Executive Secretary of Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON), Emmanuel Abanida has called on states in Nigeria that are yet to sign the Primary Healthcare Under One Roof (PHCUOR) into law to do so, in order to fastrack healthcare delivery in their domain.
He said there was no way Nigerians would lead better lives without adequate provisions which addresses their wellbeing.
Abanida was speaking in Abuja at the opening of a Health budget tracking workshop for selected civil society organisations (CSOs) drawn from Kaduna and Katsina states.
HERFON has been working with the participating CSOs in strengthening Maternal Newborn and Child Health (MNCH) in Kaduna and Katsina states, under a USAID supported project called Strengthening Advocacy and Civic Engagement (SACE).
According to Abanida, HERFON is also working with the CSOs to provide supportive supervision to 8 WDCs in the two states, as well as conducting campaigns on Minimum Service Package of health services.
“At a time the world is talking about Universal Health Coverage, there is no better time than now for government and CSOs to work towards ensuring access to healthcare at every level,” says Abanida.
He described budget tracking as a key activity needed to move the states and Nigeria forward, urging CSOs to always engage government when necessary.
In a presentation, the Trainer, Lawal Abubakar, enjoined CSOs to take interest in governance and be involved in supporting government institutions to deliver on their mandate.
He tasked Nigerian government to be transparent in its policy formulation, as well as be accountable in its actions to ensure good governance.
“For government to be termed accountable and transparent, it must involve citizens in the formulation of its policies, including the budget process.
“Budget is the most important document after the constitution, this is because it guides government spending, and any amount spent outside the budget is a violation of the law.
“For every budget, there must be community participation, and for a budget to be termed transparent, the document must be made available to the public.
“Of recent, states like Kaduna have made their budget online, even though the state has not reached perfection, they have taken a step towards transparency,” he said.
The workshop seeks to strengthen capacity of participants on how to analyse and track budget, as well as analyse the approved 2017 budgets of Kaduna and Katsina states, with a focus on the MNCH component.
Gov. Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, south-south Nigeria
By Odimegwu Onwumere
A great man or group is not destroyed, defeated or deterred by the past. But this is not the same with the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Rivers State since it lost the much hyped 2015 gubernatorial elections in the state, of which it had anticipated would be in its favour. Since then, this defeated political party in Rivers has been clattering clandestinely irritating songs of destruction, defeat, and determent in order to cite the public against Governor Nyesom Ezebunwo Wike.
Only those with discerning spirit would understand the depth of self-political damage the Rivers APC has been going through, yet it does not want to own up. This branch of the bungling political party at the federal level that has stranded Nigerians today with its initial ‘change’ mantra has been biting anything on its way like a wounded dangerous snake on the run. This glaring ham-fisted political party in Rivers has been sounding like a derailed one that has lost focus but still wants people’s attention with irrelevance it has been dishing out against Wike.
The Rivers APC recently made a remark against Governor Wike and former President Goodluck Jonathan. The remark has however shown that the APC in Rivers State is either ashamed to accept the trampled of its life that Governor Wike gave to it as the then Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) governorship candidate in the 2015 gubernatorial election in the state. The APC barefacedly accused Jonathan while he was of late commissioning the Nkpogu Bridge in Port Harcourt, as part of the second year anniversary of the Wike administration, saying that he imposed Wike as governor on Rivers State as against the wish of the residents.
On the contrary, this is fictitious and blatantly nuisance oozing out from the abandoned and proud APC that came with ‘change’ mantra at the federal level but has held Nigerians and the entire world spellbound with misleading and counter-misleading features not expected of a sound democracy. The APC if perchance had won the Rivers guber elections, would have plunged the state into inglorious affairs just as its parent body is doing at Abuja, the seat of power, with mis-governance and turning democracy into a hoax. It was the Rivers APC Chairman, Chief (Dr.) Davies Ibiamu Ikanya who replayed what he heard that Jonathan said at the event in the media. Nevertheless, some of us who know Ikanya and had related with him on a personal ground, would attest to the fact that he was a gentleman, soft-spoken and a self-acclaimed cleric. Then again, his stance politically, saying that the Jonathan’s comment has exposed the APC’s somewhat earlier stand that the residents of the state didn’t vote for Wike, makes him (Ikanya) a scriptwriter against the wish and application of the Supreme Court of the country that acknowledged Wike governor of the state against all odds that the APC wanted Wike out as governor.
