The Kano State Governor Abdullahi Ganduje, will on Monday March 7, 2022 unveil the Theme and Logo of the Dala Dry Port in Abuja.
The event is a prelude to Kano Economic Investment summit which will showcase the DALA DRY PORT as a major transport infrastructure and other sectors like the Kano economic city that will stimulate industrialisation and commerce.
A statement signed by the Kano State Commissioner for information, Mohammed Garba, states that the Dry Port will make Kano a hub of domestic and international trade.
“It will diversify the economic base of the country,” he said.
The statement further reveal that the unveiling of the Logo and Theme shall have in attendance major stakeholders in the industry including; The Nigerian Shippers’ Council (NSC), The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS), The Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency, (NIMASA), Shipping lines, the Infrastructure Concession Regulatory Commission (ICRC), the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC), National Inland water ways Authority (NIWA) and Council for Regulation of Freight Forwarding (CRFFN).
Others are the Chairman Dangote group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, The Chairman BUA group, Alhaji Abdul Samad Rabiu, a host of others from the business community and Royal Fathers led by the Emir of Kano, His Royal highness Aminu Ado Bayero.
The Minister of State for Petroleum Resources Chief Timiprye Sylva has reiterated that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is bent on accomplishing its gas revolution agenda to unlock additional millions of new jobs for Nigerians.
He made this known in his opening remarks during a session tagged “decade of gas” at the just concluded 5th Edition of Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES 2022) in Abuja, stressing that when the ongoing gas facilities and infrastructure are completed, gas would not only lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty, but the West African sub-region could become energy self-sufficient as a result of Nigeria’s gas revolution.
Sylva said Federal Government is on course to solving both domestic and sub-regional natural gas deficiencies, adding that the world expects so much from Nigeria’s gas sector and ‘we need to match that expectation with action’.
According to him, “First, our potential is enormous. Our current natural gas reserves have risen to 206.53tcf, yet, we have not even scratched at the 600tcf potential. Nigeria has the largest proven gas reserves in sub-Saharan Africa, as well as enviable Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) infrastructure and export facilities.
“Second, interventions in the gas sector have a significant positive effect on power sector development. It has the ability to lift people out of energy poverty and foster economic development.
“Third, the economics. Natural gas is a highly competitive source of power and it can replace more expensive fuel sources, thus reducing the cost of energy. Thus, with lower energy prices, businesses can thrive and more people can have access to electricity.
“The entire gas value chain also offers rich investment opportunities for Nigerian companies and entrepreneurs, including the ability of not only powering current industries today but also generating entirely new industries tomorrow, which means additional millions of new jobs for Nigerians.
“The Buhari administration is bent on accomplishing its gas revolution agenda. More than ever before, Nigeria is uniquely positioned to make a success story out of this mantra. I can bet that if planned and ongoing gas facilities and infrastructure are completed, gas would not only lift millions of Nigerians out of poverty, but the West African sub-region could become energy self-sufficient as a result of Nigeria’s gas revolution.
He continued, “We are on course to solving both domestic and sub-regional natural gas deficiencies. Like I said at this summit last year, the world expects so much from Nigeria’s gas sector and we need to match that expectation with action. It is time to awaken the giant!
“The panel before us here will look at the Roadmap to Gas-Powered Economy by 2030. At the end of this panel session, my expectation is that we can come up with a document from the deliberations that is designed to optimize and leverage key strengths to achieve a discrete and measurable set of objectives for the Decade of Gas.
“A robust roadmap will, no doubt, help in our quest for Nigeria’s gas revolution to be accomplished in our lifetime” stated the Minister of State.
The Lagos State Government on Thursday unveiled plans to end indiscriminate parking by motorists on highways and streets, just as it spelt out punishments for offenders.
The government through its agency, Lagos State Parking Authority (LASPA), hint newsmen in Lagos that illegal parking by motorists was impeding free flow of traffic in the state and preventing the government from delivering a world-class parking scheme for its citizenry.
