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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013 --- report from SUNDAY ODE, Abuja] ---
NATIONAL Chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, has urged the Kaduna State Governor, Alhaji Ramalan Mukhtar Yero to make provision and access to education the priority of his administration.
The PDP boss gave the admonition yesterday during a courtesy visit to him by the governor. This was even as Governor Yero stated that his administration was ready to confront the security challenges in Kaduna State.
Tukur noted that God had given the country every thing that it needed to be great, adding that, all that the leaders of the country ought to do was to provide the governed the requisite education and training to be able to convert this God-given wealth to plenty.
“We are not poor people because God has given us every thing that we might need. The key is education to our people.
“Our schools should be vibrant; they ...
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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013] ---
SWEEPING Changes are underway at the top echelon of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) following the sacking of Mrs. Rose Uzoma, the immediate Comptroller-General of Immigration (CGI).
Mrs. Uzoma was booted out of office three months to her retirement from the service for alleged high-headedness, corruption and undisciplined attitude towards top government functionaries.
An unconfirmed source said in Abuja yesterday that the Federal Government intends to clean the top cadre of the service to avoid being infected by the Uzoma “bug.”
Consequently, seven deputy comptroller-general of immigration (DCGI), and some very senior Assistant Comptroller-General of Immigration man likely to be sacked to pave the way for “fresh blood” to take over the helm of affairs at the service.
“What did the government get, uncooperative, undisciplined and arrogant prison boss. Disloyal and in fact...
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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013 --- report from ISAIAH ABRAHAM, Abuja] ---
THE Senate yesterday threw its weight behind the deployment of 1,200 Nigerian troops on a limited combat duty to Mali by unanimously consenting to the request of President Goodluck Jonathan and mandated its Committee on Defence to monitor the operations.
This was even as a number of senators said there was a need to refocus Nigeria’s Foreign Policy to make it more dynamic with the country’s economic interest added to it.
The senators observed that Nigeria sacrificed lives and spent a lot of money to achieve peace in Sierra-Leone and Liberia apart from the role the country played in the Liberation of South Africa, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Angola without any benefit tied to the numerous sacrifices while making a case for the economic components of such foreign missions.
Justifying the action of President Goodluck Jonathan on the deployment of Nigerian t...
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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013 --- report from JOSHUA I. EGBODO, Abuja] ---
THE House of Representatives yesterday resolved to constitute an ad-hoc panel to investigate the alleged theft of 2.1 billion Naira of newly printed 1,000 Naira notes at the Nigeria Security Printing and Minting Company (NSPMC) late last year.
The House was worried that conflicting figures were being bandied around between the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the erstwhile management of NSPMC.
The management board of the company, chaired by CBN Governor, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi had in the wake of revelation of the theft, met and suspended the Managing Director, Ehi Okomoyon, and subsequently appointed Ahmed Bamali to head the Mint in acting capacity.
Other key officials of NSPMC were also sent on compulsory leaves as the management was blamed for not making it a point of duty to brief the board immediately the incident took place.
In its resolution on...
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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013 ] ---
A STRONG feeling of appreciation and re-awakening ran through the historic city of Benin in Edo State yesterday as the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke re-commissioned the strategic Benin Depot of the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company, (PPMC) which has been in comatose since 2005.
An elated Governor Adams Oshiomole who led a team of prominent Edo State Government officials and dignitaries to the event said with the re-activation of the Benin Depot by the Minister of Petroleum Resources, the Federal Government has demonstrated its resolve to sustain the ongoing reforms in the oil and gas industry.
“The Minister has demonstrated that indeed good things can come from the Petroleum industry as well as the NNPC,’’ he said.
The former President of the Nigerian Labour Congress also recalled how he had to embark on what he termed a “pilgrimage’ to th...
