President Muhammadu Buhari Friday held a video conference with Mr Charles Michel, President of the European Council, during which the latter reiterated Europe’s support for Nigeria’s Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as the next Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

The President is leading Nigeria’s charge for Okonjo-Iweala, the country’s former Minister of Finance, to emerge as the first Black and female WTO DG.

President Buhari thanked the European Council for its support for Nigeria’s candidate.

Also discussed during the conference were issues bordering on debt relief for Africa, EU-African relations and recharge of the Lake Chad, which has currently shrunk to less than one-third of its usual size, and throwing about 130 million people who depend on the Lake into dire straits.

Recharge of the Lake Chad is an issue the Nigerian President had vigorously canvassed at diverse global fora in recent time.

President Buhari expressed appreciation to Mr Michel for expected positive developments on the issues.

Femi Adesina
Special Adviser to the President
(Media & Publicity)
October 30, 2020

The African Development Bank (https://www.AfDB.org/) has designated representatives from 80 government institutions, civil society organizations and universities for training as experts in developing climate financing proposals.

The trainees will pass on their knowledge to potential beneficiaries of the Green Climate Fund, a $10 billion endowment set up in 2010 to help countries implement their climate agenda through loans, equity, guarantees and grants.

The 120-hour training program is managed by the Climate Change and Green Growth Department of the African Development Bank, with funding from the Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation Trust Fund.

The scheme builds on ongoing work by the African Development Bank, the Green Climate Fund and other partners to support the Bank’s regional member countries to directly access Green Climate Fund resources.

“The Green Climate Fund is expected to be a major source of climate finance for the African continent. Accessing finance from the Fund is challenging because of the complexities of designing climate change projects to fulfill the funding criteria. This training will boost capacity amongst African nationally determined authorities, governments and consultants by training trainers to run future training courses,” said Gareth Phillips, Manager of the Environment and Climate Finance Division in the Department of Climate Change and Green Growth at the African Development Bank.

COVID-19 has resulted in the training shifting from in-person to online. This has the advantages of making it less costly to run and more carbon efficient.

The project’s theory of change is based on three main components, which complement ongoing work by the Bank to enhance the capacities of several African countries to access Green Climate Fund resources through small grants from the Africa Climate Change Fund (http://bit.ly/34JgdzF). These components include: developing training materials and an online platform to support direct access to the Green Climate Fund, training a pool of experts and certifying them to support African governments and institutions, and facilitating south-south learning.

Following a thorough independent selection process, 80 participants were chosen, with approximately 40 from English-speaking countries and 40 from French and Portuguese-speaking countries.

The broad hole left on the double-layer wall of the central studio of the Television Continental (TVC) told the extent of the wreck inflicted on the station.

No thanks to the arsonists who invaded the TV station located in Ikosi area of Lagos State last week, in the wake of the violence instigated by the youth demonstration against police brutality.

Transmission gadgets, state-of-the-art studios, production rooms and operational vehicles, all gone up in flames by the time the hoodlums left the station’s premises.

Lagos State Governor, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, on Thursday, visited the management and staff of the TV station to console them over the incident.

TVC’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Andrew Hanlon, led top management staff of the media organisation to receive Sanwo-Olu and his team, among which included the Deputy Governor, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat, Deputy Chief of Staff, Mr. Gboyega Soyannwo, and Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Gbenga Omotoso.

Hanlon took the Governor round the main auditorium, which was the hub of the TV station’s operation. It was completely razed.

The auditorium housed three main studios, three control rooms, three master control rooms and central transmission laboratory said to have been equipped with the modern communication gadgets worth millions of dollars.

All left in the building were charred materials.

The TV station boss told Sanwo-Olu that more than 250 production staff working in the razed building had been out of work since the incident happened. He added that over 500 direct employees of the station had been struggling to work in temporary accommodation put up by the company.

Hanlon said: “After the rioters invaded our premises and set the place on fire, some buildings in the premises survived. But the main transmission building is completely destroyed and it was the hub of our operations. The rioters cast fear and terror in the hearts of our employees when they broke in last week’s Wednesday morning.

“People’s hard work and huge investment that went down into the TV station were destroyed in a period of about an hour. The incident was really traumatising for all of us. The rioters left immense devastation. The entire interior of the building was destroyed. This is all that is left of our bubbling building, which was a centrepiece. Thankfully, no member of staff died in the incident.”

Hanlon said the immediate priority before the management of the TV station was to ensure that all direct employees were looked after, stressing that the means of livelihood of thousands of indirect workers attached to the brand had been threatened.

He said efforts were being taken to return TVC back to its full operations, promising that the station would bounce back stronger than it was.

The Governor was also shown a wreck of burnt vehicles belonging to the station and employees.