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<p>Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme CEO Parminder Vir, spoke to CNBC Africa about  the selection process which saw 1000 candidates emerge from over 98,000 applications.</p>


Selecting Africa’s most promising entrepreneurs

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo says history and failures should not determine Africa’s future. VP Osinbajo was addressing hundreds of excited African entrepreneurs.</p>


Past history of failures must not define Africa’s future- Osinbajo

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<p>Nigeria’s Vice President Yemi Osinbajo recently launched a 60 day national action plan aimed at driving reforms to make Nigeria an easier place to do business. Vincent Nwani,  LCCI, joins CNBC Africa to analyse the impact this.</p>


Nigeria’s efforts to improve ease of doing business

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<p>Some industry stakeholders have described Nigeria&#8217;s National Gas Policy approved by Nigeria&#8217;s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo earlier this year as a wish list of the federal government.</p>


Analysing Nigeria’s new national gas policy

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<p>Nigeria celebrated its 57th year of Independence from Britain over the weekend. CNBC Africa&#8217;s Oyedamola Akinsanya caught up with Ayo Obe, partner at Ogunsola Shonibare and discussed some of the history behind the challenges the country faces in its u</p>


Nigeria turns 57: challenges and solutions

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo wants Tax Administrators across Africa, to invent solutions that include collaboratively collecting taxes from the continent&#8217;s huge informal economies.</p>


Osinbajo challenges Africa’s Tax Administrators to tackle evasion

<p data-reactid="42">Nigeria’s government has asked parliament to amend its spending law to enable a debt program to settle 2.7 trillion naira ($8.6 bln) worth of obligations including pensions and salary arrears, according to a letter from Vice President Yemi Osinbajo.</p>
<p data-reactid="43">The letter, read out in the Senate on Tuesday, requested amendments to the law, which stipulates allocation of government spending, to allow Nigeria to fund recurrent expenditure from proceeds of the debt rather than just capital projects.</p>
<p data-reactid="44">Nigeria’s Fiscal Responsbility Act states that proceeds of government borrowings can only be applied towards capital expenditure. Osinbajo said the amendment was to provide the legal backing for the use of the debt to meet the obligations.</p>
<p data-reactid="45">The vice president sent the letter to the Senate last month while President Muhammadu Buhari was on medical leave in Britain. The letter was read out after the Senate reconvened following a seven-week recess.</p>
<p data-reactid="46">Africa’s biggest economy grew out of recession in the second quarter as oil revenues rose, but the pace of growth was slow, suggesting the recovery is fragile.</p>
<p data-reactid="47">Osinbajo’s letter said the obligations had become inimical to government plans to revive the economy through the provision of modern infrastructure and settle pension and salary arrears dating back five years.</p>
<p data-reactid="48">Finance Minister Kemi Adeosun has said the government plans to refinance $3 billion worth of treasury bills denominated in naira with dollar borrowing to lower costs and improve its debt position.</p>
<p data-reactid="49">($1 = 314.50 naira)</p>
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="50">
<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="51">Writing by Chijioke Ohuocha; Editing by Alexis Akwagyiram/Mark Heinrich</p>
</div>


