Oyo State Governor, Seyi Makinde has announced Sulaiman Olanrewaju as his new Chief Press Secretary.

Olanrewaju, who replaced Makinde’s former Chief Press Secretary, Taiwo Adisa, was until his new appointment the Group Business Editor of the Nigerian Tribune.

According to Makinde, his new CPS was absent from the event because he was unaware of his own appointment, adding that his decision to appoint Olanrewaju was on account of due diligence privately carried

Mohammed Shosanya

President Bola Tinubu,Monday,said more investors are coming to Nigeria on account of his administration’s robust economic policies which he would launch soon.

He told the investors his government would review all their complaints about multiple taxation and various anti-investment inhibitions.

“We shall ensure that investors and foreign businesses repatriate their hard earned dividends and profits home,”he said in his inaugural address while being sworn-in as the 16th President of Nigeria.

According to him,electricity will become more accessible and affordable to businesses and homes alike.He also said,power generation should nearly double and transmission and distribution networks improved,adding that his administration will encourage states to develop local sources as well.

His administration will boost the country’s Gross Domestic Products through budgetary reform stimulating the economy without engendering inflation will be instituted.

He added that industrial policy will utilize the full range of fiscal measures to promote domestic manufacturing and lessen import dependency.

He said,his administration must create meaningful opportunities for our youth as well as honour its campaign commitment of one million new jobs in the digital economy.

He added :”Our government also shall work with the National Assembly to fashion an omnibus Jobs and Prosperity bill. This bill will give our administration the policy space to embark on labour-intensive infrastructural improvements, encourage light industry and provide improved social services for the poor, elderly and vulnerable”.

He revealed that security would be the top priority of his administration,adding that he would reform the nation’s security doctrine and its architecture.

He added:”We shall invest more in our security personnel, and this means more than an increase in number. We shall provide, better training, equipment, pay and firepower”.

On agriculture,he said rural incomes shall be secured by commodity exchange boards guaranteeing minimal prices for certain crops and animal products.

He said, nationwide programme for storage and other facilities to reduce spoilage and waste will be undertaken,adding that agricultural hubs will be created throughout the nation to increase production and engage in value-added processing.

He disclosed that the livestock sector will be introduced to best modern practices and steps taken to minimize the perennial conflict over land and water resources in this sector.

Through these actions, he daid food shall be made more abundant yet less costly. Farmers shall earn more while the average Nigerian pays less.

The President assured that his administration would continue the legacies of Buhari administration on infrastructure,while progress toward national networks of roads, rail and ports shall get priority attention.

He commended the decision of the outgoing administration in phasing out the petrol subsidy regime, which he said,has increasingly favoured the rich more than the poor.

According to him,subsidy can no longer justify its ever-increasing costs in the wake of drying resources. We shall instead re-channel the funds into better investment in public infrastructure, education, health care and jobs that will materially improve the lives of millions.

He maintained that monetary policy needs thorough housecleaning,which would mean that the Central Bank must work towards a unified exchange rate.

He added:This will direct funds away from arbitrage into meaningful investment in the plant, equipment and jobs that power the real economy.Interest rates need to be reduced to increase investment and consumer purchasing in ways that sustain the economy at a higher level.

“Whatever merits it had in concept, the currency swap was too harshly applied by the CBN given the number of unbanked Nigerians. The policy shall be reviewed. In the meantime, my administration will treat both currencies as legal tender”

The President hinted that the crisis in Sudan and the turn from democracy by several nations in our immediate neighbourhood are of pressing concern to his administration.

He added:”As such, my primary foreign policy objective must be the peace and stability of the West African subregion and the African continent. We shall work with ECOWAS, the AU and willing partners in the international community to end extant conflicts and to resolve new ones.

“As we contain threats to peace, we shall also retool our foreign policy to more actively lead the regional and continental quest for collective prosperity”

Mohammed Shosanya

Media Rights Agenda (MRA),has accused former President Muhammadu Buhari of monumental failure in the implementation of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act,which resulted in a legacy of secrecy after his eight years in office.

In a report titled “A Legacy of Secrecy: The FOI Act under the Buhari Administration”, issued by MRA to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the signing into Law of the FOI Act by then President Goodluck Jonathan on May 28, 2011 as well as the end of the Buhari Administration on May 29, 2023, the organization noted that “governance during the Buhari years was characterized by blatant violations of the provisions of the FOI Act by the vast majority of public institutions and willful disregard for their obligations under the Law.”

Mr. Ayode Longe, MRA’s Programme Director,said: “Over the last eight years, scores of public institutions spent millions of naira engaging lawyers to defend their refusal to comply with the provisions of the FOI Act and disclose information to members of the public requesting such information even when there was clearly no legitimate basis for withholding the requested information. Not in a single instance did President Buhari or anybody in his Administration express disapproval for this widespread practice or reprimand any of its institutions engaged in the practice.”