We could remember that before the January 27 2016 victory of Wike at the Supreme Court, the Ikanyas had on May 30 2015, when the matter was still at the lower Court, saying, “We remain confident that the Election Petition Tribunal will do the needful and sack him (Wike) accordingly in view of the materials submitted to them, in view of the immorality associated with his occupation of the Government House and in view of the outcry of the people of Rivers State that he does not have their mandate to serve as their governor.” But the Supreme Court on that faithful of January 27 2016 judgment sent the Ikanyas packing with the statement pointing out that Wike was denied fair hearing at the Appeal Court, which had on December 16 2015 affirmed the judgment of the Rivers Governorship Election Tribunal against Wike. With this, it’s not surprising that the Rivers APC celebrates shame the same way divorce makes headline in the recent times. If not, Ikanya would have lacked the locus standi to accuse Jonathan (only that Ikanya was acting on emotions) and note that upon his accusations that Jonathan made Wike governor against Rivers residents’ wish, yet, Wike won the Rivers APC in the APC-controlled Rivers State under the ex-Governor Chibuike Amaechi government, Wike won in the APC-controlled Supreme Court and, Wike won in the APC-controlled Federal Government of Nigeria.
If Ikanya was insinuating that Jonathan apparently used the federal might during the Rivers guber elections for the emergence of Wike as governor, is the Rivers APC which Amaechi is the leader and Ikanya, the chairman, not ashamed that it could not oust Wike in the APC-controlled River State under Amaechi then and now, under the APC controlled Federal Government? If Wike had won at the Supreme Court in a PDP-led federal government, Ikanya would have been saying that Jonathan influenced the court. All the same, before 2014 that Wike and Amaechi had fallen out, the later who was Chairman of Nigeria Governors’ Forum had vowed that Wike would not be governor.
Amaechi even swore with the matrix, “Over my dead body”. Amaechi gave his preposterous defense, saying that Wike who was then the Supervising Minister for Education and he, belonged to the same ethnic group. Yet, Wike defeated Amaechi upon the swank and upon that Amaechi was Governor of Rivers State. Therefore, Ikanya should stop saying that Wike has become a disaster since “Jonathan made Wike governor”. Maybe, Ikanya wanted us to note that with the political precedence between Wike and Amaechi in the state, the former has become indestructible, upon all the perceived plots by the Amaechis to outsmart Wike. But if Ikanya meant ‘disaster’ in the true meaning of the word, we shall come to that.
The truth is that APC is dead in Rivers, a hard truth that the Ikanyas are finding hard to accept hence their extraneous tantrums against Wike. Well, before Ikanya would paint Wike black, let’s take a little retrospection on Amaechi whom Ikanya would at all cost defend as a saint when he reigned as Governor of Rivers State and now. Amaechi ruled Rivers State with unprecedented unedited words and flagrant exposition of his rascality laced with his un-anticipation of becoming who he is today given his once desolate and inconvenient family background. If at all Wike has become a disaster in the state, his would never surpass Amaechi’s, who brashly took the then PDP’s flag from the then acting National Chairman of the party, Dr. Bello Mohammed, to contest in the April 26 2011 guber elections, under controversial circumstances.
When the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in Rivers State was crying that the April 9 2011 National Assembly (NASS) elections in the state were marred by massive electoral fraud, and called for the cancellation, Amaechi and the likes of Ikanya were dancing alanta against the crying party. The Amaechi’s ‘disaster’ continued as his men were declared winners of all the elective positions in that year. In the 2011 elections in Rivers State, Amaechi saw the then Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega as a good man whereas no one listened to the APGA that was shouting that Amaechi was playing the Kangaroo in the politics. Tamunosisi Gogo Jaja, running mate to Sir Celestine Omehia, Rivers State APGA’s gubernatorial candidate in 2011, addressed newsmen and was disappointed by what was called ‘peaceful elections’ in Rivers State, by INEC and Amaechi.
