NAIJAFEED

Friday, September 30, 2022

I’ll turn Nigeria from consumption to production country – Obi

The Presidential candidate of Labour Party, LP, Peter Obi, Thursday, pledged to turn Nigeria from being a consuming to producing country if elected in 2023.

Obi made the pledge in Ibadan, after a closed-door meeting with Governor ‘Seyi Makinde in his office at Agodi, Secretariat, Ibadan.

He said, despite Nigeria has performed poorly in the last sixty-two years but survived as a nation, there was still need to celebrate, adding that, the next election should be how to start building a new Nigeria everybody would be proud of.

Obi said: “At this time in Nigeria, I’m going over and consulting with all the well meaning Nigerians about the future of the country. Consulting and discussing with them about how can we collectively bring back Nigeria and Nigeria becomes the country we will all be proud of.”

In 62 years, it can be said that we performed poorly, but we survived as a nation but we are tired of saying we’ve achieved a lot, we celebrate because this next election will a one to build a nation that we all can be proud of.

“Next year election will not be based on ethnicity because there’s no ethnic group that food cheaper rate or there’s no place where the poor people are happy, there’s no place where there’s job for everybody, or a place where there’s uninterrupted electricity or any ethnic group that will say they are safe.”

“ It will not be based on religion, the Christians don’t buy bread cheaper neither do the Muslims. It is the same for everybody, everybody’s suffering. I am not saying it is my turn but the turn of Nigerians to take back what belongs to them. It will not be by corruption and that’s why we going across to say let’s save our country.”

“Next year election would be based on character and trust, capacity and commitment to do the right thing. I’ve made a commitment to be responsible but I want to move and secure Nigeria, build Nigeria.”

“I’m a Nigerian, I don’t want anybody to vote for me because I’m an igbo man, no, don’t vote for me because I’m a Christian or because it is my turn, it is the turn of Nigerians, vote for me because of my commitment and my character and especially my commitment to the young ones.”

“I’ve said it, that structure is the structure that kept us down, it is the structure of criminality, it is the structure that aids massive corruption, that’s what we want to remove. We must remove that structure for Nigeria to start working. We are doing good work, going across party lines to ensure Nigeria works. The structure of money sharing must be removed.”

“The money they are sharing is why there are jobless people, the money they are sharing is why the whole country isn’t working. They didn’t invest in health, in education, in security but rather sharing the money. So it is time make things right and make use of the money in the right way.”

“People don’t share money in the other worlds because they wants job. Out youths wants job, they are energetic. People don’t know where the next meal will come from and you’re giving them money. When people talk about money, it gets me annoyed because that’s not what we have come to do.”

By Adeola Badru

Vanguard

Japan's Daikin to build air conditioners in Nigeria in renewed push

Japan's Daikin Industries Ltd (6367.T) will begin assembling air conditioners in Nigeria as it renews a push into Africa that had been delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, a regional head said on Thursday.

"We are very soon going to have a factory in Nigeria," Kanwal Jeet Jawa, the head of Daikin's operations in India and East Africa, told Reuters.

Rather than building a plant, Daikin is using space in a facility provided by a local distributor in the West African nation, he said.

In East African countries, including Tanzania and Kenya, Daikin is aiming to become the leading seller of air conditioners, chillers and other cooling equipment by 2025.

The company is looking to replicate its success in India, where it has beaten the likes of South Korea's LG Electronics Inc (066570.KS) to take top market share amid rapid market expansion driven by the country's economic growth, Jawa said.

Daikin's production capacity in India is set to almost double in 2023 with the opening of a new factory, allowing it to ship equipment to Africa that is more affordable and better suited to local conditions than air conditioners the Japanese company makes elsewhere, Jawa said.

"For East Africa, we will continue to supply finished products produced in India," a Daikin spokesperson said.

By Tim Kelly and Mayu Sakoda

Reuters

Nigeria's Abubakar launches bid to succeed Buhari as president

Nigeria’s main opposition leader Atiku Abubakar launched his presidential election campaign on Wednesday calling for a sweeping victory to save the country from a “frightening descent” into anarchy.

Official election campaigning started on Wednesday, ahead of a February presidential vote to choose a successor to President Muhammadu Buhari, who is serving a final second term.

Nigeria’s next leader will inherit a country beset by growing insecurity, separatist agitation, a sluggish economy, double-digit inflation, industrial crude oil theft and a growing petrol subsidy bill that is draining government finances.

Abubakar, 75, and a former vice president between 1999-2007, is running for the third time. He said a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) government would rebuild the economy, improve security and the education sector and run a smaller government.

“We have a plan to address these issues,” he Abubakar said at a ceremony to start his campaign. He did not give details.

“Under the watch of the current APC government, our dear country has witnessed a frightening descent into anarchy.”

To become president, Abubakar will have to defeat ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Bola Tinubu and the Labour Party’s Peter Obi, his former running mate in 2019.

He also has to heal rifts within his PDP party after an influential faction boycotted Wednesday’s event as it pushes for the chairman, Abubakar’s ally, to quit.

Abubakar has previously said he would give more power to the 36 states, remove the oil subsidy and privatise the national oil firm and allow the private sector a greater role in the economy.

Polls in Nigeria are unreliable, but Tinubu and Abubakar - both septuagenarian political veterans - lead the two biggest political parties that have ruled Nigeria since the return to democratic rule in 1999.

The PDP is seeking to return to power after its defeat by Buhari’s APC in 2015.

By Camillus Eboh

Reuters

Most Popular Candidate in Race to Become Nigerian President Plans Budget Revamp

A third-party presidential candidate trying to capitalize on widespread discontent in Nigeria said he’ll scrap multibillion-dollar fuel subsidies and restructure debt to free up funds to tackle insecurity and boost investment if he wins the election next year.

