COVER
Tinubu, Govs Give Nod to Creation of State Police
Finally, President Bola Tinubu and the state governors on Thursday agreed to establish state police in the country to curtail issues bordering on insecurity.
This is as the president and the state governors have also discussed the possibility of improving the numeric strength of forest rangers to train them so that they can keep our forests and our borders very safe.
The president has also directed security Chiefs especially the National Security Adviser (NSA), Nuhu Ribadu, the Director-General of the Department of State Security (DSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi and the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Kayode Egbetokun to crack down hoarding commodities in order to bring them to book.
Briefing State House correspondents at the end of the emergency meeting, the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris said far reaching decisions were reached at the meeting including the consideration for the establishment of state police.
These among others were part of the resolution reached at the end of the emergency meeting summoned by the President at the Council Chamber, Presidential Villa, Abuja.
President Tinubu had summoned the meeting in view of the economic hardship in the country as well as the recent upsurge of insecurity in different parts of the country.
The emergency meeting also had in attendance the Vice President, Kashim Shettima and the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, Nyesom Wike.
Since President Tinubu took over the administrative headship of the country and announced, “subsidy is gone”, the economy has witnessed a downward trend with the attendant hardship and high cost of living.
The situation has resulted in women and youth in different parts of the country going to the street protesting and there has been an increase in criminal activities with heightened tension in the polity.
Although Tinubu has directed his economic team including all relevant officials in the government to find a way to ameliorating the situation, the Special Presidential Committee on Emergency has been given approval to make available about 102,000 metric tons of assorted items including rice, maize, millet among others.
The state governors that attended the meeting are those of Ekiti, Delta, Borno, Lagos, Kwara, Nasarawa, and Edo.
Others are: Yobe, Anambra, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Plateau, Kaduna, Sokoto, Niger, Taraba, Adamawa, Cross River, Ogun and Enugu.
The minister said that there will be a series of meetings to fine tune the modalities for setting up state police.
He said, “But now, there is also a discussion around the issue of state police. The federal government and state governments are mulling the possibility of setting up state police.
“Of course, this is still going to be further discussed, a lot of work still has to be done in that direction. But the federal government and state governments are agreeing to the necessity of having state policy.
“Now, this is a significant shift. But like I said, more work needs to be done in that direction. A lot of meetings will have to happen between different governments and sub nationals to see the modalities of achieving this.”
On other outcomes of the meeting, Idris, said the meeting was at the instance of the President to intimate the state governors about what was happening, and what the federal government was doing and to also hear from the state governors their input about issues of development in this country.
According to him, “A lot of issues were discussed about the security situation in the country. The apparent food issue that the media has also been reporting about and some other measures that will help in improving the state of our nation.
“Now, the first point is that the governors and Mr. President have agreed to set up a committee to deepen the conversation that has happened at the just-concluded meeting. Of course, you know that it is impossible to complete most of the issues that were raised at the meeting so it is going to be a continuous one.
“Secondly, Mr. President and the governors have agreed that these kinds of meetings will continue in the interest of our nation.”It is important that all the time, the federal government and the state governors who are leaders at the subnational level continue to engage and interact collectively so that issues of national importance will continue to be addressed, and we don’t leave room for any speculation or for people who may seize the opportunity to say things that are not in the interest of our country.
By David Torough, Abuja
Nigerian Correctional Service (NCoS) has declared 281 inmates missing from the Medium Security Custodial Centre, Maiduguri, Borno State.
NCoS said this followed an evacuation after the flood that engulfed the state capital.
A statement onby the Service Public Relations Officer (SPRO), Mr Abubakar Umar yesterday in Abuja said seven other inmates had been recaptured.
Umar said that the service was in custody of the details of the missing inmates, including their biometrics.
“The flood brought down the walls of the correctional facilities, including the medium security custodial centre Maiduguri (MSCC) as well as the staff quarters in the city.
“Upon the evacuation of inmates by officers of the service with support from sister security agencies to a safe and secure facility, 281 inmates were observed to be missing.
“However, it is important to note that the service is in custody of their details, including their biometrics, which is being made available to the public.
