Forex: Foreign suppliers cut fuel shipment to Nigeria over $985m debt

An acute shortage of foreign currencies across the country may have forced some overseas supplier of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) popularly called petrol to suspend further supply of the commodity to Nigeria, over a $985 million debt overhang, Daily Sun findings has revealed.

Their decision to cut supplies to its Nigerian customers may not be unconnected with the inability of importers to source foreign exchange to offset some of their debt liabilities running into millions of Dollars. Dealers who spoke to Daily Sun, warned however that unless this is resolved, Nigeria may witness another round of fuel shortages.

Confirming the suspension of fuel imports, Executive Secretary, Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association (DAPPMA), Mr. Olufemi Adewole, told Daily Sun, that the $985 million debt profile was for supplies made when the exchange rate was N197/$1, which could not be settled due to forex scarcity.

According to him, the transactions using the N197 exchange rate were carried out between December 2014 and December 2015, but payment for over N448 billion was not cleared by the Federal Government until early 2016, when exchange rates rose above the N197 threshold.
He regretted local banks have since debited their accounts using rates of between N300 to N350/$1 for transactions done at N197/$1.

“Beyond our accounts being debited, local banks have since seized to fund our procurement requests as a result of our members huge debt profile,” he said. He also pointed out that banks now cross check to ascertain the level of a marketer’s debt, and when confirmed to be on the high side, credit lines are suspended

‘‘Most of our members have been debited to the tune of whatever their exposure is and right now, we cannot even access facilities from our banks to fund procurement because all the banks are refusing them. That is the challenge we have at hand now.

Now, the question is, who bears the difference between N197 and today’s current exchange rate.’’?
For now, he said most DAPPMA members depend on imports made by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as their business activities have been grounded due to liquidity constraints.

Manager, Corporate Affairs, NIPCO Plc, Mr. Abiodun Lawal, echoed the position of Adewole, as he lamented that imports are at their lowest ebb.
Lawal said the situation was more challenging for independent importers, who have to rely solely on parallel market exchange rates to source forex because they lack support of the government.

He disclosed that the impact has not been felt much by members of the public because the demand for petrol has gone down drastically as a result of the biting economic situation in the country.

‘‘To give you an insight into the difficult operating environment for downstream players, depots that were loading 100 trucks before now, can barely do 40 trucks in a day. For those that have retail outlets, they can afford deliver same at their retail outlets and make some margins. But for those that don’t have any, it is a pathetic situation,’’ he lamented.
Source:Daily Sun

She Lied To Me She Was A Widow & ‘Infected’ Me With Magun So I Bathed Her With ACID

The long arm of the law has caught up with 43-year old Yisau Adeleke, nine months after he went into hiding, as he has been arrested by the Oyo State Police Command for bathing his lover with acid after he discovered that she was a married woman, contrary to her claim of being a widow.

Adeleke, who allegedly committed the offence on November 25, 2015, was arrested on August 7 at about 7:00a.m. at a radio station in Ibadan where he had gone to respond to his lover’s complaint on how he turned her into a monster through acid bath.

Crime Reports learnt that the victim, Mrs Morufa Ajoke Odesanya, reported at Oluyole police station on Novermber 25, 2015 that Adeleke bathed her with acid at about 9:05p.m after she responded to his call to meet him at a certain spot in her neighbourhood.

Sources informed Crime Reports that the victim admitted that she had an affair with the suspect before he carried out the act. The 36-year-old lady, a mother of five, was said to be legally married to her husband at the time she started having an affair with Adeleke, but reportedly deceived him into believing that she was a widow.

In an interview with Adeleke, he narrated the genesis of his relationship with his victim and what led him to the action he took thus: “I was arrested because I poured acid on a lady I regarded as my fiancée until I discovered otherwise.

“I had a wife, Ronke, who had two children for me but I later discovered that she had two children for two men before she married me. She also decided that she had had the number of children that she wanted, asking me to look for another woman if I needed more. She went for family planning.

“I started dating Morufa and she asked me to rent a room, which I did at Idi Arere, Ibadan. She told me she was a widow with two children. She used to bring the two children to Idi Arere. She also took me to where she was living at Elebu area of Ibadan, saying that the house belonged to her aunt.

