Nigerian workers have achieved a significant milestone by securing the second spot in the global ranking of the hardest working employees, surpassed only by their Mexican counterparts. According to a recently published report by the World of Statistics, Nigerian workers dedicate an average of 2,124 hours per year to their jobs.

The World of Statistics report reveals that Mexican workers topped the chart, with a mere four-hour difference from their Nigerian counterparts, clocking in an average of 2,128 working hours annually. This makes Nigeria the most industrious nation in Africa, highlighting the strong work ethic and dedication of its labour force.

Average annual hours worked:

Mexico — 2,128

Nigeria — 2,124

Costa Rica — 2,073

Colombia — 1,964

Chile — 1,916

South Korea — 1,910

Malta — 1,882

Russia — 1,874

Greece — 1,872

Romania — 1,838

Croatia — 1,835

Poland — 1,830

United States — 1,791

Nigerian work hours and industries

In Nigeria, the standard working hours for most public and private sector employees span eight hours per day, typically from 8 am to 4 pm or 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday. However, certain sectors such as media, healthcare, security agencies, and manufacturing industries may require extended workdays that include weekends and shift rotations.

The report acknowledges that informal workers, often go above and beyond by putting in up to ten hours of work per day, reported Vanguard. While the study does not specify the nature of the work undertaken, it suggests that the top-ranked countries in terms of working hours are not primarily driven by technology-oriented occupations.

Global ranking

Following Nigeria's lead, three countries from Central and South America trail closely behind. Costa Rica claimed the third position with 2,073 hours, followed by Colombia in fourth place (1,964 hours), and Chile in fifth place (1,916 hours). Surprisingly, South Korea, known for its high-tech advancements, ranks sixth, with workers averaging 1,910 hours per year. Other notable countries include Malta (1,882 hours), Russia (1,874 hours), Greece (1,872 hours), and Romania (1,838 hours).

The report also sheds light on the working hours of workers in major global economies. The United States, the world's largest economy, secured the 13th spot with an average of 1,791 working hours per year, while Japan, the third-largest economy, lags behind in 30th place with workers putting in 1,607 hours annually. Germany, Europe's dominant economy, ranks 50th, with employees working an average of 1,349 hours each year. South Africa emerged as the second-highest on the African continent, with workers dedicating 1,513 hours annually, placing them at a distant 36th on the global list.

With Nigerian workers contributing 2,124 hours annually, it signifies that each employee spends a minimum of five hours engaged in productive activities compared to their South African counterparts, who work four hours less. This strong commitment to work highlights Nigeria's potential for increased productivity and economic growth.

WION

The German parliament has passed a new law to ease immigration rules for foreign skilled workers.

Presenting the bill on Friday, Nancy Faeser, interior minister, said the draft law will secure prosperity in Germany.

“It’s unacceptable that you have to fill in 17 different applications to bring a new care worker into the country,” she said.

An “opportunity card” under the new law will allow foreigners who do not yet have a job to come to Germany for a year to find employment.

A prerequisite for receiving a card will be a vocational qualification or university degree.

Those with German and/or English language skills, existing ties to Germany, and the potential of accompanying life partners or spouses on the German labour market could also be eligible to receive the card.

The opportunity card will also permit casual work for up to 20 hours a week while looking for a qualified job, as well as probationary employment.

The law also covers individuals awaiting asylum approval, who got their application by March 29, 2023, with appropriate qualifications, and a job offer to join the labour market.

In addition, immigrants in the country on a tourist visa will not be required to first leave the country, before returning in an employment context.

Skilled foreigners will also no longer have to have their degrees recognized in Germany if they can show they have at least two years of professional experience and a degree that is state-recognised in their country of origin.

Those who hold valid job offers can move to Germany and start working while their degree is still being recognised.

“The well-qualified young people from around the world are not exactly queuing up to come to work in Germany,” Martin Rosemann, a lawmaker said.

“We have to woo them and must give them a long-term perspective,” he said, adding that plans are in motion to reform the citizenship law to accommodate the changes.

As Germany grapples with an energy crisis threatening its future as an industrial leader, it also faces an acute shortage of workers compounding problems for manufacturers already struggling to stay competitive.

