German Multinational Injects N7bn into Nigerian Economy

Gboyega Akinsanmi

German multinational, Beiersdorf Global, has said that it has invested N7 billion in the domestic economy of Nigeria in the last 18 months despite heinous economic crisis and intractable security challenges the country has been contending with recently.

Also, the global skin-care giant has disclosed that over 150 jobs have directly been created while more than 1,000 indirect jobs had been created indirectly with the injection of N7 billion into the Nigerian economy.

An Executive Board member for Americas, Russia, India, Middle East & Africa, Mr. Stefan De Loecker, disclosed this at the unveiling of the firm’s Nigerian office and production centre in Alausa, Lagos recently.

De Loecker unveiled the company’s Nigerian office alongside Country Manager of Beiersdorf Nigeria, Mr. Godwin Harrison, and Executive Secretary of Nigerian Investment Promotion Commission, Ms. Yewande Sadiku, among others.
After the inauguration, De Loecker disclosed that Beiersdorf “has invested N7 billion in Nigeria. We have also created over 150 direct employment placements. We are going to create more jobs in the future”.

The board member explained that the fund was basically invested in setting up a subsidiary of Beiersdorf Global in Alausa, Ikeja and constructing its production centre in Matori, Mushin.

He said Beiersdorf “has set its production centre in Nigeria already. The production site is ready. We have done test-running. Currently, we are importing our products. But by September, we will start production”.

“Beiersdorf Global has been in Nigeria for over 50 years as a brand. But we believe that the best way to serve our consumers is really to be in Nigeria. The market size of Nigeria is huge.

“Nigeria will become 14th largest market in the world by 2050. What we do now is commercialise the international range of Nigeria here in Nigeria. We can look at the right range or the right format. We can assure Nigeria of good quality,” the board member explained.

At the inauguration, Harrison said he was excited about the prospect the future holds for Beiersdorf Nigeria, thereby promising to delight its teeming customers with strong brand and product innovation.

The country manager said the investment emphasised how important the Nigerian market “is for Beiersdorf. The government has continuously supported us as part of the industrialisation initiative, and today we will like to express our gratitude to all those responsible”.

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Mr president's "Buhari" Absence in weekly FEC meeting attracts lots of questions - Osinbajo says

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo

• FG says president not ill, he’s attending to other issues
• Assures Nigerians meningitis outbreak under control
•  Directors nominated for CBN board

Omololu Ogunmade in Abuja

President Muhammadu Buhari’s conspicuous absence from Wednesday’s weekly Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, caused a stir, reawakening speculations about his health and capacity to run the country.

Owing to the president’s absence, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo presided over the meeting.

Expectedly, his absence led to speculations among Nigerians, as many were of the view that the president, whose health has been fragile in recent months, may have suffered a relapse and had possibly been flown abroad for treatment.

But the Minister of Information, Mr. Lai Mohammed, while briefing State House correspondents at the end of the meeting, debunked such assumptions, explaining that the council was aware of the controversies generated by the president’s absence.

He dismissed the notion of a resurgence of the president’s illness, stressing that the president was neither ill, nor had he embarked on any trip outside the country.

According to him, the president only looked at the meeting’s agenda and opted to yield the floor to the vice-president to enable him attend to other issues.

Buttressing this, Mohammed said Buhari would be back on Thursday, arguing that the president’s absence for only one day did not imply that anything had gone wrong.

“Clearly, when we came in this morning, Mr. President was not in the chamber and the vice-president presided over the meeting.

“That has sparked a lot of controversies and agitation among the people. Mr. President is in town. Mr. President is attending to other issues.
“He looked at the light agenda and decided that the vice-president should preside. Mr. President is not ill. He’s not sick.

“It is not unusual for the president to ask the VP to preside. We know it is not unusual the interest that has been shown, given the fact that the president was away for awhile for treatment.
“So we are not surprised that people may be wondering, is he ill again? Tomorrow morning, he will be back in the office.

“It is not unusual, even if the president is hale and hearty, for the VP to preside over a council meeting even when the president is around,” Mohammed said.

Despite his absence, the president on Wednesday announced the appointments of five Non-Executive Directors for Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in accordance with Sections 6(1)(d) and 10(1) and (2) of the CBN (Establishment) Act.
A statement by the president’s chief spokesman, Mr. Femi Adesina, said Buhari had forwarded the list of the nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

The nominees are: Professor Ummu Ahmed Jalingo (North-east); Professor Justitia Odinakachukwu Nnabuko (South-east); Professor Mike I. Obadan (South-south); Dr. Abdu Abubakar (North-west) and Adeola Adetunji (South-west).

Also briefing journalists on Wednesday on the status of the meningitis outbreak ravaging some parts of the country, the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, said the disease was under control, adding that 420,000 victims of the disease had been vaccinated so far.

Ehanire, who said Zamfara State was the worst hit of all the 16 affected states accounting for 70 per cent of the victims of the disease, further disclosed that the Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole, visited the state on Monday and met with traditional rulers on how to jointly contain the disease.

