Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Video - Schools re-open in Adamawa, Nigeria


Militant group Boko Haram has killed thousands and kidnapped hundreds during a six-year campaign to carve out an Islamist state in northern Nigeria. The insurgency has been a major blow to education in the north east. In Adamawa state however- a territory retaken by the Nigerian military from the control of the militants, are slowly returning to the classroom.

Canada selling most weapons to Nigeria

A report released on Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) shows a growth in the number of countries supplying arms and weapons to Nigeria and Cameroon to aid their fight against Boko Haram. Canada has been found to be the top seller among those nations.

The report listed Canada as the world’s 13th-biggest arms exporter over the past five years. It was the 14th-biggest weapons exporter in the previous five-year period.

According to the list, Canada facilitated the sale of 40 armoured vehicles to Nigeria in 2013 and 2014. It wasn’t detailed if all came from private companies. Two of those companies were identified as the Streit Group and INKAS.

Founded in Canada in 1992, the Streit Group said it has sold at least 12,000 armoured vehicles worldwide, and just recently, Nigeria bought one of its Spartan armoured vehicles. On the other hand, INKAS, according to Peter Wezeman, a senior researcher at the Stockholm institute, has sold light armoured patrol vehicles to Nigeria. The vehicles were produced from a plant located right in Nigeria.

While Wezeman did not condone Canada’s shipment of arms and weapons to Nigeria, he told The Globe and Mail, the North American country should at least be sensitive on dealings regarding the matter. He said Canada should ensure it “understands the risks involved in arms exports” and should try to help Nigeria to deal with Boko Haram “in a way that involves the minimum amount of violence needed.”

“Just allowing the supply of weapons is not enough,” he said, noting that it comes with a moral responsibility that the arms should not be used by the Nigerian government other than for the purpose it was bought.

Boko Haram is an Islamist terrorist movement based in north-east Nigeria. It is also active in Chad, Niger and northern Cameroon. The group had pledged formal allegiance to the ISIS Daesh in March 2015 and has killed over 5,000 civilians between July 2009 and June 2014, including at least 2,000 in the first half of 2014.


IBT

Electricity bills in Nigeria cut by half

Nigerians’ electricity bills will be cut by as much as half after the regulator said on Tuesday it banned distribution companies from charging consumers for losses caused by billing mistakes.

President Goodluck Jonathan, who is standing for re-election in a postponed vote scheduled for March 28, pledged to improve Nigeria’s chronically unreliable power supply in his administration’s current term in office. South Africa, with a third of Nigeria’s population, has eight times more installed capacity.

“Removing the collection losses will lead to lower tariffs for consumers,” Sam Amadi, chairman of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, said in a statement posted on the Abuja-based agency’s website. “The removal of collection losses from customer tariff has reduced tariff by more than 50 percent in some places.”

Peak electricity output in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest economy, reaches about 3,800 megawatts, with another 1,500 megawatts unavailable because of gas shortages, the NERC said this month.

“While the move will be welcomed by many, low levels of electrification in Nigeria will limit its economic impact,” John Ashbourne, an Africa economist at Capital Economics in London, said in an e-mailed note on Wednesday. “Fewer than half of Nigerians have access to electricity, and spending on power tariffs makes up a tiny fraction of consumer spending.”

In 2013, Nigeria broke up the state electricity monopoly and sold power utilities to companies including Korea Electric Power Corp., and Siemens AG, in an effort to bring in much-needed investment. In September, authorities set up a $1 billion bailout fund to help generation and distribution companies pay off gas-supply debts. They also raised the price of gas supplied to power stations in order to encourage more gas to flow into the system.

The move to cut electricity bills “will be a boost to both consumers and commercial users, and has been conveniently announced only 10 days before President Goodluck Jonathan faces a close re-election battle,” Ashbourne said.

Bloomberg

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote's oil refinery to go online in Nigeria by 2017

Outside Boko Haram carnage and pre-election tension and fears, here is at least some good news from Nigeria.

A new $9 billion oil refinery producing 500,000 barrels per day being developed by Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, is expected to come onstream in Nigeria by 2017, a senior Dangote Group official said Tuesday.

The refinery, to be located in Lagos, will cut reliance on international markets for Africa’s largest oil producer, which imports more than 80 percent of its fuel needs.

The lack of sufficient refining capacity is a major handicap in Africa’s biggest economy.

“By the third quarter of 2017, we expect to be looking at commissioning,” Mansur Ahmed, Dangote Industries Ltd’s executive director of stakeholder management and corporate communications, told Reuters at an African refiners conference in Cape Town.

The refinery is being designed to process Nigerian crude mix and produce products conforming to Euro V fuel specifications, as fuel demands across the continent are forecast to rise rapidly with many countries enjoying strong economic growth.

Poor infrastructure, competitive global markets and financial constraints have traditionally held back Africa’s refining capacity, while fuel subsidies in Nigeria are also an issue, said Ahmed, who spoke on behalf of Aliko Dangote.

Ahmed said the refinery, which is being funded by debt and equity, including a $3 billion commitment from Dangote himself, could list in future should additional capital be needed.

“In the past when we have reached a point where we feel we need to increase capital we have listed,” Ahmed said.

“We have listed our cement business, we have listed our sugar business and our salt business… and, if you like, history is the best teacher.”

The Dangote Group has interests ranging from cement to basic food processing to oil and gas.

A boost to its refining capacity would be a blow to European refiners and oil traders, which make huge profits bringing gasoline into the country.


The News


Related story: Video - Aljazeera speaks with Africa's richest man Aliko Dangote

Monday, March 16, 2015

Nigerian government denies hiring mercenaries to fight Boko Haram

The Nigerian government has not hired any foreign mercenaries in its battle to defeat the Boko Haram insurgents, an official said on Sunday.

Mike Omeri, the Director General of the National Orientation Agency, NOA, stated this on Sunday when he paid a courtesy call to PREMIUM TIMES head office in Abuja.

The official’s statement comes amidst reports that the Nigerian military hired mercenaries from South Africa and other countries since the renewed offensive against the insurgents began on February 14. Several territories initially captured by the insurgents have since been retaken by Nigerian soldiers working with soldiers from neighbouring West African countries. Mr. Omeri said a lot of Nigerians mistake consultants helping in the deployment and use of newly acquired military hardware as mercenaries.

“When our weapons were acquired recently, we needed training because training component came with the people who supplied these weapons,” he said. “It is therefore easy to see a white man where these things are happening like in Maiduguri and elsewhere and conclude that we have mercenaries.”

“What we have are trainers who came from security companies to help us manage and learn how to use some of the much more modern weapons because there is no time; we are in a war situation and we need the capability to use the weapons immediately.”

Mr. Omeri, who coordinates the National Information Centre, where Nigerians are briefed on the progress made in the fight against Boko Haram, also questioned why some Nigerians appeared more concerned with the presence of mercenaries to the neglect of the insurgency.

“Why are we leaving the issue of fighting insurgency and concentrating on the issue of mercenaries, when the use of mercenaries by governments the world over, including the United States has been on since the 1840s,” he said.

“Mercenaries such as the foreign legion in France, Gurkhas in the UK, and even the US Marines are foreigners. They are mercenaries. It is at the completion of their terms that they are made either citizens through green cards or passports.

“They recruit them give them very hard training and send them to the toughest of battles and they are mostly foreigners.” Mr. Omeri said the Nigerian government has not hired any mercenary, despite having the right to do so.

“If Nigeria wants to recruit mercenaries, there are legitimate ways of doing it and this government knows how to do it and it would have gone that way to do it and to inform citizens appropriately,” he said.

Premium Times