Recent surveys found a record 50 percent of firms are cutting output due to staffing problems, which is costing the economy as much as $85 billion per year.

Lawmakers from opposing parties faulted the law, saying it would ease the passage of unqualified workers into the country.

The Cable

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Top Russian general sends message to ’mutinous’ Wagner PMC

Deputy commander of the Russian Joint Forces, General Sergey Surovikin, asked on Friday the fighters of the private military company Wagner Group to stop their “rebellion” against Moscow.

In a short video message released on social media, Surovikin said he had just returned from the front, where Russian forces were standing their ground against the Ukrainian offensive.

“I appeal to the fighters and commanders of the PMC Wagner,” Surovikin said, still wearing his fatigues. “We have walked a difficult road together. We fought together, took risks together, suffered losses together, and won together. We are of the same blood. We are warriors. I urge you to stop. The enemy is just waiting for the internal political situation to worsen. We should not play into the enemy’s hands in these difficult times for our country.”

He urged Wagner troops to submit to the lawfully elected authorities “before it is too late,” return to their barracks and address their grievances peacefully.

Earlier on Friday, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin accused the Russian military of targeting one of the company’s field camps in a rocket attack and killing “many fighters,” vowing to march on Moscow and deal with those responsible and warning the military to stay out of his way.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Prigozhin’s accusations “did not correspond to the truth” and were an “information provocation.” According to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been briefed about the situation involving Prigozhin and Wagner, and all the necessary measures are being taken.

Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Friday that it had opened an investigation into Prigozhin for allegedly “calling for an armed rebellion.” The crime is punishable by 12-20 years in prison.

Surovikin, an air force general, was put in charge of the operation in Ukraine in October 2022, overseeing  a major redeployment in the Kherson Region. In January this year, he became a deputy to General Valery Gerasimov, head of the Russian General Staff and current commander of the operation.

** Ukraine’s counteroffensive is ‘suicidal’ – Moscow

Thousands of Ukrainian troops are being sent to their deaths in a “suicidal”counteroffensive that Kiev is using to help keep Western benefactors on board with their massive aid programs, Russia’s top diplomat at the United Nations has claimed.

“Kiev is sending soldiers to be slaughtered only in order to successfully report to Western partners how Ukraine can defeat Russia,” Vasily Nebenzya, Moscow’s permanent representative to the United Nations, said on Friday in a UN Security Council meeting. He added that the counteroffensive is so futile that it’s known as the “Zaporozhye meat grinder” in Ukrainian society.

The campaign, which began earlier this month, has already cost Ukrainian forces tens of thousands of casualties and hundreds of Western-supplied armored vehicles, according to Russia’s UN mission. Western media outlets have suggested that the appetite of Western governments to send more aid to Kiev will depend at least partly on the outcome of the long-delayed counteroffensive.

Even if Ukraine’s backers continue to supply weaponry to facilitate their proxy war against Russia, Kiev doesn’t have an endless supply of troops to send into battle, Russian President Vladimir President said on Thursday. “It seems Ukraine’s Western allies are indeed prepared to wage the war to the last Ukrainian,” he added. 

Nebenzya’s top deputy at the UN, Dmitry Polyanskiy, warned on Friday that Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky’s regime could stage a false-flag attack on the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to trigger a direct NATO intervention in the conflict. “The whole of Europe may be easily sacrificed by Ze and his blind Russophobic sponsors,” Polyanskiy said on Twitter. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

Nebenzya called on Western governments to block Kiev from organizing such an operation.

The US joined with the UK, France and Albania on Friday in issuing a joint statement demanding that the UN investigate Russia’s alleged use of Iranian drones in Ukraine. A 2015 resolution by the UN Security Council prohibits the transfer of such weapons from Iran.

Russian officials have repeatedly denied allegations of using Ukrainian drones. “We categorically reject it,” Nebenzya told reporters on Friday. “These are baseless allegations and blatant attempts to deliberately mislead the international community.”