Its report examined the Buhari Administration’s performance in terms of any measures, policies or other actions taken to ensure effective implementation of the FOI Act as well as how public institutions complied with their obligations under the Act, including the requirement for them to submit annual implementation reports to the Attorney General of the Federation, who has oversight responsibility for the implementation of the Act.

Longe noted that although Section 29 of the Act imposes an obligation on all public institutions to submit annual reports on the implementation of the Act to the Attorney General of the Federation, the level of compliance with this reporting obligation by public institutions remained shockingly low throughout President Buhari’s tenure, without any ministry, department or agency of the Government ever being reprimanded or otherwise sanctioned for disobeying this mandatory provision of the Act.

He said,of the 1,316 ministries, departments, and agencies of the Federal Government in the records of the Federal Civil Service Commission, less than 100 had bothered to submit their FOI Act implementation reports for any given year, from 2015 and 2022, with no action taken against any of the more 90 per cent of them that refused to comply with this requirement, thereby encouraging and institutionalizing impunity.

He disclosed that,only 44 out of the 1,316 public institutions submitted their reports for 2015; 54 public institutions submitted for 2016; 73 submitted for 2017; 70 submitted for 2018; 89 submitted for 2019; 73 submitted for 2020; 89 submitted for 2021; while 90 submitted for 2022, putting the highest rate of compliance ever at 6.84 percent for the year 2022.

He said: “These figures reveal an alarming disregard for transparency and accountability by most public institutions. But it is even more disheartening that the Presidency, which should set the example the entire Government, did not respond to a single request for information made to it during President Buhari’s eight years in power. This gross failure of leadership cannot be ignored and must be rectified in order to restore public trust and confidence in our government. Such a pattern of non-compliance must be reversed by the incoming administration.”

He described as “deeply concerning” the fact that the former Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), who is responsible for overseeing the FOI Act implementation, did not make any recommendations to the National Assembly on how to improve compliance by MDAs with their FOI Act obligations, suggesting that he was satisfied with this sorry state of affairs.

Besides, Mr. Longe said, former the Attorney-General did not take any step to review or update the Guidelines for the Implementation of the FOI Act, which was put in place in 2013 by his predecessor, Mr. Mohammed Adoke (SAN), in order to make the implementation process consistent with advancements in technology and various judicial pronouncements over the last 12 years, which could have greatly aided implementation efforts.

He implored President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to take proactive steps to ensure the effective implementation of the Act and allocate adequate resources for this purpose in the Federal Government’s annual budgets, saying good governance cannot be possible without transparency, accountability and citizen participation in government, which the Act can help to engender.

Mohammed Shosanya

A Nigeria-based anti-corruption group, SecureWorld and Liberty Initiative for Peace, SELIP, has petitioned the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, to probe the former Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, for allegedly using the establishment of a national carrier, Nigeria Air, to perpetrate fraud and commit economic sabotage.

The group sought the request in a petition,which was addressed to the EFCC Chairman, Abdulrasheed Bawa, and signed by the Executive Director of SELIP, Comrade Mark Adebayo.

Specifically,the group requested the anti-graft agency to investigate the outgoing minister for undertaking ventures designed to benefit a few individuals and lead to the eventual collapse of aviation, a critical sector of the Nigerian economy.

It noted with dismay the unveiling of an aircraft on Friday in Abuja purportedly belonging to Nigeria Air, despite an existing court order restraining the minister from taking any action regarding the project.

The group alleged that in a desperate bid to hoodwink President Muhammadu Buhari’s government and the generality of Nigerians, the minister imported a re-painted aircraft owned by Ethiopian Airlines and passed it off as the maiden flight belonging to Nigeria Air.

The group averred that the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos headed by Justice A.L Allagoa, in a suit filed by the Airline Operators of Nigeria, had granted three separate orders of injunctions, restraining the Federal Government from taking any step about the Nigeria Air project ‘but the minister in a desperate bid to cover up the monumental fraud in the deal elected to flagrantly disobeyed an order of a court of competent jurisdiction and produced a sham called unveiling of Nigeria Air flight last Friday.’

“We are compelled to bring to your attention that the aircraft purportedly unveiled on Friday, May 26, 2023, by Minister Sirika, as the first flight of the national carrier, Nigeria Air, is still in active service of Ethiopia Airlines. We can confirm that the aircraft, a Boeing 737-800 with the registration number ET-APL, has since left the country this weekend for Turkey according to a check on the flight radar; it only transited Nigeria for the farce of a show put up by the minister. The flight landing in the country with Ethiopia Airlines’ registration number means Nigeria Air has no Air Operator Certificate. No aircraft can be registered in Nigeria without the carrier having an AOC which means that the aircraft does not belong to Nigeria Air either as leased or owned equipment. So, Sirika should not be allowed to fool Nigerians,” the group said in the petition.

