WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine tells critics of slow counteroffensive to 'shut up'

Ukraine told critics of the pace of its three-month-old counteroffensive to "shut up" on Thursday, the sharpest signal yet of Kyiv's frustration at leaks from Western officials who say its forces are advancing too slowly.

Since launching a much vaunted counteroffensive using many billions of dollars of Western military equipment, Ukraine has recaptured more than a dozen villages but has yet to penetrate Russia's main defences.

Stories in the New York Times, Washington Post and other news organisations last week quoted U.S. and other Western officials as suggesting the offensive was falling short of expectations. Some faulted Ukraine's strategy, including accusing it of concentrating its forces in the wrong places.

Moscow says the Ukrainian campaign has already failed. Ukrainian commanders say they are moving slowly on purpose, degrading Russia's defences and logistics to reduce losses when they finally attack at full strength.

"Criticising the slow pace of (the) counteroffensive equals ... spitting into the face of (the) Ukrainian soldier who sacrifices his life every day, moving forward and liberating one kilometre of Ukrainian soil after another," Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told reporters on Thursday.

"I would recommend all critics to shut up, come to Ukraine and try to liberate one square centimetre by themselves," he said at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Spain.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CNN that Ukrainian commanders deserved the benefit of the doubt.

"Ukrainians have exceeded expectations again and again," he said. "We need to trust them. We advise, we help, we support. But... it is the Ukrainians that have to make those decisions."

DEFENSIVE LINES

After months of fighting their way through heavy minefields, Ukraine's forces have finally reached the main Russian defensive lines in recent days, south of the village of Robotyne which they captured last week in Western Zaporizhzhia region.

They are now advancing between the nearby villages of Novopokropivka and Verbove, looking for a way around the anti-tank ditches and rows of concrete pyramids known as dragon's teeth that form Russia's main fortifications visible from space.

A breakthrough would provide the first test of Russia's deeper defences, which Ukraine hopes will be more vulnerable and less heavily mined than areas its troops have traversed so far.

A Ukrainian commander in the area told Reuters last week that his men had breached the most difficult line, reaching less heavily defended areas, and now expected to advance more quickly. Reuters could not independently verify this.

Kyiv rarely gives details of its offensive operations.

In a statement on Thursday, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar reported unspecified successes near Novopokropivka, without giving details.

She also said Ukrainian forces were advancing near Bakhmut, in the east, the only city Russia captured in its own offensive earlier this year. Heavy battles were engulfing villages south of the city, she said.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's ground forces, reported a "positive dynamic" near Bakhmut.

DRONE ATTACKS WITHIN RUSSIA

Ukraine has also stepped up drone attacks on targets deep within Russia and in Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

Russia's Defence Ministry said it had destroyed a new Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region in southern Russia.

It had earlier reported overnight drone attacks in Bryansk and said it had shot down a missile fired on Crimea, occupied and annexed by Russia in 2014.

The previous night, Moscow reported attempted Ukrainian drone strikes in six Russian regions, including one that caused a huge fire at a military air base in Pskov in northern Russia, damaging several giant military transport planes on the tarmac.

While Ukraine rarely comments directly on specific attacks inside Russia, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy appeared to boast of the Pskov attack twice on Thursday.

"The results of our weaponry -- new Ukrainian weaponry -- 700 km away," he said in his nightly video address. "And the task is to do more."

Ukraine's Western allies generally forbid Kyiv from using weapons they supply to attack Russian territory, but say Ukraine has a right to attacks military targets with its own weapons.

The assaults in recent weeks, including several on central Moscow over the past month, have brought the war home to many Russians for the first time after 18 months during which Russia has subjected Ukraine to countrywide air strikes.

Russia is also facing the aftermath of a mutiny two months ago by Wagner, a private army that had formed the main attack force of its own winter offensive earlier this year. Wagner's leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and his main lieutenants were killed in an air crash last week.

The Kremlin has denied that it was behind the crash. President Vladimir Putin had called Prigozhin's mutiny treason but had promised not to punish him for it.

On Thursday, Prigozhin's right-hand man, Dmitry Utkin, a neo-Nazi former military intelligence officer whose call-sign Wagner gave the mercenary force its name, was buried at a cemetery near Moscow under guard of Russian military police. Prigozhin was buried near St Petersburg on Tuesday.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukraine to get US Abrams tanks within weeks – Politico

The first shipment of US-made M1 Abrams battle tanks is set to arrive in Ukraine in a matter of weeks, a Pentagon official told Politico, noting that 10 of the 31 tanks promised to Kiev are currently in Germany to complete refurbishments.

With dozens of Ukrainian troops wrapping up training on the US tank, the first delivery is expected sometime in mid-September, according to an unnamed defense official and another source familiar with the discussions cited by the outlet on Thursday.

The official added that the ten M1 Abrams tanks are now in Germany for final repairs and renovations. The Ukrainian soldiers instructed on the weapon have also trained at multiple bases in Germany, where they will remain until the tanks are ready.

