Africa’s largest oil refinery will not be finished until the end of 2020 due to problems importing steel and other equipment, executives at Dangote, which is building the facility in the Nigerian commercial hub of Lagos, told Reuters.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, imports virtually all its fuel due to sclerotic and underutilised refineries, and even the state oil company is looking to the 650,000 barrel per day (bpd) Dangote refinery to help address this.
Price caps force NNPC to import nearly all its gasoline at a significant cost and periodic fuel shortages are common.
Despite the delays at the congested Apapa and Tin Can Island ports in Lagos, a Dangote executive said the company could start using the refinery’s tank farms as a depot to warm up operations.
“We will be able to complete the (refinery) project by the end of next year - mechanical completion,” said Dangote Group Executive Director Devakumar Edwin, who oversees the project.
The company expects fuel production within two months of completion of the refinery, which could transform Africa’s biggest crude producer from a fuel importer into a net exporter, upending global trade patterns.
Billionaire Aliko Dangote, who built his fortune on cement, first announced a smaller refinery in 2013, to be finished in 2016. Dangote then moved the site to Lekki, in Lagos, upgraded the size and said production would start in early 2020.
Industry sources told Reuters last year that fuel output was unlikely before 2022.
TRADING PLAN
Edwin also said during an interview at his office in Lagos that Dangote is setting up its own trading desk, with a senior team of three people and a staff of roughly 30 who will monitor international commodity prices.
“We are setting up a complete trading desk here with us. In the next three months the full desk will be set up,” he said.
Giuseppe Surace, the refinery’s chief operations officer, said the refinery’s tank farms will be finished this year and could be used as a warm-up for operations.
The tanks will be connected to five “single point mooring buoys” (SPMs), which will allow the refinery complex to pump crude straight into tanks from large ships at sea and pump products back out onto boats of any size.
The SPMs will be the primary method of supplying oil products from the refinery, Surace said, adding that the team were considering using the tanks as training or as a depot before the refinery’s production starts.
“We might do that. We will be ready to do that,” he said, though he added that no decision had been taken yet.
The team is in talks with NNPC, two other international oil companies and two large oil traders, all of whom are interested in supplying crude and buying products, Edwin said.
Edwin said the crude unit for the refinery, which set sail from China last month, would arrive by the end of October.
The trains at a fertilizer plant on the same site will start up by the end of this year, the executives said.
By Alexis Akwagyiram
Reuters
Related story: Dangote Refinery has World's largest atmospheric tower built by China for Nigeria
Friday, August 9, 2019
Wednesday, August 7, 2019
Nigeria second in the world in open defecation
Dr Geoffrey Njoku, Communication Specialist, UNICEF made this known at a Two-Day Media Dialogue in Calabar State on Wednesday.
The theme of the dialogue “Clean Nigeria: Use the Toilet” is aimed at creating awareness to end the habit by 2025.
According to him, findings from the 2018 Water sanitation and Hygiene National Outcome Routine Mapping survey reveals that 24 per cent of the population, about 47 million people, practise open defecation.
“This campaign is trying to see what we can do not to be in the number one category of open category.
“There is need to create awareness about Clean Nigeria, Use the Toilet campaign and mobilise resources to sustain the national movement.”
Njoku, however, called for behavioural change and policy reform through community dialogue, advocacy and engagement with policymakers.
He added that it was also important to drive cross-sector collaborations, especially with the private sector to improve investment in the sanitation sector.
Meanwhile, the Chief of Field Office, UNICEF, Enugu, Mr Ibrahim Conteh said that by 2030, Nigeria should be able to achieve adequate sanitation hygiene while also paying adequate attention to the needs of women and girls.
Conteh said stakeholders must, however, join forces towards improving adequate sanitation facilities in the country.
” The Federal Government has declared an emergency on the sector in 2018 and have taken steps to achieve this.
” This partnership will yield tremendous result in achieving this goal.”
News Agency of Nigeria reports that the Nigeria government in 2018 launched a national campaign to jump-start the country toward becoming Open Defecation Free.
Nigeria is however second to India in open defecation, a situation that needed urgent attention to reverse.
PUNCH
Related stories: Nigerian government plans to end open defecation in Nigeria by 2025
Highest rate of Nigerians defecating in public is in Ekiti State
Boko Haram attempted to stop Nigeria from eradicating polio.
Nigeria is on the verge of eliminating polio, but Boko Haram is standing in the way.
Using violence and misinformation, the ISIS-linked militant group has hampered efforts to get every child in the country vaccinated against polio, leaving nearly 66,000 children in remote villages in northern Nigeria without the vaccine, according to UNICEF estimates.
But public health officials are pushing back, teaming up with the military and volunteers who have put their lives on the line to get vaccines to everyone.
Boko Haram has controlled territory in northern Nigeria since around 2003, when they implemented Sharia, or Islamic law, in the region. As part of an effort to dispel Western views, the group —whose name roughly translates to “Western education is sinful” —spread vaccine misinformation, claiming that the vaccine could lead to infertility and bone injuries.
