Buhari says sorry 🙁
Airline fraud, diseases to look out for and more
Hi,
We’re taking a week off, so there won’t be an issue next weekend. We’ll be back in the first week of April! Stay safe 💙
The Lekki Concession Company Limited (LCC) has announced plans to resume activities at the Lekki-Ikoyi Link Bridge Toll Plaza by April 1. The state government closed it in 2020 after the state closed it because the Nigerian Army fatally shot unarmed citizens who were protesting police brutality.
But it’s all good. The LCC managing director, Yomi Omomuwasan, said motorists would be offered a two-week toll-free passage.
The state’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Gbenga Omotoso, says critics should be “understanding” as there “are 500+ LCC employees” who have been redundant for 18 months.
In this week’s edition
The Minister of Power explains power problems
Nigeria’s borrowing gets worse
EFCC arrests ex-governor
Air Peace CEO wanted in the U.S. for fraud
Tuberculosis: Nigeria’s latest disease
Angry about the state of petrol and electricity in the country?
Don’t be! Buhari says he is sorry 🙁
What’s happening with electricity?
According to the Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, the current power situation is due to an inconveniently timed combination of a shortage of gas, weather, scheduled maintenance and vandalism.
The Minister says there was supposed to be a scheduled outage for maintenance. However, people started to vandalise the gas supply pipes, which disrupted their plans. He says it’s the same thing that happened with aviation fuel, the petrol situation. The lack of gas has made it difficult for the grids to generate electricity.
The grid has collapsed twice this month, but the Minister says “it is back”
Last week, the electricity generation companies (GenCos)—Niger Delta Power Company, and TCN— threatened to keep the electricity supply shut until the Federal Government pays them N1.64trn they owe (GenCos have threatened the blackouts every year since 2017)
But the Minister says they’ve had a meeting and all is well. He says he spoke to the stakeholders and told them they’re “all on the same team”, like an abusive boss, so all is well.
The Minister likened the worsening power situation across the country to war but promised that this is one the F.G. will do “everything possible” to win.
Bright side? Your electricity bill isn’t as bad as it could be?
The Finance Minister, Zainab Ahmed, revealed that the federal government has “quietly” removed subsidies on electricity and everything in the power sector. They intend to “quietly” do the same to petrol.
Speaking of oil
If banks collectively reducing their dollar limit to $20 wasn’t enough indication that Nigeria as a country is broke broke, add this to your bucket of evidence: The Minister of Finance announced that Nigeria will be tapping $2.2 billion from the Eurobond, along with domestic borrowing to fund fuel subsidy.
Last year September, Nigeria’s debt management office revealed that the country raised $4 billion in Eurobonds, which was to be used to offset some of the over $95.77 billion (and counting) budget deficit from 2021.
According to Reuters eavesdropping on a side conversation Ms Ahmed had at the Arab-African conference in Cairo, the increasing cost of oil is partly to blame. “Rising oil prices have put us in a very precarious position because we import refined products … and it means that our subsidy cost is really increasing”.
Ms Ahmed says we need N3 trillion for this year’s subsidy budget
Recall that in January, the government had plans to end fuel subsidy but chose to extend it for another 18 months
Also, recall that Dangote has been working on a Nigeria-based refinery for almost a decade. It is seemingly set to be in motion by 2023 🤞🏽
On the $20 cap on foreign purchases
People with Nigerian bank accounts won’t be able to use their Naira cards to pay for more than $20 per month for international purchases. Banks collectively said this was necessary due to the “current market realities on foreign exchange”.
The CBN declared that they would stop selling forex to banks by the end of the year in February. CBN Governor Godwin Emefiele said this is decision is to “boost the country’s foreign reserves through proceeds from non-oil exports”.
Airline operators threatened to shut down flights on Friday if the jet fuel issue was not resolved.
Backstory: Since the beginning of March, scarcity and spike in the cost of jet fuel (by over 40%) has been disrupting local flights in Nigeria. Some airlines temporarily suspended flights due to scarcity.
Stakeholders have blamed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (Russia is a major supplier), marketers (some airline operators believe sellers are hoarding) and others say the scarcity of forex is to blame— if the aviation industry had more access to forex they could source jet fuel on their own.
Retired Capt. John Ojikutu— The commandant of Lagos Airport during President Buhari’s military regime— said one of the issues, and a possible cause of a further increase in cost, is transporting the jet fuel to the airports. With the car petrol scarcity, the cost of transportation adds up. He urged the airlines to ask the National Assembly’s Aviation Committee about pipelines they’re refused to fix since the 90s
“The airlines should, therefore, ask the National Assembly’s Aviation Committee why the pipeline bridging the supply of fuel from Ejigbo to the MMA cannot be repaired by the NNPC since 1992 – 30 years after it got ruptured? The trucking of the fuel is the pipeline through which political officials, in and out of government administration, drain the petroleum subsidies”.
He shook more tables:
“Why is it that NNPC is the only marketer now importing fuel? Why has the NNPC excluded Total, Mobil, AP, Conoil and MRS that were initially approved for [Jet-A1] fuel importation?”
