The Nation Newspaper

Tag: shutdown

  • OAU shutdown adds salt to injury

    SIR: Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, though, the best University in Nigeria (according to webometric rankings) has been running the slowest academic calendar in the country for the past few years. The school, no doubt, produces graduates that are of high intellect and competency in their chosen careers, but one thing the federal government cum the university management need to look into is the crawling academic calendar.

    It has become a common saying that students going to OAU must be ready to spend one or more extra non-academic year(s). This saying has been further confirmed by recent developments. One, fresh students admitted into the university for 2013/2014 academic session, did their post utme on July 13, 2013 but resumed on June 1, 2014 – about a year later.

    Can I hear someone say it’s because of ASUU strike? I disagree with that because most of the universities that are on strike with OAU during the last ASUU strike are now in their second semester of 2013/2014 session.

    Two, returning students, who resumed on June 14 and fresh students, who have already spent 11 months at home before resumption, were ordered to vacate the university premises on June 18 (four days after returning students resumed back to school) due to students’ protest against fee hike.

    The university management alleged that students were violent in their demonstrations even though they didn’t give an evidence to substantiate their claim. Be that as it may, I don’t think it is good for the management to take actions that affects the varsity negatively. Shutting down the school, in my own perspective, is like adding salt to the university’s injury because the academic calendar of the school that is already crawling will soon become stagnant. It

    is a common adage that “cutting off the head is not a cure for headache”. It is bad to create another problem for oneself in a bid to solving one’s particular problem.

    The management ought to have used another measure in handling the case. After all, it is a constituency of professors and professionals who are deemed to be of high intellectual ability. If they are now saying that there is no other measure they could take than the one that shatters the university’s image, I think we need to ask them questions.

    The most important thing now is that the school be re-opened so as to save students who are meant to spend five years in school from spending seven years.

    • Jamiu Idowu Esho,

    Eruwa, Oyo State.

  • U.S. government shutdown likely to drag on this week

    U.S. government shutdown likely to drag on this week

    There will be little if any progress toward ending the government shutdown this weekend, pushing the standoff that has idled more than 800,000 federal workers into its second week.

    House Republicans plan several votes this weekend — but none that would restore funds to the entire government. Instead, they will continue passing bills to pay for individual popular programs.

    By Monday, the House will have voted to restore funds to natural disaster emergency recovery, nutritional assistance for children, national parks, medical research, the District of Columbia and veterans services. The body will also vote to pay members of the National Guard and Reserves. Many of those bills have already passed with support from House Democrats.

    Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama say they want the government fully funded before any new negotiations can take place. Democratic House Majority Leader Harry Reid has vowed to reject the piecemeal approach, Obama is promising vetoes, and the administration’s Office of Management and Budget is brushing away the GOP approach.

    “Consideration of appropriations bills in this fashion is not a serious or responsible way to run the United States Government,” the OMB said in a statement.

    Republicans are equally dug in. On Friday morning, Republican House Speaker John Boehner met privately with members of the GOP conference and urged them to stay united on their strategy to resist calls from Democrats to pass a bill that funds the federal government.

    House Majority Leader Eric Cantor is predicting that Democrats will cave under the GOP strategy.

    “I firmly believe their position is untenable,” Cantor wrote in a memo obtained by Yahoo News. “Because their position is unsustainable and because we are willing to negotiate to find a reasonable resolution, I believe it is critical that we continue to engage and offer meaningful solutions for the American people.”

    “We are moving forward with our strategy,” New York Republican Rep. Peter King said after Friday’s meeting. King, who has been a staunch opponent of his fellow Republicans refusal to fund the government unless key parts of the federal health care are delayed, then paused and corrected himself. “They are moving forward with their strategy.”

    Republicans believe that by passing enough bills to fund crucial programs, they can put enough pressure on Democrats so they buckle. Democrats feel the same way.

    Unfortunately for furloughed federal workers, that means there is no foreseeable end, at least right now, to the shutdown. President Barack Obama decided to stay home from economic summits in Asia as Democrats stepped up pressure on congressional Republicans to rein in their tea party faction and reopen the government with no strings attached.

    House Republicans said that with Congress and the president in town this weekend, now is the perfect time to start negotiating a plan to reopen the government.

    “All I’m asking for is let’s sit down, like the American people would expect us, and talk to one another about getting the government open and dealing with the significant problems that we face,” House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, told reporters Friday. “This isn’t some damn game.”

    GOP leaders said Friday the House will be in session Saturday so that Republicans can continue passing bills that would reopen selected parts of the federal government. The White House responded by issuing fresh veto threats, saying Congress should reopen the entire federal government.

    The Labor Department, meanwhile, did not issue the monthly employment report for September that was due Friday because of the shutdown.

    The White House called the partial government shutdown that entered its fourth day Friday “completely avoidable” and complained the shutdown was interfering with the president’s efforts to promote trade and U.S. influence in emerging world markets.

