Nigeria to sign visa-free pact with 8 African countries

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mr Geoffrey Onyeama, says plans have been concluded to sign visa-free pacts with a bloc of eight African countries to promote economic partnership on the continent. 

Onyeama announced this in Abuja on Tuesday at a news confernce to mark one year of President Mohammadu Buhari’s Administration. 

The minister, who did not disclose the names of the countries making up the bloc, noted with concern that trading among African countries had been very low. 

He, however, said that with the new idea by the President Mohammadu Buhari led administration, “it is expected that there will be upsurge in economic activities.

“ Africa is the centrepiece of our foreign policy but it is a paradox that as a Nigerian, you cannot go to an African country without a visa unlike what is obtainable in Western Europe. 

“To address this as a leader in the continent, the country is at a point of introducing an initiative to promote African trade as part of the country’s foreign policy of Africa as the centrepiece”, he said. 

Onyeama said Nigeria was trying to come up with an initiative, like the one in Western Europe where one could enter any sister country without a visa. According to him, what we are trying to do at the ministry is to promote visa-free, free movement of business people. 

“We want to start with about eight countries or see if they come up as a group of eight countries. At the presidential level, they agreed to that, and signed up to free movement. 

“If we can achieve that within a year, then other countries may want to join and we believe this is a better way to go than institutional ECOWAS etc, as countries take so long to ratify agreements. 

“We believe we can just start off, eight countries and they agree among themselves, then others will come in,” he said. 

Onyeama also added that it would not help if the continent continued to export just raw materials to developed nations. 

He said the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment was working towards enhancing doing business with ease in Nigeria. 

Onyeama said the ministry was working with the immigration to see rise in the number of visa issued to businessmen and investors.

“It is one of the cardinal strategies for the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment to facilitate investors doing business in Nigeria”, he said. Onyeama said the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Investment had been mandated to ensure that there was reduction in the time it took to register companies.

Vanguard

Spain dragged into Nigeria's tomato crisis

The streets of the eastern Spanish town of Bunol turn red and gooey every year on the last Wednesday of August, as tens of thousands of people gather to celebrate La Tomatina. It's not an event that has caused much of a stir on social media outside the country, but in the past few days Nigerians have been been distracting themselves from their own tomato crop crisis by making good-humoured jabs aimed at the European festival.

The topic of tomatoes - a staple of the Nigerian diet - is currently not a laughing matter outside the digital realm in Nigeria. A state of emergency has been declared in the tomato sector in Kaduna state, in the north of the country and farmers are said to have lost up to 80% of their tomato crop.

The culprit is a moth called Tuta Absoluta. The agriculture commissioner in Kaduna state said the price of a punnet has risen from $1.20USD to more than $40. Some reports said that in three local government areas, about 200 farmers lost 1 billion naira ($5.1 million) worth of their tomatoes.

Nigeria's Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh, told local media that his office had commissioned experts to look at the issue as "ordinary pesticides cannot tackle the disease because the tomato moth multiplies so fast."

The situation is so bad that it was dubbed 'Tomato Ebola' and the term trended on Twitter for hours on Wednesday.

But what's all this got to do with Spain and La Tomatina?

Well, if you've not heard of the festival, tens of thousands of people from all over the world gather in Spain to take part in an enormous tomato fight. Some estimates say that more than 100 tonnes of tomatoes are thrown during the event. And this has not been lost on Nigerian social media.

One Nigerian news site even posted an article entitled "Five tomato photos that will make Nigerians cry" which featured shots of revellers mucking about in the red gold at La Tomatina.

But what does Bunol think of this reaction? The town's mayor told BBC Trending that the festival "should not be blamed" for Nigeria's tomato crop crisis and that he is "open to (see) how we can help, but the problem is very big and we are very small."

Rafa Pйrez Gil told us that he was aware that Nigerians had taken to Twitter and Instagram recently to lament (albeit in a very tongue-in-cheek manner) the waste of tomatoes in La Tomatina, but he wanted to assure them that most of the tomatoes used in the August food fight were past their sell-by-date and on the verge of rotting.

"Their problem would exist whether our festival happened or not," the mayor said. He added that he would be open to talking about the issue with Nigerians but was unsure what they as a town could do about it. He conceded that food wastage was an issue that merited a wider discussion. "If you look at the garbage bins in Spain, there is more waste thrown away every day than tomatoes used at La Tomatina."