“She showed me a man who she claimed to be her brother, but whom I later discovered to be her husband. She took me to her mother and I took her to my aunt who was like my mother to introduce her as my wife-to-be. Morufa used to come and stay with me at the rented apartment and I had to tell my wife that she could leave because I had already got a wife.

“We used to have sex regularly to the level that even during her menstrual period, she would beg me to have sex with her, saying she could not keep off me. This continued until the day I came in contact with Magun (a charm usually placed diabolically on wayward women as a punishment for their lovers) in the course of our affair. It was as if my navel was twisted and I also had a tongue twist.

I started feeling dizzy. This made me to raise the alarm and Morufa also started crying. An Islamic cleric came to my rescue by making some incantations.

“Though I became a bit relieved, the stomach ache continued and the next thing Morufa said was that she believed that the Magun was the handiwork of her mother-in-law. I asked whether she went to her mother-in-law and for the reason she would want to harm her daughter-in-law’s fiancé since her son was dead.

“To my surprise, Morufa called me same day and asked about my condition. She then added that she had sex with one Baba Bidemi, and it proved that what I experienced was not Magun. Baba Bidemi was the man she called her brother. I was confused and this made me to decide that I was no longer interested in the relationship if she could deceive me for about two years that we were together. She started begging me.

“I probed her further and she confessed that the man was her husband and that she had five children, though she initially told me that three children she did not declare as her own were born by the wife of her ‘brother’ before they divorced.

“I stopped going to her husband’s house but we were still meeting because I wanted to collect the money I contributed as a member of a group we formed for the purpose of contributing money that we could collect in bulk. I got number six and number 20.

“She collected the first one and when I was to collect the second one after the discovery of her lies, she told me that she gave it to her brother (husband) to pay FRSC fine. But to my surprise, when I saw the brother (husband), he was riding a brand new motorcycle. This infuriated me so much because I felt used.

“She continued to plead with me to forgive her, saying that I was the salt of her life. But I was so hurt by her deception and the devil pushed me to an evil act. So I conceived the plan to pour acid on her. On November 25, 2015, she asked me to come and collect my money, and I took the acid jar along with me.

“We stood at a point not too far from her residence and in the course of our discussion I brought out the jar, opened it and poured the content on her. She screamed and ran off, while a bit of the liquid splashed on me. I also ran away to my village at Omi Adio to hide until a week ago when I learnt that she reported me at a radio station. I was at the radio station to state my own side when police came to arrest me.”

Adeleke said he was shocked when he saw Morufa because he did not know that the acid burns were that extensive, expressing regret at his action.

Meanwhile the lady is said to be in excruciating pain and would need about N3 million to carry out corrective surgery because of the way she is. Crime Reports also learnt that her husband had taken his wife’s misdemeanor in good faith and had been taking care of her since the incident occurred.

When contacted, the state Police Public Relations Officer, SP Adekunle Ajisebutu confirmed the suspect’s arrest, saying that he was arraigned in a magistrates’ court on Thursday, August 18 and had been remanded in prison.
His case has been adjourned till November 9.
Source:Tribune

FG ready to swap Boko Haram detainees with Chibok girls -Buhari

THE Federal Government is willing to swap Boko Haram detainees with Chibok girls abducted by the terrorist group as long as it was convinced that it was dealing with the right leaders of the group which has custody of the girls.

President Muhammadu Buhari gave this hint during an interview with reporters at the sidelines of the ongoing sixth Tokyo International Conference on Africa Development (TICAD VI) in Nairobi, Kenya.

He said government was ready  to discuss the release of the Chibok girls kidnapped by Boko Haram terror group since April 2014.

While observing that there has been a split in the leadership of the insurgent group, Buhari advised that if the bonafide leaders of the group were not comfortable with negotiating with government, they could search out a credible inter international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) by themselves which they could trust to work with.

He said: “I have made a couple of comments on the Chibok girls and it seems to me that much of it has been politicised.
‘‘What we said is that the government which I preside over is prepared to talk to bonafide leaders of Boko Haram.

‘‘If they do not want to talk to us directly, let them pick an internationally recognised Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), convince them that they are holding the girls and that they want Nigeria to release a number of Boko Haram leaders in detention, which they are supposed to know.