Nigeria asks Senate to amend law for govt to settle 2.7 TRN naira debt

<p data-reactid="45">When millions of people in northeast Nigeria faced hunger and attacks by Islamist militant group Boko Haram in March 2016, the government acted: it decided to spend $1.4 million cutting down weeds around the village of Wachakal in order to stop flooding.</p>
<p data-reactid="46">    Six months later, many of the weeds had grown back and 317 million naira (at the time $1.04 million) had been transferred from the company hired to destroy them to a firm founded by the government official in charge of dispensing aid, according to a Nigerian Senate report.</p>
<p data-reactid="47">The report, written by a committee of lawmakers from Nigeria’s upper chamber of parliament, concluded that companies that received contracts for projects including the weeding from a government body overseen by the official, Babachir Lawal, transferred a total of 500 million naira (worth around $2.2 million) to the firm he set up.</p>
<p data-reactid="48">The report publicly called for a criminal investigation into the payments. Central to the probe was whether Lawal was involved in a suspected kickback scheme to divert aid money intended for the volatile northeast.</p>
<p data-reactid="49">The committee said the scheme involved inflating the value of contracts to enrich Lawal and his associates. The report did not provide evidence to show why it believed costs had been enlarged.</p>
<p data-reactid="50">Lawal, 62, is an ally of President Muhammadu Buhari and one of his first appointments. In a written statement responding to Reuters’ questions, Lawal denied wrongdoing and said he had been the victim of a Senate witch-hunt.</p>
<p data-reactid="51">    The United Nations has warned that northeast Nigeria is gripped by one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.</p>
<p data-reactid="52">Boko Haram has burned down homes, destroyed livelihoods and killed thousands of people. Refugees living in camps complain of starvation and disease, while soldiers and police have been accused of rape.</p>
<p data-reactid="53">    A Reuters review of the Senate report’s findings shows how two pillars of Buhari’s presidency &#8211; restoring stability in the northeast and fighting corruption &#8211; may have been undermined by the alleged misappropriation of aid money and food.</p>
<p data-reactid="54">The review draws upon documents detailing bank transfers and corporate records, visits to aid projects and interviews with senior politicians, diplomats and humanitarian workers.</p>
<h3 data-reactid="55">PROMISES UNFULFILLED</h3>
<p data-reactid="56">  The final Senate report, published in May, recommended that Lawal be prosecuted for allegedly flouting procurement rules and breaking his oaths of office.</p>
<p data-reactid="57">He was suspended in April pending a presidential investigation launched after the Senate’s findings first surfaced in an earlier draft of the report.</p>
<p data-reactid="58">The investigation into Lawal, ordered by Buhari, was headed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, who delivered his findings to the president on Aug. 22.</p>
<p data-reactid="59">“The president has to look at the report, study it and then make his own decisions,” Osinbajo said, without saying what was in the presidential investigation report.</p>
<p data-reactid="60">   Buhari’s office referred Reuters to the vice president’s comments.</p>
<p data-reactid="61">Despite Buhari’s vows to fight corruption, no major figures have been convicted so far. Boko Haram, who have killed around 20,000 people since 2009, have been pushed back in some areas yet continue to launch attacks, while millions of people in the northeast rely on some form of aid.</p>
<h3 data-reactid="62">MILLIONS OF DOLLARS</h3>
<p data-reactid="63">Shehu Sani, who chaired the Senate committee that produced the report, said overall losses to suspected corruption in various forms in the northeastern humanitarian crisis in recent years had not been determined due to the probe’s specific remit and factors that restricted its scope.</p>
<p data-reactid="64">He said the Senate investigation was limited by the timeframe examined, as it focused on government aid spending since the current administration took office in May, 2015.</p>
<p data-reactid="65">Sani also said some government agencies had refused to cooperate, access to bank account details was limited and the use of international donor funds was not investigated.</p>
<p data-reactid="66">“We can say, conservatively, that over 10 billion naira ($33 million) of monies that were supposed to go to the IDPs (internally displaced persons) were misappropriated or unaccounted for, or misused from different segments of the Nigerian government,” Sani told Reuters.</p>
<p data-reactid="67">He said he was referring to all forms of corruption related to funds involving Nigerian humanitarian aid dating back around three years, and not just allegations involving Lawal. He declined to elaborate further.</p>
<p data-reactid="68">The humanitarian crisis began in 2014. Nigeria’s then-president, Goodluck Jonathan, set up the Presidential Initiative on the Northeast (PINE) to provide emergency assistance to communities and foster economic growth in the region.</p>
