Headline

Restructuring: It’s Impossible To Stay As one if There’s Injustice – Saraki

Published

4 years ago

October 4, 2021

Former Senate President, Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki has aired his opinion on the lingering issues concerning restructuring of Nigeria.

Many Nigerians, groups and individuals believe that the country must be restructured to bring about equity and justice to all its regions, with some people even insisting that this is the only way Nigeria can still stay together as a unit.

But fielding questions during an Independence Day luncheon in commemoration of Nigeria’s 61st Independence anniversary, held in Abuja at the weekend, Saraki, who is also a former Governor of Kwara State, advised Nigerians to rather seek to be better governed.

According to him, those in government need to ensure that there is development in all parts of the country, insisting that people would not be happy staying together in a country where only one part is being developed.

He said in such circumstances, it was impossible to believe that the country would remain as one in peace.

The former Senate President said that in restructuring, Nigerians should be looking at what they are getting out of the government, adding that it is the failure of government to deliver the expectations of the masses that has led to the agitations for restructuring.

“I think that the government not being able to deliver to the people as regards what their values and expectations are, has made us start looking inward to see that there is something wrong structurally… That’s why you hear people talk about maybe we should give more powers to the states; more powers to the regions.

“My view is that we must ensure that we provide the most viable ways to govern at all levels. This includes making our state more viable…,” Saraki said.

“We are saying this because we have seen a failure at the center. I think we need to address what is wrong with our country. The major issue has to do with the opportunity for all of us. I call it the democratization of opportunity.

“Today a lot of people do not have a sense of belonging. They do not believe that the opportunities are fair to all. We need to go back to that. We must have an environment that enables all of us to believe that we have a fair chance of getting to where we want to get to and in doing that we have to be sure that some of us do not believe that we are being held back.”

Speaking further, the former leader of the National Assembly said that states and local governments must begin to address what makes them viable, adding that this will help them generate their revenue.

“You only have internally generated revenue when there is activity. You cannot generate from zero activity. That is why we have the VAT problem. Because the places where there is commercial activity are limited,” he added.

“Some states believe it is their revenue that is being shared by other states …the fact is, we need to make every state viable. It is possible to make every state viable if you have policies that encourage a particular investment in different sectors…I believe it’s doable but we need to have the capacity to understand what the situation is.

“There was a bill we passed in the eight Senate on how to generate money through road authority. Trying to see if there were certain amounts being paid for road maintenance across the country but it didn’t see the light because of the issue we had at the eight senate.

“I’m told the same bill they are about to pass now. Six years have been wasted, if that bill was passed 6 years ago, the country would have been able to generate enough revenue through that and these are just examples we need to do.

“A lot of noise is being made about restructuring but I think we need to first see that we are governed better. There are things we need to do and we need to see that there is fairness and equity in how we are governed and how the resources of Nigeria are distributed.

“We also need to ensure that there is development in every part of the country. You can’t be seeing development in one part of the country and believe that we will stay as one, it is not possible. In some parts of the world, there are incentives to see investment in places where there is no investment.”

(DAILY POST)

Headline

Wildfire Engulfs Mountain Near Western Canada City

Published

7 hours ago

August 13, 2025

Editor

Nearly 20,000 residents of a community in western Canada were on standby on Wednesday as a wildfire engulfed a mountain overlooking the city of Port Alberni, the latest area threatened in the country’s second-worst fire season on record.

“I’ve lived in Port Alberni since 1956, and this is one of the biggest fires we’ve ever seen,” Russ Wetas, 69, told AFP as smoke from Mount Underwood filled the sky behind him.

The wildfire service in the west coast province of British Columbia has listed the Mount Underwood fire as “out of control,” meaning it is expected to spread further.

But it remained unclear if Port Alberni, roughly 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) north, will be evacuated.

On the opposite end of the vast country, in the easternmost province of Newfoundland and Labrador, parts of the capital, St. John’s, received evacuation orders on Tuesday, following several days of intensifying fire.

A wildfire was also burning on Wednesday on the outskirts of Halifax, a major city in the eastern province of Nova Scotia, with a population of nearly half a million.

This is already Canada’s second-worst wildfire season in terms of landmass burned, based on figures dating back to 1983.

So far, 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) have been scorched, an area nearly as large as Panama, putting 2025 past the 7.1 million hectare mark from 1995.

