Dangote Refinery to employ over 250,000 Nigerians

The management of Dangote Refinery and Petrochemicals has disclosed that the 650,000 barrels per day project will create jobs for not less than 250,000 Nigerians when completed and fully operational next year.

Group Executive Director, Strategy and Capital Projects, Dangote Industries Limited, Mr. Devakumar Edwin, told reporters at the site that the company’s Refinery has potential to turn around Nigeria’s economy with the employment of thousands of Nigerians for direct and indirect jobs.

He said the huge unemployment rate of Nigerian youths and the need to make the country self-reliant in fuel consumption and attract much needed foreign exchange through export of the products were reasons that motivated the President of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote to venture into manufacturing

The Dangote Group boss said he was very optimistic that the refinery will be a game changer for Nigeria and the rest of Africa.

According to him, the Dangote Industries Limited has succeeded in substantially reducing the high rate of unemployment in the country, with the conglomerate already recruiting youths from its various agricultural scheme and also into its other subsidiaries. Dangote Industries Limited is the highest employer of labour outside the federal government.

In the same vein, Edwin also assured that, other things being equal, Dangote Fertilizer plant’s products will hit the market this month.

The Sun

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Video - Nigerian soldier filmed assaulting driver who overtook his car

A military officer just threatened a colleague's driver after wrongfully overtaking her on their way to Kaduna

He threatened d guy life & promised to deal with him.

In his words: "I will kill you and nothing will happen"

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Cc @AIT_Online @instablog9ja @bellanaija pic.twitter.com/HStyljioEv

— My name is Dare Kuti (@dkuti82) November 10, 2020

An unidentified Nigerian soldier has been caught on camera assaulting a driver for overtaking his car on the Abuja-Kaduna road, North-central Nigeria.

The incident, which happened on November 10, was captured in a video posted on Twitter by a sports journalist, Dare Kuti.

Mr Kuti told PREMIUM TIMES he witnessed the incident and that his colleague was being driven by the victim from Abuja to Kaduna when the incident happened.

“Oga abeg, wetin I do you?” the driver, apparently frightened, is heard in the video speaking in Pidgin to the approaching soldier.

The soldier forcefully opened the car door, stretched his right leg into the car and continually hit the driver. The victim could be heard screaming in pain.

The soldier jumped inside the front seat of the car and kept punching the man who appeared too frightened to fight back.

“You are talking to me? You are talking to me? Are you mad?” the soldier shouted as he kept punching the man who later fell off from the car and was on the ground, writhing.

The soldier kicked him again and then shouted, “God punish you! I will kill you and nothing will happen. You are an idiot!”

Some sympathisers are seen in the video begging the soldier to have mercy on the man, while others tried to help the victim up from the ground.

The soldier entered his maroon colour Honda car and drove away after the incident, the video showed.

PREMIUM TIMES on Thursday spoke with the driver who identified himself as Dauda Mustapha.

Mr Mustapha, a commercial driver who plies the Abuja-Kaduna route, said he overtook the soldier, after the latter drove roughly from a filling station into the road.

He said when they got to an unmotorable spot on the road, the soldier used his car to block his and then came down to assault him.

“My car no even touch him car! Him say why me I overtake-am,” Mr Mustapha said.

Mr Mustapha said the soldier beat him with a timing belt and also broke his car’s windscreen.

“I talk-am for my mind say till I die I no go forgive-am. I no know wetin I do-am. I get wound for my body. As I dey talk with you, headache dey wori me,” the driver said.

A spokesperson for the Nigerian army, Sagir Musa, did not respond to calls and a text message asking for his comment.

Nigeria has a deteriorating human rights record. With a weak criminal justice system, citizens, frequently assaulted by security officials, appear helpless.

“The government took some steps to investigate alleged abuses but there were few public reports of prosecutions of officials who committed violations, whether in the security forces or elsewhere in the government,” the U.S. Department of State said in a 2019 report on the human rights situation in Nigeria.

