March 2022 – Page 79

Post Date : March 4, 2022

Aisha Buhari to n’assembly: Reconsider gender bills to curb discrimination against women

Aisha Buhari, the first lady, has urged the national assembly to review its decision on the gender bills that were recently rejected by the lawmakers. The lawmakers had, on Tuesday, voted against bills seeking to amend the constitution to provide more opportunities for women in political parties and governance. The development has sparked criticism against the national assembly, with women groups and other stakeholders calling on the lawmakers to re-present the bills for consideration. In a statement issued on Thursday, Aisha thanked stakeholders for their contributions and asked the lawmakers to look into the bills as part of efforts to address gender discrimination. “The recent decision by the National Assembly to ignore the long-standing clamour for Affirmative Action for Nigerian women was contrary to the very high expectations of forward-looking Nigerian men and women,” the statement reads. “The anger of Nigerians in the circumstance is therefore understandable, more so that not a single concession was made to women, contrary to the global practice of give-and-take for which people’s parliaments are noted for. “Notwithstanding this temporary setback, however, I, on behalf of the wife of the Vice President, HE Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo, join the multitude of Nigerian men and women to thank relevant UN agencies, local and international Non-governmental organisations, faith-based groups, and all other stakeholders and individuals for their charitable support for fair representation by women in legislative houses, public governance, and management of political parties. “I am of the opinion that our esteemed National Assembly can still review its decision and pray that our compatriots will deeply reflect on this political, but emotive matter. “I call on both the Senate and the House of Representatives as Husbands, Fathers, Brothers and Grandfathers to revise and reconsider reversing their conclusions so that no group, especially mothers, wives, daughters, and partners who women are, would suffer discrimination, or be denied of opportunities to contribute to the process of nation-building.” TheCable had earlier reported how 229 civil society organisations (CSOs) faulted the national assembly over the rejection of the bills.

Post Date : March 4, 2022

2023: Other ethnic nationalities should support president of Igbo extraction —Edwin Clark

A foremost Nigerian Nationalist, Chief Edwin Clark, yesterday, declared his support for a President of Igbo extraction ahead of the 2023 general election. Chief Clark showed his support when Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State paid him homage in his Abuja residence and called on other ethnic nationalities to support Ndigbo to enthrone the likes of Umahi to rescue the nation from total collapse. While extolling Engr. Umahi’s leadership acumen, Chief Clark emphasized that it was the turn of core Igbo to produce the next President of Nigeria even as he blessed Governor David Umahi’s presidential ambition. “When I say I want a president of Nigeria of Igbo extraction, I do not mean someone from Delta or Rivers State or anywhere else. I mean a pure southeast Igbo President. “My preferred choice is Igbo. So, my son, I have heard you. I have prayed for you, whatever you deserve, God will grant it to you. “When you defected to APC, I asked why, we all are fighting this cause but if the PDP we served 100% abandoned the Igbo, then we all will abandon the PDP. I have told them already.” He commended Governor Umahi for the infrastructural accomplishments in Ebonyi State and prayed God to grant his ambition the needed fulfillment. “I have heard about the good works you are doing in Ebonyi State, God will guide you and protect you. What you will become, only God can decide and no human being can change it. God will give you the courage, the wisdom, the determination to become what God desires you to be. “You have all the qualities and God will protect you and grant you the grace to achieve all your desires in good health and long life.” In his speech, Governor Umahi thanked the elder statesman for his blessings and assured him that he would turn around the fortunes of Nigeria if given the opportunity to pilot the affairs of the country. “I believe that if God shows mercy to this country, he will not bring up a pure professional politician to be the President of Nigeria. Nigeria needs a bit of a business-minded person who also has gone through our nature of politics and Nigeria needs someone who can engage very properly. Without engagement, without finding what are the people’s problems, why do you do what you are doing and without fairness, equity, and justice, it will be very difficult for our country to unite”. Governor Umahi said his ambition is in the hands of God and only Him would ensure he emerges victorious at next year’s polls. “What we do not know is that both good leaders and bad leaders all come from God. When God is happy with the people, He brings good leaders to them but when He is angry with the people, He gives them bad leaders. So, when people castigate leaders, it is God they are castigating.We should turn our eyes unto God so that he will show mercy on us.”