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Falling drone fragments trigger fire in Kyiv tower block

Fragments from a downed Russian drone hit a high-rise apartment building and a parking lot in central Kyiv, injuring two people, and missiles targeted the country's second city, Kharkiv, officials said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said two people were injured in central Kyiv's Solomyanskyi district and pictures posted on social media showed the top floors of a tower block in flames. Fragments also hit a parking lot.

Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov said at least three Russian missiles targeted his city, with one hitting a gas line and triggering a fire. Terekhov said emergency services were at the scene but gave no details on casualties.

There were reports of explosions in other cities, including Dnipro in central Ukraine. Military reports said anti-aircraft units were in action throughout the country.

Air raid alerts were in effect for the entire country for more than an hour before authorities lifted them in most regions.

** Moscow accuses Wagner head of mutiny, he says his forces enter Russia

Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Saturday his Wagner fighters had crossed the border into Russia from Ukraine and were prepared to go "all the way" against Moscow's military, hours after the Kremlin accused him of armed mutiny.

As a long-running standoff between Prigozhin and the military top brass appeared to come to a head, Russia's FSB security service opened a criminal case against him, TASS news agency said. It called on the Wagner private military company forces to ignore his orders and arrest him.

Wagner fighters had entered the southern Russian city of Rostov, Prigozhin said in an audio recording posted on Telegram. He said he and his men would destroy anyone who stood in their way.

Prigozhin earlier said, without providing evidence, that Russia's military leadership had killed a huge number of his troops in an air strike and vowed to punish them.

He said his actions were not a military coup. But in a frenzied series of audio messages, in which the sound of his voice sometimes varied and could not be independently verified, he appeared to suggest that his 25,000-strong militia was en route to oust the leadership of the defence ministry in Moscow.

Security was stepped up on Friday night at government buildings, transport facilities and other key locations in Moscow, TASS reported, citing a source at a security service.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was getting around-the-clock updates, TASS said, while the White House said it was monitoring the situation and would consult with allies.

Kyiv, meanwhile, said the major thrust in its counteroffensive against Moscow's invasion had yet to be launched. "The main blow is still to come," Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar told Ukrainian television.

A top Ukrainian general reported "tangible successes" in advances in the south - one of two main theatres of operations, along with eastern Ukraine.

'OBEY PRESIDENT,' GENERAL SAYS

The deputy commander of Russia's Ukraine campaign, General Sergei Surovikin, told Wagner fighters to obey Putin, accept Moscow's commanders and return to their bases. He said political deterioration would play into the hands of Russia's enemies.

"I urge you to stop," Surovikin said in a video posted on Telegram, his right hand resting on a rifle.

The standoff, many of the details of which remained unclear, looked like the biggest domestic crisis Putin has faced since he sent thousands of troops into Ukraine in February last year.

Prigozhin, a one-time Putin ally, in recent months has carried out an increasingly bitter feud with Moscow. Earlier on Friday, he appeared to cross a new line, saying the Kremlin's rationale for invading Ukraine, which it calls a "special military operation," was based on lies by the army's top brass.

Wagner led Russia's capture of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut last month, Russia's biggest victory in 10 months, and Prigozhin has used his battlefield success to criticise the leadership of the defense ministry with seeming impunity - until now.

For months, he has openly accused Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu and Russia's top general, Valery Gerasimov, of incompetence.

Army Lieutenant-General Vladimir Alekseyev issued a video appeal in which he asked Prigozhin to reconsider his actions. "Only the president has the right to appoint the top leadership of the armed forces, and you are trying to encroach on his authority," he said.

UKRAINE SAYS MAJOR THRUST AHEAD

On the ground in Ukraine, at least three people were killed in Russian attacks on Friday, including two who died after a trolleybus company came under fire in the city of Kherson, regional officials said.

Addressing the pace of the Ukrainian advances, several senior officials on Friday sent the clearest signal so far that the main part of the counteroffensive has not yet begun.

"I want to say that our main force has not been engaged in fighting yet, and we are now searching, probing for weak places in the enemy defences. Everything is still ahead," the Guardian quoted Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine's ground forces, as saying in an interview with the British newspaper.