‘‘If they do it through the ‘modified leadership’ of Boko Haram and they talk with an internationally recognized NGO then Nigeria will be prepared to discuss for their release.”
President Buhari however warned that the Federal Government will not waste time and resources with “doubtful sources’’ claiming to know the whereabouts of the girls.

He further stated: ‘‘We want those girls out and safe. The faster we can recover them and hand them over to their parents, the better for us.’’
The President maintained that the terror group, which pledged allegiance to ISIS, has been largely decimated by the gallant Nigerian military with the support of immediate neighbours from Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin.

According to him, ‘‘Some of the information about the division in Boko Haram is already in the press and I have read in the papers about the conflict in their leadership.
‘‘The person known in Nigeria as their leader, we understand was edged out and the Nigerian members of Boko Haram started turning themselves to the Nigerian military.

‘‘We learnt that in an air strike by the Nigeria Air Force he was wounded. Indeed their top hierarchy and lower cadre have a problem and we know this because when we came into power, they were holding 14 out of the 774 local governments in Nigeria.

“But now they are not holding any territory and they have split to small groups attacking soft targets.”
On the militancy in the Niger Delta region, the President said the Federal Government was also open to dialogue to resolve all contending issues in the area, expressing doubts that the militants were ready for a ceasefire.

‘‘We do not believe that they (the militants) have announced ceasefire. We are trying to understand them more. Who are their leaders and which areas do they operate and other relevant  issues,’’ he said.
Source:Tribune

Journey through hell

■ Survivors narrate ordeal traveling through Mediterranean Sea to Europe
 “God help me, God save me.” This was the prayer of a Nigerian girl when the boat in which she and other migrants were travelling to Italy via the Mediterranean Sea capsized.

26-year-old Promise said she and her co-travelers were crying inside the boat. “The sea was very big and dark, I thought I was going to die, we were waving, crying, shouting: help, help.”  And when help came, following the arrival of an Italian rescue ship, she was too traumatised to talk.

She said: “Finally, we saw a ship coming. It was in the afternoon. We thought they were fishermen, but it was a rescue boat. And so the Italians came and rescued us. A man from the ship grabbed my hand … ‘Don’t rush, don’t rush, he said. I still remember him: he was slim and had a cap on his head. Thank God, I said. I’m happy now, but I feel alone.”

Libya was the first destination of Promise, where she was a housemaid. She soon realized that there was no hope for her in that country. She said: “Libya is a Muslim country; they don’t like Christians like me.” Promise felt alone because after her rescue, there were no relatives and childhood friends to comfort and rejoice with her. To that extent, she was alone. But she is one of hundreds of desperate Nigerians facing the nightmare of having to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe.

Many Nigerians including children have died crossing the Mediterranean in the bid to reach Europe. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says: “The death toll for migrants from Nigeria and other African countries that drowned in the Mediterranean Sea since 2015 is already worse than the death toll for the Titanic catastrophe.”
And this is because migrants from Nigeria prefer traveling to Libya from where they take the Libya-Italy route, which makes the journey short and more assured. Reports say in every shipwreck, Nigerians are involved.

According to IOM and the Italian Coastguard, no fewer than four shipwrecks occur in a week. IOM spokesperson Joel Millman told reporters: “1,357 migrants and refugees perished at sea during the first four months of the year, mostly along the Central Mediterranean route, against 1,733 during the same period in 2015.”

In another incident, a combined team of staff of Migrant Offshore Aid Station (MOAS), Medicins Sans Frontieres, the Swedish Coastguard and Italian Navy, rescued at least 1, 800 migrants between themselves, and a dinghy with some 100 people on board headed towards the rescue vessels.

The result was that some 150 people were left stranded on the wooden boat waiting while the Italian Navy vessel Fiorillo made its way to the area because all other vessels in the area were filled to capacity. As the migrants were already exhausted, some started feeling sick, provoking a chain reaction, while many more suffered from dehydration.

Nigerians were among 67 migrants who died off the coast of Libya and the coastal town of Zuwara after more than 3,000 people tried to cross the sea. The report of the crew of the Swedish rescue vessel Poseidon shows how horrible it is to die in a migrant boat.
It said 52 bodies were discovered in the hold of a wooden boat from which around 400 people were rescued some 30 miles north of Libya. Of course, migrants would always have one reason or the other for their action.

