2023: INEC invites international organizations for election monitoring
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has invited interested international organisations across the world to come and observe Nigeria 2023 general elections.
- 2023: INEC invites international organizations for election monitoring
- Reps summon NBET boss over $43m gas deal
- World bank urges govts to invest in pandemic prevention rather than control
- Ukraine cites success in downing drones, fixes energy sites
- Uganda says 9 more Ebola cases confirmed in Kampala, urges vigilance
Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman, made the call when he received the delegation of the Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) Pre-Election Fact Finding Mission to Nigeria.
The ECOWAS group was led by Kwadwo Afari-Gyan, former Chairman, Electoral Commission of Ghana, at the commission headquarters on Monday in Abuja.
The INEC chairman said that the open invitation to international bodies was a demonstration of the commission’s openness to present its transparent nature of conducting elections to international observers.
“Election Observation is an important part of ensuring transparency and credibility in elections. We have always benefited from the insight of election observation missions.
“For instance, you are here on fact-finding, we will hear from you what you have found so far, which will help us in concluding our preparations for the election.
“And I look forward also to receive any report at the end of the process in February and March, so that we can learn even more from the inside.’’
The chairman assured the ECOWAS that Nigeria 2023 general elections would be technology driven.
“Let me restate the commitment of INEC Nigeria free, fair and credible elections driven by technology.
“The 2023 general election in Nigeria will be driven by technology not only as a matter of legal requirement, but also as a matter of course, for us in the commission.
“So, I want to assure the ECOWAS team that we are committed to delivering a credible election in the next four months and a few days, which will be Nigeria’s seventh successive elections, since the restoration of democracy in 1999,’’ Yakubu said.
Read also: Uncollected PVCs: INEC urges media to engage political parties to mobilise supporters
Reps summon NBET boss over $43m gas deal
The House of Representatives’ Committee on Finance has summoned Nnaemeka Eweluka, the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Bulk Electricity Trading Company Plc (NBET), for an invitation to defend the budget proposed by his organization in the 2023 Appropriation Bill.
The summons was sent by James Faleke, the Chairman of the committee, on Monday at the budget defence session organized for ministries, departments and agencies supervised by the committee.
Aliyu Abba, the General Manager, Corporate Services of NBET, who stood in for Eweluka explained that his boss was unavoidably absent because he went on leave last Friday. A situation which the committee members criticized for being insensitive and totally irreprehensible.
Abba exercised himself from answering some sensitive questions as only Eweluka could provide sufficient enough answers. Examples of some of such questions where queries on Federal Government’s take-or-pay agreements with Azura Power West Africa Limited and Arco Gas, which “forced” the country to pay the firm $33m and $10m monthly, whether there was energy supply or not.
Apparently, Eweluka has ignored similar calls by the committee to honour its invitations. Musa Abdullahi, the Deputy Chairman of the committee, said that he recalled how the NBIT boss refused to appear for the presentation of the 2023 Appropriation Bill from President Muhammadu Buhari.
World bank urges govts to invest in pandemic prevention rather than control
Taking into consideration the negative impact of disease outbreak, the World Bank has advised policymakers, governments, and the international community to invest more in pandemic prevention rather than containment and control.
The agency advise was contained in a statement issued by the World Bank Online Media Briefing Centre on Monday. The report titled “Putting Pandemics Behind Us: Investing in One Health to Reduce Risks of Emerging Infectious Diseases.”
In its report, the bank proposed “actionable solutions to ending the cycle of devastating pandemics” especially as the world continue to deal with the devastating effect of COVID-19, EBOLA virus and other pandemic health scarce.
It said the rate at which Emerging Infectious Disease (EID) grew had taken a more fierce dimension as it has moved from the 6.7 percent recorded between 1980 and 1999 to several hundred per year since 2000.
The bank attributed this growth to “humans extending their global footprint, altering natural habitats, and accelerating the spillover of animal microbes into human populations.”