General Oleksandr Tarnavskyi, commander of Ukraine's "Tavria," or southern front, wrote on Telegram: "There have been tangible successes of the Defence Forces and in advances in the Tavria sector."

Tarnavskyi said Russian forces had lost hundreds of men and 51 military vehicles in the past 24 hours, including three tanks and 14 armoured personnel carriers.

Although the advances Ukraine has reported this month are its first substantial gains on the battlefield for seven months, Ukrainian forces have yet to push to the main defensive lines that Russia has had months to prepare.

RT/Reuters

Sudan's warring factions widen conflict across the country

Sudan's two-month long war is extending across the country with the army and Rapid Support Forces (RSF) clashing in several areas on Friday.

Air strikes and anti-aircraft missile fire hit overnight in the Omdurman and Khartoum, two of the three cities that make up Sudan's wider capital. But the war has in recent days heated up in cities to the west of the capital, in the fragile Darfur and Kordofan regions.

In Al Fashir, capital of North Darfur state, a fragile truce fell apart as the two forces clashed in residential areas.

And in El Obeid, capital of North Kordofan and a transport hub between Khartoum and Darfur, where the RSF maintains significant presence, the paramilitary force clashed with the heavily armed Central Reserve Police.

The worst fighting has been in West Darfur, where militias backed by the RSF razed areas of the city and forced a mass exodus, residents and human rights monitors said. The West Darfur city of El Geneina has been worst hit by repeated militia attacks.

The United States said on Thursday it had suspended talks which had so far presented the only forum for discussions between the two sides, though it only resulted in short, often-violated humanitarian ceasefire agreements.

In recent days, fighting had also picked up between the army and RSF in Nyala, capital of South Darfur and one of Sudan's largest cities. Clashes continued on Friday in the south of Nyala, and a resident said civilians were killed but could provide no further details.

A new front in the fighting is also threatening to open in South Kordofan, where the rebel SPLM-N controls some areas. The army earlier this week accused the force of violating a long-held ceasefire agreement.

The fighting has caused more than 2.5 million to be displaced, hundreds of thousands of whom have fled across the border, including to Chad and Egypt.

It has created a humanitarian crisis with NGOs struggling to provide much needed medical and food aid.

On Saturday, medical aid agency MSF said its operations have been hindered by both parties, including rejected travel permits.

"MSF supplies have been confiscated, while armed groups have looted our facilities and beaten and violently threatened staff," it said in a statement.

Reuters

This $1.6 million unique property in rural Washington, United States, doesn’t look like much from the outside, but its unassuming exterior conceals a stylish and cozy interior.

Most people would call you crazy for even considering spending over one and a half million dollars on four steel grain silos in Odessa, Washington, but these are not your average grain bins. As you can see in the pictures below, three of the four metallic silos are connected, which is unusual for this kind of structure, but that’s only because they make up a modern and spacious living space. The current occupant, a local hunter, reportedly spent $100,000 on the four old silos and then another $500,000 to convert them into this rather impressive summer home, which comes complete with a shooting range and freeze-proof pond.

“This property is perfect for outdoor enthusiasts, from the stocked pond and outdoor shooting range with targets UP to 1 mile, to the fully improved grain bins that make for an ideal entertainment venue,” the Zillow listing reads. “With a state-of-the-art security system equipped with cameras and a smart home management system in place, you can ensure your safety and peace of mind, wherever you are.”

The unique property originally went viral last month, when it was featured on Zillow Gone Wild, a Facebook page dedicated to the wildest, most unusual properties listed on the popular real-estate selling platform. Feedback has been mixed, with some people praising the owner’s originality, and others declaring it a hard pass.

“I actually like it!! Can you imagine how relaxing it would be to sleep here with the rain hitting the roof?” one Facebook user wrote.

“Ahh, yes. All the charm of an underground off-grid industrial bunker with none of the actual security or functionality,” someone else commented.

Located in Odessa, about 75 miles southwest of Spokane, the grain silo home sits on 386 acres of land and includes a bunch of automated features such as lights, heating and cooling, and surveillance cameras, all controlled through a smart-home app.

