Sleep deprivation is costing the Australian economy $52.48 billion annually, a report released on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 found.
Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia
The Deloitte Access Economics, in a report, found that 39.8 per cent of Australians were not getting enough sleep.
Deloitte estimated that sleep deprivation accounted for $14.16 billion in lost productivity in the financial year ended in June 2017 while costing Australia’s health system $1.42 billion.
The report found out that almost 400 Australians die each year as a result of driving or operating heavy machinery while fatigued.
Dorothy Bruck, chair of the Sleep Health Foundation, said 7.4 million Australians suffered from a lack of sleep.
Sleep deprivation can be a contributing factor in heart disease, stroke, diabetes and depression.
“The cost of sleep deprivation is utterly alarming and confirms we need to take urgent action to put sleep on the national agenda,” Bruck told Australian media on Tuesday.
Bruck said: “Sleep or rather the lack of it is a substantial burden on our economy and the livelihood of Australians, dampening mood, exacerbating health problems, dulling our productivity and making us a danger on the roads and in workplaces around the country.”
The US is experiencing rapid climate change, 13 government agencies say in an unreleased report obtained by The New York Times. The report finds with “high confidence” that temperatures have spiked since 1980 and that “how much more the climate will change depends on future emissions and the sensitivity of the climate system to those emissions.”
The 13 agencies’ findings contradict the Trump administration’s climate stance. Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency chief, Scott Pruitt, has stated he does not believe carbon emissions are a primary cause of climate change. Scientists behind the report told the Times that they worried the Trump administration would attempt to suppress the document.
Rivers swollen by Hurricane Matthew leading to widespread flooding in North Carolina, USA
The average temperature in the United States has risen rapidly and drastically since 1980, and recent decades have been the warmest of the past 1,500 years, according to a sweeping federal climate change report awaiting approval by the Trump administration.
The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited.
“Evidence for a changing climate abounds, from the top of the atmosphere to the depths of the oceans,” a draft of the report states. A copy of it was obtained by The New York Times.
The authors note that thousands of studies, conducted by tens of thousands of scientists, have documented climate changes on land and in the air. “Many lines of evidence demonstrate that human activities, especially emissions of greenhouse (heat-trapping) gases, are primarily responsible for recent observed climate change,” they wrote.
The report was completed this year and is a special science section of the National Climate Assessment, which is congressionally mandated every four years. The National Academy of Sciences has signed off on the draft report, and the authors are awaiting permission from the Trump administration to release it.
One government scientist who worked on the report, Katharine Hayhoe, a professor of political science at Texas Tech University, called the conclusions among “the most comprehensive climate science reports” to be published. Another scientist involved in the process, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, said he and others were concerned that it would be suppressed.
The White House and the Environmental Protection Agency did not immediately return calls or respond to emails requesting comment on Monday night.
The report concludes that even if humans immediately stopped emitting greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, the world would still feel at least an additional 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.30 degrees Celsius) of warming over this century compared with today. The projected actual rise, scientists say, will be as much as 2 degrees Celsius.
A small difference in global temperatures can make a big difference in the climate: The difference between a rise in global temperatures of 1.5 degrees Celsius and one of 2 degrees Celsius, for example, could mean longer heat waves, more intense rainstorms and the faster disintegration of coral reefs.
Among the more significant of the study’s findings is that it is possible to attribute some extreme weather to climate change. The field known as “attribution science” has advanced rapidly in response to increasing risks from climate change.
The E.P.A. is one of 13 agencies that must approve the report by Aug. 18. The agency’s administrator, Scott Pruitt, has said he does not believe that carbon dioxide is a primary contributor to global warming.
“It’s a fraught situation,” said Michael Oppenheimer, a professor of geoscience and international affairs at Princeton University who was not involved in the study. “This is the first case in which an analysis of climate change of this scope has come up in the Trump administration, and scientists will be watching very carefully to see how they handle it.”
