In a brief deliberation on Tuesday, the Nigerian Senate made yet another amendment to the Electoral Act Amendment Bill.
The lawmakers amended the controversial Clause 84 of the bill.
The clause deals with the mode of primary election to be used by political parties to select candidates for elective offices.
In the bill earlier passed by the National Assembly in 2021, the lawmakers prescribed that political parties use only a direct mode of primary.
But President Muhammadu Buhari rejected the legislation citing insecurity, the cost of conducting direct primaries and infringement on the rights of Nigerians to participate in governance as his reasons for declining assent.
He had promised to sign the bill if changes are made to the clause, to include the addition of consensus candidates and indirect primary options to the mode of selecting a candidate for an election.
Last week, both the Senate and the House of Representatives amended the bill.
But while the Senate allowed for direct or indirect primaries or consensus as procedures for selecting candidates for elective offices, the House adopted only direct and indirect primaries.
But in the harmonised version of the bill considered by the Senate, the lawmakers adopted all three modes of primaries, with a clear definition of “how parties can use consensus to elect candidates.”
The largest utility-scale renewable energy project in Oman has been inaugurated by its developers ACWA Power, the Gulf Investment Corporation, Alternative Energy Projects and the Oman Power and Water Procurement Company.
Ibri 2 is the first solar energy project developed under the independent power project model to be connected to the grid in Oman.
The 500MW, $417 million project is located in Ad-Dhahirah Governorate and comprises 1.5 million bi-facial solar panels installed across 13 million square meters.
ACWA Power and its partners completed the project within 13 months.
The plant will generate enough electricity to power 500,000 homes and avoid the emissions of 340,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. The plant will power the main grid as part of a 15-year power purchase agreement signed with Oman Power and Water Authority.
In addition to helping decarbonise the Oman grid and ensuring energy security as the country diversifies its energy mix, the project will also improve the economy through job creation and skills training.
As part of the project supply chain, two local start-ups—Taj Middle East and Diaa Energy—were contracted to build mechanical installations.
Additionally, the project’s operations and maintenance team has achieved a 100% Omanisation rate.
The project is expected to help Oman to achieve its 2040 Vision which includes the country generating 20% of its electricity using renewable energy by 2030 and up to 39% by 2040.
The plant is an example of how foreign direct investment in renewable energy can help Oman ensure energy sustainability and reliability.
Borusan EnBW Enerji A.S has secured $80 million in funding from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the Netherlands Entrepreneurial Development Finance Company to expand renewable energy development.
Borusan EnBW is a joint venture between German utility Energie Baden-Wurttemberg (EnBW) and Turkish conglomerate Borusan Holding and is operating a total of 720MW generated by nine wind farms, two solar projects and one hydropower plant.
Borusan EnBW currently operates Turkey’s largest wind energy portfolio and plans to use the $80 million package to strengthen its balance sheet and reinforce financial sustainability to fund its renewables expansion.
The utility will leverage the loan to equip youths with the skills required to operate an energy system comprising an increasing amount of capacity from renewables.
Borusan EnBW says it also has ambitions to increase the number of women within its workforce and to ensure women are well represented within the country’s energy sector.
The EBRD is delighted to consolidate its partnership with this Turkish-German venture and enable it to step up the delivery of green sources of energy.”
The development follows Turkey expanding its renewables capacity by 50% over the last five years, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
In 2019, the country had the fifth-highest level of new renewable capacity additions in Europe and the 15th highest in the world as part of efforts by the government to diversify its energy mix for security and lower emissions.
In particular, bolstered by a supportive policy environment, renewable energy has grown impressively, led by hydropower, solar and wind.”
In 2020, the EBRD supported Borusan EnBW with a loan of $37 million to finance the expansion of the Kiyikoy wind farm in Turkey’s northwest.
Danish multinational power company, Ørsted has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with Korean state-owned utilities Korea Southern Power (KOSPO) and Korea Midland Power (KOMIPO) for the development of the 1.6GW Incheon offshore wind project.
According to Ørsted, the Incheon offshore wind project will provide clean energy to 1.3 million households, reduce carbon emissions by almost 4 million metric tons per year, and will stimulate economic growth in Incheon, South Korea.
