Foreign
Senate committee gets 14 days to process President Buhari’s N2.343 trillion loan request
The Nigerian Senate has given its Committee on Foreign and Local Debts 14 days within which to process President Muhammadu Buhari’s request for a fresh ₦2.343 trillion ($6.183 billion) for approval. Senate President Ahmad Lawan gave the directive at the commencement of Tuesday’s plenary session shortly after the Senate Majority leader, Yahaya Abdullahi, drew the attention of the Senate to the pending request. The Senator Clifford Ordia-led Committee on Foreign and Local debt had approved a total of $28 billion so far. The current request will take the total loan approved to $35.683 billion. Buhari had urged the Senate to approve N2.3 trillion ($6.183 billion) external borrowing. He said the loan was to finance the 2021 budget deficit of N5.6 trillion. The President indicated that the loan ...
President Buhari arrives Paris for Financing Africa Summit
President Muhammadu Buhari has arrived in Paris for the Financing Africa Summit. The president left Abuja Sunday for the summit which is being hosted by President Emmanuel Macron of France. According to Buhari’s spokesperson, Garba Shehu, the summit will draw major stakeholders in the global finance institutions and some Heads of Government, who will, collectively, discuss external funding and debt treatment for Africa, and private sector reforms. “During the visit, President Buhari will meet with the French President to discuss growing security threats in Sahel and Lake Chad region, political relations, economic ties, climate change and partnership in buoying the health sector, particularly in checking spread of Covid-19, with more research and vaccines. “Before returning to Nigeria, Pres...
Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan launch new Nile dam talks in DRC
A new round of African Union-mediated talks between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan has begun aimed at resolving a years-long dispute over a massive dam built by Addis Ababa on the Blue Nile, a main tributary of the Nile river. The three-day talks that kicked off on Saturday are taking place in Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the current chair of the AU. Foreign and irrigation ministers of the three nations were attending the talks over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD), along with AU experts, according to Ethiopia’s Irrigation Minister Seleshi Bekele. A Sudanese diplomat was quoted as saying by The Associated Press news agency that the experts from the three countries and the AU met on Saturday, ahead of ministers who would meet on Sunday and Monday. He s...
CSOs: Bandit attacks a risk to food security in Nigeria
Bandit attacks heighten risks for acute food crisis in Nigeria, stakeholders from the civil society and the media have said. This is even as they vowed to unite against terror rather than do anything that could promote it. “In addition to displacement, insecurity has hampered agricultural activities and heightened the risk of acute food uncertainty in the country”, they said in a communique issued on Thursday after a meeting of civil society groups and media in the nation’s capital. But they insisted that the adoption of new approaches by the government will address the specific political, economic, and social challenges that encourage banditry and terrorism in the country. The communique co-signed by Gbenga Onayiga and Adamu Ladan, the Acting Chairman and the Executive Director of the Vis...
NCC boss: Over $70 billion spent on telecoms infrastructure in Nigeria
Vox Media Over $70 billion have been invested in telecommunications infrastructure deployment in Nigeria since the liberalisation of the industry in 2001. The Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, who made this known said the amount represented a larger chunk of local and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attracted into the sector within the period. Danbatta made the remarks on Thursday while delivering the Bullion Lecture 2021 Edition organised by the Centre for Financial Journalism (CFJ), Lagos. According to him, the investment in infrastructures has boosted the economy and provided more opportunities for more Nigerians have access to telecoms services. “Today, the number of active telephone lines being used by Nigerians has signi...
Lagos chamber projects positive economic recovery by Q2
The Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) has projected a return to positive growth path for the Nigerian economy in the second quarter of 2021. Mrs Toki Mabogunje, President, LCCI, addressing journalists at the first edition of the chamber’s quarterly news conference, said the projection was subject to the absence of major economic shocks. Mabogunje, however, said that the projected recovery was expected to be subdued within the region of one per cent. “Projections by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund put Nigeria’s annual average growth for year 2021 at 1.1 per cent and 1.5 per cent, respectively. “Expectation of slow growth momentum reflects the lingering effects of the pandemic on the Nigerian economy and prospects of stricter containment measures considering th...
