Apo Killings: Nigerian Human Rights Commission Indicts DSS, Army
Channels TV on 07 April, 2014
The Nigerian Human Rights Commission, NHRC, has indicted the Nigerian Army, the Directorate of State Security and the Attorney-General of the Federation for the unlawful killing of eight squatters at an uncompleted building in Apo area of Abuja.
Presenting the report of the commission, the Chairman of the Commission, Dr Chidi Odinkalu, said that the Nigerian Army and the Department of State Service had no credible evidence to tag the eight youngsters killed last September as agents of the Boko Haram terror group.
The commission also awarded the sum of 10million Naira each, to be paid within one month to families of the eight deceased persons and 5million Naira each to the eleven persons injured in the attack.
The eight squatters lost their lives in a military raid on September 20, 2013, for allegedly being members of Boko Haram.
The security forces claimed at the time that over 100 Boko Haram fighters led by one Suleiman were hiding and planning an attack on Abuja from the building, and had buried arms at the nearby Gudu Cemetery.
However, in its final report, the National Human Rights Commission discredited the claims and indicted the security agencies for unlawfully terminating the lives of innocent Nigerians.
Although the Assistant Director, Legal Services of the Defence Headquarters, Colonel Godwin Anyalemechi, said that the findings of the commission would be contested in court, lawyer to the victims, Michael Akpan and the Chairman of National Commercial Tricycles and Motorcycles Owners and Riders Association of Nigeria, Usman Gwoza, applauded the findings of the commission.
The commission also over-turned the order to banish some of the youths from Abuja, saying that the security forces had no power to banish citizens.
Largest Economy: Why I can’t celebrate – Jonathan
Vanguard on April 07, 2014 / in e-trending, For the record 6:51 pm
President Goodluck Jonathan has said he will not celebrate the recent feat of the country as the largest economy in Africa and 26th in the world.
He said, although, the feat calls for celebration but he will not roll out the drums because “too many of our citizens (are) living in poverty”.
He made this disclosure via his verified facebook account, Goodluck Jonathan, which boast of over one million likes and followers. Special Assistant to the President on New Media, Reno Omokri (@renoomokri) also tweet excerpts from the message shared by Goodluck Jonathan on facebook.
It will be recalled that Nigeria’s nominal Gross Domestic Product, GDP, now stands at $509.9 billion, making the nation’s economy the largest in Africa and the 26th in the world.
The Full text of the message reads
Yesterday, our Gross Domestic Product was rebased to give an accurate picture of where we are as a nation. I am glad to report to you that Nigeria is officially the largest economy in Africa with a Gross Domestic Product of $510 billion which also places us as the 26th largest economy in the world.
This feat is a collective achievement of all Nigerians particularly when you take into account the fact that our Per Capita Income had increased by over 60% from $1091 in 2009 to $1700 in 2013, prior to the rebasing.
While this calls for celebration, I personally cannot celebrate until all Nigerians can feel the positive impact of our growth. There are still too many of our citizens living in poverty.
Three years ago, I was asked to define Transformation and I said “Transformation in my view simply means taking what you have and making the best of it and in so doing produce results that can bring about a paradigm shift”.
That positive paradigm shift, as occurred yesterday, is still a work in progress.
Regardless of our present challenges, our place as a nation at the table of greatness is assured. GEJ.
Nigeria now Africa’s biggest economy, overtakes S’Africa
The Punch on APRIL 7, 2014
The Federal Government on Sunday finally released the result of the rebased Gross Domestic Product for the country, which showed that the Nigerian economy had overtaken South Africa’s as the biggest on the continent.
The Statistician General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Yemi Kale, who presented the outcome of the preliminary estimates of the GDP in Abuja, said that following the rebasing exercise, the country’s real GDP for 2011 and 2012 now stood at 5.09 per cent and 6.66 per cent, while the economy grew by 7.41 per cent in real terms last year.
He stated that the numbers were still going through a final refinement and that by June this year; the final estimates of the nominal GDP would be released.