Scientists say they fear that the Trump administration could change or suppress the report. But those who challenge scientific data on human-caused climate change say they are equally worried that the draft report, as well as the larger National Climate Assessment, will be publicly released.
The National Climate Assessment “seems to be on autopilot” because of a lack of political direction, said Myron Ebell, a senior fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.
The report says significant advances have been made linking human influence to individual extreme weather events since the last National Climate Assessment was produced in 2014. Still, it notes, crucial uncertainties remain.
It cites the European heat wave of 2003 and the record heat in Australia in 2013 as specific episodes where “relatively strong evidence” showed that a man-made factor contributed to the extreme weather.
In the United States, the authors write, the heat wave that broiled Texas in 2011 was more complicated. That year was Texas’ driest on record, and one study cited in the report said local weather variability and La Niña were the primary causes, with a “relatively small” warming contribution. Another study had concluded that climate change made extreme events 20 times more likely in Texas.
Based on those and other conflicting studies, the federal draft concludes that there was a medium likelihood that climate change played a role in the Texas heat wave. But it avoids assessing other individual weather events for their link to climate change. Generally, the report described linking recent major droughts in the United States to human activity as “complicated,” saying that while many droughts have been long and severe, they have not been unprecedented in the earth’s hydrologic natural variation.
Worldwide, the draft report finds it “extremely likely” that more than half of the global mean temperature increase since 1951 can be linked to human influence.
In the United States, the report concludes with “very high” confidence that the number and severity of cool nights have decreased since the 1960s, while the frequency and severity of warm days have increased. Extreme cold waves, it says, are less common since the 1980s, while extreme heat waves are more common.
The study examines every corner of the United States and finds that all of it was touched by climate change. The average annual temperature in the United States will continue to rise, the authors write, making recent record-setting years “relatively common” in the near future. It projects increases of 5.0 to 7.5 degrees Fahrenheit (2.8 to 4.8 degrees Celsius) by the late century, depending on the level of future emissions.
It says the average annual rainfall across the country has increased by about 4 percent since the beginning of the 20th century. Parts of the West, Southwest and Southeast are drying up, while the Southern Plains and the Midwest are getting wetter.
With a medium degree of confidence, the authors linked the contribution of human-caused warming to rising temperatures over the Western and Northern United States. It found no direct link in the Southeast.
Additionally, the government scientists wrote that surface, air and ground temperatures in Alaska and the Arctic are rising at a frighteningly fast rate – twice as fast as the global average.
“It is very likely that the accelerated rate of Arctic warming will have a significant consequence for the United States due to accelerating land and sea ice melting that is driving changes in the ocean including sea level rise threatening our coastal communities,” the report says.
Human activity, the report goes on to say, is a primary culprit.
The study does not make policy recommendations, but it notes that stabilising the global mean temperature increase to 2 degrees Celsius – what scientists have referred to as the guardrail beyond which changes become catastrophic — will require significant reductions in global levels of carbon dioxide.
Nearly 200 nations agreed as part of the Paris accords to limit or cut fossil fuel emissions. If countries make good on those promises, the federal report says, that will be a key step toward keeping global warming at manageable levels.
Mr. Trump announced this year that the United States would withdraw from the Paris agreement, saying the deal was bad for America.
Governments of the Syrian Arab Republic and the Republic of Kiribati on Wednesday, July 26 and Friday, July 28, 2017 respectively deposited their instruments of ratification, thereby becoming the 72nd and 73rd future Parties to the Minamata Convention.
Taneti Mamau, President of Kiribati
Prior to this, the Government of Jamaica on Wednesday, July 19, 2017 deposited its instrument of ratification to become the 71st future Party to the mercury convention.
Hitherto, the Governments of Rwanda, Palau, Thailand, Slovenia and Viet Nam deposited their instruments of ratification, thereby becoming the 66th to 70th future Parties to the mercury treaty.
