Headline

Buhari To Launch Nigeria’s $100bn SDG Financing Framework

Published

3 years ago

September 19, 2022

President Muhammadu Buhari will on Friday, launch Nigeria’s Integrated National Financing Framework for Sustainable Development on the margins of the 77th session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, the United States.

This comes two years after Nigeria officially kicked off the design process as an INFF pioneer country in 2020, having committed to being a champion of INFF.

“For Nigeria, the INFF is also expected to help in the recovery from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as help address the lack of an integrated approach to financing SDGs, which has been a key challenge to meeting the financing requirement, estimated at $100bn over the next 10 years,” a statement signed by the President’s spokesman, Femi Adesina, read on Monday.

The statement entitled ‘President Buhari to launch Nigeria’s Integrated National Financing Framework for Sustainable Development in New York,’ read in part:

“Proposed within the broader Addis Ababa Action Agenda, the Integrated National Financing Framework is a planning and delivery tool to finance sustainable development at the national level.

“The INFF helps policymakers lay out a strategy to increase investments for sustainable development, manage financial and non-financial risks, and ultimately achieve sustainable development priorities. While a country’s national development plan spells out what needs to be financed, the INFF shows how it will be financed and implemented.

“The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development presents an ambitious, complex and interconnected vision that countries around the world have committed to working towards. Realizing this vision will require mobilization of a diverse range of public and private resources.”

Adesina also described the INFF as a tool to help countries strengthen planning processes and overcome existing impediments to financing sustainable development at the national level.

It would also help governments and their partners to build more integrated approaches to financing, that strengthen the alignment between public and private investments and longer-term sustainable development objectives and build greater coherence across the governance of public and private financing policies.

Expected at the launch are some Heads of Government, the Deputy Secretary General of the United Nations, Amina Mohammed and representatives from countries and international Organisations.

When Nigeria officially kicked off the design process as an INFF pioneer country in 2020, it set up the INFF Steering Committee chaired by the Ministry of Finance, Budget and National Planning.

The committee also included the Minister of State, Budget and National Planning, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, the Executive Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, the Chairman of the Nigeria Governors Forum, the Director General of the Budget Office of the Federation, the Director General of the Debt Management Office, and the Statistician-General of the National Bureau of Statistics.

Others are the Senior Special Assistant to the President on SDGs, the UN Resident Coordinator, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme, the Head of Development Cooperation of the European Union mission, the Resident Representative of the International Monetary Fund, the Country Director for the World Bank, and the Co-Chair of the Private Sector Advisory Group.

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Headline

Court Jails Two For Targeting President With Sorcery

Published

7 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

A Zambian court on Monday sentenced two men to two years in prison with hard labour on charges of attempting to use witchcraft to kill the country’s president.

Mozambican national Jasten Mabulesse Candunde and Zambian village chief Leonard Phiri were arrested in December in possession of charms, including a live chameleon.

Police said they planned to use the charms to harm President Hakainde Hichilema, and they were charged with professing knowledge of witchcraft and possession of charms.

“The motive of the crime was to kill the head of state,” magistrate Fine Mayambu ruled in the capital Lusaka on Monday.

“The convicts were not only enemies of the head of state but all Zambians. I therefore sentence them to 24 months imprisonment with hard labour from the date of their arrest,” he said.

The prosecution said the men had been hired by the brother of opposition MP Emmanuel “Jay Jay” Banda, who is facing trial for robbery, attempted murder and escaping custody.

Headline

Two Nigerians Face Jail Terms In Liberia’s Piracy Trial

Published

7 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

Criminal Court ‘D’ in Monrovia is set to deliver judgment this week in Liberia’s first piracy trial, involving two Nigerian nationals accused of hijacking a cargo vessel in the Gulf of Guinea.

According to court records, the defendants were arrested earlier this year after a Liberia-flagged ship was seized by armed men while transporting goods through international waters. The crew sent a distress signal, prompting international maritime forces to intervene.

The suspects were subsequently transferred to Liberian authorities under global maritime cooperation protocols.

According to Liberia’s news platform, Front Page Africa, the case has attracted attention because Liberia maintains one of the world’s largest open ship registries, yet prosecutions for piracy within its domestic courts have not previously occurred. Under international law, Liberia holds jurisdiction over crimes involving ships registered under its flag.

On Monday, proceedings took a new turn when defense lawyer, Cllr. Bestman Juah, informed the court that the defendants had admitted responsibility for the hijacking and were requesting a plea-bargain arrangement. State prosecutors did not oppose the request, leaving open the possibility of reduced sentences in exchange for full cooperation.

Resident Judge Mameita Jabateh-Sirleaf, who presides over Criminal Court ‘D’, will rule on whether to accept the plea deal and determine the sentencing framework. The ruling could also address deportation measures following imprisonment.

Criminal Court ‘D’ handles cases involving armed robbery, terrorism, hijacking, and other serious crimes, and the piracy trial represents a growing trend of transnational offenses being prosecuted within Liberia’s judicial system.
As of press time, the court has not announced the date for sentencing.

Headline

Spain Cancels $825m Israel Arms Deal Over Gaza

Published

7 hours ago

September 15, 2025

Editor

The Spanish government has cancelled a contract worth nearly 700 million euros ($825 million) for Israeli-designed rocket launchers.

The move comes after Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced last week that his government would “consolidate in law” a ban on military equipment sales or purchases with Israel over its offensive in Gaza.

The contract, awarded to a consortium of Spanish companies, involved the purchase of 12 SILAM rocket launcher systems derived from the PULS platform made by Israeli firm Elbit Systems, according to the International Institute for Strategic Studies’ Military Balance.

First reported by local media and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the cancellation was formalised on Spain’s official public contracts platform on September 9.

The following day, Sanchez unveiled measures aimed at stopping what his leftist government called “the genocide in Gaza”.

It includes the approval of a decree imposing a ban on military equipment sales or purchases with Israel due to its military offensive in Gaza, launched after the Hamas attacks in October 2023.

Spain applied the ban as Israel stepped up its military onslaught.

Spain has also formalized the cancellation of another contract for 168 anti-tank missile launchers, which were to be manufactured under license from an Israeli company.

That contract, valued at 287 million euros, had been first reported by the press in June.

According to Spanish daily La Vanguardia, the government is undertaking a broader review to phase out Israeli weapons and technology from its armed forces.

Sanchez has emerged as one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Gaza policy.

Relations between the two countries have been tense for months.

Israel has not had an ambassador in Spain since Madrid recognized the state of Palestine in 2024.

Last week, Spain recalled its ambassador to Israel after heated exchanges over Sánchez’s new measures.

The Barcelona-based Delas Centre, a security research institute, estimated in April that since the start of the Gaza war, Spain had awarded 46 contracts worth $1.044 billion to Israeli companies, based on public tender data.