“Impunity remained widespread at all levels of government. No charges were filed in some of the significant allegations of human rights violations by security forces and cases of police or military extortion or other abuse of power,” the report said.

A few days ago, some soldiers in Ibadan, Nigeria’s South-west, were caught on camera flogging one woman in public whom they accused of “indecent dressing”.

In Delta State, Nigeria’s South-south, soldiers last month reportedly forced a medical doctor to swim in the mud for “violating curfew”.

Young people across various states in Nigeria recently protested for days against police brutality in the country.

“This is barbaric. I feel totally disgusted watching this. Scenes like these just fuels so much anger and hatred towards the establishment,” one Twitter user, Isidore Akpaetuk (@IsidoreAkpaetuk), commented on the video showing the soldier assaulting the driver, Mr Mustapha.

By Cletus Ukpong

Premium Times

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Nigeria records over 1,000 road accident deaths in Q3

At least 1,076 people were killed in road accidents in Nigeria in the third quarter of 2020, according to the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC).

According to reports of the official News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday, FRSC spokesperson Bisi Kazeem said a total of 2,656 road crashes were reported between July and September, adding that the road police agency had not relented in its efforts at reducing carnage on the highways.

Also, some 167,783 traffic offenders were arrested within the same period, as most of the offenders were arrested for “overloading, seat belt use violation, riding of a motorcycle without helmets, driving with shattered windscreen, driver’s license violations, among others”.

He attributed most of the road crashes and deaths that occurred along various routes in the country within the period to overspeeding.

Kazeem urged the motoring public to cooperate with the FRSC, saying that it would go a long way in preventing incessant crashes on the roads.

The spokesperson appealed to motorists to desist from buying used or fake tyres and opt for good ones to save lives and properties.

Kazeem encouraged drivers to obey traffic rules, regulations and cooperate with traffic officers, as it was in their best interests and that of other road users.

Deadly road accidents are frequently reported in Nigeria, often caused by overloading, bad condition of roads and reckless driving.

 CGTN

Concerns over polio resurgence in Nigeria

There are concerns over possible resurgence of Wild Polio Virus (WPV) in Nigeria as Pakistan has recorded increase in number of cases due to the COVID-19 lockdowns.

According to a study published online in the journal Public Health, a spike in the number of polio cases in Pakistan, the last refuge of the virus in the world along with neighbouring Afghanistan, is being attributed by health experts to disruption in vaccination services caused by lockdowns and restrictions against spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Researcher in molecular biology and immunology at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad and lead author of a study, Misbahud Din, said: “The increase in polio cases could result in the global export of infections and healthcare authorities must intensify efforts to track and vaccinate unvaccinated children.”

Din told SciDev.Net: “80 cases of wild polio virus (WPV) and 64 cases of circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) have been reported in 2020.”

Africa was on August 25, 2020 declared free from wild polio by the independent body, the Africa Regional Certification Commission. Polio usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis. Death can occur when breathing muscles are affected.

Twenty-five years ago thousands of children in Africa, were paralysed by the virus. The disease is now only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no cure but the polio vaccine protects children for life.

Nigeria is the last African country to be declared free from wild polio, having accounted for more than half of all global cases less than a decade ago.

The vaccination campaign in Nigeria involved a huge effort to reach remote and dangerous places under threat from militant violence and some health workers were killed in the process.

Meanwhile, according to the study, around 40 million children missed polio vaccination after Pakistan, on March 26, suspended a mass vaccination programme being carried out under the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI).

With support from United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organisation (WHO) and GPEI partners, the Pakistan government resumed polio immunisation late July and conducted the second of two sub-national campaigns in August as COVID-19 cases started declining in the country.

But enforcement of social distancing, vaccine supply disruptions and elevated shipment costs during the four-month break had caused a momentum loss in a concerted drive to make the country polio-free.