If you’re thinking to yourself ‘living in a bunch of metal grain silos can’t be very comfortable,’ you should know that a big part of the renovation involved adding a second metallic layer inside the silos and filling the space between them with insulating material to ensure that the temperatures remain bearable both in summer and winter.

According to the real-estate agency handling the property, the current owner doesn’t visit it too much these days, and they want someone else to enjoy it. The place was listed on Zillow back in April, for $1.6 million, and is still waiting for a buyer.

Oddity Central

There's a reason our perception of time changes as we age — but there are ways to make it feel slower.

For many people, 2022 went by in a blink ― doesn’t it feel like it was just January? But for others, especially children, last year’s holidays may seem like eons ago.

There’s a reason why you may feel like the years moved slowly when you were a kid, but zoom by now. Experts say our perception of time greatly changes as we age, which makes certain periods feel like they go by quickly.

“Our perception of days, weeks, years and that kind of time seems to be especially influenced by our perspective: Are we in the moment experiencing it, or are we looking backward on time?” said Cindy Lustig, a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan. 

She added that the perception of time is also influenced by memory and how much you’ve experienced. For an 8-year-old, a week is a big portion of their life. For an 80-year-old, a week is a much smaller portion of their life, which contributes to the feeling that it went by quickly.

Looking back on time plays into this feeling of acceleration

A day in the life of a retired 80-year-old may feel like it’s going by more slowly than that of an 8-year-old who is busy at school. However, when both people look back on a month or a year, that period of time will seem like it went by faster to the older person.

This is for a number of reasons. For the 80-year-old, their life probably doesn’t look too different than it did when they were 78 or 79, “so, in that case, they’re looking back on fewer events,” Lustig said. “When you’re looking back, the less rich your representation is, the more it’s going to seem like the time went by quickly.”

In other words, our brains lump time together when the days or weeks are similar. So for an 80-year-old who largely does the same thing every day, the year is going to blend together in their mind and feel like it went by quickly. 

The new and exciting things in a day are what make the days and months feel different, and thus set them apart in our minds. 

Changes to your routine can also affect how fast the years seem to go by

“Our brains are designed to record change,” said Adrian Bejan, a professor of mechanical engineering at Duke University and the author of the recent book “Time And Beauty: Why Time Flies And Beauty Never Dies.”

The many experiences young children have in a day (such as learning new things at school, going to ballet class or visiting a new friend’s house) contribute to the notion that time is more plentiful and more activities can fit into that time. Therefore, when looking back, time may feel slower.

This can apply to adults, too. When we look back on a time period that was filled with lots of new experiences, “we see [a] large expense of events and memories, and that makes it seem like time stretches out ... and it feels very long,” Lustig said. If you’re not introducing new patterns into your life, time can feel like it’s going by much quicker overall.

Some experts think that how our brain absorbs images impacts our perception of time

How we process what we see can also influence how we view time, Bejan said. Our brains are trained to receive many images when we are infants. Because we’re absorbing so many new images as kids, it may feel like months and years are longer.

As adults, “the brain receives fewer images than it was trained to receive when young,” Bejan said. Therefore, we feel like time went by more quickly. In other words, there are physiological factors at play that influence our perception of time ― namely, the older we get, the faster it feels.

While you can’t slow time, you can do things to feel like it’s moving a little slower

Bejan said many older people ask him how they can slow down time, “because everybody wants to live longer [and has] the urge to do more and better things with the time that is available.”

He said one way to do this is to experience things that are new and out of your usual regimen. 

This could mean picking up a childhood hobby (like dancing or violin), taking an overnight trip to a city you’ve never visited or signing up for a cooking class. Learning new things is another good way to make your time feel longer when you look back on your life, he said.

Bejan stressed the adage “variety is the spice of life”: you should get out of your routine and take advantage of the time you have, which will only help make you feel like your year had more time to fill, he said. 

Living a routine-only life makes the year fly really fast, he added.

Lustig noted that being fully engaged and “in the moment” can make those moments seem to last longer. In fact, laboratory studies show that mindfulness exercises can stretch our perception of time, she said. So don’t try to focus on multiple tasks at once. Instead, just focus on the experience at hand.