Ikanya should remember that Amaechi and Jega refused to investigate the Rivers 2011 elections, even when Gogo Jaja said that it was saddening to say that electoral irregularities took place in Anambra Central Senatorial Zone, Bayelsa and Delta States, compared to what played in Rivers State. And Jega investigated these mentioned places, without Rivers State.
Ikanya should also remember that Mr. Jerry Godfry and Mr. Precious Barido, who were the state chairman and secretary of the APGA complained in a statement both of them signed of police brutality and criminal intimidation by Amaechi-led government officials during the elections, even as Jaja insisted that the April 9 2011 NASS election showed that the then Amaechi-led Rivers PDP had the highest rigging propensity in the country. Yet, Amaechi continued with his alanta dance ignoring whoever.
What else is the meaning of ‘disaster’ under Amaechi as governor? Ikanya should remember that the INEC said in that 2011 that Amaechi polled 1,178, 529 votes to ‘defeat’ his opponents in the gubernatorial election. The candidate of the APGA, Celestine Omehia came ‘second’ with 112,528, while the ACN, Abiye Sekibo ‘got’ 60,240. Declaring the ‘results’ in Port Harcourt, the Returning Officer in the state, who’s also the Vice Chancellor of the University of Port Harcourt, Professor Joseph (Ajienka), said that 1,401,464 votes were cast, 141,4064 were valid and 27,995 were rejected.
Yours Truly had written after Wike won the 2015 guber elections, saying that: Even though that Wike may not be a better option for Rivers State, it behooves on all residents of Rivers State to advise Amaechi to cover his face in disgrace and stop crying foul. Amaechi is no longer dancing alantabecause he feels that someone who knows the game better than he had thought he knew has outsmart him and took the trophy.
If the ‘disaster’ that Ikanya meant was about criminal gangs we hear of their activities in some parts of the state, we might revisit how they operated in the state under Amaechi as governor. The truth is that Amaechi as governor, whom some of us supported and criticized, lost touch with residents of Rivers State and became the Lord of Manor that must be venerated and worshiped. Wike nonetheless saw this in 2014 and had to buy the minds of the residents while addressing newsmen during the commissioning of his Governorship campaign office in Port Harcourt, and the APC in the state was afraid to present a guber candidate because of Wike. Although Wike defeated all the governorship aspirants at the PDP primaries in November 29, 2014 through a controversial means. But all of that have been quashed by the Supreme Court. The Ikanyas have shown that they do not respect the Supreme Court, when they continue to say that Jonathan imposed Wike on Rivers State as against the residents wish.
Odimegwu Onwumere is the Coordinator, Concerned Non-Indigenes In Rivers State (CONIRIV).Tel: +2348057778358. Email: apoet_25@yahoo.com
Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, says it will resist any attempt to truncate democracy in Nigeria.
The union said democracy has come to stay in the country and would use all legitimate means available to members of the Fourth Estate of the Realm to defend the democratic structure.
The National President of NUJ, Abdulwaheed Odusile, made the declaration Wednesday in Kaduna, at the NUJ national colloquium on elections, corruption and roadmap to 2019 organized by the Kaduna council in collaboration with the Pax-Community Partnership Projects, PCPP.
Odusile who stated this as part of his contribution to the theme of the colloquium, “2015 polls: Reminiscence, Lessons, Challenges and Projections” said the colloquium is coming at the right time, in x-raying the 2015 elections to serve as a guide to 2019 elections.
He called on relevant authorities to thoroughly investigate those behind the plans to truncate democracy and punish those that may be found guilty to serve as deterrent to others that may contemplate such in the future.
“The NUJ will resist any attempt to change the present democratic government, we will not allow any attempt to truncate democracy in Nigeria because democracy has come to stay in Nigeria,” he reiterated.