Mrs. Adebisi Adelabu, the General Manager, LASPA, said that the State Government would be strict with the enforcement of the various parking violations by motorists, stressing that parking violations was one of the major challenges confronting the State Government and the state’s economy.
She , however, warned that the State Government could no longer fold its hands and allows the situation to deteriorate further, noting that there was the need for a holistic approach to tackle the challenge.
She stated that Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the governor of Lagos State had established LASPA in 2021 with the mandate of promoting the state’s parking policies in line with national transport policies by advancing knowledge, raising standard and assessment of related fees.
Adelabu emphasised that LASPA would provide an enabling environment for vehicle owners in a secured functional orderly and sustainable parking system management scheme.
She further explained that the agency is optimising the on and off-street parking supplies, setbacks options, registration of existing private parks operators to maximise urban public spaces in finding lasting solutions to parking-induced traffic.
She revealed that while the State Government was building and transforming the parking infrastructure within the metropolis, there was the need for the provision of available real-time parking information for city users planning to improve the overall quality of the parking system in the state.
According to her: “LASPA will achieve excellence in how Lagos state parking policies are envisioned, developed and in line with best global practices for a modern, efficient and sustainable managed parking system towards reducing congestion, disruption, improved road safety and changing travel behaviour.”
She listed various parking offences in the state to include: parking of commercial vehicles on streets, blocking an entrance or exit and walkway, parking on slots marked for public transport, fire service, ambulance, taxis and people with special needs.
Other offences are parking of vehicles on sidewalks, road median, whether paved or not, and parking of vehicles within three meters of a fire hydrant as well as parking of vehicles against the directional flow of traffic.
Adelabu called on all park operators; commercial and non-commercial to register with the agency for an operating permit from March 1, 2022.
Earlier, Dr. Frederic Oladeinde, Lagos State Commissioner for Transportation, said the creation of LASPA became necessary in order to address the indiscriminate acts of motorists on the roads and at undesignated bus stops.
Oladeinde explained that in line with the first pillar of THEME’S Agenda, traffic management and transportation was key.
Therefore, parking space issues needed to be addressed to reduce travel time impeded upon by traffic and make the state a 21st-century running economy for its residents in the short and long term, the commissioner said.
Oladehinde maintained that the imbalance between parking demand and parking supply has been the main reason for the metropolis’ unregularised parking problems, hence the need for LASPA.
These, according to him, were contributing to traffic congestion, traffic accidents, and environmental pollution which the agency is fervently poised to address.
He said, the new Lagos State Parking policy is designed to decongest traffic, address climate change challenges, create job opportunities and also generate revenue for the state through issuance of parking tickets to defaulters.
The House of Representatives has mandated its Committee on Banking and Currency to organize stakeholders meeting for the purpose of tackling the menace of the Operation of the Point of Sale System (POS) in Nigeria.
While urging the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) to, in the public interest, introduce stringent regulations and guidelines including sanctions on the Point of Sale (POS) business operations in Nigeria.
The resolutions followed the consideration of a motion on the “Urgent Need to Regulate the Point of Sale (POS) Business Operations in Nigeria”, moved by Hon. Jimoh Abdulraheem Olajide.
Presenting the motion, Hon. Olajide noted that the Point of Sale System (POS) is where customers make payments for products or services rendered but due to many factors, the Point of Sale (POS) has been turned into a lucrative business in Nigeria and has provided jobs for millions of unemployed Nigerians that see it as a good alternative to white-collar jobs in the country.
According to him, “While many Nigerians are making legal money from this lucrative business, some are using it for fraudulent acts to create fake credit alerts to defraud innocent customers hence the need for government intervention to rescue the rising business sector in the country.”
“The Point of Sale (POS) merchants in Nigeria are not only licensed by Commercial Banks, other Private Companies are currently in the business of giving out Point of Sale (POS) for business purposes thus making the business to be more porous and ambiguous.
