Good morning! Here is today’s summary from Nigerian Newspapers:
1. President Muhammadu Buhari has approved N10 billion as intervention fund for the upgrade of the Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu State. He added that the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, had assured him that work on the airport would be done speedily and that work done would be of a high standard.
2. The Joint Admission and Matriculation Board, JAMB, has said it will no longer register candidates who do not have the National Identity Number, NIN, for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination, UTME. It warned that only intending candidates who have the NIN will be registered, beginning with the 2020 examination.
3. The Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr Timipre Sylva, on Thursday assured Nigerians that the Federal Government has no immediate plans to remove fuel subsidy. The minister made this known while fielding questions from legislators at a joint session of National Assembly Committees overseeing the oil sector.
4. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, has said the $3bn loan being sought by the Federal Government from the World Bank would be deployed for reforms in the power sector.
5. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, has said that the Federal Government is considering introducing excise duties on soft and carbonated drinks. She said the idea was one of the other areas, besides the proposed increase in VAT, that the government was looking at to broaden its revenue base.
6. President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday ordered a forensic audit of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) operations from 2001. Buhari said the directive became imperative given the persistent criticisms of the commission’s operations.
7. Nigeria lost about $600 billion to corruption from the time the country attained independence in 1960 to date, the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) has said. The Chairman of its Resource Centre, Olanrewaju Suraju, gave the figure on Thursday in Abuja. He said the stolen funds were either kept abroad or invested in illicit assets.
8. The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has challenged the Presidency to explain the source of funding for the office of the First Lady, Aisha Buhari. The party recalled that President Muhammadu Buhari on assumption of office in 2015 had promised not to run the office of the First Lady. It said Buhari must lead by example by ending alleged profligacy in the Presidency.
9. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has said that Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in the country lost a total of N14.31 billion to fraud and forgeries last year. The apex bank disclosed this in its “Financial Stability Report (FSR) December 2018” posted on its website.
10. Nigerian Government, Thursday said that the closure of the country’s land borders was to compel its neighbours to comply with the terms of trade agreements it signed with them. The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs Zainab Ahmed, who made this known, said that Nigeria was not getting the required cooperation from its neighbours with regard to adherence to the terms of some of the bilateral agreements they signed.
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