Mr. Odusile who described NUJ Kaduna council as the heartbeat of journalism in Nigeria, tasked Journalists on the need to be guided in their reportage and avoid reports capable of creating crisis in the polity of the nation.
The President commended the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, for announcing the 2019 general election dates, which he said would help political parties to prepare ahead of time.
He however called on the electoral body to organize a retreat regarding the activities and monitoring of political parties, suggesting that the media should also be part of such retreat as an arm of government expected to hold the government accountable and monitor it’s activities.
“The government need to create an enabling environment for the media to carry out its constitutional responsibilities, and on this note, the NUJ condemn in totality the demolition of a media outfit in Nasarawa State,” Odusile observed.
Earlier in his welcome address, the Kaduna State council Chairman, Adamu Yusuf also stressed the need to build on the gains of 2015 general elections and sustain the “one-man-one vote” legacy and further ensure the effectiveness of the card reader system to reduce to the barest minimum all acts of election rigging and manipulations.
Namibia has embarked on the course to research and get back its artifacts from Germany.
The German government has supported the course by inviting one of the workers from the Museums Association of Namibia, Jeremy Silvester from 6 to 17 of April for a visit to three German museums which keeps collection of Artifacts from Namibia.
The programme was organized by the Goethe Institute under the Visitors Programme of the German Federal Government.
Dr Silvester is the Chairperson of the Africa Accessioned Working Group that was established by the International Committee of Museums of Ethnography.
The ‘Africa Accessioned’ project was initiated by museum workers from Namibia and Zambia with the aim of obtaining information about cultural heritage objects held in European museums.
The ‘Africa Accessioned’ originated by museum workers from Namibia and zambia.
Dr Silvester was able to visit the Linden Museum in Stuttgart, the German History Museum and the collection of the German Ethnographic Museum (both in Berlin), all with the support of the German federal forigne office.
He was also able to visit the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage (CARMaH) at Humboldt University.
The museum visits followed a conference at the Five Continents Museum in Munich that Dr. Silvester attended and which was supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, where museum curators and academics had discussed the issue of the source and place origin of the `provenance’ research on objects collected by museums during the colonial period.
The study of provenance is about tracing the origins of an object, the way in which it was obtained and the journey it took to, eventually, end up in a museum’s collection.
Also, in 2011, Namibian tribal leaders visited Berlin to collect the skulls of 20 compatriots who died under Germany’s colonial rule in the early 1900s.
The most painful and mind boggling dilemma in issuing rebuttals is the attempt to challenge respected professional colleagues who should know the truth from fallacy. Wrong actions of current administration of President Muhammadu Buhari have compelled some of us to take the pain and risk of disproving false allegations and reckless insinuations on innocent people by those in the corridors of power.
Mallam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special Assistant to President on Media and Publicity is one of senior professional colleagues who positively impacted in my career benefitting from their guidance and benevolence (https://goo.gl/RZV6j3).
Meanwhile, with due respect to my elder, I have been thoroughly embarrassed and even shocked that Mallam Garba has been misled in joining the bandwagon of those attacking former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki blindly and baselessly.
While Dasuki has remained in unlawful incarceration since 2015, the system has refused to give him the opportunity to clear his name on frivolous charges against him and occasionally prevented him from appearing in court.
In an attempt to defend the flagrant disobedience to court orders by the Buhari regime, Mallam Garba recently said that the government of Buhari is not ready to release Dasuki because according to him there “were many cases against Dasuki for which he had not been granted bail.”
Mallam Garba was further quoted to have said that “The ex-NSA’s problem is not with President Buhari who I must say has the highest regard for the rule of law. If five courts of the land are trying different cases in which a man is involved and one or two of those courts let the accused persons go home on bail, what happens with the other three cases?”