“None of us know how much time we have, but, interestingly, we do actually have a lot of control over how we experience that time,” Lustig said. “So I encourage everybody to make the most of the time that you’ve got.”

HuffPost

Nigeria's total public debt could rise to 37.1% of its gross domestic product (GDP) this year, close to the government's self-imposed 40% limit, the country's Debt Management Office said on Thursday.

The debt office linked the projected rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio from 23.4% in September to new borrowing and a central bank loan-to-bond swap.

"The country's debt stock remains sustainable under these criteria, but the borrowing space has been reduced when compared to Nigeria's self-imposed debt limit of 40%," it said in a report.

Nigeria has said it aims to borrow 8.8 trillion naira ($11.81 billion) in 2023 to cover its budget deficit, and has swapped temporary overdrafts worth 23 trillion naira into long-term bonds this year.

The debt office estimates Nigeria's debt service-to-GDP ratio will reach 73.5% in 2023, exceeding a government limit of 50% due to low revenue collection.

President Bola Tinubu, who took office last month, is embarking on a reform agenda as he seeks to tackle the country's debt burden, low economic growth, double-digit inflation and mounting insecurity.

Nigeria expects restricted access to international capital markets in the near term after Moody's downgraded its credit in January, the debt office said, adding it would seek help from development finance institutions, export and international banks to bridge the gap in external financing.

Nigeria's total public debt was around $103 billion as of September.

($1 = 745.0000 naira)

Reuters

Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) says plans by the federal government to increase electricity tariff by 40 percent from July 1, 2023, is “insensitive and callous”.

On Monday, the federal government hinted at removing the N50 billion monthly electricity subsidy in the sector owing to the revenue shortfall.

The development is coming a few weeks after the removal of petrol subsidy which now has petrol retail prices skyrocketing.

Reacting to this in a statement issued on Thursday, Joe Ajaero, NLC president, condemned the intentions of the federal government, saying it reflected an organised indifference to the wellbeing of consumers.

“The massive increase is explained away as a response to the over 100 percent increase in the pump price of premium motor spirit. Details reveal a movement in inflation from 16.9 percent to 22.41 percent (threatening to needle 30), and a shift in the exchange rate from N441 to N750,” the statement reads.

“We believe not even these figures are a justification for this reckless proposed tariff increase. The issue of capacity to pay and quality of service delivery are not only germane but superior to any rationalisation by market logic. The service providers, in spite of sundry support, have not been able to meet the threshold of 5,000 megawatts.

“Coupled with this, there have been surreptitious increases without notice in violation of statutes. The inherent risk in the new regime of tariff is that there is no control, implying that by August, consumers will pay new rates.

“The other risk is that by the time other products or service-rendering entities come up with their new prices or rates, the ordinary person would have been compacted into dust. We would want to advise apostles of the market who have called NLC all sorts of names to check their conscience.

“The rate at which they are going is highly combative and combustible. With the contemplation of payment of school fees in tertiary institutions and increases in privately-owned ones in addition to other costs/tariffs on the way, life in Nigeria could truly be Hobbesian.

“The market economies which the market fundamentalists seek to emulate, have in place socio-economic safeguards which we do not have. In light of this, our advice is that this proposed tariff hike should be shelved for our collective safety.”

The Cable

About 80 per cent of Small and Medium Enterprises fail before their fifth anniversary due to harsh economic environments, lack of access to capital, and poor business practices, which have stunted growth and transition of micro-businesses, a new report has said.

According to the report titled “Perception Study: Efficiency and Impact of Regulatory Activities of Standard Organisation of Nigeria on  SMEs”, numerous variables currently influence Nigeria’s economic climate and as a result, it is unfavourable and risky for foreign investments.

It further stated that there were obstacles in the Nigerian business environment that act as constraints to the survival of business in the nation, despite the economic expansion and the possibility for economic prospects.

It identified multiple taxations as a major constraint that has negatively impacted many businesses in the country.

The report read in part, “MAN (Manufacturers Association of Nigeria) has spoken out loudly that the Nigerian business environment is now under the oppressive weight of several taxes, which have the potential to bankrupt companies. In a recent survey, MAN discovered that only 39 of the 119 taxes and levies that were authorised under the taxes and levies (Approved list of collection) Act 1998 were really being levied by various levels of government across the three states.