“The US is committed to expedite delivery of the 31 tanks to Ukraine by the fall,” US Army spokesman Col. Martin O’Donnell told Politico, adding that the Ukrainian troops would continue training at the US Army base in Grafenwoehr, Germany.

Though the Pentagon initially predicted a longer timetable of more than one year for the Abrams shipments, officials vowed to speed up the process last March, instead opting to send the tank’s older M1A1 variant in hopes of completing the first transfer by the fall of 2023. The M1A1 models required major refurbishments, however, with the Pentagon saying the procedure would cost over $400 million.

President Joe Biden initially said he would not authorize the Abrams for Ukraine, but his administration later reversed course, ultimately pledging to transfer 31 M1A1 models in order to convince Berlin to send its own Leopard battle tanks. Western states have since promised to provide around 300 battle tanks in total.

News of the mid-September deadline came soon after the White House approved its latest weapons package for Ukraine, valued at some $250 million. The new aid includes additional munitions for the HIMARS rocket system, AIM-9M air defense missiles, Javelin and other anti-tank weapons, as well as 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition. Officials have voiced hopes the arms will assist Ukraine’s lagging summer counteroffensive, which has struggled to reclaim land from Russian forces.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned US arms shipments to Kiev, insisting they will only prolong fighting and do little to deter its objectives. The Russian Embassy in the United States blasted this week’s transfer as “the height of hypocrisy,” declaring that  US officials “will not give up the concept of fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.”

** Ukrainian drones downed in Russia – governor

Three Ukrainian drones were downed on Thursday morning in Russia’s Bryansk Region, Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz has said. The Defense Ministry previously reported the interception of a single UAV in the region.

Bogomaz credited a member of the public with providing information about suspicious aircraft, which alerted the authorities and prompted a swift response by the National Guard and police.

Troops used “an anti-drone gun and a specialized carbine” to take down the UAVs, Bogomaz said. No casualties were reported.

According to Russian media, the aircraft were likely kamikaze versions of the UJ-22 Airborne model, which is produced by Ukrainian firm Ukrjet for the nation’s military.

One of the robotic planes reportedly crashed at the location of a hotel owned by the regional government.

Footage circulating online and purportedly filmed on Thursday morning shows a small aircraft flying at low altitude, as the cameraman comments that it is the third one to pass by.

Bryansk, which borders northern Ukraine, was among the Russian regions to be targeted in a large-scale Ukrainian drone raid on Wednesday.

On the same day, Russian troops engaged a Ukrainian saboteur squad in the region, killing two military service members and capturing five alive, the Federal Security Service (FSB) revealed on Thursday.

Reuters/RT

Abuja is not in a hurry to change. However, in a city famous for its bad habits fostered by wayward politicians, I think the dial may have moved a bit in the right direction. It’s hard to say if this slight movement has been fortuitous, or whether it had anything to do with the threat of the new minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, to tackle lawbreakers with an iron hand.

I have noticed that one week after Wike’s swearing in, more traffic lights in and around the Central Business District began to work. More than I can remember at any other time in the last two years at least. I got so used to seeing dead and malfunctioning traffic lights, I began plotting my commutes around these mostly dead or dying instruments, even if it sometimes meant using longer routes. 

After my car was bashed once at an intersection where the traffic light had failed and the warden was absent, I learnt to skirt around the lights to save myself from Abuja’s suicidal drivers. Even in the few places where the lights work, it would be foolish to move without first looking left and right, and left again. For the sane few the restoration of more traffic lights is a welcome relief. 

However, in a city nearly overwhelmed with filth, dead street lights, bad roads, occasional deadly police brutality and rising crime – not to mention well-connected land speculators and violators of the masterplan – it seems like trivia to talk about traffic lights back in service. 

Yet, it is, in fact, because of the festering decay and spectacular all-round collapse of the city that a small matter such as the restoration of a number of traffic lights has become even more noticeable. 

Not that Abuja’s numerous drivers from hell care, light or no light. They will not stop at a road sign even if you beat them on the head with a flashing light pole. The point is, the resuscitation of the lights gives hope that perhaps there just might be fewer than the 348 motor vehicle accidents, 39 of them fatal, that occurred in Abuja between January and December 2022, according to data from the FCT Transport Secretariat.

Broken city 

Yet, the story of the failure of Abuja, as I said before, is more than the chaos in the Central Business District, more than its malfunctioning traffic lights and, certainly, much more than all its crazy drivers combined. Abuja is a victim of elite abuse. It took me years of living and working in and out of the place to understand and sympathise with the city over its misery. 

In fact, sometimes I secretly wished that Obafemi Awolowo had won the 1979 election and invited Walt Disney to make the place an amusement park as he contemptuously promised during his presidential campaign that year. 

Like most typical Lagosians, I disdained Abuja. Not out of a feeling of metropolitan hubris, but because even in its hubris, Lagos has a method, a soul. Until 2010, I tried, if I could help it, never to stay more than one day in Abuja, which had earned a reputation as the refuge of scoundrels.