“Presently, no financial regulatory bodies in Nigeria can precisely ascertain the total number of Point of Sale (POS) Machines and their Operators in the country.
“On 21 December 2021, the Punch Newspaper reported an allegation by the residents of Aniocha South Local Government Area of Delta State alleging that the Aniocha branch’s Union Bank and First Bank Staff deliberately sabotaged the Banks Automated Teller Machines (ATM) on non-availability of cash, thus leaving customers with no choice to patronize the alleged Banks Staff owned POS Centres around the Banks”.
While adopting the motion, the House stated that, in exercising the powers conferred on the Central Bank by the Central Bank of Nigeria Act 2007 (as amended) to issue guidelines, rules and standards for financial services to the public and to ensure good conduct and management of the financial system, the Central Bank of Nigeria had released ATM guidelines and regulations which include among other things, that:
“any institution operating an Automated Teller Machine (ATM) shall file an updated list of such ATMs, including the detailed location of their addresses with the Banking and Payments System Department of the Central Bank of Nigeria for compliance and monitoring.”
The National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Iyorchia Ayu on Thursday bemoned that democratic values have declined sharply under the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
He made this known while receiving a seven-man delegation of the European Union Election Observer Mission (EU-EOM), led by the Chief Election Observer, Ms. Maria Arena, accused the APC of compromising Nigeria’s democracy,
Describing the PDP as a “party that believes fiercely in democracy and its transparent processes,” Ayu said the PDP was proud that for 16 years, it not only safeguarded Nigeria’s democracy, but it also set-up institutions that deepened and strengthened it.
Ayu lamented that it was regretful that rather than improve on PDP’s legacy, Nigeria’s hard-won democracy was witnessing a steady depreciation under the APC.
According to him, “We are worried that instead of strengthening the democratic process, which will better serve the people, we are seeing a sustained decline in those democratic practices.”
He listed areas of dissatisfaction to include: “The conduct of compromised elections, the use of security agents to attack judges, to attack citizens instead of protecting them, and to subvert the electoral processes.
“We have evidence and we stand by our position. These are not just empty pronouncements.”
He , however, reminded the delegation that its report on the 2019 general elections reflected these drawbacks that the party was complaining about, and insisted that, “we will keep complaining as long these undemocratic practices subsist.
“We believe we won the 2019 presidential elections. We have the evidence. But justice was not done. Now that we are moving towards another election in 2023, it’s very important that we stress the need for the electoral umpire to be genuinely independent as its name implies.”
On the recently held Municipal elections in the FCT, Ayu reiterated that PDP won all the six (6) Area Councils, but was short-changed by awarding it only three chairmanship seats.
He said: “When you look at the results of the councillorships, we won 44 seats against the ruling party’s 18. In the municipal, we won all the councillorships. So, to go to the rural areas and begin to intimidate voters and manipulate the process is something that we are worried about. And if it continues as a trend, it will subvert the electoral process.”
Ayu used the occasion to decry the harassment of party faithful by security agents in the just concluded supplementary election in Imo state, saying the party has written a petition about it to INEC, and if nothing positive comes out of it, the party would seek legal redress.
He appealed to the EU-EOM to take special interest in the governorship elections in Ekiti and Osun states scheduled for June and July respectively and make its observations available to INEC and other stakeholders with a view to making the 2023 general elections free, fair and credible.
Earlier, the EU-EOM Chief Missioner, Maria Arena, said the delegation was at the PDP national secretariat as part of its follow-up on its earlier visit as well as to identify opportunities and challenges ahead of the 2023 general elections.
The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) said it is targeting at least 1.5million candidates to sit for the examination which comes up later in the year.
This is following the opening of application portal for the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination UTME, over 500,000 candidates are believed to have successfully registered nationwide.
The Board made the disclosure on Thursday in Abuja.
Registrar of JAMB, Professor Is-haq Oloyede, who led a team of officials of the Board to monitor the registration exercise in some Computer Based Test (CBT) Centres in Abuja.