Rebasing of the national account series, which includes the GDP, is the process of replacing an old base year with a new and more recent one.
The base year provides the reference point to which future values of the GDP are compared and it is a normal statistical procedure undertaken by the national statistical offices of countries to ensure that national account statistics present the most accurate reflection of the economy.
The key benefits of the rebasing exercise are that its results enable policy makers and analysts to obtain a more accurate set of economic statistics that are truer reflection of current realities for evidence-based decision-making.
Rebasing also reveals a more accurate estimate of the size and structure of the economy by incorporating new activities, which were not previously captured in the computational framework.
This is the first time the Nigerian economy will be rebased in almost a quarter of a century.
The presentation of the new figures was attended by key officials from both the public and private sectors of the economy as well as representatives of the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and the African Development Bank.
Kale said the results from the rebased estimates indicated that the nominal GDP for the country had now become larger than previously estimated.
For instance, he said the rebased nominal GDP for 2010 was N54.20tn; while for 2011, 2012 and 2013, he put the figures at N63.25tn; N71.18tn and N80.22tn ($510bn), respectively.
The implication of this, he added, was that the country had now overtaken South Arica to become the largest economy in the continent of Africa and 26th globally.
South Africa’s GDP for 2013 was $370.3bn (N60.7tn)
In terms of per capita income, which measures the income per individual, Nigeria is now ranked 121st from 135 with an average GDP per capita income of $2,688.
On sectoral performance of the economy, the NBS boss said the results indicated that the structure of the Nigerian economy had changed significantly leading to a decline in the share of the agricultural sector and a rise in the share of services in nominal GDP.
The implication of this, according to him, is that the country now has a stronger diversification of the economy than earlier reported.
Kale said, “Analysing the 1990 nominal series, agriculture contributed 30.3 per cent to the GDP, while industry contributed 46.1 per cent and services contributed 23.6 per cent.
“According to the rebased 2010 series, in nominal terms, the share of agriculture has declined to 24 per cent. The share of industry to the country’s GDP has also declined to 25.8 per cent, while the share of services to the country’s GDP has increased to 50.2 per cent.
“The number of economic activities accounting for 70 per cent of nominal GDP has risen from three to six after rebasing.”
He also said wholesale and retail trade was the economic activity with the most notable changes between the old and new GDP series.
This, according to him, is attributable to the efforts of the NBS during the rebasing exercise to capture more of the informal sector.
Telecommunications and information services, motion pictures and sound recording, cement production, food, beverage and tobacco, construction and real estate sectors also witnessed significant changes.
Commenting on the outcome of the exercise, the Minister of Finance, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, said the rebasing though commendable, would not make poverty and unemployment disappear overnight, but would give the government the needed tools to tackle the problems in order to reduce poverty and improve the welfare of the people.
She said, “Not all our ratios look good. Our revenue to GDP ratio doesn’t look that good. We have a tax to GDP ratio of about 20 per cent, which is in the range of emerging market economy, but our non-oil tax to GDP ratio Is quite low at seven per cent.
“With this new GDP numbers, we are not going to look so good. Our tax revenue to GDP ratio will fall to about 12 per cent and four per cent for non-oil tax to revenue.
“We have started moves to improve our non-oil revenue by working with the FIRS to improve their approach to tax administration, and we are blocking the loopholes and strengthening tax collections.”
The international development partners such as the World Bank, IMF and the ADB endorsed the outcome of the country’s rebased GDP
The IMF Resident Representative in Nigeria, Dr. Gene Leon, who spoke at the event on behalf of multilateral institutions, said the task of producing quality statistics for the country had just begun.
He said, “The CME has underscored that the efforts being made to improve the statistics of the federation is a basis for sound decision making. Let me say we endorse wholeheartedly the outcome of this process and we support Nigeria in this regard.
“Data is not an end in itself. Changes in statistics should fulfil a purpose. The relevant question today is: Have the huge efforts been valuable? From a decision making perspective, the answer is unquestionably yes.