Of course, Nigeria’s former military head of state, Murtala Mohammed, who first announced Abuja as the new Federal Capital on February 3, 1976, had very good intentions for doing so. The argument of the military, under Yakubu Gowon, was that Lagos had become congested and unlivable. Nigeria’s capital of the future had to be more than a concrete jungle.  

Squandering of riches 

President Shehu Shagari tried to move things along rather gingerly but anyone who has watched Onyeka Onwuenu’s BBC-NTA documentary, The Squandering of Riches, might see where Abuja finally lost its way and inherited its perverted DNA. 

When the military government of Muhammadu Buhari struck in 1983, the mess in Abuja – huge contracts awarded at fantastically inflated costs – was a part of the charge sheet against Shagari’s government and a number of politicians of that era. 

After Gideon Orkar’s 1990 coup attempt in which military president Ibrahim Babangida, escaped by the skin of his teeth, however, he felt vulnerable in Lagos. He gave construction giant, Julius Berger, a carte blanche denominated in sweetheart crude oil deals, to get Abuja ready for his government.

If Abuja looks like a shadow of its former self today, a far cry from the model of Brasilia, planned by the US consortium of three companies – Wallace, Roberts, McHarg and Todd; and its Central Business District is anything but what was conceived by Japanese architect, Kenzo Tange, it’s not because of lack of effort by at least two notable persons to save it.

Mamman Vatsa was one. Julius Berger may have done the main construction work, but the credit for the greening of the new Federal Capital goes to Vatsa, an outstanding poet and humanist whose execution remains a big stain on the Babangida era. 

Somehow, where the lush greens, gardens and open spaces in FESTAC Town, Lagos, could not withstand the philistinism of elite land grabbers, Vatsa’s green footprint legacy in Abuja has managed, at least in the many parts, to withstand the ravages of the elite and assorted trespassers. 

The second notable Abuja steward was former Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, when he was minister of the FCT. In a city where politicians believe they can get away with virtually anything, El-Rufai’s fanatical insistence on compliance with the Abuja masterplan brought him in collision with the high and mighty. 

But it was a fight worth having. Without El-Rufai’s stubborn insistence, Abuja would be a far worse place than it is today, especially as a result of the collapse of many industries in the North, not to mention Nigeria’s dysfunctional federalism. Imagine a city where the CCTV cameras installed with a Chinese loan of $460 million which was supposed to help manage crime became a crime scene, with the cameras, cables and poles all stolen on former Minister Bala Mohammed’s watch?

Achebe’s warfront

And as if that is not bad enough, we’re now being told in a Bloombergreport on Tuesday, that the city train service, a star project of Rotimi Amaechi’s era, is an example of “how not to build public transit!”

Abuja is not yet like living at a warfront, which was how Chinua Achebe once described Lagos. But I guess it depends on which Abuja you’re talking about. The rise in insurgency in the surrounding states, especially Niger, Kaduna and Nasarawa, in the last 10 years, has led to a surge in the city’s population from 2.2 million 10 years ago to 3.8 million. 

Abuja has become Nigeria’s fourth most populated city, and life in such satellite towns as Bwari, Kubwa, Karshi, Gwagwalada, and Kuje may not be too different from warfront existence, not to mention slums like Deidei, Mpape and Nyanya, Abuja’s own copies of Ajegunle in Lagos.

These places are congested and chaotic, bereft of basic amenities, and frighteningly unsafe. The satellite towns, apart from being hotbeds of crime, have also become flea markets of sorts exploited by Abuja landlords for house-helps, drivers, cooks, nannies and clerical staff. The Kuje Prisons, one of the most popular landmarks of that satellite town, is a metaphor of life not only in Kuje but also in other satellite towns surrounding the city. 

Any revival plan by Wike that excludes the satellite towns where the bulk of Abuja’s population resides, and respect for the culture, landmarks and wellbeing of the indigenous people, will return to haunt the city.

Framing Wike as an urban bulldozer misses the point. Abuja needs salvation not from Wike but from decades of elite abuse. Otherwise, we may hand the city over to Walt Disney as a zoo franchise!

Now, Gabon…

Libreville, the Gabonese capital, is only roughly two hours’ direct flight from Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital. In the early hours of Wednesday, soldiers struck, deposing President Ali Bongo, who has been in power for 14 years. It was the country’s first successful military coup in its 63 years of post-independence history. But it was also the seventh successful coup in Africa in five years, extending the coup belt southward. It’s OK to blame Bongo, and in fact, excoriate him for the notorious incest that kept Bongo father and son in power for nearly 55 years. Indeed, all previous deposed leaders in the region have also been blamed for failing to deliver on their promises. But show me one African country that has fared better under military rule and I will show you at least three that have done far better, in spite of the obvious imperfections of democratic rule. I’m afraid that at this rate, the next coup may arrive at a destination less than two hours away from Lagos, carrying the letter, “C.” There must be an end to this epidemic!  

** Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP

While mistakes can help you grow, some errors are undeniably dangerous.

Mistakes may be useful, but aren’t some less desirable than others? And doesn’t high performance—something most of us aspire to—mean making fewer mistakes? Rather than making blanket statements about mistakes being all good or all bad, it is helpful to differentiate between different kinds of mistakes and clarify which mistakes we want to pursue and how, and which mistakes we want to try to avoid.