The depositions were made on Wednesday, June 21; Thursday, June 22; Friday, June 23; and Thursday, June 29, 2017. While Palau deposited on Wednesday and Thailand on Thursday, both Slovenia and Viet Nam did likewise on Friday. Rwanda followed up a week later on Thursday.
Previously, Iran and Estonia had ratified the Convention, which has already entered into force, thanks to the landmark rash of ratifications on Thursday, May 18, 2017 that triggered the entry into force of the mercury accord, having garnered the required 50 ratifications.
On that day, the EU and seven of its member States – Bulgaria, Denmark, Hungary, Malta, the Netherlands, Romania and Sweden – deposited their instruments of ratification at the UN Headquarters in New York, bringing to 51 that day the number of future Parties.
As a result, on August 16 2017, the Convention, which aims at protecting human health and the environment from anthropogenic emissions and releases of mercury and mercury compounds, will become legally binding for all its Parties.
To commemorate the historic development, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), Ministry of the Environment of Japan, Kumamoto Prefecture and Minamata City on Saturday, July 1, 2017 held “Celebrating Event for the Minamata Convention on Mercury – Voice from Minamata towards the Entry into Force” in Minamata City, Kumamoto, Japan.
The 1st Conference of the Parties to the Minamata Convention (COP1) will gather governments, intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations from around the world in Geneva from September 24 to 29, 2017.
The Minamata Convention on Mercury (“Minamata Convention”) is a new international environmental convention for global community to work collaboratively against mercury pollution. The Minamata Convention aims at achieving environmentally sound mercury management throughout its life cycle. The Convention was adopted at the diplomatic conferences held in Minamata City and Kumamoto City in October 2013.
At least 13 per cent of Nigerian children risk growing up with mental deformity unless proper iodine is part of their nutrition, according to professor emeritus, Babatunde Oguntona, who calls on government to pay greater attention to public health.
L-R: Project Manager Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria, Mr. Okoronkwo Sunday; Junior Associate, Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network, Nigeria, Miss Ibiso Ivy King-Harry; Chairman of Occasion, Board of Trustee Member, Media Centre Against Child Malnutrition (MeCAM)/Past President Nutrition Society of Nigeria, Prof. Babatunde Oguntona; National Coordinator, MeCAM, Mr. Remmy Nweke; and Board Member MeCAM, Dr. Aminu Magashi Garba, during the One-Day Nutrition Symposium on Malnutrition, Child Development and the Media in Lagos
“If we don’t keep iodine level properly, we’ll have 13 per cent of Nigerian children mentally deformed,” Prof. Oguntona said at the weekend in Lagos at a one-day Nutrition Symposium on “Malnutrition, Child Development and the Media” organised by the Media Centre Against Child Malnutrition (MeCAM).
“Imagine 13 percent of parliamentarians mentally deformed. Inadequate iodine in our food is a serious threat. You can’t talk of development when you ignore the issue of nutrition status of your people,” he added, rapping the Nigerian authorities for their poor response to the threats of malnutrition.
Oguntona, a former president of the Nutrition Society of Nigeria, said that between 13 and 18 Nigerians children die of malnutrition and related diseases every hour and called on the media to step up advocacy on the issue.
Ivy Ibiso KingHarry, an official of the Scaling Up Nutrition Business Network / Global Alliance on Improved Nutrition (GAIN), said the media have a duty to promote messages on nutrition as influencers and change agents. She added however that such media efforts must flow from proper understanding of the science of nutrition and effective delivery of messages in language understood by common people.
She urged reporters to always fact-check and scrutinise official data on malnutrition, be consistent and build trust in their duty as gatekeeper.
A media advocacy group against child malnutrition and well-being, MeCAM aims to strengthen the agro-nutrition capacity and interest of its members professionally in contribution to nation-building, especially in Nigeria and across the continent of Africa among developing countries of the world.
According to the promoters, MeCAM is committed to showcasing successful and development efforts in the area of agro-nutrition for the benefit of mankind and for Africa emancipation from extreme hunger especially in children, women and society, centred on Goal 2 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The Federal Government on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 applied to withdraw the case it instituted against seven commercial banks in the country, which were accused of violating the government’s Treasury Single Account (TSA) policy.
