The governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, has disclosed that the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote, has started repaying some of the loans used in financing the Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals. While giving his address at the commissioning of the project in Lagos on Monday, Emefiele noted that the refinery which was initially estimated to cost about $9 billion when it started in 2013, was completed with a total of $18.5bn with funding distributed into 50 percent equity investment and 50 percent debt finance.   Emefiele, who noted that the commercial loan component of the project was financed majorly by domestic banks with the balance sourced from foreign banks, added that the CBN provided about N125 billion to cover domestic currency requirements for the venture. “What you may not be fully aware of, Your Excellencies, is that the Dangote Group has started repaying some of the commercial loans even before the commissioning of this facility. This reflects the commercial capability of the Group and its Chairman. I am pleased to inform everyone today that, following extensive repayments, outstanding debt has dropped appreciably from over US$9 billion to US$3 billion.”   “I must at this juncture appreciate all the participating local Nigerian banks, who did not only partner with the project through effective financing but were keenly aware of the importance of the project for our nation. They provided immense support and exceptional understanding, even when interest payments and principal repayment had fallen due,” he said The Dangote refinery which has the capacity to process 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day, is the largest single-train refinery in the world. Given this processing capacity, the refinery is more than able to meet all of Nigeria’s domestic fuel consumption, which is about 450,000 barrels per day; whilst the excess production will be available for export.

  Emmanuel Osodeke has been re-elected as the national president of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) for another two years. Christian Opata, University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN) ASUU chairman, who confirmed this to TheCable, said the election took place in the early hours of Monday. “Yes, it’s true. I just left the meeting. He was not the only one. All the principal officers who served with him were also re-elected except one,” Opata said. At the meeting, Chris Piwuna, a consultant psychiatrist and associate professor at the University of Jos, was also elected vice-president of the union. The election took place during the 22nd national delegates conference of the union held at UNIJOS from May 19 to 21. Other re-elected national officers of the union include Siji Sowande (treasurer), Ade Adejumo (financial secretary), Austen Sado (investment secretary), and Adamu Babayo (internal auditor). Aisha Bawa was also elected to replace Stella-Maris Okey as the welfare secretary of the union. Osodeke was first elected president of the union in May 2021 during ASUU’s national delegates conference held in Awka, Anambra state. He is a lecturer at the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, in Abia state. Under him, ASUU embarked on eight-month strike in 2022 to demand more funding of universities in the country and improved welfare for lecturers.

  The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says 98.5 percent of eNaira wallets have not been used even once. In its recently released working paper titled ‘Nigeria’s eNaira, One Year After’, the Bretton Woods institution took stock of the first year of the eNaira —the first central bank digital currency (CBDC) in Africa. President Muhammadu Buhari formally launched the digital currency at the state house in Abuja on October 25, 2021. The IMF said despite the laudable undisrupted operation for the first full year, the CBDC project has not yet moved beyond the initial wave of limited adoption.   The fund said the take-up of the eNaira by households and merchants has been slow. The IMF described the public adoption of the eNaira as “disappointingly low” due to the levels of wallet downloads and transactions. The fund said as of end-November 2021, the total number of retail eNaira wallets amounted to about 860,000 — a figure equivalent to just 0.8 percent of Nigeria’s active bank accounts.   “The retail wallet downloads saw a few weeks of initial surge before tapering off. More specially, it only took 25 days for the number of downloaded wallets to reach 500,000 units—but going from there to 600,000 units took another 63 days; and to 700,000 units yet another 143 days,” the paper reads. “As of end-November 2021, the total number of retails eNaira wallets amounted to about 860,000. This is just 0.8 per cent of Nigeria’s active bank accounts. “Merchant wallet download has reached about 100,000 in end-June, which is about one eleventh of the number of merchants with Point-of-Sales (POS) terminals—which enables credit or debit card payments.” On transactions, the IMF said most wallets appear to remain inactive except for a limited window of weeks of activity surge.   The institution said the average number of eNaira transactions weekly were carried out only by 1.5 percent of downloaded wallets. “The average number of eNaira transactions since its inception amounts to about 14,000 per week—only 1.5 percent of the number of wallets out there. This means that 98.5 percent of wallets, for any given week, have not been used even once,” the paper further reads. “The average value of eNaira transactions has been 923 million naira per week—0.0018 percent of the average amount of M3 during this period. The average value per one transaction has been 60,000 naira.” The IMF said network effects suggest the initial low adoption spell would require a coordinated policy drive to break it. “The eNaira’s potential in financial inclusion requires a strategy to set the right relationship with mobile money, given the former’s potential to either complement or substitute the latter,” the institution said. “Cost savings from integrating CBDC—as a bridge vehicle—in the remittance process may also be substantial.”