Sloppy mistakes

Your heart seizes up when you see what just happened. You “replied all” to your entire company when you meant to write back to just your colleague Kim, with whom you were sharing a cute cat video. One by one, the replies start rolling in. Including one from your boss.

Congratulations! You have just made a sloppy mistake.

Sloppy mistakes happen when you’re doing something you already know how to do, usually because you lose concentration or you’re focused on the wrong thing. We all make sloppy mistakes because we’re all human. However, when you make too many of these mistakes, especially on a task you intended to focus on, it signals an opportunity to enhance your focus, processes, environment, or habits. My sloppy mistakes frequently come from focusing intently on one task, which results in collateral damage in the periphery. This might mean breaking the occasional glass because I am too focused on solving a work problem and not paying enough attention to my surroundings.

We might be tempted to conclude that sloppy mistakes offer few learning opportunities; after all, we don’t want to fret over every little blunder. But since even sloppy mistakes can have serious consequences, any time we make one, it makes sense to pause and reflect.

In leading team meetings, one sloppy mistake I have made is failing to pay enough attention to the dynamics within the group, the balance of who is talking, or any interpersonal tensions. When I discovered that was happening often, I had to identify what to try differently. I began taking two minutes before meetings to think about the people I was meeting with and my objectives for the meeting, and to remind myself that, as a leader, my job was to facilitate the development of an effective team, rather than focus intently on solving the problem at hand.

The next time you make a sloppy mistake, ask yourself, “Is this important to me? Do I want to change something so this doesn’t happen again? If so, how can I adjust my focus to avoid making this type of mistake in the future?”

‘Aha-moment’ mistakes

Aha-moment mistakes happen when you do something as you intended, but realize it was the wrong thing to do. At that moment, you have a powerful realization—an aha!—a strong, new insight that expands your understanding and awareness.

You installed a rainwater harvesting system as you intended, but then realize that such projects need mechanisms for maintenance.

These kinds of mistakes can be hard to spot and can go unnoticed, even over a lifetime. How many leaders continue to do something that frustrates the people they lead—sometimes for years—while remaining unaware of the effect of their actions because they never solicit or otherwise receive feedback?

I used to be in the habit of emphasizing important comments my colleagues made by repeating their remarks in my own words and explaining why I thought they were significant. Eventually, I learned that I may have been making my colleagues feel I was trying to take credit for their ideas, or implying that their voices would not be heard unless a man in a position of power repeated what they said. I could have done a better job soliciting feedback and fostering psychological safety so that others might have spoken up, and I would have learned the lesson sooner.

These aha moments can occur in a wide variety of work situations. A salesperson can’t seem to close a deal—until a colleague overhears her and tells her to slow down and take time to understand her customer’s needs. A project manager realizes that her team keeps missing due dates, so she builds in a timeline confirmation step for every milestone, and makes sure to give people the opportunity to ask for more time if they need it.

The signal to pay attention and reflect comes when you are surprised by the effect of your actions. You do something expecting X, but Y happens instead. That’s a cue to move into the Learning Zone and identify what is surprising and what lessons it might teach you. Surprises are precious sources of learning, and they make life more interesting.

Stretch mistakes

Whenever you’re working to expand your current abilities and try something new, you’re bound to make some errors along the way. These kinds of stretch mistakes are positive—a sign you’re growing. If you never make stretch mistakes, it means that you’re never truly challenging yourself.

When you find yourself making and then repeating a stretch mistake, it’s a good opportunity to explore whether you’re mindlessly going through the motions or truly applying yourself to improving your abilities. If you practice throwing a Frisbee and it keeps taking a nosedive, it’s time to change your technique or seek out some tips to make that Frisbee sail through the air.

Other times, your approach to learning itself may be ineffective. You might be experimenting when deliberate practice would be more effective for acquiring the desired skill. In such instances, you might ask how others have gained competence in the same or a similar area. If you’re concentrating and still feeling stuck, it might be time to bring in a coach, a mentor, or another source of guidance and objective feedback.

It also could be that you’ve simply set your stretch goal too high. Could you aim instead for some milestone between where you are today and your ultimate goal?

Say you try to put together a conference and it fails miserably. You could, upon reflection, gather the lessons learned and try again, perhaps bringing to the team people with expertise in areas that fell short. Or you could recognize that you know too little about too many aspects of what is involved, and instead set a goal of organizing a smaller internal meeting that doesn’t involve as many activities you haven’t done before. That way, you can focus on learning some of the elements that will prepare you to later expand to a full conference.

You want to seek out stretch mistakes by taking on new challenges. But when you find yourself stuck and can’t seem to make progress, it’s time to reflect, identify a different strategy, and then adjust your approach to practicing.

When you meet your goal, it’s time to identify a new area of challenge and continue stretching yourself.

