🗞️ Money and other things the government loves
This edition was curated and edited by me (Adetomiwa), and written by Rosemary.
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In this edition:
IPMAN predicts petrol scarcity for two weeks
Violent incidents reported in petrol queues
Increases in minimum wage
CBN's foreign exchange rate policies tricks 👀
Measles outbreak in Adamawa
Organ harvesting ring in Osun
This edition is 1,300 words (approx. 4 min read)
Fuel Scarcity
On the 29th of April, the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association Of Nigeria (IPMAN) said petrol scarcity will last 2 weeks. Fingers crossed it doesn’t end up like the electricity situation where citizens who were promised 20 hours of electricity a day for increased cost are still getting less than 10 hours of light a day.
In Oyo, residents are accusing petrol station owners of hoarding fuel. Those who aren’t hoarding petrol are selling for N1000 or as high as N7000 per litre.
In all this crisis, IPMAN PR officer, Mr Chinedu Ukadike is concerned that out of 15,000 petrol marketers in Oyo only 1,050 have had their license renewed by the regulator.
Meanwhile, in Lagos, an eyewitness at a filling station in Obalende, Ikoyi, said he saw Department of State (DSS) officers kill a man named Toheeb over a petrol queue.
The unnamed eyewitness said the DSS officers drove their truck into the filling station without expecting to be served first The victim held his spot on the line. The DSS officers got into an argument with him and two of the officers shot him.
The DSS has denied that this incident occurred.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Benjamin Hundeyin disclosed that the shooter was a police officer. “The person behind the shooting has been identified as a police officer serving at Special Protection Unit (SPU) Base 17, Lion Building, Lagos”, he said.
He added that investigations are still ongoing.
Workers Day Woes
Tinubu has decided to grant civil servants a 25-35% increase in their minimum wage.
After many years of civil servants hearing an increment in the minimum wage, the President has promised that it will finally be happening
Also, the Governor of Calabar— Gov Prince Bassey Otu, increased the minimum wage from N30,000 to N40,000 for the new minimum wage. He said the amount aligns with his reality of times we’re in.
Governor Godwin Obaseki decided to go higher on his minimum wage while commissioning the new labour house in Edo state. This Gov agreed to pay a sum of N70,000 for the new minimum wage to the civil servants in the state.
In all of this minimum wage story, the federal government is also moving fast when it comes to the oil industry. There will be a commencement of the 2024 oil bid rounds, this will be by the provisions of the Petroleum Industry Act.
Money and other things the government loves
New money
Fraud and Funds
The CBN has seemingly abandoned its foreign exchange rate harmonisation policy, as market data suggests the re-emergence of three rates: BDC, NAFEM, and Customs duty rates.
The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) has relaxed the benchmark rate for duty clearance to N1,164/$ while trading at NAFEM closed at N1339.23/$.
The CBN has also sold about $16 million to pre-qualified BDCs at N1,021 per dollar.
The discriminatory rates have raised concerns about market stability, with international institutions expressing worry over the relapse to old practices.
The Senate Committee on Finance has offered to work with relevant stakeholders to implement effective policies and strategies to tackle the issue.
Meanwhile, if you’ve been trying to open an account on Opay, Palmpay, or any other online banking account and it’s not working, it's because CBN has ordered fintechs to stop opening new accounts.
The CBN is also looking at closing Over 70 million bank accounts not linked to NIN
The order went out in December and gave us until the 1st of March (two months ago, yikes) to link our NIN and BVN to bank accounts or risk losing our accounts.
Some banks sent out messages to their customers to regularise their accounts in line with the new CBN directive.
The National President of the Association of Mobile Money and Bank Agents in Nigeria, Sarafadeen Fasasi, called for an extension of the deadline, stating that the policy was a good move to improve banks’ KYC requirements, but its implementation was worrisome.
Fasasi claimed that the National Identity Management Commission lacked the capacity to deliver 100 million NINs within the required timeframe.
The Chairman of the Consumer Rights Awareness, Advancement and Advocacy Initiative, Moses Igbrude, said the apex bank ought to assess the level of compliance before “wielding the big stick”.
Multiple bankers, who spoke with PUNCH said the banks had not yet started to restrict accounts without the BVN and NIN.
They said directives had been issued from their headquarters to create a seamless linking process to avoid account deactivation.
