Nigeria has recorded 339 new cases of COVID-19, bringing to 7,016 the total number of confirmed cases in the country. It has also recorded 11 new COVID-19 related deaths, raising the figures from 200 to 211 in the last 24 hours.
Announcing this Thursday, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) said Lagos recorded 139 new cases, Kano and Oyo 28 each, Edo 25, Katsina 22, Kaduna 18, Jigawa 14, Yobe and Plateau 13 each, Federal Capital Territory (FCT) 11, Gombe eight, Ogun five, Bauchi and Nasarawa four each, Delta three, Ondo two, while Rivers and Adamawa one each. It said: “Nigeria has so far recorded 7,016 cases of COVID-19. 1907 persons have been discharged, while 211 have unfortunately lost their lives.”
The Federal government yesterday said that finding from the analysis of the 200 Covid-19 deaths recorded so far in the country shows that nearly half of them died at home. Health Minister, Dr Osagie Ehanire who disclosed this at the daily briefing by the Presidential Taskforce on COVID-19 noted that of those who died at home, about 50% did not show any symptom, underscoring the need for those who test positive to report for treatment. He urged those who have taken the test and are awaiting result to heed the advisory to self-isolate from friends, wear face masks and observe hand and respiratory hygiene until your result is releases stressing that by so doing, they will be protecting their family, friends and communities .
Ehanire observed that government is careful about our numbers to ensure that the figures being announced are accurate, adding that sometimes, “there are errors, but we correct them as soon as they are noticed. According to him, “We now have 26 laboratories spread in 17 states. This has increased our testing capacity. However, while our daily testing capacity is presently at 2,500, unfortunately, we are presently able to test less than 1,500. This is due largely to inadequate surveillance and contact tracing in the states. As more laboratories come on board, I would like to use this opportunity to call on state governments to increase the number of surveillance teams so that more testing can be done in the laboratories. We have developed new Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to track surveillance strategic directions and programmes”
Meanwhile, the UK announced it will invest £20 million (about N8.84 billion) in the African Union’s (AU) Anti-COVID-19 Fund to tackle the disease and save lives. By this singular move, the UK has expanded the endowment announced last month by Cyril Ramaphosa, chairperson of the union and president of South Africa. The donation would address recruitment of health experts, their deployments to areas of great need, strengthening global tracking of the pandemic, combatting potentially harmful misinformation as well as providing training for health workers and making useful information accessible to the public.
Announcing the grant yesterday, the International Development Secretary, Anne-Marie Trevelyan, said: “As the UK faces its biggest peacetime challenge in tackling coronavirus, it’s never been more important to work with our partners in Africa to fight the disease. No one is safe until we are all safe, and this new funding and support for African leadership will help protect us all – in the UK, Africa and around the world – from the further spread of the virus.”
In her remarks, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Catriona Laing, noted: “The truly global scale of the current crisis means that international cooperation and solidarity is more important than ever.
“This £20 million UK funding contribution to the African Union will provide important additional support to Nigeria and other countries across Africa, and is testament to the fact that the UK stands shoulder to shoulder with Nigeria in our collective challenge to defeat this terrible virus.”
The gesture followed calls by the Minister for Africa at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, James Duddridge; AU Commissioner for Trade and Industry, Albert Muchanga; and his Social Affairs counterpart, Amira El-Fadil, at several events they highlighted the risks Africa faces from the pandemic, and how UK was working with partners on the continent to tackle these shared global issues.
$9.8bn P&ID Debt: US court grants FG access to Hedge Fund documents
A United States court has granted the Nigerian government permission to request documents from VR Capital Group Limited, the part-owner of Process & Industrial Developments (P& ID) Limited, a company that received a $9.8 billion arbitration award the federal government is trying to overturn.
Bloomberg reported that the United States’ District Judge, Paul Engelmayer, ordered in New York that Nigeria could subpoena information from London-based hedge fund VR Capital, four subsidiaries and three of its directors. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) plans to use the data in its probe of British Virgin Islands-registered P& ID Limited and alleged corrupt government officials.
A Cayman Islands-registered unit of VR Capital acquired a 25 per cent interest in P&ID about two years ago and would have conducted due diligence on the firm that is “highly relevant” to the ongoing investigation, according to a court filing submitted by Nigeria’s Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami on May 12.
The successful court application is part of Nigeria’s efforts to show that a 2010 gas-supply contract with P&ID was a sham designed to fail by the company and government officials. Nigeria wants VR Capital to hand over documents concerning the company’s purchase of P&ID shares as well as the contract and arbitration proceedings, according to court filings. EFCC said its investigations showed that P&ID acknowledged destroying records “in or around January 2017” and VR Capital is “a logical source” for recovering such information, according to the filing by Malami.
VR Capital could still seek to quash the subpoena. Malami’s spokesman declined to comment. Questions sent to VR Capital by Bloomberg were referred to a spokesman for P&ID. Nigeria’s “efforts to seek information on a crime that never occurred from a party that was never involved with P&ID until years after the alleged events is prima facie evidence that it has no case at all,” London-based iNHouse Communications, representing P&ID, said by email.
“The claim that P&ID deliberately concealed documents by destroying them is totally false.”
VR Capital, which has offices in New York, London and Moscow, is an asset manager that focuses on distressed securities and “event-driven/special situations investments,” according to its website.
But Malami described the firm as a “vulture fund” in December in a statement to a UK court. P&ID has denied any wrongdoing, saying the Federal Government of Nigeria invented the allegations to evade its legal obligations. The dispute between the federal government and P&ID became a crisis for Africa’s biggest oil producer in August, when a UK judge ruled P&ID could enforce a 2017 arbitration tribunal’s decision that Nigeria breached the gas-supply contract. The resulting award now totals $9.8 billion including interest and is equivalent to about 30 per cent of the country’s foreign reserves.
An investigation by EFCC has already resulted in criminal charges in Nigeria and would form the basis of the government’s appeal against the ruling. The contract and arbitration award are P&ID’s “sole assets,” according to Nigeria’s filings to the District Court for the Southern District of New York. The company was supposed to build a gas-processing plant, while the government was to supply the raw material. “The only thing P&ID engineered was a fraudulent arbitration claim,” the federal government alleged.