He noted that in many registration centres across the country, the exercise has been going on smoothly except little glitches with the system, especially network problem in some places, saying however that this year’s registration process was an improvement over the previous ones, having put into consideration some of the challenges and complaints of candidates in the past.
According to Oloyede: “So far so good, we have registered about 500,000 candidates. We are expecting about 1.5 million candidates or there about. We still have more than 12 days to go.
“If things continue to go smoothly, we planned to register 50,000 per day, the day before yesterday, it was over 70,000 per day, we believe today we should be able to register 70,000. Yesterday, there was a little glitch on the system,” he said.
Oloyede took time during the monitoring exercise to interrogate prospective candidates who could not proceed with registration because of challenges in generating code from the National Identify Management Commission (NIMC), among other issues.
“But you have seen what is happening now, that is why I’m happy that you are here and able to talk to candidates who have problems. You saw that 99% of the problems are self-inflicted and it is because they play into the hands of fraudsters,” he said.
He was particularly worried about a young man who claimed upon interrogation at the Kogo CBT Centre, Bwarri, that he was a “do-gooder” but was doing wrong thing on the profile of the prospective candidates.
He appealed to non-candidates to keep off the exercise while also calling on the parents to allow their children to read the instructions and follow them, insisting that most the problems faced by candidates are self-made.
The Registrar, however, disclosed that four vendors who were found wanting are currently being interrogated by the appropriate office, vowing to blacklist their agents if the Board is convinced of their involvement in underhand dealings.
Just as the clock ticks towards the national convention of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) schedule for March 26th, issues relating to who emerges the National Chairman is generating a lot of issues with a rumoured endorsement of Senator Abdullahi Adamu by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Mustapha Audu, leader of APC Progressive Youth and Aliyu Audu, convener of APC Rebirth Group are guests at Arise Television on Thursday where they maintained that they were open to anyone who the party leaders endorse, as long as that person will allow youth inclusiveness, even though they openly voiced out their reservations about Abdullahi Adamu who they said is not youth friendly.
On the controversy trailing the alleged endorsement of Adamu and why some people are not comfortable with him as national chairman, Aliyu said, “He is not popular. He was one of the strong proponents of the third term agenda, during Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo’s era. We should reward people who do good, and not those who do badly. If that third term agenda had succeeded, we would probably have ended up with a life President today. People who did or said things that threatened our democracy shouldn’t be rewarded.
According to him, “Secondly, Senator Adamu is not a young people-friendly person. He was the reconciliation chairman and there were lots of agitations, he never invited a single young people’s groups. We account for 85 percent of the population of the party. We wrote petitions to the party leaders but he didn’t recognize us.”
Aliyu said that he didn’t believe that the President endorsed any particular candidate, stressing that the President only approved that a consensus candidate should emerge from the North Central but didn’t endorse anyone.
Mustapha said, “As young people we respect our President 100 percent. We believe that the time has come for the APC to get its acts together. We had a long standing issue with the party as young people but we have been working hand in hand with the party recently but what we would like to say is that some of these issues are usually lack of communication and carrying people along. APC has always used consensus to elect their chairmen.
“There is a difference between imposition and consensus because the new electoral act took care of that. All the people have to agree and sign for the consensus candidate to be authentic.
“We had a lot of issues with the party because there was no inclusion. We had a meeting with Mai Mala Buni and he assured us that we are in the convention planning committee, going to take up zonal positions. Our fight is for inclusion; our fight is to ensure that the party has a chairman that recognizes the young active agile APC members,” he said.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) has lost governance following the persisting fuel scarcity hitting the nation.
The party has also demanded that the Minister for Education, Adamu Adamu should resign immediately and tender unreserved apology to the nation for abusing and walking out on Nigerian students, who went to his office to plead for his intervention to end the on-going strike by lecturers in public universities in the country.
