Daily Watch – FAAC allocations tank 8%, Community leader killed in FCT

Two persons were killed and six others abducted by gunmen in Yangoji town in the Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). One of those killed, Alhaji Yakubu Ayuba, was the community leader, while the other, a middle-aged man, was killed while returning home after watching a football match. Yangoji borders a community in Lapai Local Government area of Niger state. ThisDay was told that the armed men invaded the town not too far from a Police checkpoint and started shooting into the air sporadically. Thereafter, it was gathered that the bandits moved from house to house dispossessing the residents of their valuable property. It was in this process that Yakubu Ayuba was shot dead.

Monthly allocations to Nigeria’s federal, state and local governments dropped by ₦58.6 billion in April as the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) shared a total sum of ₦655.932 billion to all tiers of government. This is an 8 percent decrease from the ₦714.62 billion shared in March. According to a communiqué issued at the Committee’s meeting for May 2023, the ₦655.932 billion total distributable revenue comprised distributable statutory revenue of ₦364.654 billion, distributable Value Added Tax (VAT) of ₦202.762 billion, Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL) of ₦14.516 billion, ₦50 billion augmentation from Forex Equalisation revenue and ₦24 billion augmentation from the Non-mineral revenue. The distributable revenue was ₦655.932 billion; the Federal Government received ₦248.809 billion, the State Governments received ₦218.307 billion, and the Local Government Councils received ₦160.6 billion.

Africa Data Centres, the largest network of interconnected, carrier-and cloud-neutral data centre facilities on the continent, has announced that it will start construction on newly acquired land in the Central Business District of Accra. The new facility, it said in a statement, has been designed for an initial 10 MW, which can expand to 30MW depending on demand. It will be the largest facility in West Africa to date, outside of Nigeria. This new facility is part of Africa Data Centres’ continental expansion plans spanning 10 of Africa’s major economic hubs, including South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Egypt, Morocco, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Angola. This expansion, partly funded by the United States government’s U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), is a significant initiative to accelerate private sector-led digital infrastructure and services in Africa.

South Africa has granted Turkey’s Karpowership access to the three ports of Ngqura, Durban and Saldanha Bay for a period of 20 years, the transport ministry said, as it tries to find solutions to the country’s power crisis. Karpowership aims to generate power on its floating gas ships and distribute it through the country’s electricity grid. The plan received a boost from President Cyril Ramaphosa after he told lawmakers the ships would help ease the prolonged power shortage countrywide. Karpowership has in the past faced numerous challenges from environmental activists and small-scale fishermen since Pretoria granted it the biggest share of a 2,000-megawatt emergency power tender to generate electricity in 2021. Opposition parties have criticised the 20-year contract, valued at billions of rand, saying it was too long for an emergency power supply and suggesting that none of Karpowership’s other contracts in countries such as Ghana and Brazil was for such a lengthy period.