“The service is working in synergy with other security agencies as both covert and overt deployments have been activated to look out for them.
“Presently, a total of seven (7) inmates have been recaptured and returned to custody, while efforts are on ground to track down the rest and bring them back to safe custody.“While this effort is on, the public is assured that the incident does not impede or affect public safety,” he said.
By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
After controversies, trucks from the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation Limited (NNPCL) yesterday lifted petrol from the Dangote Refinery.
NNPCL revealed that Dangote Refinery sold the fuel at N898 per litre.
The national oil company began loading yesterday after moving about 300 trucks to the 650,000 capacity refinery Dangote Refinery located in Ibeju-Lekki, Lagos State.
Its spokesman, Olufemi Soneye was quoted as saying, “We successfully loaded PMS at the Dangote Refinery today [Sunday].
”“The claim that we purchased it at N760 per liter is incorrect.
“For this initial loading, the price from the refinery was N898 per liter.
”At least, over 70 trucks had loaded at the time of this report.
This marks an end to the month-long debate over the quality and sale of the Dangote petrol.
Speaking to newsmen at the refinery, the Vice President of Oil and Gas at Dangote Industries Limited (DIL), Devakumar Edwin described the commencement of the petrol lifting moment of pride to every Nigerian.
He said, “My President has been showing presentations that 52 years ago, we were trying to see how to solve the problem of PMS supply and the queues. Now, after 52 years, we have a solution.
“And the solution is local production of PMS and it is from a Nigerian oil company. And as EPC contractor, it was constructed by a Nigerian company.
“So, it’s a matter of pride that a Nigerian oil company, constructed by a Nigerian-owned company, is able to generate PMS from the local crude and daily will not only to meet the entire requirement of Nigeria, but can also have surplus to export. So, it is a time and moment of great pride to every Nigerian.”
Edwin said 44 percent of the PMS production from the Dangote refinery can meet the requirement of the entire country.
“If you look at the refinery as a whole, PMS alone, every day, 650,000 barrels of crude if we’re processing, we can generate more than 54 million litres of PMS.
“And, of course, the refinery has the capacity to produce various other products too. 44% of the production can meet the entire requirement of the country, 56% of the production has to be exported. “So, it is a huge refinery. So, it is not only going to be doing import substitution, but it is also going to make Forex generation through export revenue.
“The gantries are actually 86 and they can load 86 trucks at a go,” he said.
Last Friday, in Abuja, a member of the Presidential Committee on the Sale of Crude Oil and Refined Product and Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS), Zacch Adedeji confirmed that the NNPCL remains the sole buyer of petrol from the Dangote refinery while willing off-takers are free to lift diesel and other products from the refinery.
According to Adedeji, the NNPCL would further distribute to other independent marketers after lifting from the refinery.
He said the nation’s oil company will commence the sale of crude oil to the Dangote refinery in naira from October 1.
By Tony Obiechina, Abuja
Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has issued a new directive to Payment Service Providers (PSPs), requiring them to comply with enhanced routing guidelines for Point of Sale (PoS) transactions.This move is aimed at strengthening the monitoring of electronic transactions across Nigeria.
The directive issued on Wednesday aims at strengthening the monitoring of electronic transactions across Nigeria following CBN’s initiative to diversify the Payment Terminal Service Aggregator (PTSA) structure, which previously operated through a single aggregator. In a circular signed by Oladimeji Yisa Taiwo on behalf of the CBN Payments System Management Department, the apex bank mandates that all PoS transactions from merchant and agent locations—whether physical or electronic—must now be routed through any CBN-licensed PTSA.The directive is part of efforts to decentralize PoS transaction routing and address concerns over the centralization of such transactions under a single entity.In Aug. 2011, the CBN initially granted a PTSA license to the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System (NIBSS) Plc to serve as the sole aggregator of PoS transactions.However, to promote competition and enhance service delivery, the CBN awarded a second PTSA license to Unified Payment Services Limited (UPSL) on April 19.This development aims to reduce the dependence on a single aggregator for the management of PoS transactions, promoting transparency and operational efficiency in Nigeria’s growing electronic payments landscape.
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