The Newspaper headlines for Monday, April 3, have focused on the battle between the Senate and Presidency, a former Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Ishaya Bamaiyi (retd.) pushing blames on military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd.), for the indiscipline in the armed forces, amongst other top stories.
According to a report on Vanguard, the face-off between the Senate and the Presidency is set to escalate upon the Senate’s rebuff of the plea by Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, to defer the summons to the Comptroller-General of Customs, Col. Hameed Ali (retd).
Newspaper Headlines
It was gathered that Clerk of the Senate, Nelson Ayewoh, has been instructed to write Malami to formally reject his claim that the Senate cannot summon Ali, upon the claim that he has gone to court to stop the Senate from compelling him to appear in uniform before it.
A top level source in the Senate said the decision to rebuff Malami was upon the claim that it would set negative consequences that could in the future open the Senate to injunctions that could stop it from performing its constitutional duties.
READ ALSO: Femi Adesina reacts to Jibrin’s call for Buhari to step down
Moving on, the Presidency has said that nothing will stop President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration’s war against corruption, The Nation reports.
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According to the presidency, not even the strong resistance being put up by the opposition and its calculated actions to thwart the efforts at sanitizing the system would force the government to give up on the crusade.
This was disclosed in a statement by the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, reports.
Newspaper Headlines
The Presidency recalled that Nigerians gave their votes in 2015 to Buhari because of his commitment to rooting out corruption as one of the cardinal policies of his election campaign.
However, the presidential spokesman also admitted that so far, the battle to uproot corruption has not been easy as corruption has been fighting back.
READ ALSO: BREAKING: President Buhari meets Dogara, Saraki in Aso Rock
In other news, a
Bamaiyi, in his new book, Vindication of a General, said a former Head of State, Gen. Yakubu Gowon (retd.), was the first Nigerian leader to encounter the problem of indiscipline in the armed forces.
He said that Gowon, however made efforts to restore discipline in the armed forces, The Punch reports.
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“The efforts were successful until 1985, when General Babangida overthrew General Buhari and declared himself President,” Bamaiyi stated.
Meanwhile, ZENITHBLOG.com has gathered that local airlines are weighed down by a yearly wage bill of N39.2 billion for expatriate pilots and engineers.
Some of these domestic carriers which are already in distress parade no fewer than 682 foreign pilots with cumulative wage bill in excess of N3.27billion a month. Foreign maintenance engineers are also in the excess of 300 across the board.
Figures from the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) show a total of 2,269 active licensed pilots of who 1,646 are Nigerians, The Guardian reports.
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Non-Nigerian pilots are 623, while there are at least another 59 pilots with certificates of validation, though not licensed by Nigeria as at March 27, 2017.
The situation encourages capital flight. The expatriate wage bill of N3.27billion is enough to pay a total of 1,646 active licensed Nigerian pilots. Put to different use, the expatriate wage bill of N39.2billion per year can offset the airlines’ outstanding liabilities to regulatory agencies in the last six years and still keep them afloat.
Catch these stories and many more on the pages of your favourite newspapers today, April 3.
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