PDP, in a statement by its spokesman, Debo Ologunagba, charged Nigerians to brace up and support one another in the face of abandonment by the APC administration as all critical indicators show that the ruling party has abdicated its constitutional duty to guarantee the security and welfare of the people.
The statement reads, “The prevailing chaotic situation in the country with widespread uncertainties, unabating fuel crisis, piercing economic hardship, sectional agitations, heated industrial unrests, infrastructural stagnation, kidnapping, daily bloodletting and escalated insecurity with gangsters now taking over the streets of major cities further confirms that the APC administration is now on autopilot with its central command structure in disarray.
“The decision by President Muhammadu Buhari to jet out to the United Kingdom (where leaders are committed) for yet another ‘routine medical check-up’ after his administration has wrecked our healthcare system and when the nation which he leads is in crisis, underscores the insensitivity of the APC which by nature and outlook has never been ready for governance since inception.
“While other world leaders are solving problems in their countries, President Buhari, who promised to fix our refineries, abandoned Nigerians to the excruciating fuel crisis caused by the corruption perpetrated by APC leaders in the helm of affairs in the petroleum sector, which has now crippled economic activities in the country.
“Nigerians will recall that after being exposed for importing contaminated fuel with consequential damage to vehicles, machineries and businesses, the APC government had promised to fix the situation. Sadly, several weeks after, the APC Federal Government had failed in its promise as always like in every other aspect of our national life,” the PDP lamented.
The party noted that with the corruption and abdication of duty by the APC, the nation is now at the mercy of black-market vendors, who charge already overburdened Nigerians as high as N500 per liter of fuel; a development that has resulted in spiral increase in transport fares, costs of food, medicines and other essential commodities.
The statement continued,”This is in addition to the collapse of many businesses, massive loss of jobs, hunger and starvation, sudden death of bread winners with grave economic pressure on millions of families and attendant social consequences to our country.
“By travelling out of the country at the time Nigerians expect him to make himself available and provide leadership to address the agitations by striking university lecturers, President Buhari further exposes APC’s lack of commitment towards the wellbeing and development of Nigerians youths,” the party said.
The PDP has also pointed out that by arrogantly insulting and refusing to attend to the member of the National Association of Nigerians Students (NANS), Adamu Adamu recklessly abdicated his duties and exhibited an unpardonable discourteousness unfitting of a minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, let alone a Minister of Education.
“Our Party insists that Adamu Adamu’s action is an assault and embarrassment to the nation’s education sector. It amounts to spitting in the face of the generality of the Nigerian youths as well as their parents; a conduct that is characteristic of the impunity, insensitivity and arrogant disdain for Nigerians which have permeated the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration.
“That is why the APC government has always walked away from Nigerians in the face of critical situations that have to do with the security and welfare of the people. Of course, the APC as a party is in approval of the conduct of Adamu Adamu because such is in line with APC’s detestation and disparagement of Nigerians, especially the youths.
“Adamu Adamu’s action is reminiscent of the October 2020 brutal killing of Nigerian youths by APC-controlled security agents at the Lekki Toll gate in Lagos for exercising their rights to peaceful protest against injustice and brutality in our country. But for the maturity displayed by the students, Adamu Adamu’s attitude was capable of causing a breakdown of Law and Order at the venue of the meeting.”
The party further said that the right to education is a basic right which must not be denied our youths, adding, “It is therefore reprehensible that the minister of education who ought to defend such right could conduct himself in such an undignified manner towards the youths.
“Moreover, by stating that he could only comprehend a point in the list of very concise serious issues raised by the students including the demand for adequate funding for education, reopening of universities and the negative implication of constant industrial crisis in tertiary institutions; Adamu Adamu shows that either he is downright inattentive or lacks the required capacity to assimilate or comprehend critical issues.
“Such only points to the fact that Adamu Adamu is not a fit and proper person to continue to hold public office as minister. In any case, by training and professional experience, Adamu Adamu is a square peg in a round hole as Minister of Education. He lacks the proficiency to understand, comprehend and effectively attend to issues of education in our country.”
