States
NPHCDA: States yet to meet conditions won’t get coronavirus vaccines
National Primary Health Care Development Agency, NPHCDA, said, yesterday, that states yet to meet the criteria for COVID-19 vaccines would not get a share of the 3.92 million AstraZeneca vaccines received by the country on Tuesday. Executive Director of the agency, Dr Faisal Shuaib, who disclosed this at a State House briefing in Abuja, also said President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo would be vaccinated publicly tomorrow, while members of the Federal Executive Council, FEC, would have theirs on Monday. He said: “After we are able to get our strategic leaders to publicly demonstrate that these vaccines are safe, the plan is to now go to the state level to start the launch at the treatment centres of the states and also get strategic leaders, such as governors, to publi...
2,700 Akwa Ibom women benefit from federal government’s special grant
The minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has advised Nigerian women not to regard the N20, 000 special grant given to the rural woman by the federal government as the fabled national cake. She has rather charged the beneficiaries to judiciously use the grant to improve their living standard by utilizing it as seed capital do boost their trades and businesses for greater income. Speaking through Bashir Nura Alkali, the permanent secretary of the ministry, at the flag off of the Grant for Rural Women Project and the symbolic disbursement of the grant to 2700 women of Akwa Ibom state, in Uyo, on Thursday, Farouq explained that the Grant for Rural Women Programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of Presid...
PDP accuses APC of plot to take over Zamfara
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the All Progressives Congress (APC) of plotting a forceful take over of Zamfara State because of the security challenges confronting the state. The party levelled the accusation in a statement on Wednesday by its spokesperson, Kola Ologbondiyan. The North-west state is governed by a PDP governor, Bello Matawalle. Hundreds of students were abducted from the Government Girls Secondary School, Jangebe, Zamfara State by some bandits on Friday last week. They were, however, released in the early hours of Tuesday. On the same day, the APC-led the federal government declared the state a ‘no-fly-zone’ just as it again banned mining activities in the state to curb the rising insecurity. Before the Zamfara incident, at least 27 male students were abduct...
How to tackle students’ abduction – NUT, NAPTAN
Nigeria Union of Teachers The Nigeria Union of Teachers, NUT, and the National Parents Teacher Association of Nigeria, NAPTAN, have proffered solutions to the incessant abduction of students by bandits in some parts of the country. Speaking in separate interviews with our correspodent, the two groups called on the federal and state governments to entrench the Safe Schools Initiative and deploy military personnel in schools across the country. National Secretary of the NUT, Dr. Mike Ene, said apart from the steps expected to be taken by the government to stem the ugly trend, every citizen should develop psychic eyes to help them be security-conscious at all times. He said: “These abductions here and there are deliberate steps to discourage education and encourage school drop out. It is unfo...
#EndSARS: Oba Akiolu accuses youths of stealing $2 million, N17 million from his palace during protests
Nigerian Ports Authority Oba of Lagos, Rilwan Akiolu has said that youths that invaded his palace during #EndSARS protests in October 2020 stole $2m and N17m from his palace. The monarch said the youths wouldn’t have committed the offence if they knew the implication of what they did. Akiolu said this during the commissioning of the Glover Hall Memorial in Lagos on Wednesday, March 3, 2021. It would be recalled that Akiolu’s palace at Iga Idunganran on Lagos Island was attacked by youths a day after soldiers shot at #EndSARS protesters at Lekki tollgate on Tuesday, October 20, 2020. The youths vandalised vehicles and carted away several artefacts including the monarch’s staff of office. Describing the destruction that followed the shooting of protesters as enormous, Akiolu said he had appe...
Police promotion: PSC insists no zone is marginalised
File Photo The Police Service Commission has reiterated that no part of Nigeria has been deliberately shortchanged in the promotion of officers of the Nigeria Police Force. This was disclosed in a statement on Wednesday by Ikechukwu Ani, Head, Press and Public Relations of the commission. He said the Commission was aware that promotion in the Police Force is guided by defined rules and regulations that have nothing to do with ethnic or religious considerations. The statement read in part, “The Commission wishes to state that it has since sanitized the processes of recruitment, promotion and discipline in the Force and has ensured that these processes are also governed by established rules and regulations. “It is on record that the Commission has contributed in ensuring sanity in the recrui...
