The first ladies and the last man (3)

Many countries flare gas because of lack of access to these markets, combined with the small volumes of gas produced at individual oil sites. The situation is further complicated by low domestic gas prices in most of the top flaring countries.

The value of flared gas, when priced at domestic prices in Russia or the US for example, is often less than a quarter of what the gas could command on Europe or Asia markets.

Belova said: “Reducing global gas flaring will require a multi-prong approach due to unique regional drivers that prioritize flaring over monetization of gas. Small-scale modular technologies, aimed at converting gas into liquids or chemicals, represent a logical choice for remote and distributed flaring sites.”

Read Also: Nigeria loses $1bn to gas flaring

At a meeting hosted by KPMG in Durban, South Africa the late charismatic Nelson Mandela who was no longer the President of South Africa beamed his gaze on the old boys of King’s College and St. Gregory’s College and proceeded to deliver the following message:

“If this meeting has been useful, I am glad. But it will be more useful to me if you go back to Nigeria and work to give young Nigerians a good education. Teach them to value hard work and sacrifice, and discourage them from crimes which are destroying your image as a good people. Then you have to spend a lot of your resources on education.

Educate the children of the poor, so they can get out of poverty. Poverty does not breed confidence. Only confident people can bring changes. The black people of the world need Nigeria to be great as a source of pride and confidence. Nigerians love freedom and hate oppression. Why do you do it (keep shafting yourselves)?”

By way of digression, the women accountants who are married to old boys of St. Gregory’s College deserve a medal for their sense of humour. They have adopted the “The Nation” newspaper of October2, 2021 as a collector’s item. On its front page, it carried the following headline:

“Why I dumped my accountant husband, got pregnant for jobless graduate” (Says he is crap in bed; I had no choice but to look outside).

In the inside pages the sizzling story is given plenty of space to accommodate the anguish of the dejected husband, the triumph of the elated lover, and the fury of the unrepentant wife.

Having regained its poise, the focus group of ladies proceeded to remind me:

“What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803 to 1882)

What followed was a trenchant complaint via WhatsApp by one of their members who had quit accountancy to venture into farming. Along with the distress call was the front page headline of “Daily Trust” newspaper of September 25, 2021. “Bandits impose tax on Katsina farmers”

· Gunmen demand labour and fertiliser for own farms

· Food crisis may worsen as resident desert farms.

(i) The worsening security situation in northwestern Nigeria has since assumed alarming proportions. Bandits are still on killing spree, maiming or abducting people in broad daylight, forcing many to flee the rural areas and rustling their animals. Farmers in some of the areas are also compelled to pay taxes to access their farms. Some say by this, the bandits seem to be running a parallel government in some areas. An investigation by Daily Trust in Danmusa, Batsari, Dandume and Dutsin-Ma local government areas in Katsina State revealed that people in villages close to forests are either forced to pay taxes to the bandits not to be harmed and to access their farms or work on the bandits’ farms and serve as their informants.

(ii) Despite taxing us, we are not spared from their atrocities; they would always come to your farm and seize your phone, money or motorbike, even shoes – anything valuable. For nearly three weeks, I could not go to my farm out of fear of the unknown.”

In a country where many are literarily voting with their feet, “The Guardian” newspaper delivered a bombshell with its front page report on September 25, 2021.

Headline: “Why we have not removed dead persons from voter register by INEC”

The Independent National Electoral Commission has linked its inability to expunge dead Nigerians from the nation’s voter registration to the absence of adequate data of dead people.

INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu stated this when he received chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Kwarra, at the headquarters of the commission in Abuja on Friday.

Currently, 84,004,084 Nigerians are registered to vote but there are fears that the INEC register is grossly inaccurate due to the failure of the commission to remove dead persons from it.

INEC and the NPC had in 2018 signed a Memorandum of Understanding that would see the NPC providing information of dead voters to the electoral umpire but not much has been achieved.

Yakubu explained that the commission had been conducting a periodical cleaning of the voter register by removing ineligible persons or multiple registrants from it using a combination of technology.

He, however, regretted that technology cannot assist the commission to identify and remove dead persons from the record.

He maintained that although INEC has the largest biometric register of citizens in Nigeria complete with photographs and fingerprint information for voter authentication, there is a need to further enhance the credibility of the voter register.

The INEC boss, therefore, called on the NPC to periodically avail the electrical umpire data of deceased Nigerians for a proper clean-up of the register.

“Perhaps you may wish to start by availing us with the list of prominent Nigerians who have passed on, civil and public servants compiled from the official records of Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies and other Nigerians from hospital and funeral records across the country,” Yakubu told Kwara.

“We appreciate that this is a herculean task but that is partly why we have a NPC. We are confident that NPC has the capacity to do so. This information is critical for INEC to enhance the credibility of the National Register of Voters,” Yakubu said.

Curiously, old boys of St. Gregory’s College love dogs. However, their wives are not so keen on keeping dogs as pets. Beware. Hence, they have sent out a huge warning courtesy of the front page of “The Punch” newspaper of September 25, 2021.