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Nigeria: Federal Government Says It Won’t Be Distracted In Its Anti Corruption War

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27/01/2016

Nigeria: Federal Government Says It Won’t Be Distracted In Its Anti Corruption War

Abuja (Nigeria) – The Federal Government of Nigeria has said it will neither be distracted nor intimidated into abandoning or weakening the fight against corruption, which it called ‘a war of survival for the nation’. It added also that no amount of media attack will stop the fight.

Minister of information and culture, Lai Mohammed, made this known at a meeting with bureau chiefs of some national dailies on Tuesday in Abuja.

Statement by the minister’s special adviser, Segun Adeyemi further noted that, pseudo-analysts and hack writers will labour in vain while trying to stop the train of the anti-corruption fight.

According to the statement, ”When I met with the News and Political Editors in Lagos on Sunday, I said, among other things, that the government is aware that in fighting corruption, corruption will also fight back. I also said that those who stole us dry are powerful. They have newspapers, radio and television stations as well as online platforms, and an army of supporters to continuously deride the government’s war against corruption.

”Well, I can tell you today that corruption is already fighting back, and it is fighting hard and dirty. Sponsored articles have started appearing in the newspapers and in the Social Media, while ‘Talking Heads’ have started making the rounds in the electronic media, all deriding the fight against corruption as well as this Administration.

”Not stopping there, they have been creating distractions by sponsoring articles in both local and international media to deride the Administration’s policies generally, tag the President a budding dictator and even write off his 2016 budget. We know that the sole purpose of these attacks is to distract attention from the war on corruption,” it stated.

The statement further noted that, ”it is saddening that some otherwise credible voices have unwittingly allowed themselves to be railroaded into the bandwagon of pro-corruption orchestra.”

”One hack writer even said the disclosure that 55 Nigerians allegedly stole 1.34 trillion Naira between 2006 and 2013 did not trigger any anger among Nigerian! A disclosure that made the front page in over a dozen Nigerian newspapers, played widely in the international media and attracted the attention of the world’s most powerful country and global financial institutions cannot be dismissed with a wave of the hand.”

While calling on Nigerians not to be sway by the antics of the sponsored denunciation of anti craft war, he said the sponsored attacks are not about to stop soon but will become more intense and more coordinated in the days ahead. ”But the good news is that we are winning the war. Nigerians are now talking more about corruption. Nigerians are now counting the cost of corruption to their lives.

The treasury looters, who have so much resources in their kitty, and their cohorts will throw everything but the kitchen sink at this Administration. But we have no doubt that Nigerians are discerning enough to know the truth which, in the words of President Muhammadu Buhari, is that unless Nigeria kills corruption, corruption will kill Nigeria.”

He however urged the media to continuously educate and inform Nigerians about the evils of corruption, especially the cost of corruption to the lives of the citizens.

Nigeria: National Security Office Organizes Simulation On Counter Terror Response In Abuja

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27/01/2016

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Nigeria: National Security Office Organizes Simulation On Counter Terror Response In Abuja

By Longtong Ibrahim

Kaduna (Nigeria) – The office of National security adviser has said it is set to carryout simulation exercise to develop the Federal Capital Crisis Response Doctrine to dynamic attack in Abuja.

Statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the Minister of Information and Culture, Joseph Mutah, explained that the Counter Terrorism Crisis Response Working Group being coordinated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) will conduct simulation exercises on prompt response to terror attack on some public buildings in Abuja.

According to the statement, “the simulation exercise will be conducted by 9:00am within the precinct of Garki Mall, near the Garki International Market on 1^st February, 2016 while another exercise comes up on 2^nd February, 2016 at the International Conference Centre, Area 10 Garki, at 9:00am.”

It however urged residents of Abuja especially those living in the Federal Capital Territory not to panic over the forthcoming exercise as it would serve as a pre-emptive and precautionary measure against terror attack.

Nigeria: Fire Outbreak Razes Down Kaduna Railway Market, Kills One, Destroys 500 Shops

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27/01/2016

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Nigeria: Fire Outbreak Razes Down Kaduna Railway Market, Kills One, Destroys 500 Shops

Fire outbreak that razed down over 500 makeshift shops at Kaduna Railway Station Market early hours of Tuesday killed a boy and destroyed property worth millions of Naira.

According to an eyewitness, the fire which started from one of clothes shops around 2am of Tuesday became uncontrollable as the winds aided its combustion.

“All attempts to extinguish the fire was frustrated by our inability to get water to quench the raging fire”. He narrated

Another eyewitness, Baba Mohammed, one of the security guards at the market , said, the fire might have been caused by burning fire put up by some boys who sleeps in shops at the market.