Mallam Garba should know that Sambo Dasuki was arraigned and charged on bailable offences which all the courts of competent jurisdiction have granted him bail. Since 2015, when Dasuki was arraigned before different high courts, he was granted bail by Justice Adeniyi Ademola and Justice Ahmed Rahmat Mohamed of the Federal High Court as well as Justice Peter Affen and Justice Hussein Baba-Yusuf of the FCT High Courts. The ECOWAS Court had also ordered the Federal Government to release him immediately from the unlawful custody and imposed a fine of N15,000,000 on the government but up till now, all the judgments have not been obeyed. There is currently no single court order or a legal warrant for his detention. Rule of Law indeed!
This is not the first time the respected political communicator, Mallam Garba would play to the gallery. On his assumption of office, Garba raised a similar erroneous insinuation against Sambo Dasuki on October 15, 2015, when he told the world at The Red Media Summit in Lagos on how he and others plotted to accuse Sambo Dasuki of coup plotting (Link: https://goo.gl/qqu7r9). He was quoted to have stated thus: “We agreed we were going to run a story announcing that the National Security Adviser at that time, Mr. Sambo Dasuki, was staging a second coup d’etat against Muhammadu Buhari.” As alarming as that statement was, Mallam Garba did not retract the offensive and offending statement. As a respected communicator, he should know better.
Meanwhile few year before then, Malam Garba predicted the challenges Dasuki would face as Fulani man from North-West against Kanuri people of North-East who would frustrate him. He made the assertion immediately after the appointment of Dasuki as NSA by President Goodluck Jonathan in 2012. In his weekly article in Premium Times with the title “Dasuki as NSA: Issues below the Surface,” (Link: https://goo.gl/Hi3Vib) Shehu even recommended and listed some Kanuri people that should have been considered for the appointment.
Mallam Garba claimed that the appointment of Dasuki as a Northerner might produce the direct opposite result of appeasement of the region. According to him “the Boko Haram terror movement is dominated by Kanuri boys, despite the recruitment of volunteers from areas outside Borno and Yobe States. Dasuki’s appointment ignored the historical rivalries between the Kanuris and the North-west or more directly, the Fulani hegemony.”
Buhari’s spokesperson therefore asked “Can a scion of the Fulani royalty, even though a Northerner cultivate the trust and confidence of the Kanuri boys against the background of these historical rivalries? Can a Fulani Northern National Security Adviser conduct negotiations for disarmament with Boko Haram in the face of these historical rivalries? This may be Sambo Dasuki’s biggest challenge.
“Whatever theories may have developed around Sambo’s appointment, the Kanuri factor in the appeasement policy should not be ignored. No confidence building strategy can succeed which ignores the undercurrents of historical rivalries between the Kanuris and the Hausa/Fulani of the north. It is doubtful if the North-East or Borno State in particular, lacks credible retired army officers who can do the job.”
Even though, those fear of my senior brother, Mallam Garba could not be ignored, especially when Dasuki was appointed at a period Boko Haram members were not only terrorising the North-East but the North-Central and North-West with weekly attacks on worship centres. Nevertheless, the ex-NSA succeeded in restricting terrorists’ notoriety to the North-East before recovering more than 25 towns from the Boko Haram. In fact, the excesses of Boko Haram were curtailed to the effect that 2015 elections were peacefully held throughout the federation, including North-East where governors and legislators were elected without any hitches.
I request my senior brother, Mallam Garba to read my “Open Letter to Femi Adesina” (Link: https://goo.gl/TFdNmP) on some of the achievements of Dasuki in office and the list of over 20 towns recovered during the previous administration. I appeal to professional colleagues in government to avoid playing politics with sensitive security issues that could be misleading.
Members States of the World Health Organization (WHO) have elected Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus as the new Director-General of WHO.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was nominated by the Government of Ethiopia, and will begin his five-year term on 1 July 2017.
Prior to his election as WHO’s Director-General, Dr Ghebreyesus served as Minister of Health, Ethiopia from 2005-2012 and as Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ethiopia from 2012-2016 and .
He has also served as chair of the Board of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria; as chair of the Roll Back Malaria (RBM) Partnership Board, and as co-chair of the Board of the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health.