He also disclosed that an additional 823,000 vaccines approved by the World Health Organisation (WHO), with a 10-year protection life span, would arrive the country from the United Kingdom at the weekend, adding that the vaccines would be moved to Sokoto.

He also disclosed that there are currently 4,637 cases of the disease, with 489 fatalities recorded and 207 confirmed through laboratory tests.

Ehanire added that the vaccines with the 10-year life span were of greater quality than the ones used in the past, which he said had a protective life span of two or three years.

In his briefing, the Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Jubril, said FEC approved a memo by the Ministry of Environment for the ratification of a convention on mercury which he said had been affecting the health of the people and causing illnesses such as respiratory diseases.

He also said mercury affects pregnant women and unborn children.
He said the memo was the offshoot of a meeting of 2,013 international organisations held in Japan comprising 40 countries, 18 of which were African nations.

He said with the approval of the memo by FEC on Wednesday, Nigeria was ready to join the international community.
The minister also said the roadmap on the clean-up of Ogoniland was being drawn up.

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Janet Jackson Steps Out With Her Son For The First Time [Photos]

Janet Jackson, 50, who recently split from her husband, Wissam Al Mana[/img], stepped out for the first time with her son, [b]Eissa Al Mana. The singer was seen strolling with her 3 months old son in a pram in a London park on Wednesday with a female companion. Her son's face still hasn't been shown to the world yet.

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Nigeria is punished by God - Zamfara state Governor

Governor Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State and Chairman, Nigeria Governors Forum

In a series of letters from African journalists, novelist and writer Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani looks at whether a culture of blaming everything on destiny is holding Nigeria back

The recent meningitis outbreak, which has so far claimed more than 450 lives in Nigeria’s north, may have exposed one of the reasons why that region of the country continues to have some of the grimmest statistics in almost every area of development.

Even before the Boko Haram militant Islamist insurgency, there were alarmingly high figures on infant and maternal mortality, poverty, child marriage, children out-of-school, to mention but a few.

The region is also one of the few in the world that is yet to be certified free of polio, the infectious disease that often cripples children.

When it comes to the meningitis outbreak, Zamfara State has suffered the most deaths and hospitalisations out of all those affected.

One official has said that people need to “repent and everything will be all right”.
While addressing journalists recently, state governor Abdulaziz Yari absolved his administration of any responsibility for the disease’s spread in his state. Instead, he said the problem was that people have been sinning against God.

“People have turned away from God… that is just the cause of this outbreak as far as I am concerned,” Mr. Yari said.

“There is no way fornication will be so rampant and God will not send a disease that cannot be cured.”
In accordance with his belief about the health emergency’s origin, Mr. Yari proffered a solution which has nothing to do with any action or inaction on the part of his government.

“It is impossible to cultivate a spirit of innovation and transformation when people believe themselves helpless about their plight.

“The most important thing is for our people to know that their relationship with God is not smooth,” he said.
“All they need to do is repent and everything will be all right.”

These comments have drawn criticism from many Nigerians, notably from Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, the Emir of Kano, who is one of the country’s most important Muslim leaders.

But Mr. Yari merely amplified an attitude that is not uncommon in the country.

In the 2011 post-election violence that broke out in parts of northern Nigeria, nine recent university graduates assigned to work with the electoral commission in Bauchi State were killed.

Isa Yuguda, the state governor at the time, ascribed the young people’s deaths to a higher force.
“They were destined to experience what they experienced,” he said.
“Nobody can run away from their destiny.”

He added that human beings should always accept their destiny, whether or not it was “in our favour or against our interest”.

Thus, Mr. Yuguda implied that there was nothing his administration could have done to protect the young lives from their ghastly fate.

He was not to blame.
In January, I met a 21-year-old woman in Maiduguri, north-east Nigeria, one of the millions of people displaced from their homes by Boko Haram.

While living in a camp for displaced people, she was befriended by a man who works with the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), a group that was formed to help oust Boko Haram.

One night two years ago, he locked her up in his official vehicle, muffled her screams and raped her.

A few weeks later, she discovered that she was pregnant. Her family, his family and the local CJTF boss intervened.
They decided that the victim would marry her rapist. That was the best way to save her from the shame of being a single mother, they believed.

She told me that she did not imagine any better alternative herself and so willingly went along with their decision.

Thus, she became the third wife to a man who was paid by the government to protect her and other refugees; a man who raped her and fathered her first child in the official vehicle he had been provided to carry out his job of protecting her and other vulnerable people.

I was keen to know what her husband felt about what he had done to her, how he had so brutishly altered the course of the woman’s life forever.

“He told me that is the way Allah wants it,” she replied. “He said that is my destiny.”
This attitude of attributing life circumstances to forces beyond people’s control is antithetical to progress and development.

It is impossible to cultivate a spirit of innovation and transformation when people believe themselves helpless about their plight.

Some northern Nigeria leaders are, thankfully, starting to speak out against such regressive beliefs.
The Emir of Kano described Mr. Yari’s comments as “Islamically incorrect”.

“When we talk about a difficult environment, we realise that 90 per cent of that difficulty, we can address, because it is self-inflicted,” the Emir said

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