To offset the cost, the local airlines collectively attempted to set the minimum charge of a local flight ticket to N50,000, and some increased their prices by over 100%. But the government shut that down.
On Monday, the CEO of Air Peace and vice president of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON), Allen Onyema, stated that the airlines threatened to stop operations if there is no resolution by Friday the 18th.
But they took it back yesterday. Onyema said that airlines collectively agreed to suspend the shutdown to avert further disruption in economic activities, considering the vital role air transportation plays in the logistic mix. He said discussions are ”ongoing” between stakeholders.
Impending bankruptcy, the gift that keeps on giving
The National Bureau of Statistics reports that Nigeria’s consumer price inflation increased to 15.70% in February, after seeing a short decrease at the start of the year from 15.63% in December 2021 to 15.60% in January 2022)
But it’s better than this time last year. According to the statistics office, the prices of goods and services, measured by the Consumer Price Index, fell 1.63% points lower than the rate recorded in February 2021 (17.33%).
NBS says an indicator is an increase in food prices (the average cost of a loaf of bread was N270 in 2017, now its N500 in many places) — caused by border closures, COVID-19 containment measures, insecurity, and most recently, fuel scarcity
Prices are expected to rise further amid a global shortage made worse by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Failed money heist
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested the immediate-past governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, hours after he officially handed the position to the new governor, Charles Chukwuma Soludo.
Premium times reposts that the agency might have been discreetly investigating the governor and possibly had intelligence that he planned to travel after handing over power to his successor.
Note that EFCC would have been unable to apprehend him before the official handover because of the constitutional clause that gives serving governors and presidents of the country immunity.
But after the official handover event (the one where Victoria Obiano (the suspect’s wife) got into a slap brawl with Bianca Ojukwu)
Air Peace CEO has been busy.
When he is not coordinating things as the vice president of the Airline Operators of Nigeria (AON) or giving orders as the CEO of Air Peace, Allen Onyema is (allegedly) defrauding banks.
According to a U.S. District Court, the Air Peace founder has 36 charges at the U.S. court in connection with alleged fraudulent schemes of over $20 million.
According to court documents, Mr Onyema established the company in Georgia in April 2016 to specialise in “the wholesaling, trading/ and sale of commercial aircraft and parts”.
Onyema, and Air Peace Limited’s Head of Administration and Finance, Ejiroghene Eghagha, allegedly used export letters of credit to get banks to transfer more than $20 million into Atlanta-based bank accounts Onyema owned. The letters of credit were used to fund the purchase of five separate passenger planes for Air Peace. The letters were supported by documents such as purchase agreements, bills of sale, and appraisals proving that Air Peace was purchasing the aircraft from Springfield Aviation Company LLC.
However, the court found that supporting documents were fake — Springfield Aviation Company LLC, owned by Onyema and managed by a person with no connection to the aviation business, never owned the aircraft. In addition, the company that allegedly drafted the appraisals did not exist.
Eghagha allegedly also participated in this scheme. He directed the Springfield Aviation manager (Ebony Mayfield, now facing charges) to sign and send false documents to banks.
After Onyema received the money in the United States, he allegedly laundered over $16 million of the proceeds of the fraud by transferring it to other accounts.
The U.S. has now dissolved Onyema’s registered company.
COVID, Lassa fever, Tb
There’s a spike in COVID-19 cases in Europe, China and South-East Asia. Experts say it is primarily due to the delayed arrival of Omicron, the spread of the BA.2 variant combined with the aggressive lifting of Covid restrictions (CNBC)
Nigeria’s struggle with COVID, Lassa fever, tuberculosis
We reported recently that Lassa fever had become a cause for concern in many Nigerian communities (over 100 people died this year). Now, we’re dealing with tuberculosis
Tribune reports that Nigeria still ranks sixth in the world and first in Africa for the burden of tuberculosis. The World Health Organisation (WHO) says that about 156,000 Nigerians die yearly from tuberculosis.
In Other news
Hushpuppi did NOT commit fraud from prison, says the U.S. attorney general’s office. The document claiming he did is fake (Premium Times)
Notice: The U.K. is NOT stopping visa applications. The British High Commission confirmed that they’re just suspending priority applications while they process Ukraine refugee applications (Punch)
ASUU has extended its four-week warning strike by another eight weeks because the Federal Government “failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action (MoA) within the four-week roll-over strike period”. (Vanguard)
The Nigerian Senate recently passed a bill that would empower an association of real estate companies to regulate its members and regulate its competitors and others in the industry. Many Senate members aren’t with it. One called it a “selfish bill” (Premium Times)
Political parties have begun sales of the nomination and expression of interest forms for the 2023 general elections — this is where people officially indicate interest in internal (primary) elections. Presidential forms go for N40m, gov N21m (Vanguard)
The Auditor-General's audit report for the Federation revealed that the defunct Nigeria National Petroleum Company (NNPC) failed to account for about 107,239,436.00 barrels of crude oil lifted for domestic consumption in 2019. (Arise)
Follow us on Instagram for daily news updates