It urged the anti-graft agency to make Sirika account for a whopping N15.9 billion that has been committed so far to the project by the federal government, alleging that the desperation by the minister is geared towards covering up the misappropriation of funds and monumental fraud.

“The unveiling was a desperate attempt to justify the N15.9 billion appropriated by the federal government to Nigeria Air since 2016. The phantom project has continued to lick up budgetary provisions; N1.3 billion was allotted to it in the 2023 budget with an additional N700 million as ‘working capital’ and N200 million as consultancy fee; so, the minister must not be allowed to hoodwink Nigerians with the ‘importation of a rented aircraft into the country and pass it off as a step to the commencement of the operation of the airline days to his exit from office. This act of fraud and economic terrorism must not be allowed to go unpunished,” the petition read.

Sirika claimed that Nigeria Air Limited is a private sector-led airline, with only five per cent of the company owned by the Nigerian government. The minister also added that a consortium of entrepreneurs in Nigeria owns 46 percent while investors in Ethiopian Airlines retain 49 percent of the shares.

But, SELIP in the petition, punctured the minister saying the conception and implementation of the national carrier project were shrouded in ambiguity and designed to defraud the people of Nigeria by a few Nigerians in connivance with their international collaborators.

“There’s no agreement with the stakeholders in Nigeria, so on what basis has a painted plane be brought in to deceive Nigerians? The lack of transparency on funding and alleged zero consideration for local players and national interest is frightening as the proposed Shareholders’ Agreement which is yet to be signed the, reserves all Executive Directors positions for the Ethiopians with Nigerians as deputies,” the group said.

SELIP said the former Minister must be compelled to explain why in the proposed Shareholder Agreement, Ethiopian Airlines will also collect millions of dollars yearly as management fees despite having 49% shares and why the East African company will attract such grace by using just their own planes as contributions to the project.

The group also charged the EFCC to probe the 3% of the total shares allocated to Fairfax Ltd which was appointed as the Transaction Adviser to the project.

SELIP appealed to the anti-graft agency to probe the deal that granted Fairfax Nigeria Limited the shares without paying a dime.

It said:”This company will also be paid millions of dollars monthly and will be in charge of procurement for Nigeria Air. There is overwhelming evidence that Sirika has a substantial interest in Fairfax Nigeria Limited albeit by proxies, and one of the most curious things is why a firm incorporated in March 2021 without robust experience in the aviation industry will be factored into such a monumental project. Please, use your good office to probe the perpetration of conflict of interest and grand fraud against the Nigerian people so that sanity will be restored in that sector and cause a rebound in the confidence of investors in the industry,” the group said.

SELIP said the implementation of the project is capable of undermining the efforts of the incoming Bola Tinubu administration and the EFCC must make the promoters of the phantom deal face the full length of the law.

“Being a high flight risk after May 29th, 2023, we demand the immediate arrest of Minister Hadi Sirika before he flees the country. We urge your Commission to keep perfect vigilance on Minister Sirika and not allow him to escape from these shores but be made to answer for his massive corruption that is bound to harm the critical sector of Nigeria’s Aviation Industry.

“This scam scheme can only be compared to the daring scam by a Nigerian who sold a phantom airport to some Brazilians years ago. We are sure the Commission has an institutional memory of that obnoxious financial crime that caused Nigeria international embarrassment. The current scam is no less obnoxious.

“We have confidence that the EFCC will do justice and timely, too, to get to the bottom of this scam and save Nigeria’s Aviation Industry from the impending doom”

Mohammed Shosanya

Pump price of fuel in Ekiti,has hit N600 per litre,Chairman, Ekiti State Petroleum Task Force, Hon. Israel Adesokan,has confirmed.

Speaking during a raid on fuel dealers selling the product above the pump price,Adesokan,described their act as criminal and unacceptable.

He warned that the government of Biodun Abayomi Oyebanji would not condone acts of sabotage or intended to inflict untold hardships on innocent Nigerians.

Effecting the closure of a filling station in Ado-Ekiti ,Adesokan said ” I passed through this place yesterday and this Fuel Station was dispensing its product at N230 but ,because President Bola Ahmed Tinubu declared in his inaugural speech that Fuel Subsidy had gone, these people suddenly increased their pump price to N600.This is pure wickedness and no government would condone this.

“Mr President just talked about it in his address, it has not been implemented yet, so I dont expect anybody to start exploiting motorists or members of the public based on this ”