High-stakes mistakes

While mistakes can help you grow, some errors are undeniably dangerous. After all, no one wants the person in charge of security at a nuclear power plant or the captain of an aircraft to be making sloppy mistakes. Nor do you want to force employees to do a teambuilding activity that could lead to injury.

Luckily, you can put processes in place to try to minimize high-stakes mistakes, and over time, you can develop an intuitive understanding of when to take risks and when to play it safe.

Aside from life-threatening or potentially dangerous situations, there are many Performance Zone activities you might consider high stakes. A championship final can certainly be considered a high-stakes event for a sports team that has trained for years. Or if losing an important customer relationship could result in a significant drop in revenue, you might want to play it safe in meetings with that customer rather than experiment with risky ideas.

It is okay to see these events as performances rather than learning opportunities and to seek to minimize mistakes and maximize short-term performance. These are the moments you may want to focus on harvesting dividends from the time spent in the Learning Zone.

Even then, we can often embed low-stakes mini experiments that don’t involve safety concerns within high-stakes events. For example, if you’re doing a presentation with an important customer who loves classical music, you might somehow incorporate that into your presentation, and then reflect on whether it had an impact. That could mean anything from including cello music during the breaks to using classical music metaphors in the presentation itself.

The possibilities are endless when it comes to what you could test. Here are a few examples:

Focus more on asking questions so the client can clarify the problem.Focus more on offering solutions.Focus more on stories.Approach the interaction more formally.Approach the interaction less formally

In a high-stakes event, if you don’t achieve your goal of winning the championship or the customer, you can reflect on the progress you’ve made through time, on the approaches that have and haven’t helped you grow, and on what you can do to grow more effectively.

On the other hand, if you achieve your goal, win a championship, or land new business, that’s great. Celebrate the achievement and how much progress you’ve made. Then, ask yourself the same questions to keep stretching. Continue engaging in the Learning Zone, challenging yourself, and growing your abilities.

Excerpted from The Performance Paradox: Turning the Power of Mindset into Action by Eduardo Briceño. Copyright © 2023 by Growth.how LLC. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Eduardo Briceño is a global keynote speaker and facilitator who guides many of the world’s leading companies in developing cultures of learning and high performance.

Fast Company

Nigerian producers want the central bank to set a trading band for naira to help stem weakness in the currency and reduce the impact on manufacturing costs.

Manufacturers Association of Nigeria, a industry body, said limited dollar liquidity and high exchange rate costs had weakened industrial production since currency reforms were announced in June.

“Despite the recent reform to unify all forex windows, the exorbitant premium that persists between the official and parallel exchange rates have further stalled manufacturing operations,” it said in emailed report on Wednesday. “The short-term remedy will require managing the floating exchange rate system.”

The government in mid-June allowed the currency to depreciate as part of measures to attract inflows and help revive the economy. The naira weakened as much as 40% in the official market. While it and the parallel market rate initially converged, the gap has since widened as a shortage of dollars prompted a surge in demand for foreign currency.

The naira was at 767.21 per dollar on the official market on Wednesday compared with 920 in parallel trade.

Deputy Governor Kingsley Obiora had indicated that the central bank wouldn’t allow a fully free float.

“No central bank’s forex intervention will be effective without boosting the level of liquidity and transparency,” the producers group said.

Bloomberg

National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has asked states along River Benue to evacuate residents in flood-prone areas due to the opening of Lagdo dam in Cameroon.

Mustapha Ahmed, director-general of NEMA, spoke on Wednesday during the national emergency coordination forum meeting, in Abuja.

According to Ahmed, Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, and Anambra states could be flooded due to the release of water from the dam.

Other states at risk of being flooded are Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa.

He said the meeting was held following the alert received by the ministry of foreign affairs concerning the planned release of water from the Cameroon dam.

He said Cameroon has opened the dam at the rate of 200 cubic meters per second, adding that the level is about 18 million cubic meters of water daily.

“The states on the downstream of River Benue are Adamawa, Taraba, Benue, Nasarawa, Kogi, Anambra, Enugu, Edo, Delta, Rivers and Bayelsa states,” he said.

“Information available from the flow level of the River Benue at Nigerian Hydrological Service Agency (NIHSA) gauging station at Makurdi stood at 8.97 meters as of Aug. 25, 2023 compared to 8.80 meters on the same date in 2022.

“Also, NIHSA has provided that the flow level of the River Niger system, especially at Niamey, Niger Republic, remains stable at a normal level of 4.30 meters.

“Similarly, inland dams including Kainji, Jebba and Shiroro reported consistent flow regimes.”

The director-general of NEMA called on stakeholders to commence evacuation immediately, adding that the government would continue to work with other partners to mitigate the impact.

The Cable

Chairman of the Committee of Chief Medical Directors of Federal Tertiary Hospitals, Emem Bassey, has said other African countries are offering doctors from Nigeria $3,000 to $4,000 in salary.

According to him, the amount is about four times the wages doctored get in Nigeria.

Bassey, who is the CMD of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, said the health sector was going through a major crisis in terms of manpower with health professionals leaving for higher-paying countries.

He also said doctors often went on strike because the government failed to meet their demands.