Peter Obi -- a former state governor and banker -- has emerged as the politician with the best chance of upending the two-party status quo that has ruled Africa’s most-populous country for more than 20 years. His bid to replace President Muhammadu Buhari has swiftly gained a following that hopes to grow its momentum in the run-up to the vote in February.

“I am in it to bring the change that Nigeria has been missing all these years,” Obi said in an interview in the capital, Abuja.

His rivals are Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress and Atiku Abubakar of the main opposition Peoples Democratic Party, whose political organizations have provided every head of state since 1999 and dominate both legislative chambers.

Obi faces an uphill battle against stalwarts of parties that know how to turn out voters -- he is running on the ticket of the Labour Party, which had a single lawmaker elected in the last election and has a much smaller presence throughout the vast West African country.

‘Fiscal Recklessness’

Despite these major organizational challenges, Obi has built up an enthusiastic base known as “Obidents” -- initially active online, but increasingly marching in the streets -- and his appeal appears to be spreading. A clear majority of respondents named him as their preferred choice in an opinion poll conducted for Bloomberg News by Premise Data Corp., whose results were released on Sept. 28 when the official campaign kicked off.

Read: A Surprise Presidential Candidate Leads Nigeria Race, Poll Shows

Nigerians are contending with accelerating inflation, rising unemployment, a depreciating currency and pervasive insecurity. Production of the economy’s historic mainstay -- crude oil -- has collapsed to multi-decade lows, while the government’s debt service bill is currently outpacing the revenue it’s earning. Total public debt has more than tripled to 42.8 trillion naira ($98 billion) since Buhari took office in 2015.

“We cannot continue this level of fiscal recklessness,” Obi said, adding that he would cut gasoline subsidies that give Nigerians some of the world’s cheapest pump prices. That intervention is consistently depriving the state of more than $1 billion per month and, if not phased out, could cost the government a sum greater than its entire income next year.

Read: Nigeria Projects Dire Fiscal Situation Without Subsidy Removal

“We are going to remove it,” he said, arguing that corruption accounts for half of the subsidy bill.

Buhari’s administration delayed its previously announced plans to shelve the subsidies until after the election, leaving his successor the politically thorny choice of whether to expose struggling consumers to considerably higher prices to spare much-needed funds for other investments.

If he wins, Obi said he will try to restructure Nigeria’s debt “to a manageable level” because the current burden “doesn’t give us breathing space to invest in critical areas.” Instead of “borrowing for consumption” and to finance the cost of government, new lending would fund spending on education, health and security, he said.

Violent groups have expanded their reach across Nigeria in the past seven years, leaving larger swathes of the country living in fear of attacks and kidnappings. Stemming that insecurity will be his “number one priority,” Obi said, adding he will decentralize the police and invest in more personnel.

The stakes could not be higher, according to Obi. Because the government no longer controls its territory or the economy, Nigeria meets the “two main critical measures of a failing state,” he said. “It is a crisis situation but it’s solvable.”

Improbable Outsider

A wealthy businessman who chaired local lender Fidelity Bank Plc before serving two terms as the governor of the southeastern Anambra state from 2006, Obi ran as Abubakar’s vice president in an unsuccessful campaign three years ago. He also contested the PDP nomination this year before withdrawing from the primaries. A 61-year-old in a country where 70% of the population is under 30, he is younger than his two main septuagenarian opponents.

The Labour Party candidate also attracted controversy last year when a Nigerian online newspaper reported, based on the Pandora Papers leak, on offshore companies he controlled while serving as governor and said he had breached local asset-declaration rules. Obi has repeatedly denied that his arrangements broke any laws.

Obi says he’s ready to face up to the hopes and frustrations that have been placed on his perhaps improbable shoulders. “I want the whole country to hold me responsible,” he said. “We are not going to change it overnight but we must start doing the right things. I am not going to do magic.”

By William Clowes

Bloomberg

Jobs in Clean Energy in Nigeria to Double by 2023

Increased demand for solar power will drive a more than two-fold jump in the number of Nigerians working in the renewable energy sector by 2023, according to a report.

The sector could “create more than 76,000 new jobs by 2023” in solar services -- including home solutions, commercial and industrial appliances -- from 32,000 workers in 2019, according to a report by Power for All, a global coalition advocating renewable energy solutions to end blackouts.

Workers in the Nigerian renewable industry will exceed oil and gas employees totaling 65,000, the report said. Until August this year, Nigeria was Africa’s biggest producer of crude with one of the world’s largest gas reserves. Poor power supply and a more than 200% increase in diesel prices this year after Russia invaded Ukraine, have driven demand for solar power in the West African nation.

The research, which was supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, Good Energies Foundation and the European Programme GET.invest, is the outcome of a survey on employment and compensation in more than 350 companies across five countries namely Ethiopia, India, Kenya, Nigeria, and Uganda. Out of the five countries, Nigeria had the “fastest post-pandemic recovery and growth in decentralized renewable energy jobs,” it said.

Africa’s most populous nation has pledged to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by a fifth over the next decade under the Paris climate agreement. It launched an energy transition plan this year, which aims to attract private and public sector investments to expand solar infrastructure and grow gas-powered generation.

Read: Shell Acquires Nigerian Solar Firm in First Africa Power Buy

The country’s solar sector quickly recovered from lockdowns during the pandemic as it more than doubled workers to 50,000 in 2021, compared to the previous year, according to the report.

“The sector is maturing with the percentage of formal and skilled workers comprising over half of the decentralized renewable energy workforce,” it said.

By Emele Onu

Bloomberg