<p data-reactid="69">PINE had problems from the outset.</p>
<p data-reactid="70">According to a 2014 internal PINE presentation prepared by the then-chairman for the group’s committee, a pilot scheme sent 51 food trucks to Borno state and 10 to Gombe state; none arrived.</p>
<p data-reactid="71">After he became president in 2015, Buhari made Lawal Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) &#8211; Nigeria’s top civil servant. Through PINE, Lawal oversaw millions of dollars of aid.</p>
<p data-reactid="72">The Senate report alleges that most aid contracts in 2016 did not help the needy. Instead, inflated contracts “were awarded to companies belonging to top government officials’ cronies and close associates”.</p>
<p data-reactid="73">It said a company called Rholavision Engineering Limited, which describes itself as “Information and Communication Technology Engineers &amp; Consultants” and was founded by Lawal in 1990, was where money for companies that were awarded contracts by PINE came to first.</p>
<p data-reactid="74">    In his statement, Lawal said he relinquished ties with Rholavision on Aug. 27, 2015, four days before being sworn in as SGF.</p>
<p data-reactid="75">But company registry records show he did not resign as a director until Sept. 8, 2016. In addition, a signed letter from Lawal to the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) dated Sept. 16, 2016 &#8211; contained in the appendices of the Senate report &#8211; said he wished to relinquish his shares in Rholavision.</p>
<p data-reactid="76">“That can’t be true,” said Lawal in a text message when asked about the apparent discrepancy. “This is forged,” he said, when sent a picture of the letter to CAC. He declined to elaborate.</p>
<p data-reactid="77">    Rholavision declined to comment.</p>
<h3 data-reactid="78">SOME WORK DONE</h3>
<p data-reactid="79">In March and August 2016, PINE awarded two contracts to cut weeds and improve irrigation in riverside communities in the northeastern state of Yobe. For some 30 years, the weeds had caused farmland to flood and prevented people from fishing.</p>
<p data-reactid="80">The contracts, worth a combined total of 531 million naira, were granted to Josmon Technologies Ltd. The first contract, awarded in March 2016, was for 273 million naira &#8211; at the time worth $1.4 million.</p>
<p data-reactid="81">The second contract was awarded to Josmon in August 2016. Nigeria’s naira currency lost around a third of its value two months earlier, so the 258 million naira contract was then worth some $845,000.</p>
<p data-reactid="82">Rholavision, the company founded by Lawal, received a contract for a consultancy role in the weed-cutting project. The 7.1 million naira contract was awarded in March 2016 when that sum was equivalent to $36,040.</p>
<p data-reactid="83">Some work was done. Ali Dodo, a farmer in Wachakal, told Reuters that he and others cut weeds around the Komadugu-Yobe river over a month-long period from August 2016. He said contractors paid them 2,500 naira a day.</p>
<p data-reactid="84">Reuters was unable to determine how much was spent on the work in total. Bank records, however, show that Josmon Technologies paid 317 million naira to Rholavision between March and September 2016.</p>
<p data-reactid="85">Monday John Apeh, a Josmon director, told Reuters that “Josmon has no relationship with Mr Babachir Lawal”.</p>
<div class="DPSlot_container_2dHIN DPSlot_inline_1oeo6 in-article-tag"></div>
<p data-reactid="87">In a text message, he said Josmon struggled to finance the PINE contract because the company had been experiencing financial difficulties and would only be paid when the work was complete. That “led us to borrow money from Rholavision’s MD”, he said.</p>
<p data-reactid="88">Josmon said 195 million naira ($637,359) of the 317 million naira it sent to Rholavision was to repay that loan. Apeh declined to comment on what happened to the remaining 122 million naira.</p>
<p data-reactid="89">Lawal said in his statement: “These purely business transactions between the companies cannot be classified as bribes.”</p>
<p data-reactid="90">Dodo, the local farmer, said weeds started growing back within six months.</p>
<p data-reactid="91">Despite numerous setbacks, Nigeria’s government is trying to reboot aid efforts. Buhari replaced PINE with the Presidential Committee on the Northeast Initiative last October.</p>
<p data-reactid="92">In June, the government promised to distribute 30,000 tonnes of grain to people displaced by Boko Haram, after saying more than half of food aid previously dispatched had gone missing.</p>
<p data-reactid="93">Zainab Ahmed, who heads Nigeria’s Inter-Ministerial Task Force on the Humanitarian Response in the Northeast, told Reuters the deliveries would now be guarded by soldiers.</p>
<p data-reactid="94">Coordination between agencies “is not perfect but it has improved a great deal and is getting better,” she said.</p>
<p>($1 = 305.9500 naira)</p>
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="95">
<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="96">Editing by Giles Elgood</p>
</div>