The group has also used violence to deter vaccinators. In 2013, at least nine vaccination team members in the state of Kano were murdered, and witnesses pointed to Boko Haram as the culprit.
The group's efforts worked: In 2016, after nearly three years without an outbreak, polio resurfaced in the country — a sobering reminder that public health efforts, even when backed by strong leadership, millions of dollars in funding and years of planning, can be quickly undone.
“In 2016, we almost disrupted the transmission of polio, but our efforts were derailed by insurgency groups in the northeast,” said Dr. Ngozi Nwosu, the national coordinator for the polio transition planning committee of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency. “We don't want that to happen again.”
That means public health officials need to get the vaccine to kids in remote villages in Boko Haram-controlled territory.
“Now, health care workers are accompanied by the military and vigilantes to keep them and the vaccines they carry safe,” Nwosu said. “We also use satellite imagery to see where these hard-to-reach communities are located so we know exactly where to go.”
The vigilantes, also called community informants, sometimes go where health care workers cannot, because of threats of violence. They are young men who have been trained by the military on how to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations as well as how to properly administer vaccines. Armed with this knowledge, they go family to family in remote camps, dispelling anti-vaccine myths for parents and providing vaccines to the children.
Their vaccination efforts have been invaluable in helping to achieve Nigeria’s 30-year goal of eliminating polio, said Pernille Ironside, UNICEF's deputy representative for Nigeria.
“We are fortunate to have informants within largely inaccessible areas of Borno,” Ironside told NBC News. “Boko Haram has made it so we can’t reach 66,000 children.”
The vigilantes provide health care workers with on-the-ground information, including whether any children show symptoms of polio. But without access to the areas, it's difficult to know exactly what's going on.
“We're not quite sure of the full polio picture in these areas, if any children are experiencing paralytic symptoms, or how many kids remain unvaccinated,” Ironside said. “The inaccessibility to these children is a far bigger issue than even the misinformation campaigns that exist.”
One community informant, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told NBC News that the number of children they've reached is hard to quantify, but added that thousands of children have likely been vaccinated, thereby conferring some level of herd immunity to those who are unvaccinated. Herd immunity means that enough people are vaccinated against an infectious disease to protect others in the community who are not.
The vigilantes also help educate the people living in these remote areas on proper hygiene and sanitation practices when they can, Ironside said.
“Polio is spread in the feces, and Nigeria will soon overtake India as the No. 1 country in public defecation. That's not a distinction you want to have,” she added.
Nwosu stressed that while global public health efforts and strong leadership by the Nigerian government have stemmed the anti-vaccine tide, it's not time to let up.
“We have to remain vigilant in our vaccination and surveillance campaigns,” Nwosu said. And polio isn't the only safety concern in the area: Kidnappings, armed robberies and poor sanitation are also worsening the conditions in which people live, she said.
Ironside, who is also a human rights attorney, applauded Nigeria as a global public health success story and said that she is excited that this chapter in the fight against polio is coming to an end. Still, she acknowledged that a conversation with Boko Haram leadership may be necessary to keep events, such as the resurgence of polio in 2016, from happening again.
“We know that Nigeria is doing everything in its power to check their influence,” Ironside said of Boko Haram, “but it is prudent to listen to their message and find new ways to address them.”
NBC
Using violence and misinformation, the ISIS-linked militant group has hampered efforts to get every child in the country vaccinated against polio, leaving nearly 66,000 children in remote villages in northern Nigeria without the vaccine, according to UNICEF estimates.
But public health officials are pushing back, teaming up with the military and volunteers who have put their lives on the line to get vaccines to everyone.
Boko Haram has controlled territory in northern Nigeria since around 2003, when they implemented Sharia, or Islamic law, in the region. As part of an effort to dispel Western views, the group —whose name roughly translates to “Western education is sinful” —spread vaccine misinformation, claiming that the vaccine could lead to infertility and bone injuries.
The group has also used violence to deter vaccinators. In 2013, at least nine vaccination team members in the state of Kano were murdered, and witnesses pointed to Boko Haram as the culprit.
The group's efforts worked: In 2016, after nearly three years without an outbreak, polio resurfaced in the country — a sobering reminder that public health efforts, even when backed by strong leadership, millions of dollars in funding and years of planning, can be quickly undone.
“In 2016, we almost disrupted the transmission of polio, but our efforts were derailed by insurgency groups in the northeast,” said Dr. Ngozi Nwosu, the national coordinator for the polio transition planning committee of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency. “We don't want that to happen again.”
That means public health officials need to get the vaccine to kids in remote villages in Boko Haram-controlled territory.
“Now, health care workers are accompanied by the military and vigilantes to keep them and the vaccines they carry safe,” Nwosu said. “We also use satellite imagery to see where these hard-to-reach communities are located so we know exactly where to go.”
The vigilantes, also called community informants, sometimes go where health care workers cannot, because of threats of violence. They are young men who have been trained by the military on how to de-escalate potentially dangerous situations as well as how to properly administer vaccines. Armed with this knowledge, they go family to family in remote camps, dispelling anti-vaccine myths for parents and providing vaccines to the children.