The Federal High Court in Lagos
Government had alleged that the banks connived with some government agencies to illegally hide in their coffers a total of $793,200,000, which was meant to have been transmitted to the TSA account domiciled in the Central Bank of Nigeria.
The concerned banks are United Bank for Africa, Diamond Bank Plc, Skye Bank Plc, First Bank Limited, Fidelity Bank Plc, Keystone Bank Limited, and Sterling Bank Plc.
Justice Chuka Obiozor of the Federal High Court in Lagos had on July 20, 2017 granted an interim order in favour of the Federal Government, directing the seven banks to temporarily remit the funds to the TSA.
The court had then adjourned till Tuesday for the banks to appear before him to show cause why the interim order should not be made permanent.
But, at the resumed proceedings on Tuesday, counsel for the Federal Government, Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN), said he had been instructed by the Attorney General of the Federation to discontinue the case in the overall interest of the public.
“It is not out of weakness that the Federal Government is withdrawing this case. The banks are corporate citizens and we are interested in the well-being of everybody,” Akinseye-George said, urging Justice Obiozor to strike out the suit.
But the banks, which claimed that the Federation Government’s allegation against them was false and that they had already been unjustly disparaged, urged the judge not to merely strike out the suit but to dismiss it and award N20 million cost against the Federal Government.
They noted that any case struck out could be re-filed while a case that is dismissed could no longer be re-filed.
Counsel for the banks, including Mr. Seyi Sowemimo (SAN) and Mrs. Abimbola Akeredolu (SAN), took turn to argue that the proper order that the court ought to make in the circumstances of the case was to dismiss the suit and not strike it out.
Akeredolu, who represented Sterling Bank Plc, argued that, just like the rest of the counsel, the Federal Government decided to withdraw the case having realised that it was filed in error.
“My Lord should not allow the instrumentation of the law to be used as a vehicle of mischief. And nobody is above the law, even the Federal Government of Nigeria…We are praying the court make an order for a meagre cost of N10 million against the plaintiffs,” Akeredolu said.
Counsel for Keystone Bank Limited, Mr. Babatunde Ogungbamila, however, insisted on a cost of N20 million against the Federal Government, saying his client had suffered a substantial damage to its reputation.
“They have destroyed the reputation of our banking industry and they did this recklessly because the fundamental economic underpinning of this country was actually targeted,” Ogungbamila said.
But the Federal Government’s lawyer, Akinseye-George, countered them, arguing that the parties had yet to join issues because the Federal Government had yet to respond to the court processes filed by the banks.
He added that the Federal Government came to court early enough before the maturation of time for the court to arguments on the substantive suit.
Akinseye-George also argued that the banks were not entitled to any cost because they did not file any affidavit to particlurise the nature of the damage they claimed to have suffered.
He urged the court to discontenance their arguments and strike out the suit as prayed by the Federal Government, rather than dismiss it.
He said the suit was not being withdrawn because it lacked substance or was baseless but because it was in the overriding interest of the public to withdraw it.
After taking arguments from the parties, Justice Obiozor adjourned till August 9, 2017 for ruling on whether the case would be struck out or dismissed.
The Federal Government had in the suit alleged that total of $367.4 million was illegally hidden by three government agencies in UBA, while a sum of $41 million was illegally kept in a NAPIMS fixed deposit account with Skye Bank.
The court papers stated that $277.9 million was hidden in Diamond Bank; $18.9 million in First Bank; $24.5 million in Fidelity Bank; $17 million in Keystone Bank; and $46.5 million in Sterling Bank.
A lawyer from Akinseye-George’s law firm, Vincent Adodo, who deposed to a 15-paragraph affidavit in support of an ex parte application filed by the AGF, stated that seven banks colluded with Federal Government officials to hide the funds in breach of the government’s TSA policy.