In the weeds: How top official got tangled in Nigerian aid scandal

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo described the Obu Cement factory&#8217;s 600 million-dollar investment as a boost to the Nigerian economy saying it aligns with the government&#8217;s economic recovery and growth plan.</p>


Osinbajo commissions BUA’s cement factory in Edo

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo inaugurated a 60,000 metric tonnes per annum Edo State fertilizer plant and a two million metric tonnes per annum BUA Cement plant at Okpella yesterday.</p>


Osinbajo opens 60.000 metric tonnes fertiliser plant in Edo State

<p data-reactid="39">LAGOS (Reuters) &#8211; The first meeting of Nigeria&#8217;s cabinet since the return of President Muhammadu Buhari from three months of medical leave in Britain has been cancelled, his spokesman said on Wednesday without explaining why.</p>
<p data-reactid="40">Buhari returned to Nigeria on Saturday after travelling to Britain on May 7 for an unspecified illness, and had written lawmakers on Monday to confirm he had returned and was resuming his duties.</p>
<p data-reactid="41">&#8220;The meeting of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) will not be held today,&#8221; the president&#8217;s spokesman, Femi Adesina, said in an emailed statement.</p>
<p data-reactid="42">The refusal by officials to disclose details of his illness has caused widespread speculation about the ailment and whether the 74-year-old is well enough to run Africa&#8217;s most populous country and biggest economy.</p>
<p data-reactid="43">In a televised address on Monday, Buhari looking thin but sounded stronger than his last broadcast in June. He walked unaided off his plane when he arrived on Saturday, though at a slow pace, holding rails on either side of him.</p>
<p data-reactid="44">Buhari handed over power to his deputy Yemi Osinbajo in his absence. He informed legislators on Monday he was resuming his duties. The next day Adesina said the president would work from home due to renovations to be carried out at his office.</p>
<p data-reactid="45">The medical leave was Buhari&#8217;s second in Britain this year after one that began in January and lasted nearly two months.</p>
<p>http://cnbc.africa/news/western-africa/2017/08/21/nigerias-president-buhari-addresses-nation-3-months-medical-leave-say/</p>
<p data-reactid="47">He reduced his working day to a few hours after returning to Nigeria from his first stint of medical leave on March 10, diplomats and government sources said.</p>
<p>Despite the cancellation of the cabinet session, Adesina said Buhari would on Wednesday receive a report on an investigation into corruption allegations levelled against two senior government officials. The inquiry, launched in April, was headed by Osinbajo.</p>
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="48">
<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="49">Reporting by Alexis Akwagyiram; editing by Mark Heinrich</p>
</div>


Nigeria’s first cabinet meeting after Buhari’s return cancelled

<p>ABUJA (Reuters) &#8211; Separatists calling for the breakup of Nigeria have crossed a red line and the country&#8217;s unity is not negotiable, President Muhammadu Buhari said on Monday in his first speech since returning home after three months of medical leave in Britain.</p>
<p>Ethnic tensions have surfaced in the last few months amid calls for a separate southeastern state, known as Biafra, while some in the restive southern Niger Delta oil hub have called for independence and Boko Haram militants seek an Islamic state in the northeast.</p>
<p>Nigeria is Africa&#8217;s most populous nation with 180 million people, split roughly equally between Christians and Muslims and about 250 different ethnic groups who mostly live peacefully side-by-side.</p>
<p>In a televised speech, broadcast two days after his return on Saturday, Buhari said he followed events in Nigeria on a daily basis during his absence and was concerned by discussions over the possible dissolution of the country.</p>
<p>&#8220;I was distressed to notice that some of the comments, especially in the social media have crossed our national red lines by daring to question our collective existence as a nation,&#8221; said Buhari.</p>
<p>&#8220;Nigeria&#8217;s unity is settled and not negotiable. We shall not allow irresponsible elements to start trouble,&#8221; he said, adding that some ethnic violence was &#8220;fuelled by political mischief makers&#8221;.</p>
<p>Buhari, a 74-year-old northern Muslim who took office in May 2015, handed over power to his deputy, Christian southerner Yemi Osinbajo, when he travelled to Britain on May 7 for treatment of an unspecified ailment.</p>
<p>Osinbajo held talks in June with regional leaders in an effort to quell tension after Muslim activists demanded the eviction of Igbo people from the north over their calls for the creation of a separate Biafra state.</p>
<p>The tensions echoed the build up to a civil war over the secession of Biafra in 1967 which ended with Nigeria&#8217;s victory in 1970, after an estimated 1 million people died.</p>
<p>Buhari also said Nigeria&#8217;s security agencies should not let successes achieved against Islamist militant group Boko Haram in the last 18 months &#8220;be a sign to relax&#8221;, adding that Nigeria would &#8220;reinforce and reinvigorate&#8221; the fight against the insurgents.</p>
<p>Suicide bomb attacks and raids by Boko Haram in the northeast have increased in the last few months, killing at least 170 people since June 1, according a Reuters tally. Buhari had said in December 2016 that the group&#8217;s main base had fallen.</p>
<p>Nigeria, an OPEC member which has Africa&#8217;s biggest economy, is in its first recession in 25 years which was largely caused by low oil prices and the impact of attacks on energy facilities last year in the Niger Delta.</p>
<p>Buhari said it was in the interest of Nigerians to come together to face the challenge of economic security.</p>
<p>Reporting by Felix Onuah, Paul Carsten and Alexis Akwagyiram in Lagos; Editing by Robert Birsel</p>