Their vaccination efforts have been invaluable in helping to achieve Nigeria’s 30-year goal of eliminating polio, said Pernille Ironside, UNICEF's deputy representative for Nigeria.
“We are fortunate to have informants within largely inaccessible areas of Borno,” Ironside told NBC News. “Boko Haram has made it so we can’t reach 66,000 children.”
The vigilantes provide health care workers with on-the-ground information, including whether any children show symptoms of polio. But without access to the areas, it's difficult to know exactly what's going on.
“We're not quite sure of the full polio picture in these areas, if any children are experiencing paralytic symptoms, or how many kids remain unvaccinated,” Ironside said. “The inaccessibility to these children is a far bigger issue than even the misinformation campaigns that exist.”
One community informant, who asked to remain anonymous due to safety concerns, told NBC News that the number of children they've reached is hard to quantify, but added that thousands of children have likely been vaccinated, thereby conferring some level of herd immunity to those who are unvaccinated. Herd immunity means that enough people are vaccinated against an infectious disease to protect others in the community who are not.
The vigilantes also help educate the people living in these remote areas on proper hygiene and sanitation practices when they can, Ironside said.
“Polio is spread in the feces, and Nigeria will soon overtake India as the No. 1 country in public defecation. That's not a distinction you want to have,” she added.
Nwosu stressed that while global public health efforts and strong leadership by the Nigerian government have stemmed the anti-vaccine tide, it's not time to let up.
“We have to remain vigilant in our vaccination and surveillance campaigns,” Nwosu said. And polio isn't the only safety concern in the area: Kidnappings, armed robberies and poor sanitation are also worsening the conditions in which people live, she said.
Ironside, who is also a human rights attorney, applauded Nigeria as a global public health success story and said that she is excited that this chapter in the fight against polio is coming to an end. Still, she acknowledged that a conversation with Boko Haram leadership may be necessary to keep events, such as the resurgence of polio in 2016, from happening again.
“We know that Nigeria is doing everything in its power to check their influence,” Ironside said of Boko Haram, “but it is prudent to listen to their message and find new ways to address them.”
NBC
Tekno questioned by Nigeria police for pole dancing women in traffic
Nigerian star Tekno has been questioned by police after travelling through Lagos in a van with semi-naked women.
A video, which appears to be filmed from another car in a traffic jam, shows a man sitting in a glass-sided lorry throwing money at women dancing around a pole in their underwear.
The singer has denied accusations that it was an advert for a strip club.
Instead he insists that he was in the glass box on a truck travelling between locations while shooting a music video.
The police started an investigation after there was "outcry on social media" about the video, police spokesman Bala Elkana told the BBC.
It was originally reported that the singer was arrested, but Mr Elkana says he was invited for questioning and voluntarily visited the police station in Lagos on Tuesday to make a statement.
Tekno features in Beyonce's Lion King album and his songs include the hit Pana which has had over 100 million views on YouTube.
The video, whose origin is unclear, shows the women dancing while the vehicle stopped in a traffic jam:
The star, whose real name is Augustine Kelechi, apologised on Instagram for any offence he had caused.
He said they had been "having fun" shooting a music video and then, at midnight, had to travel between locations:
"We were shooting a music video and we had a shortage of vehicles to convey people to the next location, because some of the cars broke down in between the shoot," he said on Instagram.
He didn't explain why, on the journey, he was throwing money at the women.
A video, which appears to be filmed from another car in a traffic jam, shows a man sitting in a glass-sided lorry throwing money at women dancing around a pole in their underwear.
The singer has denied accusations that it was an advert for a strip club.
Instead he insists that he was in the glass box on a truck travelling between locations while shooting a music video.
The police started an investigation after there was "outcry on social media" about the video, police spokesman Bala Elkana told the BBC.
It was originally reported that the singer was arrested, but Mr Elkana says he was invited for questioning and voluntarily visited the police station in Lagos on Tuesday to make a statement.
Tekno features in Beyonce's Lion King album and his songs include the hit Pana which has had over 100 million views on YouTube.
The video, whose origin is unclear, shows the women dancing while the vehicle stopped in a traffic jam:
The star, whose real name is Augustine Kelechi, apologised on Instagram for any offence he had caused.
He said they had been "having fun" shooting a music video and then, at midnight, had to travel between locations:
"We were shooting a music video and we had a shortage of vehicles to convey people to the next location, because some of the cars broke down in between the shoot," he said on Instagram.
He didn't explain why, on the journey, he was throwing money at the women.
Monday, August 5, 2019
Video - Nollywood tackles discrimination and stigma
More than ever before, movie makers in Nigeria's film industry, Nollywood, are beginning to tell unheard stories of the marginalized and under-represented in society. And they're doing this hand in hand with highly talented persons with disability and other health conditions. In an industry focused on glitz and glamour, an albino actor from Nigeria has dared to prove that they have been ignored for far too long.
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