Bassey said this when he appeared before the House of Representatives ad hoc Committee probing employment racketeering in federal government agencies alongside heads of other health institutions in the country.

He said, “Some African countries are also beginning to poach from Nigeria. The West Coast is looking for our specialists. So many people are now going to places like Sierra Leone and Gambia and the wages they earn $3,000 to $4,000. It is about three to four times what they earn back home. So we are beginning to see that people are leaving for other African countries too.

“The health sector is currently undergoing a major crisis in terms of manpower. What we are seeing is that medical specialists, not just doctors, even nurses, in fact, even more nurses are leaving. Doctors, nurses, laboratory scientists, physiotherapists, radiographers, and all manner of health professionals are leaving the country in droves.

“That is part of the problem we are facing. Replacement of these health workers is a major problem. This is because even though we are usually granted approvals to recruit, getting the waivers is a tortuous process.”

He said due to the urgency of the need to replace various health professionals who leave, it is difficult to comply with federal character in recruitment.

He also noted that previous governments had reached ridiculous agreements because of their urgent need to end strike actions.

Bassey added, “A strike should be the very last option, but one of the things we have seen has been the fact that we see threats and threats and threats. I would say, that governments in the past had negotiated resolutions that were not feasible, just because they wanted to end a strike.

“Now, they have agreements that they cannot implement. And then after a certain period, six months or one year and you have not implemented it, people now go on strike. So we need to sit down together and negotiate.”

Chairman of the Ad hoc Committee, Yusuf Gagdi, urged the doctors to be patriotic by staying back to contribute to the development of the country, even if they have better options abroad.

He said the committee would work towards addressing the need to balance compliance to the spirit of federal character and filling up urgent vacancies in the health sector.

Gagdi said, “I admit there is a lack of advanced medical facilities in our health sector. This is a fact and we must as governments pay attention to that. Where we are confused is the aspect of lack of patriotism.

“You ( Medical doctors) are produced by Nigerian institutions. We admit the brain drain and are trying to find solutions. We are happy to see you here. A lot of you have connections maybe based on the value of your intellect to be in the developed countries and provide services to them. But most of you find fashion in adding value to your own motherland and fatherland.

“What are you telling your co-professionals about patriotism, about giving back to the society that gave you the knowledge? We challenge you to be true to your own profession and the issue of morality. You cannot disown your father no matter how poor he is for taking you this far to go and adopt somebody’s father. Nigeria is our country.

“Nigeria produced us as medical doctors, no matter the rot within our public sector in terms of remuneration. Let us work together and see how we can find solutions to that. But let us remain in Nigeria to serve our own country.”

Gadgi added, “We would review your submissions entirely. For these institutions that have pending recruitment cases, we would interface with them uniquely. For those of you who don’t have one, we will look into your issue.

“You have a very good defence for now having a balanced sheet in terms of federal character. Nigerians have listened to you. So whatever this committee at the end of the day recommends to the government it is going to be done and it is for our own good entirely.”`

Daily Trust

Managing Director of the Nigeria Railway Corporation, Engr. Fidet Okhiria has revealed that the monthly revenue realised from train service operations on the Abuja-Kaduna rail line has significantly dropped from N500 million to N1 million monthly.

It would be recalled that bandits detonated a bomb on the rail track of Abuja-Kaduna train and successfully immobilised the train between Katari and Rijana.

Subsequently, the attackers kidnapped several passengers who were later released after an unspecified amount of ransom was paid.

However, speaking at an inspection of the Idu train station yesterday in Abuja, Okhiria said the essence of the tour was to correct some issues highlighted by the Minister of Transportation, Saidu Alkali, which include escalators, elevators and allowances of security men.

“Before the attack, we were earning N500 million a month and after the attack, we were earning barely one million and we must operate and provide service to the people, which is why we are glad about the minister’s surprise visit to highlight some of these operational issues.

“Currently, we do two return trips against the 10 we were doing before that incident and we were running from 6 am to 10 pm but now we have been advised not to exceed to 6 pm. So, we are hopeful that when the security situation normalises and they are able to advise us,  we can start the full operation so that we can break even.

“We have paid two months out of the 5 months outstanding and we hope to conclude it soon. They know that before now, we didn’t delay and we pay before the end of every month when everything was going on well”.

Daily Trust

Soldiers in Gabon appointed the head of the republican guard as the OPEC member state’s new leader, hours after placing President Ali Bongo under house arrest and annulling elections in which he secured a third term.

The putsch in the former French colony is the ninth in sub-Saharan Africa in the past three years, and follows a coup in Niger last month. The military takeover drew condemnation from the US, Nigeria, France and the African Union, as it sparked a slump in the nation’s dollar bonds and raised concerns of a spill over of the selloff to other African countries with high political risk.

General Brice Oligui Nguema will serve as Gabon’s transitional president, according to a statement read out on state television in the capital, Libreville, on Wednesday evening. The junta said it will maintain a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the nation of 2.3 million people, and urged residents to return to work on Thursday.