A cocktail of reasons stretching from economic hardship, political persecution, conflicts to wars (insecurity) have been blamed by those fleeing Nigeria through illegal routes.
Stephanie Samuel who risked her life and that of her unborn baby crossing the Mediterranean aptly spoke for this category of Nigerians when she said: “It is better to drown in the sea than to grow up in Nigeria.”

On her part, Promise blamed war in Nigeria though she was not specific on which war. She told her rescuers: “There was plenty of war in Nigeria. I lost my mother and father, my sisters and my brothers … we all ran away during the war, and I don’t know where they are now.”

Continuing, she said: “A man saved me from the war and took me to his house, but his wife thought I was sleeping with him. He gave me some money and told me to flee to Libya. But when I got there, I saw there was war, too. I found myself in Tripoli. There was fighting and killing all around us.”

According to her narrative, somebody (name not disclosed) took her to his house to stay. The idea of going to Italy was sold to her there and with a promise to help her.  From her description of the house, her ‘emergency host’ was a human trafficker. “But that house wasn’t a good one. It was very big and there were other people. I stayed for a long time, I can’t remember how long. Then somebody paid for me to get on a boat and come here (Italy).”

Stephanie’s story is not too different from that of Promise, except that she was heavily pregnant when the boat she and 653 other migrants were traveling in capsized.  Though they did not know themselves and they had their experience at different times, both were based in Libya from where they kicked off their journey.

Both paid smugglers for the risky trip across the sea. The 24-year-old gave birth to a baby girl aboard an Italian naval patrol ship, Bettica, after she was rescued. It took four rescue operations to complete the evacuation of Stephanie and others who survived the tragedy. Her daughter, who weighed 7 pounds, 7 ounces would later be named Francesca Marina. The girl became the ‘face’ of African migrants crossing the sea.

But the question remains: Is it worth taking such a risk? Why would Stephanie embark on such a dangerous journey? At the time, she tried to find excuses for her action. “I didn’t expect the baby, you know, but just like that, she came.” But that explanation was a mere veil. She would later open up as she expressed hope that her daughter will have a better life in Europe. “God decides, not me … but I believe she will have a good future in Europe.”
Stephanie remained unrepentant as she said her husband who was still in Libya when she departed that country was ready to risk crossing the Mediterranean to reunite with her. His only constraint was how to pay the fee of $1,500 to smugglers.

Nigerians were among badly disfigured bodies of 21 young women and one man  recovered from rubber boats by a search-and-rescue vessel run in partnership between Medicins Sans Frontiers (MSF) and SOS. Within the same period, another Non Governmental Organisation rescued 209 people including Nigerians in the dinghies.
According to survivors including a Nigerian woman, Mary, water poured into their dinghy and there was panic and violence. Some survivors had bite marks following desperate struggle on board to escape death.

24-year-old Mary confirmed this. She told MSF: “I had to bite to be able to breathe. The woman I bit stood up. Men were standing on top of me. A woman stood on my face. A woman who was pregnant died. We were under the water together.”

An MSF doctor, Erna Rijnierse who was said to be aboard the rescue ship, MV Aquarius further highlighted the nightmare. He said there was an eerie silence when they neared the dinghy and it was obvious there had been a struggle.
“You can tell it from the nail scratches on people’s arms and legs, but also we had 10 people with human bites on arms, back and also on the lower back and ankles,” she said.

And like Promise and Stephanie, Mary took off from Libya. While Promise and Stephanie claimed they were housemaids in Libya, Mary told MSF she had been held in Libyan prison. It may be true because, according to reports, immigrants are often arrested in Libya for at least two months before they find a place in the dinghy. Rijnierse also confirmed this. She said she believed many of the victims had been detained prior to the trip and were too weak to fight their way off the floor.

But the trauma at sea was not the only ‘take away’ for Mary. While in Libya, rape was the order of the day. “They rape there. They are looking for young girls, you cannot say no, they have guns, shout, speak in their language,” Mary said, as she described her ordeal in the prison before her ‘lucky’ escape.

David is another Nigerian who survived alongside Mary. Realising that he escaped death by the whiskers, David sent a message to intending migrants, warning against making such trips. Hear him: “Taking the boat is very dangerous. That’s the truth,” he warned. He said he felt bad about the women who died.
Certainly, David’s warning is like all other previous warnings issued by the Federal Government, its agencies and non- governmental organisations.