“80 per cent of SMEs fail before their fifth anniversary due to harsh economic environments, lack of access to capital, and poor business practices, which have stunted the growth and transition of micro-businesses, according to the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency of Nigeria in Nigeria.”

The report listed additional difficulties such as the cost of accessing adequate technology, the lack of facilities for research and development, the decline in demand for locally produced products and the increase in demand for imported goods.

“Low formal educational and technical competency of SME owners and staff as well as weak organisational framework, product/service marketing, low information technology utilisation, people management issues, insufficient accounting records, among others, are some significant challenges facing SMEs in Nigeria,” the report read further.

Punch

A witness for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has told the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja that results on all 110 BVAS machines he inspected were deleted.

The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine is an electronic device distributed across the over 176,000 polling units in the country by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the accreditation of voters during the 2023 general elections.

The device was also designed to promptly upload photographic copies of result sheets to the INEC Results View (IReV) portal after result documentation at the polling units.

Atiku disputed the results of the presidential election declared by INEC. He also rejected the results because of INEC’s failure to promptly upload the polling unit results of the election to IReV.

In his petition that he filed at the Presidential Election Petition Court to challenge President Bola Tinubu’s victory, Atiku prayed that he be declared the winner instead. But he alternatively asked for an outright cancellation of the poll for a fresh one to be conducted.

Hitler Nwala, who was subpoenaed to testify as an expert witness for the petitioners, said he inspected and analysed 110 BVAS machines used for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) election.

The witness, led in evidence by the petitioner’s lead counsel, Chris Uche, described himself as a Digital Forensic Analyst.

He said his analysis of the BVAS showed that their results were deleted but that he didn’t know when the deletion was done.

Cross-examination

Under cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, the witness said that he attached a standard exercise device to the machine to arrive at his conclusion.

When asked if he had the authority of the commission to attach an external device to the BVAS machines, the witness answered in the affirmative.

Mahmoud further asked the witness if he was aware that inspecting only 110 machines out of 3,163 that were deployed in the FCT amounted to only 3.4 per cent of the total number of BVAS deployed in the FCT and 0.06 per cent of BVAS deployed nationwide.

The witness told the court that he only compiled the report and didn’t take time to calculate the percentages.

The INEC counsel attempted to give a BVAS machine to the witness to check if the results on them were deleted, as he had said in his report.

The witness, however, said that it would be against the ethics of his profession to collect the BVAS machine in open court to check it.

“It is professionally wrong to access a device that will be used as evidence in a court of competent jurisdiction because it will tamper with the evidence.

“We cannot access the device directly; what we do is extract the evidence and take it for analysis,” he said.

Moreover, the witness told the court that since all the devices had the same model and looked the same on the outside, he couldn’t tell by merely looking at it if it was one of those he inspected.

On his part, counsel for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi, told the witness that neither he nor his team members signed the six-volume forensic report.

The witness, however, insisted that he signed the report and the certificate of compliance.

On his part, counsel for Tinubu, Wole Olanipekun, confronted the witness with a portion of his report where he said that from his inspection of the machines, “nothing was intrinsically wrong with them”.

“Were you in Abuja on the day of the presidential election? If you were not in Abuja, how can you know that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the machines on the day of the election?” the senior lawyer asked.

The witness said he was not in Abuja, so he couldn’t have known if something went wrong with the machines on election day.

Exhibits tendered

After the witness was discharged, the petitioners went further to tender Forms EC8A series from 20 local government areas of Ogun State, 17 local government areas of Ondo State, 27 local government areas of Jigawa State, and 20 local government areas of Rivers State.

The five-member panel of the court led by Haruna Tsammani adjourned the hearing of the petition until Friday.

After the pre-hearing report, Atiku and the PDP are expected to close their case on Friday.

They had asked for three weeks to present their case, which elapsed on Tuesday, but because they had lost three days, one being the June 12 Democracy Day public holiday, the court extended their time by three days.

NAN