Under the two MoUs, the companies will support Korea’s net-zero targets and explore areas of collaboration on the Incheon offshore wind project, such as renewable energy certificate (REC) offtake, joint operation and partnerships, as well as technology exchange for offshore wind O&M.
Ørsted, KOSPO and KOMIPO are working to ensure the project gains favour with local residents and fishermen, and plan to minimise the environmental impact of the project on marine life.
General Electric (GE) has announced new machine learning software aimed at providing continuous tuning for gas turbines.
The company’s Autonomous Tuning software uses artificial intelligence (AI) to build a digital twin model of a gas turbine to find optimal flame temperatures and fuel splits. GE said the technology will help reduce emissions and fuel consumption.
The software is designed to sense changes in ambient temperature, gas fuel properties and degradation before sending adjustments to the controls every two seconds.
The goal is to allow tracking of the turbine’s “sweet spot” with low emissions and acoustics in response to environmental conditions or physical degradation.
Gas turbines require seasonal adjustments to their flame temperature and fuel splits, generally performed manually after an outage and expected to take a few days to finish. With the new software, GE said this work would be done automatically.
The software applies to any original equipment manufacturer gas turbine and also is bounded by the turbine control system’s safety-critical programming” to help ensure it does not harm the turbine.
GE said that power generators that might benefit most from the technology are in highly regulated regions or those with constrained emissions, such as Europe, the United States and Canada, or in any location that does not have consistent weather patterns.
GE said plants using the software have recorded carbon dioxide reductions between 0.5%-1.0%, carbon monoxide reductions of 14% and nitrous oxide reductions of 10%-14%.
The company said it expects software users to have a lower total cost of ownership, and more operational flexibility with their turbines. It said that added improved productivity from the turbines can result in payback in under one year.
The government of Rwanda has deployed 9,985 teachers and head teachers for primary and secondary schools in a bid to fix the existing gaps identified in all districts across the country.
Speaking to local media, head of department of teacher management and development at Rwanda Basic Education Board (REB), Leon Mugenzi, said that despite the deployment there are still vacant positions.
According to Mugenzi, another deployment of 1,687 secondary school teachers is currently ongoing to their respective schools.
He said this latest deployment will significantly fix the existing gap, adding that initially, the demand from the districts totaled 12,993 teachers and school leaders.
The demand was largely driven by the additional classrooms that have been built in order to reduce congestion of students and reduce the ratio of students per teacher.
Despite the fact that there was an initial plan to decongest classrooms in primary and secondary schools, this was accelerated following the pandemic protocols issued.
The latest deployment of more teachers, Mugenzi said will allow them to be able to easily monitor the students’ performance and follow their daily progress.
Mugenzi said the gaps were also caused by some teachers who leave for other jobs, those who retire, ones that are dismissed for different reasons, and others who feel sick and can no longer teach.
Commenting on the ones who were deployed but did not report to their respective schools, he said that this happens due to different reasons such as those who fall sick while others shun schools that are located far away from their residence among other reasons.
He said that such issues are analysed on a case by case basis to come up with an appropriate solution.
1565 Battle at Talikota India: Deccan sultanate destroy Vijayanagar’s army and the last Hindu kingdom of Southern India
1720 Muslims in Constantinople behead Auxentius who has refused to convert to Islam despite being beaten with an iron bar.
1840 American naval expedition under Charles Wilkes is first to identify Antarctica as a new continent
1944 Florence Li Tim-Oi is ordained a priest in Hong Kong by Anglican bishop Ronald Hall, the first woman ordained a priest in the Anglican communion.
1949 1st Israeli election won by David Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party
1971 Military coup in Uganda under Major General Idi Amin
1980 Frederick Donald Coggan, Archbishop of Canterbury, retires. He had been involved in the translation of the New English Bible and was an advocate for the ordination of women.
2011 Egyptian Revolution of 2011 begins with a series of street demonstrations, rallies, acts of civil disobedience, labor strikes and violent clashes in Cairo, Alexandria and other major cities
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The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency has set up a special task force to track down and dismantle drug cartels behind the production and distribution of methamphetamine, popularly called Mkpurumiri.
The Chairman/Chief Executive, NDLEA, Brig-Gen Buba Marwa (retd.), said this on Monday.
He also listed the arrest of 12,306 suspects, including seven drug barons; conviction of 1,400 offenders; seizure of over 3.4 million kilograms of assorted drugs and cash worth over N130bn; and the counselling and rehabilitation of 7,761 drug users, as some of the achievements recorded by the agency in 2021.