Yet in another report, Nigerians were among 10 migrants killed aboard a rickety boat heading to Spain from Nador, Morocco. Trouble started when one of the Nigerians said to be a priest started praying “because he feared bad weather would capsize the boat.”  But two of his co-travelers “wrongly interpreted the prayer as the cause of the bad weather.”

They got angry and there was a row. But the incident did not end with only verbal attack. The two migrants “hit their victims with wooden planks which they then used to push them overboard.” They were also accused of robbing their victims, mostly Nigerians of around £1,200 before pushing them to their death.

The list of Nigerians that die in the bid to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe continues to increase daily. The story of two brothers from Edo State was most pathetic. Monday and Osas Amanmien had to part ways when Monday drowned in the sea when the boat capsized.

Reports said Osas miraculously survived the disaster. “He had to endure one hellish hour, hopelessly floating on an empty keg and being brutally buffeted by the bullish, restless waves.” Still, two other Nigerian siblings, 11 and 10 years old were caught on camera weeping uncontrollably after their mother died in the Mediterranean on their way to Europe.

According to reports, the two children were among 150 migrants rescued from an overcrowded rubber boat off the coast of Libya while trying to cross the Mediterranean ocean into Italy.
Many of the Nigerians dying in the Mediterranean sea are victims of human trafficking. Unfortunately, the Federal Government is constrained as these incidents occur in offshore foreign countries where Nigeria doesn’t have jurisdiction over.

In a report entitled, “Mafia at a crossroads as Nigerian gangsters hit Sicily,” prosecutors in the Sicilian capital of Palermo warned that a new alliance between the Mafia and Nigerian criminal gangs moving from Libya has heralded a new era of organized crime.
Deputy Chief Prosecutor Leonardo Agueci noted that the neighbourhoods under Mafia control have changed profoundly in recent years due to the growing presence of foreigners, especially Nigerians coming on boats.

And what is the business of the Nigerians being recruited by the mafia? Agueci said: “Among them, there is a small number of people who want to transfer their illegal trafficking, linked to prostitution and drug dealing, to Sicily. And the mafia is quite happy to integrate them into their criminal business. About 90 per cent of prostitutes in Palermo come from Nigeria.”
Source:Daily Sun

•Millions of sick Nigerians in danger •Naira falls to 412/dollar

•Our members dying —Pensioners

•Diabetics demand subsidy on imported drugs

With the nation’s worsening foreign exchange crisis, prices of life-saving drugs have skyrocketed in recent days, investigations have revealed.

Indeed, essential multinational drugs have mostly vanished from the stores.

The Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSN), in a communiqué released by its National President, Ahmed I. Yakasai and the National Secretary, Gbolagade Iyiola, after its recent National Council meeting in Kano, warned of the dangers of scarcity of life-saving drugs in the country as a result of the forex crisis.

It was discovered that hypertensive and diabetic patients are most hit by the   development in the health sector with reports of daily casualties.

The National President of Diabetes Association of Nigeria, Dr Mohammed Alkali, on Friday confirmed  the situation and called for subsidy for imported diabetes drugs.

Alkali, who spoke to Saturday Tribune over the phone, said that the hike in the price of diabetes drugs due to the dollar-naira exchange rate has become “unbearable” for patients, who depend on the drugs for sustenance.

Affirming that most of the drugs used by diabetic patients are sourced from other countries, he urged the Federal Government to consider introducing palliative measures in order to ameliorate the effects on patients, including the local production of pharmaceutical drugs.

He said, “Most of the diabetes drugs are imported. The current foreign exchange situation in the country has affected almost all the drugs. This is one of the reasons we are pushing that local production should be considered because as long as the drugs are going to be imported, the price of these drugs will continue to go up and the effects on diabetic patients will be unbearable.

“The association will continue to advocate lower profit on imported drugs so that patients can buy them. But there is a limit to which these prices can go down especially due to the forex situation. Our constraint now is sustaining the minimum price of the drugs.

“There is no official subsidy on diabetes drugs. We are advocating that the government to consider subsidizing diabetes drugs and encourage local production of drugs”.

The association had also, a few days ago, disclosed that a disturbing 1.56 million new cases of diabetes were discovered in 2015 while about five million people live with the disease. Diabetics use daily doses of special drugs which are imported.

