Press focuses on warning by former President Obasanjo that politicians can wreck Nigeria, others

APA– Lagos The warning by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that the coming election will either make or break Nigeria and that politicians may wreck the country if religious leaders are not watchful is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday. The Punch reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has raised the alarm that the…

APA – Lagos (Nigeria) The warning by former President Olusegun Obasanjo that the coming election will either make or break Nigeria and that politicians may wreck the country if religious leaders are not watchful is one of the leading stories in Nigerian newspapers on Thursday.

The Punch reports that former President Olusegun Obasanjo has raised the alarm that the coming election will either make or break Nigeria.

This is just as he warned that politicians may wreck the country if religious leaders are not watchful.

He, therefore, appealed to religious leaders in the country to stop those he described as bad politicians from destroying the country.

Obasanjo spoke, on Wednesday, when the new President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Daniel Okoh, paid him a courtesy visit at his Olusegun Obasanjo Presidential Library Penthouse residence in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital.

He warned that if politicians with no fear of God are allowed to have their way, the entire country would regret it.

According to a statement made available to journalists by his media aide, Kehinde Akinyemi, the former president requested that Nigerian politicians should be made more responsible by the country’s religious leaders.

The statement quoted him as saying, “The next election, if we do not watch it, it may make or break Nigeria. I pray that it will make Nigeria.

“For having both the Sultan of Sokoto and the CAN leader already on the same page, maybe our politicians will listen, and if our politicians don’t listen, maybe our people will listen.”

The newspaper says that Nigeria Export-Import Bank has disclosed that a sub-Saharan regional shipping line, Sealink, will commence operations between the end of 2022 and the first quarter of 2023.

A statement quoted the Head, Strategy and Communication, NEXIM, Mr Tayo Omioji, to have said this in Lagos recently while speaking at the 2022 annual conference with the theme, “Boosting Domestic Capacity for Sustainable Export Earnings,” organised by finance correspondents.

Omioji explained that the Sealink project was conceived due to the need for Nigeria to have a regional shipping line.

He noted that the country engaged the services of foreign vessels to move goods outside the country, which was expensive and affected foreign exchange earnings.

Omioji said reliance on foreign vessels increased cost and travel time as goods were first moved from Nigeria to the point of origin of the vessels and then to the final destinations.

“If we have our own shipping line, we can move our goods from other countries and bring them directly to Nigeria before moving to other countries.

“In addition to having a shipping project that allows moving our goods on international waters, we also felt that we should also find scope in inland waterways. We need to do more in the infrastructure to move the goods from the cities to export destinations. We need to also develop our inland waterways. We can use barges to carry goods in the absence of port materials. That was why we were finding a scope in inland waterways,” he noted.

He disclosed that NEXIM was currently working with some maritime agencies to ensure smooth execution of the project.

The Guardian reports that Port Harcourt Refining Company Limited (PHRC) has said efforts are on to make Port Harcourt Refinery functional by December as guaranteed by the Minister of State for Petroleum, Timipre Sylva.

The minister, while briefing journalists after the Federal Executive Council meeting last month, restated the government’s commitment to reviving the old refinery in Rivers State before the year ends.

The Managing Director of PHRC, Ahmed Dikko, yesterday, while handing over 140 stalls constructed by the firm for its host community, Ekerekana in Okrika Council of Rivers State, said: “The December pronouncement by the minister to ensure that the refinery becomes functional is in focus and all of us have to key in and do everything possible to achieve the objective of our leaders, that is the objective and that is what we are doing.”

He noted that the refinery would bring so much value to the government and to the people.

He said: “On the rehabilitation of pipeline, already the contractor has taken the survey. The pipeline is near the right of the river way, you need to study it, and do an inspection to prepare the engineering documents to be able to work. Already, there is preliminary work going on and we are on the verge of awarding the contract so that works will move on.

“The refinery has a multiplier effect. Right now, we sell all our crude oil, we don’t add much value to it because all our nation’s refineries are not working due to one reason or the other and that is why the company, the community and everyone is doing everything possible to ensure our refinery works.

The Managing Director, who was represented by Mr. Sheik Mohammed, explained that the market project is key to the firm because it has pipelines running from the jetty, very close to the right of way where the people do business.

He said: “As a company, we have safety hierarchy, safety to the environment and safety to the assets. One life is not equal to the whole refinery, so we have to do everything possible to build this market for the people and safeguard the people’s life, their health, the children and the women.”

The Nation says that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has begun an aggressive drive to recover the loans it gave out under its development finance interventions.

Top on the list of debtors are state governments whose monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) accruals are already being debited directly every month. The deductions will last six months.

Director, Development Finance of the CBN Yusuf Yila, who disclosed this during a post-Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in Abuja yesterday, did not name the debtor states.

Yila, who named the Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) and Commercial Agric Credit (CAC) as some of the intervention programmes, said: “Every person (s) or state that took that loan (ABP) is going to pay. We have their BVN.”

Such persons referenced by Yila are smallholder farmers, who received funds for farming from state governments via the ABP, but have yet to pay them back.

The CBN director added that the apex bank was collaborating with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure that the loans were recovered.

Yila said while the ABP loan repayments were particularly poor, that of CAC was almost excellent.

Under the ABP, the CBN gave out about N1 trillion but recovered only N400 billion. But under the CAC, the bank. lent out about N800 billion and recovered N700 billion.

His words: “We have started recovering loans from state governments. We have been doing a loan workout programme with them and we are debiting their monthly FAAC accruals directly for the loans.”