The funds, he said, were revenues, donations, transfers, refunds, grants, taxes, fees, dues, tariffs etc accruable to the Federal Government from different ministries, departments, parastals and agencies.
Adodo said the banks had failed to remit the funds to the TSA domiciled in the CBN in violation of the guidelines issued by the Accountant General of the Federation which fixed September 15, 2015 as the deadline for such funds to be moved.
The Police on Tuesday, August 8, 2017 arraigned three men before a Federal High Court in Lagos for allegedly defrauding the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa, off the sum of N9.188 million.
Mr Mudashiru Obasa, Speaker, Lagos State House of Assembly
The three men, Frank Nwokobia, 27, Ezeoke Kanayochukwu, 25, and Godwin Essien, 28, were arraign before Justice Chuka Obiozor, on a five-count charge bordering on conspiracy, impersonation, identity theft and fraud.
The three defendants, who were arrested at different locations in Delta State, according to the prosecutor, William Olu Ologun, had sometime in May 2017, hacked the Facebook account of the Speaker of the Lagos State House of Assembly and retrieved several information which they used in withdrawing the sum of N9.188 million from his account domiciled with Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB) Plc.
He informed the court that the three defendants were arrested after the complainant petitioned the police that his Facebook account had been hacked and that the sum of N9.188 million had been withdrawn from his account by unknown individuals.
He also stated that, upon the arrest of the defendants, they voluntary made statement to the offence.
The offences, according to the prosecutor, are contrary to sections 27(1)(b) and 22(2)(b)(ii) of Cybercrimes Prohibition and Prevention Act, 2015.
The three defendants pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Upon their not guilty pleas, their counsel, Mr. Ali Abba, pleaded the court to admit his clients bail in liberal terms.
Ali told the court that his clients have credible sureties, and that they will always attend court for their trial.
Ruling on the bail application, Justice Obiozor admitted the defendants to bail in the sum of N5 million with one surety each.
The judge ordered that the surety who must be recommended by the defendants’ counsel must be resident of Lagos State, with landed property and three-year tax payment evidence.
The judge also stated that the court’s Deputy Chief Registrar (DCR) must verify the landed property title documents and tax papers.
Justice Obiozor also ordered that the three defendants be remanded in Ikoyi Prison pending the perfection of their bail conditions.
The Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI), the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) and the National Orientation Agency (NOA) have agreed to work together in the areas of oil revenue savings and promotion of better attitude to public office.
Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio
The agencies reached the agreement at separate meetings with NEITI Executive Secretary, Waziri Adio. The meetings focused on exploring areas of inter-agency mutual cooperation. Mr Adio explained that while the NSIA manages the Sovereign Wealth Fund derived from extractive revenues, the NOA leads national campaign for attitudinal change and ethical values in the country.
At the meeting with the management of Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority, the NEITI Executive Secretary expressed regrets that “our paltry oil savings defeat the rationale for having such savings in the first place. Nigeria does not have enough oil savings to finance even the fifth of a year’s budget at the federal level, not to talk of having enough for investments or for the future generation”.
The Occasional Paper recently released by NEITI, largely focused on the “Case for a Robust Oil Savings Fund for Nigeria”. In the publication, NEITI drew public attention to the fact that Nigeria failed to save enough oil revenues to sustain economic activities when oil prices were quite high.
According to the paper, “also problematic is the level of consumption relative to non-oil exports. Nigeria typically responds to high oil prices with equally high but manifestly unsustainable level of consumption. The absence of sufficient savings left Nigeria severely exposed when the price of oil, Nigeria’s main source of government revenues and foreign exchange, started to plunge in 2014”.
The researched publication largely touched on the work of NSIA, the managers of Nigeria Sovereign Wealth Fund. The Executive Secretary however explained to the management of NSIA that NEITI’s decision to alert the nation on the need to save for the rainy day through that publication was informed by the need for the country to prepare adequately for frequent price volatility, depletion of non-renewable resources and for the future of the next generation. It was also NEITI’s intention to table the issue of oil revenue savings as a national agenda for purposes of prudent management of the country’s oil and gas revenues for national development and the next generation.