According to a pharmacist, Mr. Adewole Atanda, the reason behind  the high cost of the drugs and injections taken by the sufferers of these diseases to lessen their hazards, is that most of the drugs like the diabinese tablets among others, are not produced here in Nigeria because the materials needed to  manufacture them are not locally available. The drugs, according to him, are only imported into Nigeria from other countries, hence, making them very expensive and scarce to come by.

A doctor, who did not want his name in print said that people were dying like chickens in the hospitals as the prices of drugs have doubled in the last few months.

Checks with medical practitioners indicate that prices of essential drugs are not only getting out of hand, most of the drugs are not available on the shelves.

It was gathered that most multinational drug companies are finding it difficult to import drugs into the country as a result of the forex policy of the administration, while the persistent drop in the value of the Naira is also constituting another crisis.

There are twin issues, said a doctor, who did not want to be mentioned. He stated that his discussions with major drug companies in the last one week had confirmed that the companies were finding it difficult to import essential drugs.

He said that the companies have been bombarded with various orders for the drugs but it has been difficult to import drugs for treatment of hypertension, heart diseases and acute gastro-intestinal issues.

Checks in the markets indicated that such drugs have had their prices doubled in the last three weeks.

A doctor told Saturday Tribune: “The situation is taking a huge toll on the health situation in the country. The prices of most referral drugs that are effective have skyrocketed in the last few months. The increase in the price of petrol is not matched by increase in salary and that is taking huge toll on those of us in the health sector.

“Many of the patients will come into the clinic and only secure hospital cards and after the necessary tests, they would say they have no other money for drugs  and that the only money they had had been used to secure hospital card.”

In Ibadan, the Oyo State capital, Mr. Oyekunle Wahab, a retired teacher who suffers from diabetes, said that ever since the doctor  diagnosed him with diabetes, 50 percent of his monthly pension is always spent on his medications

“Out of the N30,000 I receive monthly as my pension, I spend over N15,000 on buying strips for my blood sugar test and the insulin injection to regulate the level of sugar in my blood. But of late, government has been paying our pension once in three months and this has stopped me from checking the level of sugar in my blood because my strips have been exhausted and to buy another one now, I will need N3,000. Just last week, I was feeling dizzy and I knew it was because of the Insulin injection I stopped taking, so, I hurried off to the hospital and complained to my doctor who later injected me for free,” he said.

 

Similarly, Salami Abimbola, an Ibadan boy in his early 20’s who suffers from migraine, expressed his parents’ frustration on his  drug (sudrex tablet) worth N100 per card and which gets exhausted two days.

“My parents say they are tired of buying the drug every day, therefore, I go through pains whenever my dad doesn’t have enough money to buy it,” he said.

Speaking on the risks of not using these drugs as prescribed, a medical expert, Dr. Oyewale Durojaiye says that if a patient who suffers from one of these diseases, e.g. hypertension, fails to take the proper dosage of his drugs, it may result in hypertensive retinopathy which damages the retinal and in most cases, it can lead to cerebrovascular  disease, mostly known as stroke.

The PSN, in its communique, said it, “after a careful evaluation of the impact of the current paucity of Forex in the country which is gradually grinding operations in drug manufacturing and importation outlets to a halt in the days ahead, appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to urgently intervene to prevent an impending national calamity which will lead to morbidity and outright mortality of consumers of health in Nigeria.”

It warned that warehouses of pharmaceutical companies were becoming empty due to inaccessibility of Forex to directly buy drugs, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and other products,  a situation it said, would breed out-of-stock syndrome in the inventory of life saving drugs with dire consequences “in the days and weeks ahead” as most drug companies were exhausting their leftover stocks from last year.

The Council argued further that pharmaceutical products bought at the rate of $1 to N400 would not be affordable thus defeating the goal of the National Drug Policy which advocates the availability of safe, efficacious and affordable drugs in the health system at all times.

“Flowing from the above, council called on the Federal Government to facilitate better access to Forex to pharmaceutical companies as a matter of priority in view of the security dimensions of the out of stock syndrome which has a propensity to boost the fake drug syndrome as charlatans will certainly exploit the vacuum created by a lack of basic drugs,” it said.

