ALLEGED EXCLUSION OF SOUTH EAST, EDO FROM $22.7B LOAN

$22.7b loan

Except they are reconsidered, the entire South-East geopolitical zone, as well as Edo State, may not benefit from the controversial $22.7b loan approved by the Senate last Thursday. It was gathered that the exclusion of the south-east and Edo State, is a fallout of what has been described as the dirty politics that preceded the approval of the loan request. [GUARDIAN]

N10bn Disaster Fund

The Benue State Government has alleged that the federal government has abandoned about 500,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the state while excluding it from the N10 billion Disaster Fund set up for the states attacked by Fulani herdsmen. The state government also accused the federal government of failing to provide adequate support to over 6,000 Cameroonian refugees, in Kwande LGA. [THISDAY]

16 GenCos

At least shortage of gas has hit 16 power generating plants causing power generation at its highest point to drop to 3,675 megawatts (MW) on Saturday. Operators also said the drop in power supply will continue for another 10 days until scheduled maintenance is completed on the gas pipelines. [DAILY TRUST]

2.2m SIM cards

The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has completely deactivated 2.2 million Improperly registered Subscriber Identification Module (SIM) Cards across telecommunication networks nationwide. The Executive Vice Chairman, NCC, Umar Danbatta, made this known in a statement signed in Abuja. [PREMIUM TIMES]

400,000 Teachers

TRCN will today begin a nationwide screening of teachers in public and private primary and secondary schools, with a view to weeding out unqualified/unregistered persons from the system. Going by figures from UBEC and other sources, the number of teachers in the country could not be less than two million and no fewer than 400,000 unqualified [VANGUARD]

N2.9bn Car Loan

Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, has defended his request to the state House of Assembly for a loan facility of N2.9billion, which was last week granted by the legislature. Sen. Diri justified the request, saying the money was meant to purchase vehicles for senior government officials, members of the House of Assembly and Judges in the state. [THISDAY]

N3.5bn cars

Despite a debt figure that peaked at ₦105 billion in 2019, the Bauchi State government has taken a ₦3.5 billion loan to procure vehicles for some of the state’s officials. The loan, granted by the United Bank of Africa (UBA), was paid directly to the bank account of Adda Nigeria Limited, a company in which Mr Mohammed retains a 20 per cent stake, according to documents seen by this newspaper. [PREMIUM TIMES]