The Executive Secretary reiterated that the Occasional Paper released recently by NEITI was within its legitimate mandate as an agency charged with the responsibility of ensuring prudent management of revenues derived from natural resources. He clarified that in carrying out this function, NEITI focused mainly on Nigeria’s strategic interest and not necessarily on the work of any agency including the NSIA. He however commended the NSIA for finding the publication valuable which perhaps influenced the visit to NEITI.
In his remarks, the Managing Director of NSIA, Dr Uche Orji, commended the NEITI for taking the initiative to produce the Occasional Paper. He said the paper has helped the NSIA to tell its own story in an independent manner. According to Dr. Uche Orji, “NEITI has a voice that resonates with policy makers and its other stakeholders. We found the publication exceptional and commendable”.
The NSIA boss applauded the fact that the report was produced without the inputs of his agency. He described the recommendations in the publication as very succinct and apt. “We are here to ask for closer collaboration between the NSIA and NEITI in the discharge of our individual mandates while working together for the common good of our country,” Uche Orji added.
The NSIA Managing Director used the opportunity to brief the NEITI management on what his agency has achieved so far, the prospects of on-going projects and unfolding challenges. In his words “the Authority was set up to receive, manage and invest in a diversified portfolio of medium and long term revenue yielding projects. NSIA only invests on projects with huge potentials for direct positive impacts to the development of critical infrastructure in Nigeria, inflow of foreign investment, economic diversification, growth and job creation,” he remarked.
Dr. Orji further explained that the NSIA established frameworks for good corporate governance, risk management, transparency and accountability adding that the solid governance structure has attracted credible partners, notable investors and private equity funds.
The NSIA Managing Director disclosed that Nigeria Governors’ Forum that was initially opposed to its mandate is one of its greatest supporters at the moment. “The $250 million we invested in 2016 came from the state governments’ share of the NLNG dividend.”
Meanwhile, NEITI and the NOA are to establish effective platform for collaboration especially in the areas of information sharing, public education and enlightenment. The Director General, Dr Garba Abari, gave the assurance while receiving the Executive Secretary of NEITI, Waziri Adio. He announced that 813 offices of NOA woud be made available to NEITI as a platform for dissemination of NEITI reports to all nooks and crannies of Nigeria.
Dr. Abari described NEITI as an island of excellence among government agencies in terms of reputation and focus. He commended the Executive Secretary for his leadership.
According to the NOA Director General, “NOA has a mandate to re-orientate Nigerians, our value orientation and attitude needs to change especially towards public finance and resource management.” He added: “We will help you mobilize all the platform at NOA’s disposal including the Local Government Assembly to disseminate NEITI reports and get the necessary feedback.”
Earlier, Adio explained that his decision to visit NOA was to explore areas of mutual cooperation. He identified several NEITI reports such as the Audit Reports, Policy Briefs, Occasional Papers and other researched publications as instruments which NOA can use to advance its grassroots advocacy and mass orientation messages.
Mr. Adio welcomed the emerging relationship with NOA especially in the NEITI Audit Report dissemination and appealed to all federal government agencies to work together to rescue Nigeria from resource curse.
He lamented that revenue from the country’s oil, gas and mining sector have over the years failed to translate to good roads, electricity, jobs, and health facilities for the citizens.
The NEITI Executive Secretary however stated that it was not too late to redeem the country, if all the agencies including NOA join NEITI to rescue Nigeria from the syndrome of resource curse, fight corruption, and promote better citizen’s attitudinal changes on prudent management of extractive revenues.
Lagos State Government has refused to fix the problem in the water sector because it sees water as a business, and not as human right in the state, Deputy Executive Director, Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), Akinbode Oluwafemi, has said.