Post Date : March 4, 2022

Nigerian fighters must provide $1,000 for ticket, visa – Ukraine

The Embassy of Ukraine in Nigeria says Nigerians who are willing to travel to Ukraine to fight Russian forces must be willing to provide $1,000 for ticket and visa. The embassy stated this when scores of Nigerian men converged on its premises in Abuja on Thursday to express their readiness to join the Ukrainian side. In an interview with our correspondent, the Second Secretary at the Ukrainian Embassy to Nigeria, Bohdan Soltys, confirmed that $1,000 would be needed by Nigerian volunteers. The announcement did not go down well with the Nigerians who lamented that the price was too high. “The $1,000 requirement is too high,” said Monday Adikwu, with number 96NA/41/2808, who was dismissed from the Nigerian Army for leaving his duty post to visit his pregnant wife without permission. “They said we should provide evidence of military experience, passports and $1,000 for tickets and others. When I asked what the salary is, the guy first said $7,000 and later changed it to $3,300 per month. I showed him my military and training certificates.” When asked why he wants to go to Ukraine, Adikwu said he needed money to take care of his family including six children He said, “I want to go to Ukraine because I am a military man. I fought in Liberia. I fought in Sierra Leone. I was part of the 33 Battalion. I was trained by Ukrainian soldiers when I was in the United Nations in Kosovo on how to shoot and drive APC tanks. I can drive it very well. “So, when I heard about Ukraine and the way people are trooping in… I am a farmer. I don’t have anything. I am a fighter. They said they will pay us so I am ready to fight so that I can get paid and take care of my family. I will also bring glory to the name of Nigeria as a worthy ambassador.” Adikwu, who was accompanied by other dismissed soldiers, said they were not afraid of Russian forces. “We are not scared. It was David that killed Goliath with only a tool. So, I believe my going to Ukraine will give them victory Another applicant, Nkem Ndueche, who is from Anambra State, said he was fluent in Russian having attended a Russian military academy in 2007, said he was willing to fight on the side of Ukraine. Ndueche added that his wife was against him travelling to fight for Ukraine but he would travel nonetheless for the sake of honour. “I am 101 per cent to fight for Ukraine. It is wrong for someone to invade another person’s land. That is what Putin is doing and we want to defend Ukraine. I was in the military academy in Russia. I have what it takes. I even served the Nigerian Army briefly too,” he said. In an interview with The PUNCH, the Second Secretary at the Ukrainian Embassy to Nigeria, Bohdan Soltys, said it would be difficult for Nigerians to travel to Ukraine now since the airspace had been shut due to the war. He said since Nigerians needed visas to visit Romania and Poland, it would be difficult for them to use the land borders. “It is normal practice when people want to volunteer and join the army of another country. It is a normal international practice. Of course, for us, it is an expression of support which we really appreciate. For now, no one has gone. We have received hundreds of applications from people who said they are willing. We have sent lists to the government but I cannot tell you what will happen next. “In this particular case, you cannot fly to Ukraine. The only way you can fly is to countries that border Ukraine. All these countries are part of the EU and Nigerians will need visas to visit these countries. So, it is a big obstacle. You cannot fly directly to Ukraine. You will have to go to Poland or Hungary,” Soltys said. The diplomat said Ukraine was not recruiting mercenaries but volunteers. He, therefore, advised Nigerians not to focus on the money. He, however, promised that Nigerian volunteers would be paid the same as Ukrainian soldiers. “If a person wants to fight for Ukraine or any other country, only volunteers can do it. If Ukraine pays these people, they will be mercenaries and it violates international law… In general, when a person joins another country’s army, they pay the normal price that their soldiers are paid. This is how it works across the world. You come to fight because an injustice has been done,” he said On why $1,000 was being demanded from Nigerian volunteers, the Ukrainian diplomat said, “Yes, $1,000. That is what I paid the last time I visited Ukraine.” While thanking Nigeria for siding with Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly, he pleaded with Nigerian citizens who may have been victims of racism during the evacuation in Ukraine not to feel offended, adding that war situations sometimes force people to act out of character. He, however, advised Nigerians also not to fall for Russian propaganda.