Also, a new rail line 🥳
The PH/Aba train has finally been launched and it was inaugurated on 30/04/2024. According to the minister of transportation, the train operation on the Port Harcourt-Aba rail line will be free for the public with a four-day free ride. The train is a 62-kilometer railway.
Imagine paying 250k to live under the bridge? The Lagos State government found that people are paying 250k to house agents to live under the dolphin estate bridge, Ikoyi on Lagos Island. The Lagos state commissioner for environment and water resources, Tokunbo Wahab posted on X.com on Wednesday that he demolished 86 partitioned rooms under the bridge.
Health
Al Jazeera reports that at least 42 people have died in a measles outbreak in Adamawa.
The outbreak has primarily affected two local government areas, with nearly 200 suspected cases identified.
The measles vaccines have been released to the affected areas, and field teams are working to contain the situation.
Measles is a highly contagious virus that mostly affects children under five. It can be prevented by two doses of vaccine.
The World Health Organization reports that more than 50 million measles deaths have been averted through vaccinations since the year 2000.
However, widespread insecurity in many northern Nigerian states, disruptions in vaccination campaigns, and the COVID-19 pandemic have left children particularly vulnerable to the virus.
Insecurity
Fire fight in Lagos
A dispute broke out in the Ile-Epo market, Abule Egba, Lagos State between traders over a betting game, which escalated into an ethnic fight and was later hijacked by hoodlums - Vanguard
The fight resulted in a section of the market being set on fire, causing traders and customers to flee.
The police intervened, arresting over 50 suspects and destroying the shanties they occupied.
Shops were looted and burnt, and some individuals sustained injuries during the fight. Men of the Rapid Response Team arrested an unspecified number of suspects involved in the clash.
Assassination in Ondo
Alaba Excel Abbey, a campaign coordinator for Ondo State Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa, was assassinated in his home in Supare Akoko, Akoko South West Local Government Area of the state.
The Director-General of the Lucky Aiyedatiwa Campaign Organisation Foot-Soldiers, David Ajobiewe, condemned the killing and urged police operatives to find the murderers of the late campaign coordinator.
Ajobiewe described Abbey as a resourceful coordinator who was never known to be violent and never had any history of local or domestic disputes.
The state Police Public Relations Officer, Funmilayo Odunlami-Omisanya, confirmed the incident and stated that an investigation was ongoing to unravel all that happened.
Organ Harvesting Ring in Osun
The Lagos State Police Command has arrested ten suspects, including an Osun priestess, a community chief, an Ifa priest, and an Islamic cleric for their involvement in a ritualistic gang - Channels
The gang, led by a man named Ademola Akinlosotu, initially dug up corpses from cemeteries and sold their parts to ritualists, but later started to kill and sell human parts to customers on demand.
The suspects were arrested through intelligence reports from the public, and the police recovered different human parts from the suspects.
The UK’s new deportation tactic
British authorities have begun operations to detain migrants for deportation to Rwanda as part of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak's immigration policy.
The UK Home Office announced a series of nationwide operations to detain those who have no right to be in the UK.
The government has approved a controversial law allowing asylum seekers who arrive illegally in Britain to be deported to Rwanda, despite the UK Supreme Court declaring the policy unlawful last year.
The government plans to target about 5,700 men and women who arrived in the UK without prior permission between January 2022 and June 2023.
The Home Office has lost contact with thousands of potential deportees, with only 2,143 "located for detention" so far.
Unions and human rights charities have expressed dismay at the wave of arrests so far.
The government has not provided exact figures for the number of arrests conducted since the operation started on Monday, but detentions have been reported across the UK.
Asylum seekers from war-torn countries including Afghanistan, Sudan, Syria, and Eritrea with no connection to Rwanda are being arrested as part of the scheme.
Rights groups have been successful in blocking the transfer of some people to removal centres in several cases, but it requires "24/7 resistance" for each individual case.
The UK government has not ruled out sending survivors of torture to Rwanda.
Other news
EFCC is conducting raids on schools in Nigeria that are charging in dollars. In a move to curb the free fall of the Naira, the agency is summoning the proprietors of private universities and other schools charging tuition in dollars - Punch.
Even after a court has ordered Multichoice Nigeria not to increase the price of their cable service, the company has decided that it's not the court that will tell them what to do - Nairametrics.
Socio-Economic Rights And Accountability Project (SERAP) is suing NNPC for failure to account for the missing N164bn they made in oil revenue - Punch.