Two years ago, with only 12 reported cases, Pakistan had come close to becoming polio-free. But the number of cases rose to 147 in 2019. According to Din, the sharp reversal was due to “illiteracy, vaccine refusal by parents, poverty, conspiracy theories and rejection of vaccination by some local religious scholars”.

Concerted efforts early 2020 led to expectations that the year would see a halt in polio transmission by 2021. But the country was then hit by COVID-19, resulting in massive diversion of public health resources to tackle the new threat.

According to a UNICEF report, the suspension of immunisation activities and disruptions in other health-related interventions due to COVID-19 pandemic from March to mid-July has increased the number of unimmunised children, including close to 700,000 new-born per month, leading to widening immunity gaps.

“It could be concluded that diverting public health funds to fight against other outbreaks disrupted polio eradication plans, which could lead to the spread the of poliovirus in areas of low immunization coverage and immunity,” the new study noted.

Din added that it is “challenging for countries like Pakistan with limited health care facilities to deal with the current pandemic along with other outbreaks liked dengue, malaria and typhoid because COVID-19 overburdened the health care system. Staff already trained to handle polio vaccinations were directed to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic”.

WHO representative in Pakistan, Palitha Mahipala, commented on World Polio Day on October 24 that following the certification of the African region as free of wild poliovirus in August, his organisation is “working hard to ensure that Pakistan can be the next country on the journey to a polio-free world.

“The polio programme with its partners has now been able to ramp up activities with a revitalised resolve to end polio in Pakistan as recently done by Africa.”

The Guardian

Nigeria receives China-made armed reconnaissance drones

The Nigerian air force has reportedly received a batch of China's Wing Loong II armed reconnaissance drones, once again showcasing China's advantages in the international drone market, including mature technologies, combat-proven results and reasonable prices, analysts said.

Citing a senior Nigerian Air Force official on Tuesday, Janes Defense Weekly reported on the same day that Nigeria has received a pair of Wing Loong II drones developed by Chinese state-owned arms firm Aviation Industry Corporation of China.

Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, the Director of Public Relations and Information of the Nigerian Air Force Headquarters, was quoted by the report as saying that Nigeria has joined China and the UAE as the only countries operating the Wing Loong II unmanned combat aerial vehicle.

The two Nigerian Air Force Wing Loong IIs, which can stay airborne for 31 hours in intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance mode and 26 hours in offensive roles, will add significant value to counter-insurgency and anti-banditry operations, the official said.

A Chinese military expert told the Global Times on condition of anonymity that the arms sale will further open up the global military drone market for Chinese defense firms, particularly in Africa.

China's drones have unique advantages on the international arms market, due to mature drone technologies, complete systems for setups, a variety of types and sizes of drones, much lower prices compared to Western products, and complete service chains including training and maintenance, the expert said.

Wang Ya'nan, a military aviation expert and chief editor of Beijing-based Aerospace Knowledge magazine, told the Global Times on Wednesday that China's armed reconnaissance drones have seen real combat in regional conflict.

In small scale conflicts, Chinese drones have carried out accurate reconnaissance and precision strikes on targets even in complicated terrain and weather conditions, Wang said, noting that this makes Chinese drones combat-proven.

Users of Chinese drones can rapidly boost their combat capabilities in domestic security issues and in regional conflicts, Wang said.

Developed by AVIC's Chengdu Aircraft Design & Research Institute, the Wing Loong II drone is a long endurance armed reconnaissance unmanned aerial system capable of firing dozens of weapons including missiles and bombs, the Xinhua News Agency reported. It is often compared to the US-made MQ-9 Reaper drone.

The Wing Long series also includes the original Wing Loong I and the upgraded Wing Loong I-D. As of December 2018, AVIC has exported 100 Wing Loong series drones since 2010, Xinhua said in a separate report at that time. More drones are believed to have been exported over the past two years.

By Liu Xuanzun 

Global Times