Yoruba group: Ban on Zamfara mining activities a double-edged sword
The Yoruba Ronu Leadership Forum yesterday raised the alarm that the ban on mining activities in Zamfara State by the national security council and the declaration of the state a no-fly zone area order are double-edged sword for peace. In a statement issued by the President of the group, Mr. Akin Malaolu, the group recalled that between 2006 and 2007 the then governor Sani Yerima displaced a large population of Fulanis from many mining sites and replaced them with Hausa youths to take charge. The statement noted that the displacement at that time caused both discomfort and death on the Fulani youths who then took to banditry. “If the government is placing ban, we hope they won’t cause new displacement that could re-enact same security challenges we are yet to surmount. “Our candid advice i...
Bayelsa governor: 2.5% revenue for host communities ‘unacceptable’ to Niger Delta
Gov. Douye Diri of Bayelsa on Tuesday proposed that 10 per cent of derived oil revenue be provided in the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB) for the host communities. Mr Diri, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Alabrah, said this on Tuesday during a townhall meeting on the bill with members of the National Assembly in Yenagoa. The governor said the 2.5 per cent revenue proposed for the host communities in the PIB was grossly inadequate and unacceptable to the people of the Niger Delta. He argued that if the National Assembly members saw firsthand the level of environmental degradation and its attendant effects on the people, they would not hesitate to increase it from 10 per cent. Mr Diri stressed that the PIB was critical in addressing issues such as unemployment, lack of tran...
Ebonyi: Gunmen attack police station in Izzi
Some gunmen in the early hours of Monday attacked the Iboko Divisional Police Station in Izzi Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, Nigeria’s South-east. A police station was similarly attacked by gunmen in Akwa Ibom State on Monday. It is unclear, for now, if the attacks on police facilities, which are on the increase lately in the South-east and South-south regions, are coordinated. Details of the Ebonyi attack were unavailable at the time of filing the report. The attackers were said to have set the building ablaze, using fire bombs. Police Commissioner in Ebonyi State, Aliyu Garba, confirmed the incident. “Yes they attacked the station around 1a.m. but there was no casualties. “They threw improvised fire bomb at the station and it ignited but it only affected a small part of the build...
Zamfara schoolgirls kidnap: President Buhari has failed Nigeria – Wole Soyinka
Nobel laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka on Saturday said the government of President Muhammadu Buhari has failed Nigeria after terrorists abducted hundreds of school girls in Zamfara State. Soyinka spoke in Abeokuta, Ogun State, at the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), Ogun award lecture and public presentation of ‘Chronicles of the happiest people on earth,’ the latest book authored by him. According to Soyinka, it is important for all to know that these were abnormal times, but that it seemed to him as times of shirking of responsibilities in key areas. “We cannot permit ourselves to accept the child hostage taking as a way of life, we just can not continue in this fashion, some thing drastic and meaningful has to take place and it has to be collective,” he said. Soyinka emphasised that ...
Senate president votes in Yobe council elections
Earlier on Saturday, President of the Senate, Ahmad Ibrahim Lawan, voted in the Local Government election taking place across Yobe State. Lawan arrived his Katuzu ward polling unit in Gashua, Bade Local Government Area and immediately proceeded to the polling booth where he voted for the chairmanship and councilorship candidates of his choice. Speaking shortly after the vote cast, the Senate President advised that local government councils across the country should be administered by elected representatives whose primary responsibilities are to advance the interest, and ensure the welfare of people at the grassroots. While commending the Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, for complying with the provisions of the Constitution in recognizing the importance to have local government electi...
Bauchi, Benue governors reconcile in Port Harcourt
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday, brokered a truce between the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom and Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Mohammed in Port Harcourt. The conflict was resolved following the intervention of Governor Wike and his Adamawa State counterpart, Governor Ahmed Fintiri. Briefing journalists at the meeting, which held at Governor Wike’s private residence at Rumuepirikom, Governor Mohammed said the outburst between him and Governor Ortom over herders/Fulani profiling was regrettable. “We don’t mean to divide the country, to divide our people. We are still friends and brothers and that we will move forward because most of those issues are fully resolved. “I want to seize this opportunity to tell Nigerians that whatever misconception that is there, th...