  The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, on Monday, rejected request to allow its day-to-day proceedings on petitions seeking to nullify the outcome of the 2023 presidential election, to be televised. The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five member panel dismissed as lacking in merit, the application which was brought before it by the two major candidates that are challenging the outcome of the presidential election that held on February 25. The court held that no regulatory framework or policy direction, permitted it to grant such application. It held that allowing cameras in the court room is a major judicial policy that must be supported by the law. “The court can only be guided and act in accordance with the practice directions and procedures approved by the President of the Court of Appeal. “We cannot permit a situation that may lead to dramatization of our proceedings,” Justice Tsammani held. Besides, the court held that the request was not part of any relief in the petitions before it, saying it was merely hinged on sentimental claim that it would benefit the electorates. It maintained that the petitioners failed to establish how televising the proceedings would advance their case, adding that such live broadcast would not have any utilitarian value to add to the determination of the petitions. Whereas it was a former Vice President and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who came second in the election, that initially made the request for a live coverage, subsequently, candidate of the Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi, threw his weight behind the demand for live broadcast of proceedings of the court on the petitions. The duo, through their lead lawyers, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, and Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, maintained that petitions they lodged to query the declaration of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, as winner of the election, was “a matter of monumental national concern and public interest”. They argued that the case involved the interest of citizens and electorates in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, who he said voted and participated in the presidential poll. Atiku and the PDP insisted that their case against Tinubu, being a unique electoral dispute with a peculiar constitutional dimension, they said it was a matter of public interest in which millions of Nigerian citizens and voters are stakeholders, with the constitutional right to be part of the proceedings. They specifically applied for; “An order, directing the Court’s Registry and the parties on modalities for admission of Media Practitioners and their Equipments into the courtroom”. “With the huge and tremendous technological advances and developments in Nigeria and beyond, including the current trend by this Honourable Court towards embracing electronic procedures, virtual hearing and electronic filing, a departure from the Rules to allow a regulated televising of the proceedings in this matter is in consonance with the maxim that justice must not only be done, but must be seen to be done. “Televising court proceedings is not alien to this Honourable Court, and will enhance public confidence”, the petitioners added. However, in separate processes they filed before the court, both Tinubu and the APC urged the court to dismiss the application which they described as an abuse of the legal process. Tinubu, in a counter-affifavit he filed alongside the Vice President-elect, Kashim Shettima, accused Atiku of deliberately attempting to expose the judiciary to public opprobrium. According to them, the court “is not a rostrum or a soapbox. It is not also a stadium or theatre. It is not an arena for public entertainment.” The respondents maintained that Atiku’s request had no bearing with the petition, insisting that it was only aimed at dissipating the judicial time of the court They stressed that Atiku failed to realise that the virtual court system that was adopted during the Covid-19 pandemic, was backed by a practice direction that was administratively issued by the President of the Court of Appeal. “Another angle to this very curious application is the invitation it extends to the court to make an order that it cannot supervise. “The position of the law remains, and we do submit that the court, like nature, does not make an order in vain, or an order which is incapable of enforcement,” the respondents added. Besides, they argued that the application was at best, “academic, very otiose, very unnecessary, very time-wasting, most unusual and most unexpected, particularly, from a set of petitioners, who should be praying for the expeditious trial of their petition.” “Petitioners have brought their application under Section 36(3) of the Constitution which provides that the proceedings of a court/tribunal shall be held in public. “The word ‘public’ as applied under Section 36(3) of the Constitution has been defined in a plethora of judicial authorities to mean a place where members of the public have unhindered access, and the court itself, sitting behind open doors, not in the camera. “Even in situations where a class action is presented, the particular people constituting the class being represented by the plaintiffs or petitioners are always defined in the originating process. “Here, in this application, the public at whose behest this application has been presented is not defined, not known, not discernable. “Beyond all these, it is our submission that the court of law must and should always remain what it is, what it should be and what it is expected to be: a serene, disciplined, hallowed, tranquil, honourable and decorous institution and place. “It is not a rostrum or a soapbox. It is not also a stadium or theatre. It is not an arena for ‘public’ entertainment. “With much respect to the petitioners, the motion is an abuse of the processes of this honourable court,” Tinubu argued. On its part, APC, through its team of lawyers led by Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, told the court that contrary to Atiku’s claim, the presidential election “is not subject matter of any national