But this year is not expected to pass 2023, when 17.3 million hectares burned, an extraordinary toll that focused global attention on the growing threat of wildfires boosted by human-induced climate change.

Smoke from this year’s wildfires has put tens of millions of people under air quality alerts in both Canada and the United States. The haze has even crossed the Atlantic, affecting people in western Europe.

More than 700 wildfires were burning across Canada on Wednesday, including 161 considered out of control, with nearly every province and territory impacted.

Mount Underwood is on Vancouver Island, making the blaze there part of a worrying trend of increased wildfire activity near the coast.

Experts have said that historically, coastal areas did not burn, but more serious wildfires near the ocean are being recorded, even if they remain less intense than blazes further inland.

“This is a fire that hasn’t been seen on Vancouver Island,” John Jack, a First Nations chief and regional official, told the public broadcaster CBC.

Ted Hagard, who works at Port Alberni’s paper mill, told AFP he had been watching the fire’s progression on social media but needed to see it for himself.

It’s “insane how huge it is,” the 46-year-old said, standing on the shores of a lake adjacent to Mount Underwood.

Canada is experiencing a rise in conditions that are conducive to fires, experts say, linking the trend to climate change, which has caused elevated temperatures, reduced snow, shorter and milder winters, and earlier summer weather.

Headline

Zelensky Rules Out Swapping Territory, Calls For ‘Fair Peace’

Published

14 hours ago

August 13, 2025

Editor

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday that Ukraine and its allies must work together to pressure Russia into ending its invasion, ahead of talks in Berlin with European leaders and US President Donald Trump.

“Pressure must be exerted on Russia for the sake of a fair peace. We must learn from the experience of Ukraine and our partners to prevent deception on the part of Russia,” Zelensky wrote on social media.

“There are currently no signs that the Russians are preparing to end the war,” he added.

Zelensky is due in Berlin on Wednesday for talks with European leaders and Trump ahead of the US president’s summit with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin.

The Ukrainian leader said he and his team had held more than 30 conversations with world leaders and high-ranking officials ahead of the talks.

The flurry of diplomatic engagements have been overshadowed by rapid, but so far limited Russian push in the eastern Donetsk region, which the Kremlin claims is part of Russia.

A member of the Ukrainian delegation travelling with Zelensky to Berlin told AFP that the Russian gains around the mining hub of Dobropillia “did not influence” preparation for Wednesday’s talks.

Zelensky conceded one day earlier that Russian forces had advanced by up to 10 kilometres (six miles), but ruled out swapping territory with Moscow as part of any deal with Russia.

AFP

Headline

S’Africa Offers US New Trade Deal To Avoid 30% Tariff

Published

1 day ago

August 12, 2025

Editor

South Africa will offer a “generous” new trade deal to the United States to avoid 30 percent tariffs, ministers said Tuesday.

Washington on Friday slapped the huge tariff on some South African exports, the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, despite efforts by Pretoria to negotiate a better arrangement to avoid massive job losses.

The ministers did not release details of the new offer but said previously discussed measures to increase imports of US poultry, blueberries, and pork had been finalised.

“When the document is eventually made public, I think you would see it as a very broad, generous and ambitious offer to the United States on trade,” Agriculture Minister John Steenhuisen said at a press briefing.

Officials have said the 30 per cent tariff could cost the economy around 30,000 jobs.

“Our goal is to demonstrate that South African exports do not pose a threat to US industries and that our trade relationship is, in fact, complementary,” Trade Minister Parks Tau said.

The United States is South Africa’s third-largest trading partner after the European Union and China.

However, South African exports account for only 0.25 per cent of total US imports and are “therefore not a threat to US production”, Tau said.

Steenhuisen said US diplomats raised issues related to South African domestic policies, which was a “surprise given the fact we thought we were in a trade negotiation”.

The two nations are at odds over a range of policies.

US President Donald Trump has criticised land and employment laws meant to redress racial inequalities that linger 30 years after the end of apartheid.

“Things like expropriation without compensation, things like some of the race laws in the country, are issues that they regard as barriers now to doing trade with South Africa,” he told AFP on the sidelines of the briefing.

“I think we’re seeing some form of a new era now where trade and tariffs are being used to deal with other issues, outside of what would generally be trade concerns,” Steenhuisen said.