While urging the students not to relent in their demands, the PDP called on President Buhari to remove Adamu Adamu and appoint a new minister of education from the array of qualified academicians and seasoned administrators that abound in the country, who can understand and effectively manage our education sector.
The Nigerian Governors’Forum (NGF) on Friday lamented that despite declaring profits in the last few months, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company, (NNPC) Limited contributed zero to the Federation account this month.
Governor of Ekiti State and Chairman of NGF, Kayode Fayemi, made this known at the Governor’s Forum session which marked the end of the panelists session of the 5th edition of the Nigerian International Energy Summit (NIES 2022).
While noting that there concerns around transparency, accountability and governance of the sector particularly as efforts are geared towards revitalising the industry.
In attendance at the Governor’s Forum session were Kebbi State governor, Abubakar Bagudu, the representatives governor of Ondo,Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Razaq Obe, representative of Bayelsa state governor, Ibieri Jones, Commissioner for Mineral Resources, and respresentative of Rivers state governor.
The NGF boss, lamented that transparency is central to the challenge the oil and gas sector face, adding that Nigerians appear to be suffering more even though the oil prices in the international market is going up.
According to him, “This is a time to talk about revitalization, the petroleum industry act has just being passed into law, even if governors have some issues as the Minister already knows, we do have with the law itself, and that is being worked on by the implementation committee but we think it is significant step 20 old years after that attempt started to review the 1969 petroleum act that has been the driver of the industry over the last 50 old years.
“And clearly the gaps that have been noticed in growing the industry and growing the sector particularly in ensuring that we run a sustainable institution that would not only respond to the yearnings of the industry, but also the general concerns of the Nigerian public. So the things that have been addressed partly in the law.
“For us as states that are beneficiaries of the goose that lays the golden egg, the oil and gas industry, we also are very desirous that this industry is sustained over the long term. We see areas of concerns particularly in terms of revitalising the industry around transparency around accountability around governance of the sector.
“We’ve just had Federation allocation accounts. Committee meeting a couple of days ago, and the NNPC contributed zero to the Federation account this month and this is not the first month that the NNPC is contributing zero. Over the last couple of months we’ve been having these challenges of course, we know why.
“Even though oil prices in the international market is going up, maybe $110 today or more, the more it goes up it would appear that the more we suffer locally now. So there’s an ambiguous relationship of sorts between what is happening in the international market and what we’re experiencing here in Nigeria and as critical stakeholders in the Nigerian Federation, states are naturally concerned about this, they are concerned about how to grow this industry and ensure that this industry is sustained over the long term in a manner that it can benefit those who are stakeholders in the industry. That is partly why for us governments of the sector is a very, very critical thing to do. The PIA is responding to some of the issues that we have about that, but it’s like a typical transition.
“In every transition, the old is done but the new is not yet born you’re caught in the middle and there is a significant amount of confusion that happens in that transition period. I guess that’s what we’re experiencing now but the faster we can complete that process of transition, I think the better it is for us .
“Also because of the nature of the industry and the exclusivity of the industry in the constitution of Nigeria, States have always had their own issues. Whilst in principle, we understand why the industry is in the exclusive nature of the Nigerian constitution or in the exclusive list, We also feel we need to begin to look at this rather differently in a manner that strengthens the commitment to private sector development, but also strengthens the ownership across states, local authorities if they have the wherewithal to do this and also the federal government and when one of the things that states are interested in is how institutions, companies that they’ve created themselves or established as private sector entities either in joint venture partnership with other private sector entities or exclusively as a special purpose vehicle to warehouse state interests should be able to participate actively in the oil and gas industry, as we do”.
He continued, “As I recall when I was in the Ministry of Mines we made it possible for states to set up a special purpose vehicle that can then apply for licence in order to actively participate in the mining industry be it gold or bitumen.
“So that’s in terms of revitalising the industry and ensuring sustainability over the long term, that’s an area that I think we need to look at.