    Democrats pointed to disagreements within the Republican Party, where reluctant congressional leaders were prodded into a showdown over government funding and Obama’s health care law by rowdier conservatives, such as Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

    To get the government up and running again, “it will take some coming together on the Republican side,” said the House’s lead Democrat, Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.

    “It’s very hard to negotiate with the Republicans when they can’t negotiate with themselves,” Pelosi said Friday.

    Senate Chaplain Barry Black opened Friday’s business with a plea for God to “give our lawmakers the vision and the willingness to see and to do your will.”

    “Remove from them that stubborn pride which imagines itself to be above and beyond criticism. Forgive them for the blunders they have committed, infusing them with the courage to admit and correct mistakes,” Black said.

    Obama criticized Boehner for not bringing up a vote to finance the full reopening of the government without conditions.

    “This shutdown could be over today,” Obam a said Friday as he stopped for lunch with Vice President Joe Biden at a local sandwich shop near the White House. “We know there are votes for it in the House.”

    Boehner and other Republicans put the blame on Obama. They say he should recognize the flaws of “Obamacare” and negotiate solutions as part of a deal to end the shutdown that forced the furlough of some 800,000 workers, more than a third of federal civilian employees.

    Boehner said Obama was being “irresponsible.”

    On Friday, the Republican-led House was keeping up a drive to finance certain agencies and programs on a piecemeal basis — a strategy rejected by Obama and the Democratic-led Senate.

    “We are not picking winners and losers,” said Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. “I think what we are doing is exercising stewardship over the taxpayers’ dollars. …I’m ready to go to work today and get it done.”

    The House planned a vote to fund a popular program providing food aid to pregnant women and their children, as well as ongoing disaster relief.

    Furloughed federal workers would get retroactive pay under a bill the House plans to vote on Saturday. Some top Democrats have supported that idea alongside Republicans.

    Obama had been scheduled to leave Saturday for economic summits next week in Indonesia and Brunei. His decision to cancel those plans underscored how entrenched both sides were in a partisan showdown with no end in sight.

    “The cancellation of this trip is another consequence of the House Republicans forcing a shutdown of the government,” White House press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement. “This completely avoidable shutdown is setting back our ability to create jobs through promotion of U.S. exports and advance U.S. leadership and interests in the largest emerging region in the world.”

    Lawmakers said the shutdown that began Tuesday when the government began its new budget year seemed to be quickly merging with a more critical showdown over the nation’s expiring line of credit, raising the stakes for the still-fragile economy.

    Obama and his Treasury Department said failure to raise the nation’s borrowing limit, expected to hit its $16.7 trillion cap in mid-October, could precipitate an economic nosedive worse than the recent Great Recession. A default could cause the nation’s credit markets to freeze, the value of the dollar to plummet and U.S. interest rates to skyrocket, according to a Treasury report.

    Obama cataloged a litany of troubles that could be caused by the failure to raise the debt ceiling, from delayed Social Security and disability checks to worldwide economic repercussions.

    “If we screw up, everybody gets screwed up,” he said.

    The speaker’s office reiterated Boehner’s past assertion that he would not let the government default on its debt. “But if we’re going to raise the debt limit, we need to deal with the drivers of our debt and deficits,” his spokesman, Michael Steel, said. “That’s why we need a bill with cuts and reforms to get our economy moving again.”

     

    Cull from Associated Press

  • Shell threatens shutdown over oil thefts

    Shell threatens shutdown over oil thefts

    Oil giant Shell is threatening to shut down its operations, following massive crude oil thefts and bunkering in the Niger Delta.

    The Managing Director of the Anglo/Dutch company, Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC), Mr. Mutiu Sunmonu, said: “We have now witnessed a significant upsurge in the activities of crude oil thieves. The situation in the last few weeks is unprecedented. The volume (of crude oil) being stolen is the highest in the last three years. Over 60, 000 barrels per day from Shell alone. So, that, for me, is a great concern.

    “Over time, this whole crime has got a lot more sophisticated and you could see that the perpetrators are now setting up barge building yards; they are setting up storage facilities; they are setting up tank farms for storing the crude oil, prior to shipping out.”

    Sunmonu, who spoke to reporters in Port Harcourt yesterday, did not blame it all on the oil communities. He said: “This (oil theft/illegal bunkering/illegal refining) is beyond communities. This is well-funded and heavily-armed gangs. What type of collaboration with communities will help you against people carrying guns, people who are very well armed? It is a reality that we have to face. You cannot even put the poor boys in the communities at risk.

    “They (the Joint Task Force (JF) operatives) need to step up their game. If you look at what happened between July, August and November and probably December last year, we saw a significant drop in the amount of crude oil that was being stolen. But in January and February this year, it has gone back up.

    “So, that is a challenge for the JTF to also look into. I mean, let us not underestimate the cleverness of the people who are perpetrating this act. I have always said with 6, 000-kilometre network of flow-lines and pipelines, even if you throw the entire Nigerian army into the creeks, it is not going to solve the problem.