It said 75 percent of EIDs and almost all known pandemics resulted from increased contact between animals and people, causing more than one billion human infections and one million deaths each year.
“In Putting Pandemics Behind Us: Investing in One Health to Reduce Risks of Emerging Infectious Diseases, policymakers, governments, and the international community are urged to invest in pandemic prevention.
“They are to move away from the business-as-usual approach based on containment and control after a disease has emerged.
” The report estimates that prevention costs guided by a One Health approach which would sustainably balance and optimise the health of people, animals, and ecosystems would range from 10.3 billion dollars to 11.5 billion dollars per year.
“When this is compared to the cost of managing pandemics which, according to the recent estimate by the G20 Joint Finance and Health Taskforce, amounts to about 30.1 billion dollars per year.”
“Ultimately, prevention is a global public good, no country can be excluded from benefiting and there is no limit to how many countries can benefit.”
It said unfortunately, there was chronic underinvestment in prevention and countries “must take action.”
“When prevention is successful, the benefits are invisible and do not manifest as crises that demand immediate attention.
” One Health is the global approach required to break this cycle of panic, neglect, and underinvestment.”
The statement quoted Mari Pangestu, World Bank Managing Director of Development Policy and Partnerships as saying “prevention is better than cure. COVID-19 has shown that a pandemic risk anywhere becomes a pandemic risk everywhere.
Ukraine cites success in downing drones, fixes energy sites
Ukrainian authorities tried to dampen public fears over Russia’s use of Iranian drones by claiming increasing success Monday in shooting them down, while the Kremlin’s talk of a possible “dirty bomb” attack has added another worrying dimension as the war enters its ninth month.
According to the Associated Press, Ukrainians are bracing for less electric power this winter following a sustained Russian barrage on their infrastructure in recent weeks. Citizens in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv lined up for water and essential supplies as Ukrainian forces continued their advance on the nearby Russian-occupied city of Kherson.
Ukraine’s forces have shot down more than two-thirds of the approximately 330 Shahed drones that Russia has fired through Saturday, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence service, Kyrylo Budanov, said in an interview Monday. Budanov said Russia’s military had ordered about 1,700 various types of drones, and is rolling out a second batch of about 300 Shaheds.
“Terror with the use of ‘Shaheds’ can actually last for a long time,” he was quoted as saying in Ukrainska Pravda newspaper, adding: “Air defense is basically coping, 70 percent are shot down.”
Both Russia and Iran deny that any Iranian-built drones have been used in the war but the triangle-shaped Shahed-136s have rained down on civilians in Kyiv and elsewhere in Ukraine.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense, in an intelligence update on Twitter, said Russia was likely to use a large number the drones to try to penetrate “increasingly effective Ukrainian air defenses” — in part to substitute for Russian-made long-range precision weapons “which are becoming increasingly scarce.”
Uganda says 9 more Ebola cases confirmed in Kampala, urges vigilance
The Ebola epidemic has taken a new dimension following a new report by the Ugandan government over a reported nine new cases in the capital Kampala. This new cases brings the total number of known infections to 14, the health minister on Monday.
Reuters reported that the outbreak began in September in a rural part of central Uganda. It spread earlier this month to Kampala, a city of more than 1.6 million people, by a man who had come from the Kassanda district to seek medical treatment and later died.
Seven of the nine who tested positive on Sunday are family members of the man who died and are from the Kampala neighbourhood of Masanafu, Health Minister Jane Ruth Aceng said in a tweet.
Another is a health worker who treated the man and his wife in a private clinic, she said.
“Fellow Ugandans, let’s be vigilant. Report yourself if you have had contact or know of a person who has had contact,” Aceng said in her tweet
Emmanuel Ainebyoona, health ministry spokesperson said all of the patients in Kampala were in isolation when they became symptomatic, reducing any chance of them passing on the virus.
Unfortunately, the strand spreading in Uganda is the Sudan strain of Ebola, which has no proven vaccine.