“When you look at the statistics, transparency is central to the challenge this sector faces. On my way here, I was looking at the Natural Resources governance Institute reports and Nigeria is not doing very well. We rank 40 out of 58 natural resource country on the transparency index, because we are still believed to run a largely opaque industry and we see it ourselves
“NNPC declares profits yet it cannot meet its obligations. My simple knowledge of economics teaches me that it is only after you’ve met all your obligations, that you then talking about making profits. So if your obligation to the Federation account has not been met, how can you then talk about profit making
“Local content is growing in the industry. I saw a report; Seplat buying of mobile producing assets in the country. This is something that should be commended because Seplat is a local industry even though operating in the global market, I believe that there must be some positive to that and we must build on on such initiatives as long as it is transparently done before.
“For us as states ultimately what we’re looking at is a situation where at some point even the industry itself could operate the way your LNG operates currently, so that at the end of the day there’s greater transparency, there’s greater accountability and the governance framework is really built on efficiency of the industry” he said.
The Japanese Government through the COVAX facility on Wednesday gifted Nigeria with 859,600 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine and 175 Solar Direct drive Refrigerators to aid COVID-19 response.
The Executive Director , National Primary Healthcare Development Agency (NPHCDA) Dr. Faisal Shuaib received the vaccines on behalf of the Federal Government.
The Ambassador of Japan to Nigeria, Amb. Matsunaga Kazuyoshi, said the donation was part of the ten million doses to be donated by Japan to Africa, through COVAX.
He said that the vaccines came with Direct Drive (SDD) Refrigerators to keep them safe.
According to him, ” Increasing vaccine donation is not the goal but the goal was to get as many people vaccinated.
“These vaccines will help save lives, protect livelihoods, and heal economies currently affected by the pandemic. In our interdependent world, Japan and Nigeria are united, beyond borders. We must work together to ensure we are all protected”, he noted.
He added that there are more vaccines in the pipeline.
More so, the Country Representative of the World Health Organization (WHO) Dr. Walter Kazadi Mulombo, said that “In addition to providing vaccines, Japan is donating 175 Solar Direct Drive Refrigerators, to ensure stable delivery of vaccines to vaccination sites, with the necessary temperature controls. These efforts are key to ensure that vaccines get to the people who need them.”
He added that, Nigeria has so far received 67,973,250 doses of COVID-19 vaccines including 2,100,000 doses out of the Johnson and Johnson vaccines procured by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
About 96.9% (65,873,240) doses) of the vaccines received were through the COVAX Facility. While more than 47million doses are in the pipeline from now to the end of the year.
The vaccines include AstraZeneca, Moderna, Pfizer and Johnson and Johnson donated by GAVI and different countries including United States, United Kingdom, Slovenia, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Spain, Italy, France, Norway, Canada, Germany Ireland, Switzerland, India, and Japan.
Also, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) commended Nigeria saying, the results of its determination has led to the vaccination of more than 200,000 people per day.
According to the UNICEF Country Representative, Peter Hawkins, who was represented by the Chief of Staff of the agency, Dr. Eduardo Celede, said the donations will make a difference at the federal and state level in terms of the capacity to administer and store the vaccines.
“The COVID-19 pandemic has affected millions around the world including Nigeria. We are here today because two actors decided to act – the NPHCDA and the government of Japan. We are seeing that now we are vaccinating more than 200,000 people per day.
“We are seeing how the equipment and cold chain of the country has improved massively over the last year, and how the vaccines are delivered to the arms of the people that need them.
“NPHCDA has been remarkable over the last year and half. The donation that we are receiving today is an indication of the government of Japan to act. The donations today will make a difference at the federal and state level in terms of the capacity to administer and store the vaccines.
“More than 60 million vaccines have arrived in the country through COVAX in the last year. Also, more than 25 million doses of vaccines have been delivered to the arms of the people. With all these efforts from the government and partners, we will be able to end COVID-19 in Nigeria,” Celede.