Nguema’s appointment came after army officers appeared on Gabonese state television in the early hours of Wednesday to announce they’d canceled an Aug. 26 vote and dissolved the country’s institutions. President Bongo is under house arrest with his family and medical doctor, while one of his sons has been detained, the officers said in a separate broadcast.

Gabon’s dollar bonds due June 2025 and November 2031 were the worst-performing in emerging markets on Wednesday. Shares in French mining group Eramet SA, oil and gas producer Maurel & Prom SA and a listed unit of TotalEnergies SE, which all have operations in Gabon, sank in Paris trading.

The country is one of OPEC’s smaller members, pumping about 200,000 barrels a day, and has abundant manganese deposits, though these resources haven’t translated into better living standards. About one-third of Gabon’s population live below the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

The putsch raises anxiety about a potential contagion of coups in Africa and increases pressure on regional bodies including the Economic Community of West African States to act to restore civilian rule in Niger, after the 15-nation bloc threatened to use military force to compel the military junta to relinquish power.

French President Emmanuel Macron warned on Monday that if the bloc doesn’t restore democracy, “all the presidents across the region are more or less aware of the fate that awaits them.”

White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said the US was closely watching the developments and had accounted for all its embassy personnel and troops in the country.

“We remain strongly opposed to military seizures or unconstitutional transfers of power,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement. “We urge those responsible to release and ensure the safety of members of government and their families and to preserve civilian rule.”

Since 2020, there have been two coups each in Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as military takeovers in Chad, Guinea, Niger and Sudan. The latest putsch highlights the inability of the African Union to prevent coups, said Charlie Robertson, head of macro strategy at FIM Partners UK Ltd. in London.

“The ineffective African Union has sat back and watched regime after regime toppled in Africa and failed to reverse any of the coups in recent years,” he said. “The African Union needs to step up and take some responsibility for what’s happening on the continent, before the coup contagion spreads further.”

The continental body, which suspended Niger from all its activities following the coup in the West African nation, said it “strongly condemns” the army’s actions in Gabon, according to a post on X, the social-media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Nigerian President Bola Tinubu, whose nation is Africa’s largest democracy, echoed the criticism.

“The president is working very closely and continuing to communicate with other heads of state in the African Union toward a comprehensive consensus on the next steps forward with respect to how the crisis in Gabon will play out into how the continent will respond to the contagion of autocracy we are seeing spread across our continent,” Tinubu’s office said in a statement.

Gabon has been ruled by two men for more than five decades.

Bongo was first elected president in 2009, four months after the death of his father, Omar Bongo, who had held power since 1967. He secured a second seven-year term in 2016 in the closest election in the nation’s history, and violence and looting ensued after his victory was announced.

The ruling family’s grip on power has come under pressure in recent years. Soldiers launched a failed coup in 2019, months after Bongo suffered a stroke that sidelined him for almost a year.

Ex-colonial power France has maintained strong ties with Gabon, despite widespread concerns about its democracy and human rights record. President Emmanuel Macron visited Bongo in March, in a move widely seen as an expression of support.

France’s record of backing ruling families, dictators or presidents-for-life in the region in the name of stability has long been a source of a resentment in its former colonies. It has fed anti-French sentiment that has been exploited by coup plotters.

Bloomberg

All UN sanctions against Mali will end on August 31 (today), after Russia vetoed the proposal by France and the UAE to have them extended. Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s ambassador to the UN, said that the draft completely disregarded the concerns of both Bamako and Moscow.

The Franco-Emirati draft would have extended both the sanctions and the mandate of the UN Expert Group charged with monitoring Mali, through August and September 2024, respectively. It received 13 votes in the UN Security Council, but failed because Russia voted against it. China abstained.

The council rejected Moscow’s alternative draft, which would have ended the Expert Group mandate immediately and given the sanctions a “final”12-month extension. Japan voted no, and 13 other members abstained. 

According to AP, Moscow went after the Expert Group because its latest report criticized the Russian private military company Wagner, accusing it of “violence against women, and other forms of grave abuses of human rights and international humanitarian law” to “spread terror among populations.”

Bamako has justified its outreach to Wagner Group by saying the Russian security advisers were far more effective against jihadist insurgents – unleashed across the Sahel in the wake of NATO’s 2011 regime-change intervention in Libya – than the French or the UN. 

The Franco-Emirati draft “took absolutely no account of the concerns of the Malian side and the position of the Russian Federation,” Nebenzia said after the vote, explaining his veto.

Nebenzia reminded the Security Council that Mali itself requested the sanctions against eight individuals in 2017, as part of a peace process. The Russian resolution, he said, “takes into account the position of the African members of the Council” that the sanctions should remain in effect for some time in order to promote the implementation of the peace agreement, but “not turn into an instrument of external influence on domestic political processes in Mali.”

France, the former colonial power in Mali, has already withdrawn all of its troops from the West African nation at the insistence of the military government in Bamako. Mali has also given some 15,000 UN peacekeepers and civilian staff until December 31 to depart the country. 