Nigeria’s President Buhari addresses his nation after 3 months medical leave, this is what he had to say

<p data-reactid="38">Nigeria&#8217;s acting president will open a $1.5 billion fertiliser plant in the southeastern city of Port Harcourt on Thursday, highlighting efforts by Africa&#8217;s largest economy to boost its agriculture industry.</p>
<p data-reactid="39">Nigeria has for decades been dependent on exports of oil to support its economy, but as global crude prices have dropped and production has been hit by militant attacks the government has sought to diversify, embracing sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.</p>
<p data-reactid="40">The new factory has an annual production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of urea fertiliser and was built by Indorama Eleme Fertilizer and Chemicals Limited, the president&#8217;s office said in a statement on Wednesday giving details of the visit by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo. He is leading Nigeria while Muhammadu Buhari is in Britain on medical leave for an undisclosed ailment</p>
<p data-reactid="41">&#8220;Besides making fertiliser available to farmers nationwide at affordable cost, the plant will also boost crop yield for farmers,&#8221; the statement said.</p>
<div class="Attribution_attribution_o4ojT" data-reactid="42">
<p class="Attribution_content_27_rw" data-reactid="43">Reporting by Felix Onuah; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Susan Fenton</p>
</div>


Nigeria’s new $1.5BN fertiliser plant boosts agriculture sector

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<p>Nigeria&#8217;s acting president Yemi Osinbajo signed three executive orders in May, one of the orders was a directive for the resumption of 24-hour operations at the ports.</p>


Nigerian Ports Authority’s Hadiza Bala Usman on managing the country’ ports

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<p>KPMG&#8217;s Tomi Adepoju describes Nigeria&#8217;s regulatory environment as bullish and says that companies are finding it difficult to comply.</p>