We are dying one by one —Pensioners

The Kwara State chairman of the Nigerian Union of Pensioners (NUP), Olamitola Phillip, the vice chairman, Elder Tunji Aransiola and the secretary, Comrade Ayobamidele Ajibola, in Ilorin, on Friday, said that hundreds of them had died in the last six months from ailments ranging from high blood pressure, diabetes, urinary infection, glaucoma, arthritis, stroke.

Phillip, who said that no fewer than five deaths had been recorded every week among members of the association, added that one of the highest title holders and kingmakers in the Ilorin emirate, the Balogun Fulani, Alhaji Durosinlorun Ayinla, who died last week, was a member.

He said pensioners, because of old age, nurse one ailment or the other and live on life-saving drugs, which have become so expensive in the market while the pensions are not paid.

He added that part or the whole of their monthly pay goes into the buying of drugs, depending on the type of ailment they are treating.

“Others who died in the last few weeks include assistant secretary of the union, Alhaji Agaka, who had been on drug for a long time. He just slumped and never recovered. He had hypertension.

Others are Elder Kolawole J. O. from Shao; Alhaji Ayinla Fate from Ilorin; Faseyi Moses from Obbo Ayegunle, chairman NUP in Offa Local Government, Pa A. B. Olasinde, Pa Oye Alawe from Obbo-Ile, J. K. Abolarin, J.J. Buraimoh from Omu-Aran, Peter Adebola, Micah Temidayo, Bola Aribalusi from Koro, Ekiti Local Government Area. He died two months ago,” he said.

The secretary of the NUP in the state, Comrade Ajibola, said that pensioners that retired in 1980 receive as low as N3,000, N4,000, and N8,000 monthly pension add that most pensioners in the state are in the age bracket of 60 and 75 years with various ailments to attend to.

He said those that retired in 1995 are badly hit, adding that pensioners in the state survive daily on the blessings of God.

“You will pity many of us when you see them. Some of us have turned to beggars, while others have become hangers-on to politicians who they follow about to survive. The state pensioners receive regular pension but same can not be said of teachers and local government pensioners who are the worst hit in the state. Only those who retire recently get monthly pension of about N100, 000 and above.

“Our legal case on payment of our pension and entitlement, started in 2008, is still at the Supreme Court. We have been sending death certificates of deceased members to the Supreme Court to buttress our argument of increasing death rate among us,” he said.

The pensioners, who called on the state government to pay the N1.68 billion owed them as pension and gratuity, said the payment would avert untimely death in their midst.

They also want the state government to implement every five years, review of pension as provided in the constitution.

We are not owing pensions —Kwara govt

Meanwhile, the Kwara State government has said that it is not owing pensions, stressing that it is up to date with payment of salaries and entitlements to state workers and retirees.

Speaking to Saturday Tribune in Ilorin, the Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Communication, Dr. Muideen Akorede, said the clarification became important in view of claims in some quarters suggesting that some pensioners in the state had died since April 2015 as a result of unpaid pension allowances.

The state government emphasised that local councils are responsible for the payment of allowances to the Local Government retirees and not state government.

“Local government councils in the state, which receive separate allocations from the Federal Government, are responsible for their pensions and have varying degrees of staff and pension arrears,” he said.

He also said that the councils had been unable to pay their workers and retirees regularly for the past few months due to the sustained drop in federal allocations accruing to them.

According to the government, the nonpayment of salaries and pension is not peculiar to local government councils in the state as most local governments are facing similar challenges which are reflective of the current financial situation in the country.

The government, however, noted that the State governor, Alhaji Abdulfatah Ahmed is working with local governments chairmen to resolve the salary and pension crisis at the local governments level,  including the recent release of N162m to augment allocation for the payment of July salaries, adding that the government was considering other  strategies to assist them within its available resources.

The government, therefore, called on pensioners and labour unions as well as the opposition to be considerate and show understanding.

Naira falls to 412/dollar

The naira was quoted at an all-time low of 412 per dollar on the parallel market on Friday as a dollar shortage persists, traders said.

Traders told Reuters that some bureaux de change operators had been finding it difficult to access their forex account and get dollar supply after the central bank suspended nine commercial lenders from the market, putting further pressure on the local currency.

On Thursday the naira closed at 409 per dollar on the parallel market. On the interbank market it traded at 315 compared with 305 the precious day.

Source:Tribune