“We hope that in the future, sponsors of resolutions will prioritize a pragmatic approach and the interests of the host country in order to avoid unnecessary confrontation in the Security Council,” Nebenzia added. “Especially in the circumstances where a compromise agreement could have been made if certain delegations had the political will to do so.”

Russia Today

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian military says six servicemen killed in helicopter incident

Six Ukrainian servicemen were killed aboard two helicopters while they were "carrying out missions" in eastern Ukraine, the military said on Wednesday.

There was no indication what happened involving two widely-used Mi-8 helicopters on Tuesday.

A military statement on Telegram aid the men were "carrying out missions" in the sector of the Russian-held eastern city of Bakhmut when they died.

The news site Ukrainska Pravda said the incident occurred near Kramatorsk - a large town west of Bakhmut in Donetsk region, theatre of much of the fighting in Russia's 18-month invasion of its neighbour.

Ukrainska Pravda said the two helicopters were "completely destroyed" and the bodies were found at the site.

An air force spokesperson identified as Yevhen Rakita told public broadcaster Suspilne that the men aboard were officers.

He said a service for the men would take place on Thursday in the central town of Poltava but their identities were not being made public for security reasons.

** Zelenskiy decries corruption in military medical exemptions

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy decried on Wednesday what he described as systematic corruption in medical exemptions to people avoiding military service, saying the system was subject to bribes and mass departures abroad.

Ukraine has made a crackdown on graft a priority as it presses on with a counteroffensive 18 months into Russia's invasion. Uprooting corruption is also a key element in the country's bid to join the European Union.

Zelenskiy said the National Security and Defence Council had considered data showing the extent of false exemptions, bribe-taking and flight abroad since the February 2022 invasion. The investigation of dubious medical exemptions was still being conducted, he said.

"There are examples of regions where the number of exemptions from military service due to medical commission decisions has increased tenfold since February last year," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

"It is absolutely clear what sort of decisions these are. Corrupt decisions."

He said the investigation had exposed corrupt practices in different regions and by officials in different positions, involving bribes ranging from $3,000 to $15,000.

Zelenskiy said a separate analysis was needed to determine the numbers of people who had fled abroad, largely on the basis of medical commission decisions.

"We are talking about at least thousands of individuals," he said.

Zelenskiy this month dismissed all the heads of Ukraine's regional army recruitment centres.

He said more than 100 criminal cases had been opened in a wide-ranging probe launched after a graft scandal at a recruitment office in southern Odesa region last month.

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian air defenses repel multiple coordinated drone raids – MOD

The Russian military has prevented a series of attempted Ukrainian drone strikes overnight, with over half a dozen unmanned aircraft shot down across five regions spanning from the Ukrainian border to Moscow, the Defense Ministry claimed early on Wednesday.

Russian air defense units prevented an “attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack by airplane-type UAVs on Russian infrastructure,” the military said in a brief statement.

Shortly after midnight, three unmanned aircraft were shot down in the border region of Bryansk and at least one intercepted over Oryol, some 200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.

Around 2am, another drone was detected and downed over Kaluga Region, to the southwest of Moscow, the Defense Ministry added in another statement.

At 2:30am a plane-type unmanned aerial vehicle was downed in Ryazan Region.

At about 3:30am, another Ukrainian UAV was intercepted and crashed over the territory of Moscow Region. The hostile UAV was downed while heading towards the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, adding that it caused no damage or injuries on the ground.

At 4am yet another UAV was downed over Ryazan Region, according to the Defense Ministry.

At 8:30am, Bryansk Region governor Aleksander Bogomaz reported another incident, saying that two drones had targeted a TV tower in the city of Bryansk. Both aircraft were shot down by air defenses, he wrote on Telegram, adding that the fires at their crash sites had already been extinguished.

Earlier, the Russian aviation authority announced the emergency closure of airspace over the Tula, Ryazan, and Kaluga regions and parts of Moscow Region, following explosions at an airfield in northwest Russia.

At least 10 drones attacked Pskov, according to the regional governor. Most were brought down by air defenses, but some reportedly caused damaged at least two Il-76 transport aircraft. There were no reports of casualties.

Pskov is about 700 kilometers north of Ukraine, but only 30 kilometers from the Estonian border. Latvia is about 60 kilometers to the southwest. Both are NATO member states. To reach the city, drones launched from Ukraine would have to fly over eastern Belarus.

Ukraine has previously used “drone swarms” to attack Crimea, but has not sent more than a handful of UAVs in the direction of Moscow, where they caused minor property damage to the city’s financial district. The Kremlin had dismissed the attacks as an “act of desperation,” intended to distract from Kiev’s failures on the battlefield.

** Russia cripples Ukrainian military command, intel centers in overnight precision strike

Russian forces delivered a strike by long-range precision weapons, wiping out Ukrainian military command and intelligence centers over the past day in the special military operation in Ukraine, Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Wednesday.

"Overnight to August 30, Russian forces delivered a multiple-launch strike by airborne and seaborne long-range precision weapons against enemy military command and intelligence centers," the ministry said in a statement.

The goals of the strike were achieved. "All the designated targets were destroyed," the ministry stressed.