Africa’s Richest Man Helps Lead Nigeria Charge Against Covid-19

Access Bank Plc, Nigeria’s biggest lender by assets, is teaming up with Africa’s richest man Aliko Dangote to provide treatment and isolation centers across Africa’s most populous nation as it braces for the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

The facilities, which will be located across the country of more than 200 million people with a total of 1,000 beds, will be ready within weeks, Access Bank said Thursday in an emailed statement. They will have Chinese experts and serve as testing, isolation, treatment and training centers, the lender added.

Nigeria has so far recorded 51 cases of the Covid-19 virus, including one fatality. There are fears the spread could become exponential if community infections aren’t curtailed.

— With assistance by Ruth Olurounbi

Fed Min of Info & Culture

“The Federal Government wishes to appeal to all Nigerians not to panic, as the Government is well-equipped to detect and handle any possible case or cases.”-HMIC, Alh. Lai Mohammed #COVID19Nigeria

18 main reasons Nigeria is finding it difficult to end insecurity

The Senate Ad-Hoc Committee on Security Challenges on Wednesday disclosed its findings on why the nation’s security agencies are underperforming in the fight against insecurity. The Senate had, in January, constituted the committee, chaired by Senator Yahaya Abdullahi, to engage the security agencies with a view to restructuring the country’s security architecture.

Senator Abdullahi presented the committee’s 74-page report during plenary, detailing its general findings and strategies to address insecurity. 

Top of the findings are:

1. Almost all the institutions have weak and antiquated legislation most of which were done either during the colonial era or under military administrations and therefore do not reflect the challenges of the moment and the desire of the democratic dispensation. 

2. There are very ill-defined operational boundaries and overlapping jurisdictions among the security services leading to confusion in priority setting, platform acquisition, training, direction and general orientation. 

3. There is a lot of internal incoherence and inter-personnel conflict which have led to a lot of antagonism within the security organizations.

 4. Most of the agencies are operating in isolation with very little, if any, coordination between them. 

5. Inter-agency rivalry and endless battles of supremacy have undermined operational effectiveness.

 6. The alleged non-funding of the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) since 2015 has undermined the effective performance of its coordinating function in the security architecture, has led many agencies to question its authority and relevance in various fora thereby adversely affecting inter-service cooperation and Intelligence Sharing.

7. The law governing the operation of the three (3) intelligence agencies i.e. Department of State Services (DSS), National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and Defence Intelligent Agency (DIA) is very defective and clearly responsible for the failure to define their functions, boundaries and relationships with one another. 

8. There is very little effective and committed leadership to guide, motivate and focus the security institutions on the challenges of their responsibilities, and how to go about fulfilling them in a creative, innovative and cooperative manner. 

9. The general absence of a performance, monitoring and evaluation mechanism within the institutions and services have undermined discipline and due diligence in the conduct of security related operations. 

10. Allegations have been rife that the quest for personal wealth acquisition has undermined institutional coherence and discipline and resulted in allegations of wastage of funds and squandering of appropriated resources.

 11. The security agencies tend to acquire modern technology and other force multipliers in isolation which resulted in the multiplication of incompatible platforms belonging to the different arms of services. 

12. Inadequate funding of almost all the security and intelligence agencies. 

13.In almost all the Services, there is a general lack of proper acquisition and maintenance culture of the expensive equipment and platforms used for defence and internal security operations. 

14. The prevalence of importing all the nation’s national security equipment and gadgets undermines the security of the nation and amounts to colossal wastages when expensive equipment remain unserviceable due to lack of simple components, spare parts or servicing materials. 

15. Absence of an effective centralized criminal database for the country. 

16. Lack of comprehensive identity management data covering the country’s population with no interface of databases belonging to several institutions such as INEC, BVN, NCC, NIMC, Immigration, Customs, etc. 

17. The Communications Infrastructure in the country is generally weak so are many blind spots which need to be covered in order to ensure that every space of the country is served.

 18. Most of the security institutions, particularly the Police lack well-trained Personnel, functional and well-equipped training Institutions. Where Institutions are available, they are dilapidated and training is done in isolation. Related

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Coronavirus: Nigeria bans all international flights.

The Federal Government of Nigeria has announced the closure of all the country’s airports to international flights till April 23, 2020. The Director-General of the Nigeria Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA),  Capt. Musa Nuhu disclosed this in a letter to all foreign airlines and operators on Saturday.

He said domestic flights will continue normal operations at all airports. The NCAA had shut down the international wing of three airports in Nigeria on Friday. This is in line with the directive of the Federal Government to restrict international flights in response to the ravaging COVID-19 pandemic. The three airports closed down were; Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano; Akanu Ibiam International Airport, Enugu; and the Port Harcourt International Airport, Omagwa. This leaves only the Murtala Muhammed International Airport (MMIA), Lagos and Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja in operation. However, the Minister of Aviation, Hadi Sirika, late yesterday, said Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, and Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos would be closed too. Sirika, while fielding questions from State House Correspondents on Friday, said the five international airports should have been closed instead of singling out three. Since then, 10 more cases of the coronavirus disease have been confirmed in the country, bringing the country’s burden of coronavirus infections to a total of 22. Three of the 10 new cases are in Abuja, the country’s capital. The other seven are in Lagos. Nine of the new 10 infections had “have travel history outside Nigeria in the last one week,” the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control said in a tweet.