Daily Watch – Petrol import bill rises, Middle Belt elders turn against service chiefs

Elders in the North Central states of the country have joined in the call for President Buhari to sack the service chiefs over the state of insecurity in the country. National chairman of the Coalition of North Central Elders, Usman Bida, and national secretary, Moses Okudu, appealed to the President to immediately restructure the security architecture. Saying that they were concerned about the alert on the presence of Boko Haram elements in Abuja by the Nigerian Customs Service, the group attributed the development to what it called “intelligence failure” on the part of the security agencies. Their position came barely 24 hours after another group in the North, the Arewa Professional Forum appealed to the President to relieve the top security heads from their position and inject fresh hands in the security management. The CNCE said it was “saddened that there is no state in the North Central that is free of terrorists attacks or that has not had its own fair share of the mindless killings of innocent citizens one time or the other”, recalling with regret that the region was” the most peaceful in the entire North.” It reminded the President that the first step in restoring security in the country was the restructuring of the security architecture with the sacking of the service chiefs.

Petrol imports, according to the NBS reports, accounted for 2.16 percent of Nigeria’s total imports in the second quarter of 2020, the fourth largest imports in the second quarter, topped by used vehicles imports, which gulped ₦198.4 billion and accounting for 4.93 per cent of total imports. The NBS further stated that in the first and second quarter of 2020, crude oil export stood at ₦2.94 trillion and ₦1.55 trillion, respectively, compared with ₦3.38 trillion and ₦3.94 trillion in the first and second quarter of 2019, respectively. Crude oil exports, the NBS noted, accounted for 70.01 percent of Nigeria’s total export in the second quarter of 2020, with Holland being the highest buyer of Nigeria’s crude in the second quarter, with ₦221.68 billion, followed by China with the purchase of ₦189.91 billion worth of crude oil, while South Africa purchased ₦171.78 billion worth. Nigeria also exported crude oil valued at ₦147.61 billion, ₦133.98 billion, ₦68.94 billion and ₦67.38 billion to India, Spain, Togo and Indonesia, respectively, in the second quarter of 2020.

The Sultan of Sokoto, Sa’ad Abubakar III, has called for an end to the killings in southern Kaduna. Speaking at a meeting of Northern Traditional Rulers’ Council in Kaduna on Monday, the Sultan described the crisis as a “madness that must stop immediately”. The traditional ruler also accused politicians of fueling the crisis, appealing to Nigerians not to be used as tools of violence. On his part, the governor of Kaduna state, Nasir el Rufai explained that the Southern Kaduna crisis has lingered since the first Kasuwan Magani riot in Kajuru in 1980. He said his administration has been making efforts to end the killings and restore peace. The governor added that a military base and mobile police depot were established in the area while the air force and strike force personnel had been deployed in the zone. El Rufai said equipment like drones and GSM trackers are being used to neutralise bandits in the state.

Nigeria spent ₦1.09 trillion to import petrol in the first six months of 2020, a figure 42.3 percent higher than ₦766.06 billion spent in the same period in 2019. The National Bureau of Statistics also disclosed that the value of the country’s crude oil export dropped sharply by 38.5 percent to ₦4.5 trillion within the same period, compared with ₦7.32 trillion in the corresponding period of 2019. Compared to the preceding half, second half of 2019, H2’19, the value of crude oil export also showed a massive decline of 39.02 per cent, as the country earned ₦7.38 trillion in H2’19. The decline in export figure was recorded, despite the devaluation of the local currency, which should have increased the naira value. But it also came against a backdrop of the crash in the price of crude oil in the international market. Moreover, the massive increase in expenditure on petrol imports is recorded, despite the reports of the DPR the PPPRA, and the NNPC, indicating a significant reduction in Nigeria’s fuel import and consumption figure since March 2020, due to the COVID-19 lockdown.