Post Date : March 4, 2022

NGF: It’s ironic NNPC continued to declare profit but made zero remittance to FAAC

The Nigeria Governors Forum (NGF) has faulted the zero remittance of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company (NNPC) Limited to the federation account in recent months. Kayode Fayemi, chairman, NGF and Ekiti state governor, said this at the governors’ forum on natural energy, oil and gas at the fifth Nigeria International Energy Summit (NIES) on Thursday in Abuja. TheCable had reported that NNPC made zero contribution to the Federation Accounts Allocation Committee (FAAC) in January. “The NNPC contributed zero to the federation account last month. This is not the first time,” NAN quoted Fayemi as saying. “Of course, we know why; though the price of crude oil is going to about 110 dollars per barrel at the international market. “The more it goes up, it seems like the more we suffer.” According to him, it was ironic that the NNPC continued to declare profit but made zero remittance to the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC). Fayemi said governors were concerned about the growth of the industry, adding that transparency, accountability and governance were critical in achieving this objective. He said the Petroleum Industry Act (PIA) was addressing some of the challenges facing the sector — though the governors had raised concerns regarding some of the provisions of the Act. The NGF chairman also faulted the oil and gas sector as being on the exclusive legislative list of the federal government. He explained that when he was the minister of mines and steel development, he reviewed the Act regulating the sector to accommodate more states and local governments’ participation. He added that Nigeria should begin to harness its abundant gas resources as the world pushes for the transition to cleaner sources of energy. Also speaking, Rotimi Akeredolu, Ondo state governor, said the country needs to end the petrol subsidy regime with immediate effect due to its unsustainability. Akeredolu, represented by Rasaq Obe, the state commissioner for energy and mines, also called for increased crude oil production to about two million barrels per day to improve the revenue from the sector.

Post Date : March 4, 2022

JAMB To Register 1.5million Candidates By March 26 – Registrar

The Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has announced plans to register 1.5 million candidates by March 26, the deadline set for the registration of candidates. Speaking in Abuja on Thursday after monitoring the exercise in Bwari and Dutse on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, JAMB Registrar, Professor Ishaq Oloyede, said the board has so far, registered over 500,000 candidates for the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination. Professor Oloyede says the board also plans to register at least 50,000 candidates per day. In a statement issued earlier in the year, the examination body announced that the “UTME/DE registration starts 12th February 2022 and ends 19th March 2022. Mock examination holds on 20th April 2022. UTME holds from 20th to 30th April 2022”.

Post Date : March 4, 2022

Fuel scarcity, Power: We have suffered worse than this – Femi Adesina

The Special Adviser to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, has in his article titled: Knock, knock, who’s there?, appealed to Nigerians to be patient, noting that the country had gone through this hardship before and would survive the current one. Reeling out his bosses achievements, in the infrastructural sector, Adesina said that he has come to remind Nigerians that “it is not all doom and gloom in our country”. His words: “Be patient my soul, thou hath suffered worse than this.” There were cases of bad fuel before in this country. We slept for days, weeks on end at petrol stations, queuing for fuel. We survived. We will survive again. Las las. “I’ve come to knock and ring and tap on your door today, to remind you that it is not all doom and gloom in our country. “However overcast the sky is, there’s always a shimmer of light. And that was what we were shown a couple of weeks back, when the Minister of Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, accompanied by Works and Housing Minister, Babatunde Raji Fashola SAN, and their other counterparts addressed a town hall meeting on infrastructure financing and human capital development. It was like streaks of light in an overcast sky”.

Post Date : March 4, 2022

Macron Fears ‘Worst To Come’ After Call With Putin

French President Emmanuel Macron believes “the worst is to come” in Ukraine after a phone call with Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin who appears intent on seizing “the whole” of the country, an aide to the French leader said. “The expectation of the president is that the worst is to come, given what President Putin told him,” a senior aide to the French leader told reporters on condition of anonymity. “There was nothing in what President Putin told us that should reassure us. He showed great determination to continue the operation,” the aide added, adding that Macron told Putin he was making a “grave mistake”. The French leader himself later tweeted that in the conversation Putin showed he “refuses… to stop his attacks against Ukraine”. But the 44-year-old, who was at the heart of diplomatic efforts to avoid the conflict and has stayed in touch with Putin even after the invasion, vowed to continue contacts “to avoid the worst”. “My determination is and will remain total,” he said just hours before he is expected to confirm he is running in presidential elections next month. In a grim assessment of the 90-minute talks, the third time they have spoken since last Thursday, the aide indicated that Putin had shown no mood for compromise. Putin “wanted to seize control of the whole of Ukraine. He will, in his own words, carry out his operation to ‘de-Nazify’ Ukraine to the end.” In response to Putin’s claim of “de-Nazification”, Macron replied that “either you are telling yourself stories or you’re looking for a pretext,”, according to his aide. “In any case, what you’re saying does not match with reality and can in no way justify the violence of what you’re doing today, nor that your country is going to pay a very high price because it will end up an isolated, weakened country under sanctions for a long time,” Macron continued. The aide said that Macron had also called Putin’s claims “lies”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is the country’s first Jewish leader. Civilian Casualties Reprising a theme of their last call, Macron also urged Putin to avoid civilian casualties and allow for humanitarian access in Ukraine amid evidence of Russian shelling in residential areas. “President Putin replied that he was in favour but without making any commitments,” the aide said, adding that Putin had denied that the Russian military was targeting civilian infrastructure in Ukraine. The aide said that Putin had again aired his grievances against the West and “referred back to the history of the last 30 years, as is his habit” including NATO’s intervention in the ex-Yugoslavia. The two men continue to use the informal “you” pronoun when speaking to each other in a sign of friendliness. “President Putin has a way of talking that is very neutral and very clinical. He sometimes shows signs of impatience, but fundamentally there were no open signs of tensions during the exchanges,” the aide said. In an address to the nation on Wednesday, Macron had vowed to continue speaking with Putin “for as long as I can, and for as long is necessary” to persuade him to end the violence and prevent a spread of the conflict. He will again push for extra sanctions on Russia to increase the cost of the invasion, the aide said.