    “So, I am sure these guys are monitoring what is going on. They are moving to areas of resistance. So, it is a combination of things, but certainly we have seen that when the JTF really went after it, we got results.

    “It is very clear to me that this is not just an act by desperate individuals trying to make a living. This certainly is a well-funded criminal activity, probably involving international syndicates. We are in a crisis. We are in a crisis as a country, because this is something which is beyond the capacity of any individual company or beyond the capacity of a country to solve.

    “We really need concerted efforts locally, nationally and internationally to actually get this under control. It is really going to cause a big devastation, but I really worry about crude oil theft. Frankly speaking, my worry is not about the economy per se; the economy itself is huge, but I worry more about the devastation.

    “The devastation for the people of Niger Delta, the destruction it will cause to the social and environmental aspects of the people of the Niger Delta and to Nigeria as a whole. We are in a crisis and I cannot as MD of SPDC, in all good conscience, just continue to put my head in the sand.

    “This is really getting to the crunch, I must say. It is getting to the crunch, that rather than allow people to continue to attack my pipelines and devastate the environment, I may actually consider shutting-in the pipeline completely. So, it is getting to that crunch point and I hope that every hand will really join us in actually getting this under control.”

    Sunmonu lauded the commitment of President Goodluck Jonathan and the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, to tackling crude oil theft in the Niger Delta and other parts of Nigeria.

    The illegal bunkering points are said to be close to JTF’s outposts. At such places, stolen crude oil is refined to produce mostly diesel.

    All the International Oil Companies (IOCs) operating in the Niger Delta are said to be losing thousands of barrels of crude oil and huge revenue.

    In Nembe creeks in Bayelsa State, Krakrama and Awoba in Kalabari axis of Rivers State, as well as areas close to coastal Bonny, also in Rivers State and other parts of the Niger Delta, the illegal bunkerers and oil thieves are having a field day.

    SPDC, the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), Chevron, Mobil, Addax and other companies are badly affected by the activities of the criminals.

    JTF spokesman Lt. Col. Onyema Nwachukwu denied its operatives’ involvement in the crime. He said Operation Pulo (oil) Shield had been combating oil theft and illegal bunkering.

    Most hit by the illegal bunkering is SPDC’s Nembe Creek Trunkline (NCTL), resulting in frequent production shutdown and massive oil spills.

    Between February 22 and 25, 12 Shell’s flow stations producing into the NCTL, were shut down by safety systems three times, due to oil theft. Each incident resulted in deferment of 150,000 barrels of crude oil per day.

    Investigations also revealed that 95 per cent of the revenue from each barrel of crude oil goes to the Federal Government. The continuous theft has an immediate impact on the economy, with the activities of the criminals being a serious attack on the people, the economy and the environment.

    The NCTL was replaced in 2010, at $1.1 billion, but the new line has been repeatedly targeted by crude thieves. This forced a shut down for one month in December, 2011, following a spill caused by two failed crude theft connections.

    When the NCTL was reopened in January, last year, it also suffered multiple trips, caused by pressure drops, resulting from illegal off-take. The trunkline was eventually shut down on May 2, last year to allow for the removal of more than 50 crude theft points.

    It was also gathered that last month, thieves drilled a hole on SPDC’s gas pipeline, which was buried underground, some two kilometres from Soku gas plant in Rivers State. It was shut down for repair, with force majeure declared on gas supplies to the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas (NLNG) Company in Bonny on February 5.

    In 2012, sabotage and crude oil theft were the causes of 24,500 barrels spilled from SPDC facilities from almost 140 incidents, accounting for about 95 per cent of the total spilled volume during the period.

    The spokesman of the security outfit in the Niger Delta also said: “JTF is fighting a good fight in combating the hydra-headed menace of crude oil theft and illegal bunkering in the Niger Delta. This is evident in the number of successful interceptions and arrests that we have made, not only in the immediate past year (2012), but even in the two months that we have spent in this year.

    “Last year alone, 7,585 anti-illegal bunkering patrols were conducted. 18 vessels and 1,945 suspects were arrested; 4,349 illegal crude oil distilleries were destroyed. Also destroyed were 133 barges, 1,215 open-wooden boats (Cotonu boats), 187 oil theft tanker trucks, 178 illegally-distilled fuel dumps and 5,574 surface tanks.

    “In addition, 36,504 drums of distilled petroleum products, 638 pumping machines and 326 outboard engines were seized. JTF is not relenting. So far, in 2013, we have arrested 260 suspects, eight vessels, nine barges and 90 open-wooden barges. We have scuttled 452 distilleries/cooking spots of stolen crude oil.

    “It is, therefore, quite difficult to reconcile the upsurge spoken of, given these achievements. Our patrol troops have often times reported incidents of ruptures on the pipelines, whenever they find one and, as we speak, there are still a good number of those ruptures left unclamped in Dasaba and Mekakiri creeks.”

    Lt. Col. Nwachukwu added that the JTF did not have the manpower to put operatives permanently on over 6,000-kilometre pipelines, mostly in the mangroves.