Luis Arce secures big victory in Bolivia election
The result, which was a vindication to Evo Morales’s MAS party, also gave majorities in both houses of Congress. Leftist leader Luis Arce has won a smashing victory in Bolivia’s presidential election, a final official vote count released on Friday shows, providing vindication for the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party of overthrown President Evo Morales. The Supreme Electoral Tribunal announced Arce won 55 percent of the votes against six rivals on the ballot, easily avoiding the need for a runoff. The runner-up was centrist former President Carlos Mesa with just less than 29 percent. Conservative Luis Fernando Camacho, one of the leaders of the protest movement that helped drive Morales out of the country a year ago, received only 14 percent of the vote. MAS also won majorities in bot...
Grand jury indicts Woodberry for ‘wire fraud’
Olalekan Ponle, a Nigerian held in the United States for alleged multi-million-dollar fraud, has been indicted by the grand jury, a group of lawyers empowered to conduct legal proceedings and investigate potential criminal conduct. Ponle, popularly known as Woodberry, alongside Ramoni Abbas, also known as Hushpuppi, was arrested in the United Arab Emirate on June 10 for multiple fraud charges after a raid by operatives of the Dubai crime unit. According to the complaint, an unnamed Chicago company was defrauded into sending wire transfers totalling $15.2 million. Companies based in Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, New York and California also were victims of the fraud, prosecutors say. Newsmen reported how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) nabbed Ponle through details accessed from his What...
Turkey and Russia put off talks expected to tackle Libya and Syria
Russia and Turkey have postponed ministerial-level talks which were expected to focus on Libya and Syria, where the two countries support opposing sides in long-standing conflicts. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov decided to put off the talks during a phone call on Sunday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. “The two countries deputy ministers will continue contacts and talks in the period ahead. Minister-level talks will be held at a later date,” the ministry said in a statement. Lavrov and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu had been set to visit Istanbul for the discussions. The Russian foreign ministry said discussion will be held on the date of the ministers’ meeting. The United Nations said this week that warring sides had begun ne...
President Buhari signs amended executive order on voluntary overseas asset declaration
President Muhammadu Buhari has signed the 2018 Amended Executive Order 008 on Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularization Scheme (VOARS). Dr Umar Gwandu, Special Assistant to the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice on Media and Public Relations disclosed this on Thursday in Abuja. “As a result of stakeholders input and need to strengthen implementation mechanisms and structures, the Order was reviewed. “Consequently, the Amendment to the Executive Order 008 was signed on May 20 by President Buhari’’. He said the Executive Order 008 as amended mandated the Attorney-General of the Federation to set up and implement a Voluntary Offshore Assets Regularisation Scheme otherwise referred to as `VOARS’. “VOARS gives all relevant persons and their intermediaries who have default...
Coronavirus: Lagos begins chloroquine clinical trial this week
The Lagos State Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, has said the state will this week commence the clinical trial treatment of COVID-19 using chloroquine as approved by NAFDAC. The state, which is the epicentre of the virus in the country, had previously disclosed plans to carry out the chloroquine clinical trial. Omotoso, in an interview with newsmen on Saturday, said, “We are ready for the chloroquine clinical trial because we have just secured all the approvals. The documentation has also been completed. Those that will be used for the trials are ready too. By next week we should be ready for the trial. “Also, Lagos got a supply of additional 20,000 testing kits, although we were expecting 40,000. It means that the testing will increase now.” In a related devel...
Iran’s OPEC governor dies of brain haemorrhage
Iran’s OPEC governor Hossein Kazempour-Ardebili has died of a brain haemorrhage two weeks after falling into a coma, the oil ministry said on Saturday. “Kazempour-Ardebili, who had gone into a coma over a brain haemorrhage two weeks ago in a hospital in Tehran, has passed away,” a ministry statement said, without giving further details. He died on Saturday morning aged 68, according to state news agency IRNA. The veteran politician was appointed governor to the OPEC oil cartel in 1985. He had also served as Iran’s ambassador to Japan from 1990 to 1995. Ardebili was a survivor of the 1981 bombing of the Islamic Republic Party headquarters in Tehran which killed 73 top Iranian officials. He was serving as trade minister at the time, appointed the year before. The bombing was blamed on the Pe...