L-R: Achike Chude of the Joint Action Front (JAF), Vickie Onyekuru of Africa Women Water Sanitation and Hygiene Network (AWASHNET) and Akinbode Oluwafemi of the Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN), during the briefing
He spoke at a news conference in Lagos on Monday, August 6, 2017 to update the media on the current happenings in the Lagos water sector.
To mark the 2017 World Water Day on March 22, the non-governmental organisation had led Lagos residents on a march from the Ikeja Local Government Secretariat to Alausa, the seat of Lagos government, to protest “privatisation of water” in the state with the theme “Our Water Our Right”.
For Oluwafemi, that rally seems like a watershed, as the group was able to make government to shed “its arrogance” and respond overnight to some of the group’s demands on the water issue.
“It will be a mistake on the part of the Lagos State Government to think that we have gone to sleep over the issue,” he added.
All PPP (Public-Private Partnership) arrangements in Nigeria, according to Achike Chude of the Joint Action Front (JAF), who was at the Monday briefing, ended up putting more money in the pockets of the rich, to the detriment of the poor masses.
He added that when it comes to the water issue, Lagos government is sincere, but sincerely wrong.
On the argument that government has no money to fund public water, Chude, who is also a member of the Justice, Development and Peace Commission (JDPC), wondered where the N40 billion said to have been reserved for the rehabilitation of Airport Road came from.
“If the government does not have money, is it the people that have?” he wondered. “If we must privatise everything, why do we have ministries? We better do away with the ministries and replace them with regulatory agencies.”
However, it was gathered from ERA that Lagos currently rakes in over N50 billion monthly (N600 billion yearly) from internally-generated revenue (IGR) alone.
Representing the women, Vickie Onyekuru of Africa Women Water Sanitation and Hygiene Network (AWASHNET) said that women do not want privatisation of water. “We want water to be controlled by government,” she demanded.
According to ERA, the idea of privatisation of even basic necessities like water is promoted by the Breton Woods institutions to further enrich the elite.
“The idea comes from the West where basic needs are given. People must be conscious of that,” ERA said, adding that water is different from telecommunications and other items people can do without. “So, there should be no comparison.”
Invasion of multinationals
ERA said: “In recent months, we have learnt that the Lagos government has penciled Veolia, Metito and the Spanish company, Abengoa, to take control of Adiyan II – which will supply water to millions of Lagosians, despite their track record of abuse around the world. We continue to wonder how the state got to its decision, whether there is no due diligence of the companies involved.”
Veolia, a French multinational corporation adjudged the largest water privatiser around the world, allegedly mismanaged several water systems across the globe.
Also, Metito and Abengoa were said to have issues in their operations in some parts of the world.
“With companies with such track records in deals with the Lagos Government, it is evident that the government is deliberately walking into a trap that will enslave Lagos citizens for generations,” ERA added.
Specific demands
The Our Water Our Right coalition demands that the Lagos government listens to the people. It specifically asks that:
It stops any deal with the World Bank and corporations allied to it directly or remotely, including Veolia, Metito and Abengoa.
It makes public and revokes agreements or MoUs entered into with corporations hell-bent on foisting PPP on water provision on Lagos citizens.
It increases budgetary allocation to the water sector within the framework of public and democratically-controlled systems.
It allows transparency and meaningful civil society engagement in the water reform process.
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) has said it will continue to support the clean-up process of Ogoni communities in Rivers State.
Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) General Manager, External Relations, Igo Weli.He describes the academics research programme as key aspect of Shell’s effort to contribute to the development of higher education in the country
It equally said it had released $10 million take-off fund to the Hydrocarbon Pollution Restoration Agency.
The firm’s General Manager, External Relations, Igo Weli, revealed this at the weekend in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, during an interactive session with the media on the Ogoni clean-up project.
Weli said the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) recommendation encouraged multi-stakeholder efforts driven by the Federal Government.
He added that the oil company would continue to play its role alongside other stakeholders under a transparent governance framework.
