Catholic Bishops of Owerri Ecclesiastical Province has, at its first plenary of 2022, expressed concern at the seemingly endless sit-at-home order in Igboland, every Monday. This was part of the five-point communiqué, issued by the Catholic Bishops, signed by the Chairman and Secretary, Most Rev. Anthony J. V. Obinna and Most Rev Augustine N. Echema respectively, and made available to newsmen in Owerri. In the considered opinion of the Bishops: “For sometime now, the people of South East Nigeria, have been forced to sit-at-home on frequent occasions. The situation has become so confusing because some of these orders and counter orders are now being issued and enforced by criminal elements. “These sit-at-home orders are however, having a devastating effect on the economic and social life of the people, and adversely affecting their means of livelihood.” Making particular reference to education in the South East geo-political zone, the bishops opined that it took a serious hit. They said: “Children are kept out of school and learning is carried out under the climate of fear and uncertainty. This status quo cannot be allowed to continue. “We appeal to the government to fulfill its constitutional duty of protecting lives and property and to initiate avenues of dialogue with agitators. We equally appeal to all those indiscriminately issuing orders, to respect the fundamental human rights of those they seek to protect and fight for.” The Bishops also lamented the frequency of borrowings by federal and state governments, to finance budget shortfalls, as well as the sit-at-home order. The Bishops said: “We observe with great concern, the frequency with which the Federal and State Governments resort to taking loans, especially foreign ones, to finance their budget shortfalls. “At the last count, the Bureau of Statistics in Nigeria has reported that Nigeria currently, is indebted up to the tune of N32 trillion. “While we recognize the economic need, and sometimes, the necessity of government taking loans, we insist that every responsible Nigerian government must exercise prudence in the borrowing and management of such loans, so as not to mortgage the future of the nation since by and large, loans must be repaid.” The clerics also lamented that for so long, the problems facing the country, have remained intractable and the solutions farfetched. They said: “Today in Nigeria, we are witnessing terrible darkness in the shape of unreasonable hatred, wickedness, brutality, and bloodshed. “With the consequent breakdown and failure of governance across the nation, various militant groups terrorists, and bandits emerged, foisting a state of anxiety and anarchy, on the whole nation. “Hate and greed-driven violence have thus escalated, leading to the reciprocal mass slaughter of humans, the sacking and burning of homes and settlements, giving rise to many Internally Displaced Persons, IDP. This miserable condition must be addressed before the next elections begin.” After taking a critical look at the nation’s electoral process, the Catholic Bishops expressed hope that Nigerians have another chance to lay the frameworks for the next electoral process. In their words: “We are hopeful that the National Assembly and the Presidency, will put aside their differences and come forward with electoral laws that will help us chart a new pathway that will guarantee free, fair and credible general elections.”

  The associations and unions in the aviation industry, on Tuesday morning, suspended their planned nationwide industrial action billed to commence today after signing a fresh Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) with the federal government. A meeting, which was held at the headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, started at about 6pm on Monday and ended Tuesday Morning, discussed the two demands of the unions. headquarters of the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment, started at about 6pm on Monday and ended Tuesday Morning, discussed the two demands of the unions. Shekarau, others reject APC’s power-sharing template in Kano NIGERIA DAILY: Marginalization: Are Youths The Enemy Against Themselves? The complaints are the non-implementation of the Minimum Wage consequential adjustment in the Aviation Parastatals since 2019 and the non-approval/release of the reviewed conditions of service in the parastatals. Briefing journalists after the meeting, Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, said after exhaustive deliberations on the issues which the parties agreed as germane, they resolved that: “The National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission (NSIWC), was requested to issue a service-wide circular informing all organisations in the public and private sectors that they are bound to implement the National Minimum Wage of 2019/consequential adjustments. “The Ministry of Aviation is to circulate the circular on the consequential minimum wage adjustment to all the agencies under the supervision of the ministry, requesting them to implement the National Minimum Wage consequential adjustment without any further delay and also clarify that this payment became effective from April 18, 2019, when the Minimum Wage was signed into law.” Ngige said they agreed that those who had exited the system during the period from April 18, 2019, to date, would also be paid the arrears. “The meeting noted that some categories of workers in the Aviation Sector attract some peculiar allowances, which are not extended to others and stated that those salary structures that are not captured in the Memorandum of Terms of Settlement signed and dated 9th, 14th, 15th 16th, 17th and 18th October, 2019 between the Federal Government and organised labour on the consequential adjustment of the other wages, would attract consequential adjustment as agreed during the negotiations of the Federal Government with the labour centres-The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria in October 2019,” he added. He said the meeting concluded that all the agencies that had not paid the minimum wage allowances should write to the NSIWC through the Ministry of Aviation for consideration/evaluation. According to him, the NSIWC promised to process all as soon as possible and consequently, the parties agreed that the consequential adjustment of the New Minimum Wage of 2019 based on the approved government templates should be implemented on or before the end of the first quarter of the year 2022 (March 31, 2022). He said the meeting charged the management to take more proactive steps to conclude the review of the conditions of service to boost the morale of the workers and retain the best technical staff in the industry. Ngige said: “The meeting was informed that the financial implication of the conditions of service (CoS) for Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NIMET) has been approved by the Presidential Committee on Salaries (PCS), hence the whole process for NIMET has been concluded except for hazard allowances, which would be reconsidered by the NSIWC on a sectoral level. Hence, the NSIWC is to release this approved CoS immediately. “The meeting however noted that the CoS for Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) and Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA) require establishment input and directed the Office of the Head of Service of the Federation to update the Ministry of Aviation on this aspect of their CoS by Friday, February 11, 2022 and copy the Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment. “The meeting agreed that the financial aspect of NAMA and NCAA would be resolved by the PCS by the third week of February 2022. “The meeting was also informed that the CoS for Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) has been released since 2019. “There are however establishment issues which have been observed and will be forwarded to the Federal Ministry of Aviation by the Management of FAAN for transmission to the OHCSF for urgent action.”

