Good day, good citizens of Nigeria, here are headlines from Nigerian Newspapers that may interest you today, Tuesday, December 14, 2021.
1. After Destroying LG System, Leading to Insecurity, Govs Working to Scuttle Electoral Reform [ThisDay Newspaper]
After crippling the local government system across the country, a situation believed to have laid the foundation for the current widespread insecurity, some governors have continued to do all within their reach to prevent President Muhammadu Buhari from signing into law, the Electoral Amendment Bill, adjudged to be in the best interest of the nation’s democracy.
The main reason the governors have been putting pressure on President Buhari not to sign the bill into law, as the December 19 deadline for the president’s assent draws near, is because it would whittle down their powers as ‘godfathers’ in their respective states as well as break their selfish control and financial manipulation of the local government system, THISDAY can reliably report.
2. Report: UK May Scrap Travel Restriction on Non-citizens [ThisDay Newspaper]
In line with its promise to review its decision to put Nigeria and some other countries on its red list which barred non-citizens and non-residents from entering the country, the United Kingdom (UK) may have concluded plans to introduce testing for fully vaccinated travellers entering the European nation.
Mailonline reported that this was disclosed by the UK Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps, who confirmed the campaign to replace 10-day quarantine for citizens and residents on arrival in UK with COVID-19 test for the fully vaccinated.
3. 3,125 killed, 2,703 abducted in 11 months, VIPs knock FG [Punch Newspaper]
No fewer than 3,125 innocent persons were killed and 2,703 abducted by bandits in northern Nigeria in the last 11 months, a tally by The PUNCH has shown.
The figures were obtained from the Nigeria Security Tracker, a project of the Council on Foreign Relations’ an American think tank as well as quarterly reports released by the Kaduna State Government from January to September.
These came to the fore on Monday as prominent Nigerians including the National President of the Middle Belt, Dr Pogu Bitrus and the Vice President of Northern Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev. Joseph John Hayab, berated the Federal Government over the killings.
4. NNPC to halt rising cooking gas price, increases supply [Punch Newspaper]
The Group Managing Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mele Kyari, on Monday announced that NNPC was currently increasing the supply of Liquefied Petroleum Gas, popularly called cooking gas, in a bid to force down its price.
Kyari, who announced this at the inauguration of a 120-metric tonnes LPG storage and bottling plant by Emadeb Energy Services Limited in Abuja, however, explained that the hike in cooking gas price was an international issue.
The cost of LPG has been rising since this year, jumping by more than 240 per cent between January and October 2021, a development that has forced many LPG users to shift to charcoal or firewood.
5. MTN Nigeria, Mafab pay $546m to get 5G licence [BusinessDay Newspaper]
In one night, Nigeria raised half a billion dollars as MTN Nigeria plc and Mafab Communications Limited on Monday paid $273,600 million each to acquire a 3.5GHz band licence for the deployment of 5G network in the country. This comes at a time when the struggling economy is unattractive to investors except for those looking at the numbers the telcos have been producing in the past 20 years.
The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) had announced MTN Nigeria, Mafab Communications Limited and Airtel Networks Limited as the three qualified bidders that have met the criteria for participation in the licensing process of 3.5Ghz spectrum, including payment of the stipulated Intention to Bid Deposit (IBD) as outlined in the Information Memorandum (IM).