” Unfortunately, all efforts to rescue one of the boys trapped in a clothes shop at the market, was unsuccessful and the boy died.” Mohammed said.

“Though the fire fighters came to rescue at about 3.00 a.m after the entire temporary shops, mostly made of planks and zinc were burnt down.”

However, some other witnesses attributed the cause to electrical fault, but our correspondent later gathered that the fire was caused by left over fire , which affected a shop near it .

The State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA Public Relations Office, Abubakar Zakari, confirmed that a boy was killed, goods worth several million destroyed and over 500 shops razed down.

He however noted that SEMA officials are conducting an assessment to confirm the immediate and remote cause of what he termed “Unfortunate fire incident”.

Culled from thenews

I’ll Remain In APC As Long As Buhari Remains — Senator Shehu Sani

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26/01/2016

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I’ll Remain In APC As Long As Buhari Remains — Senator Shehu Sani

By Mohammad Ibrahim

Kaduna (Nigeria) — Nigerian embattled Senator and human rights activists, Shehu Sani says he will remain in All Progressive Party (APC), as long as President Muhammadu Buhari is still in the party.

According to him, he will remain in the party because President Muhammadu Buhari is APC.

Senator Sani said this to journalists in Kaduna, while distribution free transistor radio to members of his Kaduna central senatorial district.

He said the National body of APC has already invalidated his suspension from the party, as he advised the two parties to avoid any form of attack and counter attack against each other.

“I have instructed all my supporters and followers to abide by this, but unfortunately, some people are capitalizing on the crisis for their own monetary gains.

“I am saying it in clear terms that as far as I am concerned we would abide by what the national body says,” he said.

On the transistor radio distributed Senator Shehu said the gesture was to raise political awareness among the people.

He also said the radio would give the people more access to information on what is happening within and outside their localities.

“We come from the part of the country where the major and most important source of information is the radio. “Radio is an empowerment, a form of education and enlightenment.

”It enables people to have access to information and also have an opportunity to express themselves,” he said.

According to him, radio has for decades been the only medium where people in northern Nigeria get better informed.

“I am sharing it to downtrodden within the cities and the rural areas so that they would be abreast with what is happening within their own locality, national and state,” he said.

He said as Chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign and Domestic Debt, and also vice chairman, Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, he would continue to call on nations which Nigeria has diplomatic relations with, to assist the fight on corruption by returning money looted from Nigeria.

Nigeria: Kaduna Suspends Senior Official Over Free School Feeding

Education

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23/01/2016

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Nigeria: Kaduna Suspends Senior Official Over Free School Feeding

By Iliya Kure

Kaduna (Nigeria) — Kaduna State in northern Nigeria has suspended one of its senior education official in Zaria, for allegedly sharing money to hired food vendors under its free feeding programme, instead of allowing leaders of the vendors union to play that role.

The state government had on January 18th flagged its free feeding programme meant to provide a US$0.25 worth plate of meal per day to 1.5 million pupils in over 4,000 public primary schools in the state.

By programme design, government will weekly deposit monies meant for vendors in designated banks, where heads of the vendors union would access and distribute same to each vendor for the week’s meal.

Commissioner for Education, Science and Technology, Shehu Adamu said “it was alleged that the officer gathered all the heads of the cooperative societies within the local government in his office.

“He collected the monies from them and was personally sharing it to the vendors which lasted up to the middle of Monday night, thereby affecting the implementation of the programme in Zaria.

“That is not his responsibility, and therefore, he is suspended to enable the ministry carry out full investigation into the matter, “Adamu said.

He said investigation is ongoing in other local government areas where such cases were reported, emphasising that government will not spare any official found wanting.

Adamu admitted lapses inn some local government areas, where some food vendors could not, leading to failure in food provisions in affected schools, saying all the hitches encountered in the first week were being addressed.

He attributed the inability of some vendors to access their money in the banks to problems with account numbers, adding that the issues have been sorted out.

“In fact, as of Friday, some vendors have already started receiving alerts against the second week of the implementation of the programme”.

“In the same vein, every pupil is expected to bring a plate from home and a bottle of water as the programme did not make provisions for drinking water.

“But we learnt that some of the pupils instead of coming with plate from home collect the food in nylon bag. This is unacceptable and hence forth, no pupil should be served in nylon.

“Therefore, parents must ensure that they provide a plate and drinking water to their wards before sending them to school,’’ he said.

He urged parents, community leaders as well as parents’ teachers association to monitor the programme to ensure its success.

