Jungle republic !!! Nigerians to pay more for electricity as NERC approves ‘service charge’

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) says prepaid meters will soon flood the market with the licensing of 87 meter asset providers (MAPs).

What the power sector regulator downplayed, however, is there is also going to be an increase in the bills to be paid by electricity consumers in the country who get new meters under the latest regulation.

On March 12, 2018, Dafe Akpeneye, NERC’s commissioner, legal, licensing and compliance, unveiled the new regulation in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state.

He said MAPs will be independent providers who will be approved by NERC but contracted by the DisCos “to bridge the metering gap”.

They are to be saddled with the responsibility of providing meters and replacing faulty devices within 48 hours.

Section 10 (5) contains the new provision

An analysis of the Meter Asset Provider Regulations 2018 (Regulation No Nerc-R-112) by TheCable shows that those who benefit under the new system will pay a monthly service charge.

Under chapter iv, section 10 (“Rights of Distribution Licensees”), subsection 5, the regulation states: “The Distribution Licensees shall include a metering service charge as a clear item on the billing of its customers provided with meters under an MSA with MAPs and shall be separate from the energy charge. The metering service charge shall be based on the outcome of the procurement process for the MAP and subject to the approval of the Commission.”

TheCable noted that this provision was not contained in the draft posted on the NERC website.

However, the finalised document, approved by the ministry of power and made public by NERC, is now on the regulator’s website and contains the addition.

Section 10 (5) was missing from the draft even if the numbering has changed

In 2015, NERC had outlawed “fixed charge” from tariffs, abolishing the monthly average of N750 added to customers’ bills whether or not they use electricity.

But the abolition of the fixed charge then was accompanied by a slight increase in tariff.

NERC’s latest regulation came into effect on March 8, 2018 and will be enforced by the commission from April 3, 2018.

The objective, according to NERC, is to provide standard rules to “encourage the development of independent and competitive meter services, eliminate estimated billing practices, attract private investment to the provision of metering services in NESI, close the metering gap through accelerated meter roll out and enhance revenue assurance in NESI”. - Cable Nigeria

I fall ill because my husband starves me of sex – 35 -year-old Woman tells court

A  businesswoman, Mrs Bilikisu Azeez, has urged an Igando Customary Court in the Lagos suburb to dissolve her five-year-old marriage over sex starvation.

Bilikisu on Monday claimed that her husband, Olushesi, starved her of sex for the past two years, making her fall ill frequently.

“My husband has been starving me of sex. Since he married his youngest wife, he has turned me into an abandoned property.

“I have been falling sick, in and out of hospital.In my last visit to the hospital, I was told that my frequent sickness was because I have not had sex for long.

“Please court, divorce the union so that I can move on with my life. My body is not a wood nor a stone,” she said.

The petitioner said that her husband denied care to her and the only child of the marriage.

“My husband does not take care of me, I feed and clothe myself.

“He refuses to enrol in school our only child who is over four-year-old and always refuses to pay medical bill whenever the boy is sick.

“I always run to my mother to get the funds to settle the medical bill,” she added.

Bilikisu also accused her husband of battery. She said he once beat her in public and she fainted.

She said that trouble started since the day her husband brought in the third wife.

“There was joy, love and peace in the house when it was only I, my husband, his first wife, and the children.

“The new wife always fights me and curses my child.”

Olushesi did not deny the allegation of sex starvation, but blamed Bilikisu for being the architect of her problem.

The respondent said that his wife once denied him sex and since then he abandoned her.

“Yes, I starved her of sex. It is tit-for-tat. There was a day I entered her room to sleep with her, she left the bed to sleep on the floor.

“I made an attempt eight times to sleep with her, but she refused. Since that day, I just put her aside, after all she is not the only wife I have,” he said.

The 45-year-old building contractor said that he used to care for his child and wife. He claimed being responsible for the foodstuffs bought at home.

He consented to the dissolution of the marriage and urged the court to grant his wife her wish as he was no longer interested in the marriage.

The court president, Mr Akin Akinniyi, after listening to the estranged couple advised them to reconcile and maintain peace.

The case was  adjourned until April 12 for judgment.

Transfer news : Arsenal desperate to beat Man United to signing of winger

Arsenal are desperate to beat Manchester United to the signing of Benfica winger Andrija Zivkovic, according to a report in Portuguese newspaper O Jogo.

