or all sorts of people, you need to look at the context.”

Enelamah, speakimg after yesterday’s Federal Executiev Council (FEC) meeting, said: “Somebody may have written a report when we were in recession. Remember that if you are in a recession, what it means is that even though, your population is growing, people don’t stop procreating, your growth fact, which means that in theory depending on how they run those numbers, you will be going the other way.

He added: “There is absolutely no question that there is an urgency to create employment in Nigeria. And it has to be a collective responsibility. What I can tell you, with certainty, based on ones background in business and economics, is that if we complete the ongoing things on infrastructure and you implement these reports we are doing, that is what I mean by a leading indicator, poverty will go down.

“There is no magic to it. But you have to do it first, you have put in the infrastructure, you have to implement the economic programme which is what will create the opportunities, they don’t drop from the sky. So, I think we should roll up our sleeves as a people and do the work because, if we don’t do it, our people continue to bear children obviously, they would get poorer.

“So, I don’t think we should kill ourselves that poverty is something just happen. I think comes out of the urgent need we have as a country which is why we are focusing as a government to make sure that we create the enabling environment, the infrastructure that and the things that are required to create opportunities for our people and I believe that will happen in the process of time.” he said