He said that 15 SPDC JV sites, specifically mentioned in the report that needed attention, had been remediated in the communities and certified by government, adding that the firm had also raised its standard on remediation approaches in line with industry best practices.
Weli said: “SPDC JV remains fully committed to continue supporting and contributing its share within the appropriate framework and governance structures.
“We encourage all relevant stakeholders to also remain committed to contributing their share.”
Communication and the messages conveyed to the general public play a critical role in the implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative.
L-R: A representative of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Regional Director for Central and West Africa, Mr. Jacques Somda; representative the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Niger Republic, Colonel Major Bila Maina; and Coordinator of the Community Action Programme (PAC3), Mr. Ali Moha, during the opening of the “Regional Workshop on communicating project results to different audiences” held recently in Niamey, Niger
This was the submission of Mr. Ali Moha, Coordinator of the Community Action Programme (PAC3), at the opening of the “Regional Workshop on communicating project results to different audiences” held recently in Niamey, Niger Republic.
In his welcome remarks, Moha stated that the Great Green Wall Initiative has positively evolved over time in its design and implementation strategy by adapting to an ever changing physical, social and institutional environment.
“And it clearly appears that communication and the messages already conveyed or those to be conveyed to the general public in both our cities and country side have played and will still play a critical role,” he stressed, describing the workshop as being of paramount importance for countries in terms of development and sound natural resource management communication.
According to him, the workshop would enable communication experts of the 12 SAWAP (Sahel and West Africa Programme in support of the Great Green Wall) projects and journalists to continue raising public awareness on the vision and challenges to be taken up as part of the Great Green Wall Initiative.
The Great Green Wall Programme is a pan-African initiative conceived to address land degradation and desertification, boost food security and support communities to adapt to climate change in the Sahel-Sahara region of Africa. It was conceived as a 7,700-kilometre tree belt stretching the length of the Sahara Desert.
A representative the Minister of Environment and Sustainable Development of Niger, Colonel Major Bila Maina, in a welcome address, disclosed that the objective set for the BRICKS (Building Resilience through Innovation, Communication and Knowledge Services) Project is to bring an effective contribution to the implementation of the Great Green Wall for the Sahara and Sahel.
Maina, who is Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development, stated that the workshop would enable the BRICKS Project communicators and journalists to be equipped with strategic communication and story telling techniques so as to better share best practices, inform and raise the awareness of decision-makers.
He added that awareness of the general public will also be raised with respect to the achievements recorded in the implementation of the SAWAP projects and of the Great Green Wall Initiative.
A representative of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature) Regional Director for Central and West Africa, Mr. Jacques Somda, in an address, expressed confidence in the competencies and expertise of the participants as well as their commitment towards improving natural resource, as well as land and water management.
He thanked the World Bank for supporting to the 12 African countries involved in the scheme to increase their resilience capacity in view of combating poverty.
Organised by the IUCN in collaboration with the Permanent Inter-States Committee on Drought Control (CILSS), the Sahara and Sahel Observatory (OSS) and World Bank, the workshop held from July 17 to 21, 2017 and was facilitated by Mr. Peter Paul Van Kempen for the IUCN‘s Commission on Education and Communication (CEC), assisted by Mr. Christophe Hien and Madam Félicité Mangang.
The workshop is part of the implementation of the SAWAP BRICKS Project. It aimed at contributing to communicating to key audiences the way SAWAP Projects’ results are supporting the implementation of the Great Green Wall Initiative, by producing success stories for decision-makers within governments, the private sector and civil society that give evidence of the value added of the various country projects of the Great Green Wall.
About 50 participants came from 12 SAWAP countries (Benin, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Ghana, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Chad and Togo) and Guinea. They were made up of communication experts, journalists, representatives of the three BRICKS executing agencies (IUCN, CILSS, OSS), the Focal Points of TerrAfrica, of the Great Green Wall national agency and of ReSAD in Niger.
The workshop entailed presentations, group work and discussions, as well as a field trip.