Arsene Wenger was keen to sign the player before he joined Benfica from Partisan Belgrade and he’s instructed his scouts to keep a close eye on him in Portugal.
O Jogo report that Arsenal has scouts watching the 21-year-old at the weekend as during Benfica defeated Feirense 2-0.

Man United are also keen on the Serbian international but Arsenal are desperate to beat them to his signature.

Arsenal will hope to win the Europa League this year to ensure that they are playing Champions League football during the next campaign and as such, give themselves a better chance of recruiting star players.

Zivkovic moved to Benfica to take a step up in his career and a move to Arsenal would be another move up the football ladder, if a deal can be done. - Read Sport

US : Self-driving Uber car kills woman in street

An autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US.

Tempe police said the self-driving car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman, who was walking outside of the crosswalk and later died at a hospital.

There was a vehicle operator inside the car at the time of the crash.

Uber said in a statement on Twitter: “Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident.” A spokesman declined to comment further on the crash. 

The company said it was pausing its self-driving car operations in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO tweeted, “Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened.”

Uber has been testing its self-driving cars in numerous states and temporarily suspended its vehicles in Arizona last year after a crash involving one of its vehicles, a Volvo SUV.

When the company first began testing its self-driving cars in California in 2016, the vehicles were caught running red lights, leading to a high-profile dispute between state regulators and the San Francisco-based corporation. - Guardian UK

Terrorism : Scores killed, houses burnt as Fulani herdsmen attack Kogi community

There were heavy casualties with several houses burnt as Fulani herdsmen attacked Agbenema in Opada/Ofejiji ward, Omala local government of Kogi state on Monday.

An eyewitness told DAILY POST that herdsmen in their numbers invaded the community at about 10.30am and started shooting, a situation that made the indegenes to scamper for safety

The sources said they were earlier resisted at a small settlement, Ajichekpa, which is a half kilometre away from Agbenema where the incident happened.

Houses burnt included that of the DAILY POST correspondent whose father escaped by the whiskers from the village.

A vigilante member, Mr. Amodu Akoh
who escaped after unable to withstand exchange of fire, explained that the attackers spent close to 2 hours wrecking the vlllage without the presence of mobile and military personnel who were stationed at Abejukolo.

“Can you imagine that the Police and Military personnel at Abejukolo, the headquarters of Omala which is less than 5 minutes drive could not come to our rescue despite our distress calls to them.

“It was after they have killed and burnt several houses and have left before they came”, he explained.

He also said three bodies have been recovered while several other were still missing.

-Daily Post

Corruption republic !!! Jonathan shared N150bn two weeks to 2015 election – Osinbajo

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has said that former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration shared N150 billion two weeks to the 2015 poll.

Osinbajo accused Jonathan of frittering billions of naira that should have been spent on projects.

Admitting that the government of President Muhammadu Buhari had not completely dealt with corruption in the country, he said it had demonstrated enough political will to reverse the situation.

Osinbajo disclosed this at the old banquet hall of the presidential villa, Abuja during the 7th presidential quarterly business forum for private sector stakeholders.

He said “In one single transaction a few weeks to the the 2015 elections, sums of a N100billion and $295million were just frittered away by a few.

“When you consider that in 2014 as the minister of finance has said that oil price was an average of $110 a barrel and only N99 billion was spent on power, works and housing and when we talk about the economy we talk as if these are normal by every standard.

“Nobody should talk about the economy when you have this kind of huge leakages and huge corruption. Corruption that completely makes nonsense of even what you are allocating to capital projects.

“We saw from the presentation of minister of finance that N14 billion was spent on agriculture in 2014, transportation N15 billion, so the total spent on infrastructure in those three years were N153 billion and in two weeks before the elections N150 billion was essentially shared.

“So, if your total infrastructure spending is N150 billion and you can share N153 billion, that is completely incredible. That sort of thing doesn’t happen anywhere else in the world. And when we are talking about the economy, we must simply understand that that is the problem.

“I must ask again what was wrong with the Nigerian economy and what do we need to do to correct the flaws. There are several issues many of which have already been articulated but I want to talk about what I think is the biggest problem which for some reason we hardly talk about when discussing our national economy.

“This is grand corruption in the public finance space. Sometimes the way we talk about the Nigerian economy it does appear as if it is the economy of say Norway or somewhere where all things are equal. Even when we refer to what has taken place in our economy, we almost sound as if this is in every sense a very normal business environment, a very normal public finance environment but that is not the case.