  Former President Goodluck Jonathan has stated that he embarked on the Almajiri Schools programme in the north while he was in office to infuse western education curriculum into Islamic education to make the pupils employable and to check incessant crisis and insecurity. Jonathan stated this while delivering the keynote address at the maiden Bayelsa State Education Summit, with the theme “Optimizing the Delivery, Performance and Sustainability of Outcomes in the Education Sector,” held at the Conference Hall of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, in Yenagoa the Bayelsa State capital. He explained that his vision and philosophy of development is the development of a people must be based on education as there cannot be a functional society without a functional education system, noting that education remains the key to change the country. The former president who commended Governor Douye Diri administration for organising the summit which is aimed at fashioning a road map for the educational sector, said such roadmap once developed should be passed into law so that no succeeding governor could unilaterally alter it and stressed that everything must be done in the interest of the people. He said as a predominantly riverine state, the state government should be leading the country in anything maritime, whether in communication, technology, science and other areas. Jonathan further noted that greater attention should be focused on the transition to Information Communication Technology, ICT, as ICT education is gradually phasing out other disciplines, just as he also emphasised the need for teaching of international languages and development of one common language for the state. His words: “When I was the Vice President I was discussing with one of my Technical Assistant from Anambra State about the crisis in the North and said we must frame how we will tackle it. Some group of young boys appears not to have future and we cannot allow the system to remain like that so that we don’t have crisis tomorrow. “We went around the North, discussed with the clerics who teach the boys under trees and makeshift buildings, we also discussed with the emirs and so on. We identified a group of boys and they are Muslims, and most Muslims when you understand the Koran is like you are more than a professor of law and through the Almajiri programme, they understand the Koran and you cannot underrate them. “Some of them can even memorize the Koran as voluminous as the Koran is, and for someone to memorize the Koran and you say that person is not educated, you are not telling the truth. “They (Almajiris) felt that they were educated but the society still reject them that even their local government council cannot employ them even as messengers because they don’t have any element of Western education attached to the Koranic education. “That is why the federal government said we must assist the states, that these young people must be encouraged to study Islamic education but in addition to the Islamic education we are not going to remove anything from it, they should also take some parts of Western education so that when they finished at that level they can go on to study other things like Engineering, Medicine, etc, because you cannot convince an educated person to do certain things and without education, you cannot manage the security of this country. That was what motivated us to go into Almajiri education.” Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, also stressed the need for a central language and urged the summit to look at all the missing links and explore avenues for the private sector to partner with government in implementing its vision for education. Diri also called on international oil companies to provide special scholarships for children from oil-producing communities as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility in addition to the provision of basic social amenities. He said Bayelsans must be global citizens and open up the state while urging the summit to consider far-flung communities in Ekeremor, Southern Ijaw and Brass local government areas while discussing digitalisation of education. In his welcome address, the state Commissioner for Education, Gentle Emelah said there was need to move education to the next level adding that the state government has been increasing access to education and building of infrastructure in the past two years.

  Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu Monday assented to three bills during the weekly State Executive Council meeting at Lagos House, Ikeja. The bills included the law regulating real estate transactions and the law to provide for the registration of Cooperative Societies in Lagos State. It also included the law to regulate ownership, licensing and sales of pets and to prohibit and restrict people from having in custody dangerous animals in public places. Sanwo-Olu said the new bills would strengthen government and citizens’ engagement and relationships. The governor said the law to regulate real estate transactions would protect unsuspecting Lagosians from falling prey to dubious real estate professionals. “We believe this law will be the very first in the country that has taken a deep dive into what is happening in that space, and it further strengthens our intervention in housing through the Ministry of Housing,” he said. “The new bills assented to will strengthen government and citizens’ engagement and relationships as well as allow residents of the state to continue to live in an atmosphere where the rule of law is enshrined for the people,” the governor added.