As Minister of Health, Ethiopia, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus led a comprehensive reform effort of the country’s health system, including the expansion of the country’s health infrastructure, creating 3,500 health centres and 16,000 health posts; expanded the health workforce by 38,000 health extension workers; and initiated financing mechanisms to expand health insurance coverage.
As Minister of Foreign Affairs, he led the effort to negotiate the Addis Ababa Action Agenda, in which 193 countries committed to the financing necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.
As Chair of the Global Fund and of RBM, Dr. Ghebreyesus secured record funding for the two organizations and created the Global Malaria Action Plan, which expanded RBM’s reach beyond Africa to Asia and Latin America.
Dr. Ghebreyesus will succeed Dr Margaret Chan, who has been WHO’s Director-General since 1 January 2007.
Cameroon’s military officials have announced the death of three Boko Haram bombers. Two of the bombers were killed in their own explosion while one was shot dead by the Cameroonian army on Tuesday morning near a market in Cameroon’s Far North Region.
General Bouba revealed that there were no casualties. “Only the three suicide bombers were killed.”
After the incident, Midjiyawa Bakari, governor of the Far North region reportedly told Anadolu Agency that the suicide bombers had a task to attack the Double market, which opens every Tuesday.
Governor Bakari commended the Cameroonian army and the members of the vigilance committee, who foiled the attack. The governor also called on the people of the region to be more vigilant.
Cameroon’s Far North Region has been severely affected by attacks, raids and kidnappings perpetrated by the Boko Haram militant group.
Going by the UN Refugee Agency, approximately 26 million people in the Lake Chad region have been affected by the Boko Haram violence and more than 2.6 million displaced.
Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai of Northern Nigeria on Tuesday said that the state government is ready to present a master plan of the state.
He said that the public would be given room for possible amendment before final presentation and documentation.
The state government hinted that, some of the contractors who had at one point been awarded projects by the government but failed woefully to deliver such projects have been blacklisted and will never secure any contract again from the state government.
Addressing newsmen on Tuesfay in Kadun as part of activities to mark two years of the governor in office, Commissioner, Budget and Economic Planning, Muhammed Sani Abdullahi said, when finalised, the master plan would serve the state for up to the next 32 years.
According to the commissioner, the master plan would be available for the incoming governments in the state to continue and build upon saying, “With this development, the question of continuity would have been addressed in the state hence giving room for accelerated development.
“We have developed a master plan for Kaduna State. The master plan will be available for the state for the next 32 years that is between 2018 and 2050. It will be available for the incoming governments to continue implementing.
“It did took us time to come up with the master plan but then, we dim it fit to take the pain and do it for the benefit of our dear state. We would have possibly gone farther by now in implementing capital projects had it been this master plan was on ground when we came in two years ago.
“We are calling on our people to come and criticize the document before final documentation. This is another proof that we are transparent in all we do as a responsible government that is determine to take the state to enviable height.”
On the blacklisted contractors the commissioner said, “We have already compiled black list of some contractors who will never get any contract from Kaduna state government again.
“Some of them executed projects awarded them so badly while some of them even ran away with mobilization fee without a trace of the project. For instance we have a bridge awarded to a contractor with all the money paid but the bridge was nowhere to be found. You can see it was that bad.
“We have written warning letters to erring contractors and their failure to respond or give concrete evidence that led to their failure have been referred to appropriate quarters and 11 of them are currently been probed by Economics and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) and I think it will be too early to start mentioning their names.
“All this struggle would have ordinarily took us 12 weeks but we have spent two years trying to put things right because we inherited poorly managed government which we are trying to put together.
“Like I said earlier, all the documents of all we are doing including that of the budget are all available across all the ministries and any interested persons can access them for clarifications.”
Executive Secretary of Health Reform Foundation of Nigeria (HERFON), Emmanuel Abanida has called on states in Nigeria that are yet to sign the Primary Healthcare Under One Roof (PHCUOR) into law to do so, in order to fastrack healthcare delivery in their domain.
