Buy Made-in-Nigeria goods - FG to review Act

Minister of Information, Culture and Tourism, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has said the federal government will review the Act establishing the Bureau of Public Procurements to enforce the patronage of made-in-Nigeria goods by government agencies.

He stated this at a town hall meeting in Umuahia.

Senate to send delegation to S.Africa

Bukola Saraki - Senate President

Following the renewed xenophobic attacks against Nigerians in South Africa, the Nigerian Senate, on Tuesday resolved to send a delegation of lawmakers to the South African parliament.

The delegates will deliberate with their South African counterpart on ways to stop the attacks on Nigerians.

NAPTIP gets 316 human traffickers convicted

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) has said it has so far secured 316 convictions against human traffickers in Nigeria.

The agency also said that the assets of some of the convicted traffickers have been forfeited to the Victims’ Trust Fund. Chief Legal Officer of NAPTIP, Mrs. Ijeoma Amugo, said this during a one-day workshop in Calabar, Cross River State on human trafficking prosecution and victims’ fund and protection organised by the Conference of Western Attorneys-General in conjunction with NAPTIP and other agencies.

The workshop had in attendance representatives from the Utah Attorney General’s Office in the United States, security agencies, legal practitioners, attorney generals, judges, prosecutors and investigators, among other stakeholders.

Amugo, who said NAPTIP have about 145 pending cases, listed some of the challenges faced by the agency. The challenges, according to her, include insufficient funds, clandestine nature of the crime, inter-agency rivalry, porous borders, relationship ties, tender age of victims, lack of training for investigators and prosecutors, unwillingness of victims to testify in court, oath taking in shrines and delay in the criminal justice system.

She said: “From our prosecution scorecard, NAPTIP has a current record of 316 convictions. The assets of some of the convicted traffickers have been forfeited to the Victims’ Trust Fund, while there are about 145 pending cases.”

Amugo, who did not mention the amount in the trust fund, however, said that the fund was already used in rehabilitating victims as well as investigations.

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One of the facilitators of the workshop, Chief Anthony Idigbe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said that there was the need to further amend the law on Human Trafficking to include offences that will help secure justice.

He said: “If you look at our law that was amended in 2015, it requires further amendment. Our law focuses too much on pure human trafficking offence which is very difficult to prove. We need to amend the law to create lower level offences such as offences related to simple possession of travel documents of another person without explanation.

“Like in Utah, United States, if you have someone else’s travel document and you cannot give simple explanation on why it is with you, you have committed an offence. It is enough to prove that the suspect was as at that time trying to traffic in person(s). We need to create those kinds of offences that are easier to prove.

“With those types of little ones, you can actually take people out of the system. The problem with our prosecution system is that we always go for big offences. There is the need for such level of reform and I believe that we are making progress.

In his address, the Cross River State Commissioner for Justice and Attorney-General, Mr. Joe Abang said the endemic nature of the menace in the state was of great concern.

“It is reported that Calabar has become the transit haven for traffickers, who as a result of clampdown on their activities in neighbouring states like Edo have relocated to Calabar, taking advantage of the low crime rate to perpetrate their nefarious activities.

“They use the ports and various creeks in the area to transport their victims to countries like Cameroon, Equatorial Guinea and Gabon among others. But I have bad news for them. Cross River State has never been and will never be a hiding place for criminals,” he said.

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Speaking on the relevance of the Victims of Trafficking Trust Fund, Chief Intelligence Assistance of NAPTIP, Mrs. Odugbesan Tolulola, said

they have so far received a total of 9, 453 victims who were provided with psychological counselling and the agency was able to empower 388 victims in various‎ skills.

Abuja airport shut for 6 weeks

Foreign travelers planning to reach the Nigerian capital, Abuja, next month have two choices: make a 15-hour drive from the southern commercial hub of Lagos or fly to the northern city of Kaduna and ride through an area plagued by kidnappers and gunmen.

The authorities plan to close Abuja’s airport for six weeks on March 8 to repair potholes on the 35-year-old runway that have damaged planes’ landing gear. British Airways, Lufthansa, Air France and South African Airways declined the government’s suggestion to divert their flights to Kaduna, while Ethiopian Airlines says it will fly there. Kaduna’s attractiveness dimmed on Feb. 23 when two German archaeologists were kidnapped and released three days later in a village off the 234-kilometer (145 mile) road to the capital.