We are not certain whether this information will comfort Nigerians or make more of them see red.

BBC

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Nigeria has adopted a flexible foreign exchange rate policy signalling a policy U-turn as the country teeters on the brink of a recession. The move is expected to boost exports and attract foreign currency to an economy badly hurting from the low global prices of oil. Central Bank Governor Godwin Emefiele said that details of the new rules would be published in coming days.

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CCTV's Kelechi Emekalam talked with Nigeria's presidential spokesperson to get the president's thinking on the exchange rate and other aspects of the economy.

Nigeria receives largest donation in combating worm disease

Merck, a science and technology company, announced Tuesday that the largest single delivery of praziquantel tablets in the history of the Merck Praziquantel Donation Program recently arrived in Abuja, the Nigerian capital.

The West African country has received around 34 million tablets for mass distribution to school children.

With this, Merck has donated more tablets to a single country than it did to the entire continent in 2012 (27 million).

Today in Geneva, Nigeria’s Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Folorunso Adewole, expressed his country’s thanks to Merck and the World Health Organization (WHO) for their joint efforts in the fight against the neglected tropical disease schistosomiasis.

Stefan Oschmann, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck, met the minister on the occasion of the 69th World Health Assembly (WHA), the decision-making body of WHO, in Geneva. The participants included Dr. Kesetebirhan Admasu, Minister of Health of Ethiopia, as well as WHO Assistant Director-General Dr. Ren Minghui.

“We want to eliminate the insidious worm disease and give children the opportunity to participate in the economic development of their home countries. Our donation of 34 million tablets to WHO for Nigeria – enough to treat 13.6 million school children – shows that we are on the right track. However, millions of children still suffer from schistosomiasis. And we know that we alone cannot solve the problem with our tablets,” said Mr. Oschmann.

In Africa, Merck is supporting educational and awareness programs, researching schistosomiasis therapies for very young children and cooperating with partners in the Global Schistosomiasis Alliance, among other things.

“Furthermore, in the future we will collaborate even more closely with our partners to finally eliminate schistosomiasis,” Mr. Oschmann continued.

“With more than 235 million people requiring treatment, schistosomiasis is one of the most prevalent tropical diseases in Africa. The worm disease is widespread in all regions of Nigeria, above all among children. We are therefore grateful for every sustained initiative that supports us in fighting schistosomiasis,” said Mr. Adewole.

Mr. Admasu added, “Merck’s commitment not only helps children who are ill – it also relieves the public healthcare systems of the affected countries.”

In his own comment, WHO Assistant Director-General, Minghui, said, “Medicine donations such as this are essential to the fight against neglected tropical diseases. If we are to meet the ambitious sustainable development goals, we need the strong engagement of the private sector, sectors outside health and all development partners.”

As part of its responsibility for society and within Health, one of its corporate responsibility strategic spheres of activity, Merck is supporting WHO in the fight against the worm disease schistosomiasis in Africa.

Praziquantel is well tolerated and the most effective treatment to date for schistosomiasis. Since 2007, more than 74 million patients, primarily school children, have been treated. To this end, Merck has donated over 340 million tablets to WHO.

According to WHO, Nigeria is the world’s most endemic country for schistosomiasis. It is estimated that around 37% of the overall population (64.1 million people) requires treatment. Nigeria has been participating in the Merck Praziquantel Donation Programme since 2008.

Schistosomiasis, WHO says on its website, is a disease of poverty that leads to chronic ill-health.

“Infection is acquired when people come into contact with fresh water infested with the larval forms (cercariae) of parasitic blood flukes, known as schistosomes,” the world health body said.

“The microscopic adult worms live in the veins draining the urinary tract and intestines. Most of the eggs they lay are trapped in the tissues and the body’s reaction to them can cause massive damage.

“Schistosomiasis affects almost 240 million people worldwide, and more than 700 million people live in endemic areas. The infection is prevalent in tropical and sub-tropical areas, in poor communities without potable water and adequate sanitation.

“Urogenital schistosomiasis is caused by Schistosoma haematobium and intestinal schistosomiasis by any of the organisms S. guineensis, S. intercalatum, S.mansoni, S. japonicum, and S. mekongi.”

To date, through WHO Merck has donated nearly 105 million tablets to Nigeria, making it the main beneficiary country of the donation program. In total, nearly 20 million Nigerian patients have been treated to date, primarily school children.

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