Fixing Nigeria’s business regulations

<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari is recuperating fast and will return home shortly, his deputy said on Wednesday after visiting the head of state in London where he has been on prolonged sick leave.</p>
<p>Yemi Osinbajo&#8217;s brief and unannounced trip has revived speculation about Buhari&#8217;s health and whether he will be able to stand for re-election in 2019. The details of his illness have not been made public.</p>
<p>&#8220;He is in very high spirits, he is recuperating very quickly and we had a very long conversation. We spoke for well over an hour. His humour is all there. He is doing well,&#8221; said Osinbajo, who is acting president.</p>
<p>&#8220;We discussed wide-ranging issues. I can&#8217;t go into specifics,&#8221; he said in his first public comments after returning to Abuja on Wednesday morning. Osinbajo then chaired a weekly cabinet meeting.</p>
<p>When Buhari, 74, left Abuja for London on May 7, his second trip abroad for health reasons, he handed over power to Osinbajo, who according to the constitution would assume the presidency should Buhari be unable to continue.</p>
<p>Osinbajo is already being talked about in the capital as a potential nominee for the 2019 presidential election in Nigeria, sub-Saharan Africa&#8217;s largest economy and energy producer.</p>
<p><strong>Questioning the Narrative</strong></p>
<p>A thin-looking Buhari was last seen in Nigeria on state television in early May, just hours before he flew to Britain, welcoming a group of 82 girls released by the Islamist militant group Boko Haram.</p>
<p>Buhari&#8217;s first trip to London for health reasons was in January and lasted nearly two months.</p>
<p>The Nigerian public&#8217;s view of Buhari&#8217;s situation has turned sceptical. As the trickle of information about the president&#8217;s health, which used to include photographs of meetings in London, dries up, some are questioning the official narrative.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t know, unless they show it to us on television or through anything, that both of them (Buhari and Osinbajo) are meeting,&#8221; said Adeleke Ogunlana, a businessman in Lagos.</p>
<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t believe they met at all.&#8221;</p>
<p>With the economy now in its second year of recession, the first in a quarter of a century, others asked whether a sickly person should be at the helm.</p>
<p>&#8220;We want a healthy, vibrant president who is sound mentally and physically to be able to handle the problems facing the country,&#8221; said Emeka Iloabuchi, a Lagos-based marketer.</p>
<p>&#8220;The president as far as I am concerned should leave the office, should resign honorably so that the people of Nigeria can have a man that is healthy.&#8221;</p>
<p><strong>Avoiding Political Infighting</strong></p>
<p>Nigerian officials have sought to avoid a scenario seen in 2010 when political infighting broke out during the lengthy illness of then-President Umaru Yar&#8217;Adua.</p>
<p>Osinbajo has been given full powers to act during Buhari&#8217;s absences, in contrast to predecessor Goodluck Jonathan who only took over after Yar&#8217;Adua&#8217;s death in 2010 ended the power vacuum.</p>
<p>Investors have welcomed Osinbajo, a Christian lawyer from the commercial capital Lagos in southwest Nigeria who is seen as more business-friendly than Buhari.</p>
<p>But the long-term risk is that the Muslim north, where Buhari hails from, might not accept Osinbajo as a permanent solution if the president became incapacitated at some point.</p>
<p>Traditionally in Nigeria, the leadership rotates between north and south to ensure a balance in a country evenly split between Muslims and Christians.</p>
<p>Jonathan, a Christian from the south, upset many northerners by refusing to give way to a northern candidate in 2010. Many northerners had felt there should have been another northern presidential term after Yar&#8217;Adua&#8217;s premature death.</p>


Nigeria’s Buhari recovering fast, will return soon: VP, Osinbajo

<p data-reactid="37">Nigerian Vice President Yemi Osinbajo was in London on Tuesday, spending an hour at the country&#8217;s High Commission where President Muhammadu Buhari has spent much of the past two months on medical leave.</p>
<p data-reactid="38">A Reuters reporter saw Osinbajo arrive at Abuja House, the Nigerian High Commission, or embassy, in London, late on Tuesday. He left an hour later without comment.</p>
<p data-reactid="39">Buhari left Abuja on May 7 and handed over power to his deputy, to allay concerns of a void at the top of Africa&#8217;s biggest economy.</p>
<p data-reactid="40">&#8220;Osinbajo meeting with President Buhari in London today, and returning to Abuja immediately afterwards,&#8221; the vice president&#8217;s spokesman, Laolu Akande, said in a Twitter message posted earlier on Tuesday. No details were given.</p>
<p data-reactid="41">Officials have not disclosed details of Buhari&#8217;s illness, which has caused fierce speculation in Nigerian media and on social media about his ailment and whether he will seek a second term in the 2019 election.</p>
<p data-reactid="42">A thin-looking Buhari, 74, was last seen in Nigeria on state television welcoming a group of 82 girls released by Islamist militant group Boko Haram, hours before he flew to Britain.</p>
<p data-reactid="43">It is the ailing president&#8217;s second break in Britain this year. The first began in January and lasted nearly two months.</p>


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