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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013 --- report from ABDULL-AZEEZ AHMED KADIR, Kaduna] ---
THE United States of America (USA) Ambassador to Nigeria, Mr Terrence McCulley has called on the Northern state Governors to tackle the current spate of insecurity in the region, just as he pledged USA support to make Kaduna the “window to reach the millions of people in the North.”
Terrence made the call yesterday in Kaduna during a courtesy call on the State Governor, Alhaji Muhktar Ramalan Yero in his office.
McCulley said the USA considered Nigeria its greatest ally in Africa as its stability, development and growth would mean the wellbeing of the entire continent.
He remarked that the U.S is optimistic of Nigeria’s economic revival and greatness and applauded the role of Nigeria in crisis management on the continent, assuring U.S support to Nigeria in any possible way.
The U.S envoy said Kaduna State holds the ace in the transfor...
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[Posted on Friday, January 18, 2013 ] ---
VICE President, Arc Mohammed Namadi Sambo has stated that the President Jonathan administration, has put in place the needed infrastructure to accelerate the attainment of all the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with less than one thousand days to the 2015 deadline.
Namadi Sambo yesterday in Abuja, during the Stakeholders Briefing on the Application of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals Acceleration Frame Work (MAF) to Fast-Track Progress against the MDGs in Nigeria.
He said “in addition to what directly the MDGs office is doing, it is recognized by this Administration, through Mr. President’s Transformation Agenda, that in order to address the issue of poverty, we must put the infrastructure needed for creation of wealth and in this direction we identified the various factors that are militating against our growth.”
Vice President Sambo enum...
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[Posted on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 --- By HAKEEM BABA-AHMED] ---
“Education makes people easy to lead but difficult to drive, easy to govern but difficult to enslave.” Lord Henry Brougham.
Twenty years ago, five young people from Zaria dared to dream. Dr Alimi Bello, late Aminu Jamoh, Alhaji Abubakar Tamimu, Dr. Abdulkadir Kassim and Dr Isah M. Abbas sat down to review the lamentable state of education and the living conditions of people in Zaria, and resolved to initiate a movement to reverse a trend that showed all signs of worsening. They worried that if the trend then, captured by the statistics “degenerates a little further, there will hardly be anybody from this part of the country that will be qualified for admission into any institution of higher learning.” Yet institutions in Zaria admitted people from all over Nigeria, and these young people asked whether Zaria people should continue to allow themselves “to ...
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[Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 --- By ADAGBO ONOJA] ---
Writing about Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and 2015 is a tempting but difficult exercise because one could, unknowingly, end up promoting something he is unaware of or a cause that is not radically an alternative to GEJ. And because it is also a very dangerous thing to tell the king the truth as no king likes to be told the truth. But Nigeria of today is simply a national pregnancy. Dr. Goodluck Jonathan did not bring about the pregnancy. Rather, the pregnancy is the outcome of recklessness in the exercise of power in the past three decades, producing the present crisis situation.
Where the president comes in is the fact that the crisis requires a new face around whom the deeply fragmented power elite can re-connect and rally around as its resolution. That rallying point individual cannot be the same GEJ whose candidature has been a source of the fragmentation in its ...
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[Posted on Wednesday, January 16, 2013 ] ---
PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan has sacked Mrs. Rosemary Chinyere Uzoma, the Comptroller-General of Immigration Service and appointed Mr. Rilwan Bala Musa to replace her in acting capacity.
The appointment of the acting Comptroller-General was contained in a statement signed by the Director/Secretary, Civil Defence, Fire Service, Immigration and Prisons Board (CDFIPB), Dr. K.R. Attahiru for the Minister of Interior/ Chairman CDFIPB.
The statement signed on behalf of the minister of Interior, Comrade Abba More on behalf of the President reads; “I am directed to convey the approval of His Excellency, Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, President, Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for you (Mrs. Rose Chinyere Uzoma) to proceed on your pre-retirement accumulated leaves.”
The Memo ordered that the relieved Comptroller-General should hand over to the most...