Marwa said, “Key achievement is the easiest part for me because it is also the part of the development in the past year that is well-known to the public. We can take solace in the fact that our achievements of 2021 surpassed the records of any given year for the past 30 years.
“In drug supply reduction, our interdiction efforts yielded unparalleled results, which as of December 31, 2021, were as follow: Arrest of 12,306 suspects, including seven drug barons; conviction of 1,400 offenders; pending 1,502 cases in court; seizure of over 3.4 million kilograms of assorted drugs and cash worth over N130bn; 406 hectares of cannabis farms destroyed; contributions to the Consolidated Account through asset forfeiture; and 7,761 drug users counselled and rehabilitated in the NDLEA facilities.”
Mkpurumiri
According to him, the decision to set up the task force became necessary because Mkpurumiri was being abused by youths in parts of the country, especially in the South-East.
Marwa stated this while answering questions from journalists during a press conference in Abuja to mark his first year anniversary in the saddle of the agency.
He challenged communities across Nigeria to take ownership of the war against drug abuse as those in the South-East states were doing by standing up to those engaged in the abuse and trafficking of illicit drugs.
Marwa stated, “If you look at the preponderance of the dealers in drugs, I’m not saying anything new, but the South-East has the predominance and that’s a fact. Who are the Boko Haram people? I know they are not Yoruba and I know they are not people from Edo; but if you go to the North-West and ask who the bandits are, I know they are not from Cross River or from Lagos. If you ask the people doing the human trafficking, the women, you know from where.
“So, definitely, we have the preponderance of drug dealers from the South-East, but what more do you have? The greatest efforts by communities to rid the country and their communities of drug use are from the South East. Clearly, in the same South-East, they are doing two things; first, they are telling their fellow travellers, who are not decent, that look ‘you are the very few who are spoiling our names here. Stop it!’
“And more importantly, they are riding their communities of drug abuse; they have taken ownership of the war themselves against drug abuse, especially the Mkpurumiri. By the way, we have set up a special task force to face that challenge and very soon, you will hear and see the results of our efforts.
“In essence, what I am saying is that I am now taking the South-East as an example for all the other communities in Nigeria. This war has to start from the bottom, from the communities; set up your war against drug abuse committees.
“In every community, you are the ones who know those patent medicine stores that sell drugs, the mai shayi, those at the corner ends of the streets, who sell and hawk drugs; you know the traffickers and you know those who use them. Take this war to your communities, because you know these people; cleanse your communities and take ownership of this war and the NDLEA will always be there to back you up.
“However, the NDLEA does not and will not support the flogging of culprits and some of the other human rights abuses. We will be there to support with counselling and treatment. And I urge the entire country to take an example of the ownership of the war against drug abuse from the South-East.”
Marwa attributed the successes recorded in the drug war in the past year to God; support of the President Muhammadu Buhari; the National Assembly; Minister of Justice and other stakeholders, including international partners such as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the European Union, and foreign governments as well as local civil society organisations and non-governmental organisations.
While promising to build on the foundation laid in 2021, he said the agency under his leadership now had a clear road map to the future.
The road suddenly came to the end for the hitherto high-flying Super Eagles in the on-going Africa Cup of Nations.
Now the president of the Nigeria Football Federation, Amaju Pinnick, in a press release announced that the team has put the defeat behind it and is now focussed on World Cup qualifying duels against Ghana.
The two-legged matches come up in just two months’ time. According to the press release, Pinnick commended the efforts of the Super Eagles despite a 0-1 loss to understrengh Tunisia in their Africa Cup of Nations Round of 16 match in Garoua.
“We are proud of the efforts of the players. They gave their all and tried very hard to win even when they had numerical disadvantage. It was just not our day.
“I want to thank His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari for his love, support and encouragement to the team while they were in the championship.
“I also praise the Honourable Minister of Youth and Sports, Mr Sunday Dare for his interest and attention in the progress of the team. Losing at this stage is painful but we take solace in the great spirit with which the team approached its four matches in Cameroon, out of which it won three.
“The focus and attention will now shift to the FIFA World Cup qualifying play-off against Ghana in March. We want to assure Nigerians that we will prepare even harder for those two matches to get the job done.”
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