Post Date : March 4, 2022

Strike: FG doesn’t have funds to meet part of ASUU’s demands, says Ngige

Chris Ngige, minister of labour, says the federal government does not have the funds to meet some of the demands of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). On February 14, ASUU declared a one-month strike. While declaring the strike, the union said the decision was taken over the federal government’s delay on an agreement, which included issues on salaries, the adoption of the University Transparency Accountability Solution (UTAS) payroll software, and the revitalisation fund for universities. Since 1999 when the country returned to democratic dispensation, a report by TheCable Index shows that ASUU has gone on strike for a total of 49 months and seven days. Speaking on the development in an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, Ngige said the N1.3 trillion revitalisation fund was a promise made to ASUU by the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan when the country’s finances were stable. The labour minister said the current administration informed ASUU of its inability to honour the previous revitalisation fund agreement, adding that the federal government promised to explore other options to fund universities. “Government is a continuum. The N1.3 trillion you are talking about was promised by the Jonathan government. Oil was selling about $100 to $120 per barrel then and the revenue of the federation was rich,” he said. “The agreement says that ‘government is unable to pay this but to show commitment to the intentions of the revitalisation for which this N1.3 trillion was promised’. “Mind you, it was promised by that administration and they promised to kickstart the payment — and they paid N200 billion which they borrowed from TETFund. They did not take it from the federation account. That payment spiralled even into 2016 — to our regime. “Government said we don’t have the money to pay for it — this was the agreement in 2016 to 2017 — but we will find a way by which we can fund the universities and revitalise infrastructure. “A committee was set up with ASUU as members. Government said ‘we are going to drop N25 billion for you to show you in good faith that we are not talking nonsense.’ “That one was dropped. Again, another money was paid last year because the committee couldn’t come up with anything that will generate funds. Government made it clear that we don’t have N1.1 trillion that is remaining. “We don’t have it. It is in the agreement. The government did not say we are going to pay N1.1 trillion that is remaining. They said we don’t have this money and under the principle of capacity and ability to pay, let us renegotiate it because TETFund is still there. “Unless you want us to take money from TETFund and deceive you like it was done in that period.”

Post Date : March 4, 2022

Constitution Amendment: National Assembly Got It Wrong – Sirika

Minister of Aviation, Senator Hadi Sirika, has said the National Assembly got it wrong by attempting to move Aviation from exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list. He spoke in response to the recent constitutional amendment where the National Assembly reviewed some provisions of the constitution, especially empowering states to run airports. If the amendment is assented to, it will break the monopoly of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) as the only Airports’ Authority in the country. Daily Trust reports that already most states have been building Airports and more are still being developed, only that they would need the full complement of the airport and Airspace Management authorities to run the airports. But Sirika, who is also an aviator and a former Senator, differed with his erstwhile colleagues, saying aviation which is a national security concern cannot be an all-comer affair. Tweeting via @hadisirika, he said, “Constitutional amendment, I think NASS got it wrong. Aviation on concurrent list? Interesting. “I can’t relate/figure out a concurrent airspace. Would be the first on planet earth, I think. Aviation is a Sovereignty matter as well as a National security concern.”

Post Date : March 4, 2022

First batch of Nigerians arrive from Ukraine

First batch of Nigerians stranded in Ukraine has arrived in the country. They arrived from Romania on Friday morning . The Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission, Abike Dabiri, confirmed this in a tweet. She said , “First batch of Nigerians from #Ukraine arrived at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Abuja from Romania at 7:10 am.”