“The data and sources have been expanded. The methodology has been improved and the knowledge of the structure of the economy has been significantly enhanced.”
‘Nigerians not richer with new GDP’
Economic and financial analysts said the nation’s rebased GDP figure of $510bn did not make Nigerians richer in any way.
They said the new GDP figure was only good for the purpose of standardisation and served as a basis for comparing the nation’s economy with other countries’.
According to the Chief Executive Officer, Financial Derivatives Limited, Mr. Bismark Rewane, the GDP is an output measure and should not be misconstrued as a revenue measure in view of the way some analysts have been commenting on it.
He said there was really nothing much to be excited about because it had not in any way improved the live of the common man.
Rewane, however, noted that the rebased GDP figure would help foreign investors to better understand the size and components of the nation’s economy.
He said, “The new GDP figure had not increased the amount of money in people’s accounts; the prices of goods have not changed; the value of the currency has not changed; and there has not been more jobs.
“The new $510bn is far away from the $900bn target we have for our Vision 2020, which is just six years away.”
He said the new GDP figures would reduce the nation’s economic growth from the current average of seven per cent to about 4.5 per cent by the next quarter.
A professor of Economics at the Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago Iwoye, Ogun State, Sharafadeen Tella, said the new figure did not impact on the lives of the people directly.
He, however, said if the government could work on sectors lagging behind, it could help to improve the economy in the future.
Tella said the fact that Nigeria’s per capita income was still the 121st in the world meant that the country was far away from development.
The Chief Executive Officer, Cowry Asset Management Limited, Mr. Johnson Chukwu, pointed out that the rebased GDP figure would help to attract foreign direct investors into the country as they would see that the size of the economy had increased tremendously.
He, however, said the government needed to address infrastructure deficit to enable the country to grow at the rate it should.
Mr. Femi Ademola of the Research Intelligence Unit of BGL Plc said the new GDP figure had increased Nigeria’s per capita income from $1,500 in 2012 to $2,999.41, and this had classified the nation as a lower middle class income country.
“There is no direct impact on Nigerian individually, especially the man on the street. On the long run, however, the economic benefits of improved national statistics would be felt by everybody through increase in job creation, wages and working conditions, and in tax revenue from increased economic activities,” he said.
Zamfara massacre: Death toll rises to 215 •Residents flee town
Nigerian Tribune on 07 April, 2014
DEATH toll of people attacked on Saturday in Yargaladima village of Dansadau Emirate, Maru Local Government Area of Zamfara State, by Fulani cattle herdsmen has risen to 215.
Speaking with the Nigerian Tribune, a survivor of the attack, Mallam Muhammadu Yargaladima, said the hoodlums stormed the town around 2.00 p.m that fateful day with over 100 motorcycles.
“Using AK-47 and APC rifles, they (hoodlums) began to shoot at children, traders, community leaders, clerics and others, killing 215 people at the end of the four-hour operation.
“From yesterday (Saturday) to today (Sunday), we counted at least 215 corpses,” Yargaladima stressed.
He added that people had deserted the town for safety, adding that “you see, our women have fled for safety. Those of us that remain want to ensure that we bury our own. For those who are not from this village, we are waiting for their relatives to collect their corpses.”
Meanwhile, the Emir of Dansadau, Alhaji Husseini Adamu, has said his emirate had counted 105 corpses.
He made the disclosure while briefing the state governor, Alhaji Abdulaziz Yari, who was in the village to assess the situation.
Adamu said the mass killings by the bandits was the worst series of attacks witnessed in the emirate since 2010.
The governor, who was worried over the development, vowed to fish out the perpetrators of the dastardly act.
He disclosed that his government would find out why the illegal meeting not permited by the authorities was held.
“We will find out who insisted that the meeting must hold,” he declared.
Reacting to the attack, the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) in charge of Zone 10, Alhaji Mamman Sule, disclosed that the attack was unfortuanate, adding that the meeting that led to the massive killings was not permitted by the police. He disclosed that 79 people were killed in the attack.
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