“I do not think that any consideration about our economy development can be properly and honestly done without fully analysing corruption, especially grand corruption in the public finance space.

“You see that despite record high levels of oil prices, very little was invested in infrastructure and a record level of leakages were recorded in the past few years.

“This is the fundamental issue in our economy. Corruption affects everything. It affects even judgement as to what sort of infrastructure to put in place or whether infrastructure will ever be complete. It is so fundamental that we can’t even think of our economy without thinking of what to do about it.

“Sometimes when we talk about our economy, we talk about the fact that we have relied on single commodity and that is one of the reasons why we are where we are. Yes, that’s quite true but the fact is that proceeds from that single commodity was regularly hijacked consistently by a few. That is really the problem. If we had spent the proceeds from that single commodity the way we ought to, we won’t be where we are today.” - Daily Post

Nigeria far behind many nations, restructuring the way forward – Dogara

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Yakubu Dogara has once again explained why he is clamouring for restructuring of the existing federal system of Nigeria.

Dogara said the call for restructuring became imperative because it will give a sense of belonging to all Nigerians.

He said this while speaking on the topic, “Reforming the Nigerian Federation: Which Way Forward”, at the 3rd annual Political Summit organised by the Save Democracy Africa in Abuja on Monday.”‎

The Speaker noted that, “The talk ofNigeria’s success or genuine federalism can no longer hold waters giving the state of internal insurgencies, divisiveness, ethnic and religious schism witnessed in several parts of Nigeria. Efforts at wishing away the problem associated with Nigerian federation have only resulted into several tribal, ethnic and religious movements that have even metamorphosed into terrorist syndicates.

“One can, therefore, no longer fold his arms but engage some of the issues that have confronted us as a nation and threatened the Nigerian federation. This forum provides one of the opportunities for such interrogation. Accordingly, I commend the organisers for bringing this issue to the front burner once again.

“That Nigeria could survive despite predictions to the contrary by the World Powers not only portrays a ray of hope but also demonstrate that Nigerian Federation has come to stay

“Nigeria is far behind many Nations and everything possible should be done to takeNigeria to where it rightly belongs among the comity of Nations given her huge and rich minerals and agricultural resources, and population.

“It is therefore incumbent on us to fashion out our own type of federalism that is best suited to our people and to local circumstances. There should be genuine efforts to build the nation. Therefore ethnic, religious and sectional agenda should take back place. The essence of federalism is to foster unity and development. This has however, not been achieved.

“Consequently, the recruitment processes of our elective office holders are being re-visited in the Electoral Amendment Bill to ensure that the system is able to recruit the best at all strata of leadership. We need leaders who are visionary, selfless, prudent, intelligent and indefatigable and having integrity and honour.”

He added that the current National Assembly had shown enough determination to ensure that the federation of Nigeria is managed effectively for the good of every citizen in its several initiatives to address imbalances.

Hon Dogara stated, “There should be massive awareness to change the mindsets of the rulers and the ruled. This is where there is the need for proper education and awareness for both the rulers and the ruled. I challenge our tertiary institutions to break the disconnect between them and the political institutions and industries not only to fashion out the appropriate curriculum to drive this new orientation to confront our political and economic malaise but also to lead cutting edge research in providing correct local solutions to our diverse of problems.”

The speaker also identified some emerging issues in Nigeria’s federation political gerrymandering, corruption and nepotism, state creation and boundary delimitation, electoral boundary manipulation that discriminates against voters on account of tribe, language, religion, or related status.

“The same is also true of boundary adjustments, state creation and Local Governments in Nigeria. The minority tribes have complained of being short-changed. The issue of fiscal federalism and resource control.

“The allocation of revenue in Nigeria is presently heated as there are always allegations and counter-allegations of manipulations against the federal government by states. There are also allegations of zero allocation to local governments by states despite very clear constitutional provisions. In addition, there has been complaint of total neglect of the states that generate the revenue as such the derivative formula has been very contentious. There is over concentration of powers and responsibilities on the federal government. There are several responsibilities that can better be handled by the states.

“The power sharing between the Federal Government and the states will have to be revisited and the issue of the autonomy of local governments in Nigeria which state Houses of Assembly keep voting against,” he further stated.

Dogara added, “The issue of resource control must be properly addressed. The communities where those resources are found should be adequately compensated. The Host Community Bill initiated by the House of Representatives on the Oil and Gas industry will be a test case. The call for resource control may by implication have a semblance of territorial devolution.” - The Nation