“This route passes through insecure territory where the convergence by criminal actors from cattle rustlers to bandits and militants has precipitated a surge in kidnappings,” said Michael Clyne, an analyst at the Lagos-based security consultant group DC Premium Logistic and Solutions Ltd. Victims of the abductions included two former ministers, a Sierra Leonean diplomat and two bankers, he said.

The closure of the airport in Abuja, which handles 3 million passengers a year, will be another shock to a country facing its worst economic contraction in a quarter century. The drop in oil prices has slashed its main revenue earner, while the naira currency has weakened 35 percent against the dollar since June, the third-worst performance globally. President Muhammadu Buhari, 74, has been receiving treatment in London since Jan. 19 for an unspecified medical condition, with no date set for his return.

Deal Makers

Abuja’s a deal-making center, frequented by executives from mobile-phone companies, retailers and energy firms including Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. that are pumping crude with the state-owned Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. in Africa’s second-biggest oil producer.

Already the airport shutdown prompted the postponement of the Nigeria International Trade and Investment Conference on non-oil investment to June from March.

“We have talked to several participants and embassies, and it seems no one is interested in going to Kaduna,” Sand Mba Kalu, who’s helping to organize the conference for Africa International Trade and Development Trust, said on Monday.

Airport Capacity

Besides the danger of the Kaduna route, its airport probably doesn’t have the capacity to handle the Abuja traffic. It had 12 flights in December 2015 compared with 812 in Abuja, Lagos-based research house SBM Intelligence said in a Feb. 24 note, citing the latest available figures from Nigeria’s airports authority.

Most airlines had little alternative but to suspend their flights, said Joachim Vermooten, an independent aviation analyst in Pretoria, South Africa.

“It’s very hard to transfer the whole airline supply-chain that includes ticketing, etc to Kaduna just for a short while,” he said by phone.

The runway at Abuja’s Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport was built in 1982 with a 20-year lifespan and has deteriorated to the extent that it has become a safety hazard and has to be completely overhauled, according to Aviation Minister Hadi Sirika.

Construction company Julius Berger Nigeria Plc won a contract in 2010 that was then worth about $425 million to build a 4.6-kilometer second runway, but it was canceled after lawmakers said it was too expensive. It also won the bid to carry out the current repairs at a cost of 5.8 billion naira ($18.4 million), according to Sirika.

Economic Impact

Until the work is finished, Ben Okechukwu says he’s planning to shut his clothes shop in the capital because he won’t be able to make his usual monthly trip to Turkey to buy suits, shirts and ties.

“I plan to shift to Lagos,” he said in an interview. “The biggest problem is we are not sure how long the airport will be closed. If it’s six weeks it’s OK, but if it goes for months, then it messes up the whole year.”

Nigeria’s airline industry was already reeling from shortages of jet fuel and foreign-currency as revenue from crude oil fell and the value of the naira tumbled, leaving airlines with higher maintenance bills and difficulty in repatriating ticket sales. The government was forced to take over Nigeria’s biggest airline, Arik Air, this month.

The airport closure will make the situation worse, said Linden Birns, managing director of Cape Town, South Africa-based aviation consultancy Plane Talking.

It’s not only a “blow for both domestic and foreign airlines who will lose revenues, but also for the Nigerian economy,” he said.

Culled from Bloomberg

Nigeria leaders lack proper knowledge .... - Obasanjo

Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has said Nigerian leaders lack focus, commitment, continuity and sometimes, proper knowledge about economic and development issues.

Domestic air fares hike, and ...

A recent dip in the value of the naira (which fell to an all time low of N520 to $1dollar) as well as the rise in cost of aviation fuel from N240 per litre to N260 per litre is creating fresh wave of turbulence in the country’s troubled aviation industry.

“The depreciating naira is creating great source of worry in the aviation industry,” said aviation analysts, Mr. Olu Ohunayo.

Power consumers ripped off - Varsity Don

Babatunde Fashola, SAN - Power Minister

The former Dean, Faculty of Engineering, University of Lagos (UNILAG), Prof. Sumbo Balogun, has accused the various power distribution companies in the country of ripping off electricity consumers with crazy bills despite the current erratic supply to homes and industries.