  The Plateau State Chapter of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) says it has lost more than 100 herders in villages of Mangu Local Government Area of the state. Daily Trust reported how police confirmed 87 people killed in last week Tuesday attack in some villages. The National President of Muwaghagvul Development Association, Joseph Gwankat, had in an interview on Thursday said 85 people of his communities were killed in the attack with many still messing. However, on Sunday, the MACBAN chairman in the state, Nuru Abdullahi, in a press release claimed that more than 200 of their women and children were missing. He said, “Over 200 Fulani women, children and aged once are still missing in the recent Mangu crisis and over 100 bodies are still lying down in the bush in what we call the annihilation of Fulani, massacre by crusaders, which is in its full-fledge. “Over 25,000 cows, sheep and goats are also still missing. This dastardly act and a Black agenda have been achieved and accomplished in villages like Bwoi, Kombun, Sarfal, Rinago, Jukga, Kuwes, Kaangag, Farinkasa, Kerana, Lugga Dimeza, Fungong, Gindiri Gok, Bughan Gida, Millet, Rufwang, Tidiu, Dejwak Rufwang, Lupo, Wushik etc. “So far about 1,000 cows were recovered from cattle rustlers with assistance of the security agencies. It’s with great sorrow and heart bleeding to describe the wanton attacks, killings of both Fulani and their cows, burning of their residences and properties and are totally vilified, annihilated, extinguished and belittled them from their ancestral home, as barbaric and a total massacre of Fulani from Plateau. “Hundreds of thousands of our livestock’s that include cows, goats sheep, turkeys, ducks, chickens and other animals are also roaming about and our killers are hunting them for their personal use.” The MACBAN chairman called on security agencies to help them recover the bodies of their love ones. “Government through NEMA and SEMA should come to the aids of the internally displaced persons (IDPs). Security agencies should work extra mile in halting more killings, destruction of property and cattle rustling,” Abdullahi added.

  Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State, yesterday, expressed worry that states in the federation have been reduced to pathetic beggars. Akeredolu spoke at the 59th Founders’ Day Anniversary Lecture, Award, and Endowment of the Adeyemi Federal University of Education in Ondo. The governor, who spoke through his Special Adviser on Union Matters and Special Duties, Mr Dare Aragbaiye, said there would be no end to the misery of the people unless the basic law was tinkered with to reposition the country to prepare for the production of goods and services. He said: “A defective law cannot engender peace and progress. It is, more often than not, the source of the seemingly intractable crises. “There can be no development in a place where the law and its application are skewed, heavily, against the majority of the people. When the law becomes an instrument of repression, society is imperiled. “A codification which alienates the people from its intendment is not only repressive but also fraudulent. “There can be no meaningful achievement from the existence of a set of regulations whose purpose is to sustain the privileges enjoyed by a parasitic few at the detriment of the majority.” Akeredolu explained that the existence of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, represented an experiment in audacious mendacity. He also recommended the 1963 Republican Constitution as a veritable guide for desired development. “The subversion of the people’s will cannot engender progress in any society if the essence of development is the amelioration of the challenges faced by them. “Any law which imposes the whims and caprices of a select but partisan few on the majority of the people cannot be used to advance the cause of the society. “If there is any document whose existence represents an experiment in audacious mendacity, it is this so-called Constitution of the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. “The Constitution tells manifest lies against itself. It purports to represent the wishes of the Nigerian people but nothing can be farther from this obvious lie,” the governor said. While urging the in-coming administration of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu to be courageous to confront the problems headlong, Akeredolu said: “The in-coming administration has its job clearly defined. It is inheriting not only a heavy backlog of disaffection and complaints from the citizenry from all parts of the country; it has sold its campaign on the promise of a Renewed Hope.”