Nigeria: Foundation Calls for A Redesign On ITF, NDE, And NAPEP Programs

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23/01/2016

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Nigeria: Foundation Calls for A Redesign On ITF, NDE, And NAPEP Programs

By Longtong Ibrahim

Kaduna (Nigeria) – Federal Government of Nigeria has been called upon to re-evaluate and redesign its intervention programs through its agencies such as Industrial Training Fund, ITF, National Directorate of Employment, NDE, National Poverty Eradication Program, NAPEP in order to address the challenge of unemployment among young people in the country.

Executive Director of Aid Foundation, Emmanuel Bonet made the call during a stakeholder’s forum on youth employment and empowerment programs organized by the Foundation with supports from the Nigerian Stability and Reconciliation Program (NSRP) in Kaduna, recently.

While lamenting on the huge amount of money channeled at addressing unemployment, Bonet posited that its impacts are not felt. He said redesigning of such programs should be done in a way that will have to show value for money and take the unemployed youths off the streets.

He said, “ITF just told us that they trained 2million people every year and everybody open their mouth that where and who are the two million? So, if 100million is the total number of young people we are having in Nigeria, and if they train them for only 10 years – it means they are going to train about 40million people. So tell me, ITF has been in existence since 1971.

“So what exactly are we talking about, then I think government should redesign ITF. The redesigning will have to show value for money. If they are training, then we must be seeing people off the streets and hearing less on issue of unemployment; but when unemployment level is increasing, programs like ITF, NDE, NAPEP will need to be re-evaluated again.”

He further added that there is the need for government to call for a huge stakeholder’s re-evaluation of different government programs because the impacts on the targets are limited. “Government should call all stakeholders together to ask fundamental questions in order to change the way things are done and to get the desired results,” he said.

However, the executive director pointed out that the essence of the forum was to bring young people together and agencies of government to interact and understand each other especially regarding unemployment and empowerment programs. He added also that, a Memorandum of Understanding has been signed between the Kaduna state government, NSRP and Aid Foundation to develop a blueprint on how young people in Kaduna can be gainfully employed.

“The technical committee would be meeting next Thursday and will work towards to come up with the blueprint. The technical committee include most of the major ministries such as Ministry of Economic Planning, Finance, Women Affairs and social gender development, Commerce and Industry, ITF, the special advisers, Bureau for Public Service Reform, BPSR and Aids Foundation which is the anchor of the program,” he said.

Participants at the forum includes government representatives from different government ministries and agencies, NSRP, and youths from Kaduna south, Zaria and Jama’a local government areas of the state.

Nigeria: NTI Commissions Multiple Projects

Africaprimenews

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23/01/2016

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Nigeria: NTI Commissions Multiple Projects

By Longtong Ibrahim

Kaduna (Nigeria) – The National Teachers Institute, NTI has commissioned multiple projects and distributed 24 twin rangers’ vehicles to its zonal and state offices within the country to enable them carryout and monitor activities of the institution effectively.

Other projects commissioned include; Fire service station, Strengthening Mathematics and Science Education (SMASE) Multipurpose hall, E-learning Centre, Computer laboratory, Permanent convocation square, New NTI logo, and Intergraded Science Laboratory.

The projects were executed by the current management of the institute and are aimed at improving learning in the school.

Director General of NTI Aminu Ladan Sharehu on Thursday in Kaduna while leading guest at the commissioning explained that, embarking on such projects has to do with their interest in improving quality of teachers, to rise the standard of the teaching profession.

According to him, what necessitated the fire station was as a result of a fire incident experience in the school four years ago; saying, before the fire brigade could reach the institute from Kaduna, damages had already be done – hence, there was the need to have its own fire station that can serve the school and the nearby communities.

He also noted that lack of a permanent convocation square in the institution deterred it from having convocation ceremony annually, pointing out that since NTI’s inception in 1976 to 2015, it had only four (4) national convocation ceremony, therefore, there was a need to have it.

On challenges facing the institute, Sharehu said insufficient funding is their major challenge. He therefore called on the Tertiary Education Fund (TETFUND) to include NTI into its channel just as he commended it for its outstanding efforts at providing the nation’s higher institution with necessary facilities.

“We have highest number of students but we are not actually benefiting from TETFUND though it is doing well. We believe the current administration is working hard to improve education especially in terms of funding,” he noted.

Vice Chancellor, National Open University (NOUN), Professor Vincent Tenebe, commended the effort of the DG of NTI for commissioning of the projects aimed at improving of teachers’ training across Nigeria.

He added, “The foundation of education is the teacher and if you don’t have quality teachers, you won’t get good product and the projects we have seen today are all gear towards enhancing and producing good teachers.”

Minister of state for Education, Professor Anthony Anwukah, who was represented by Frank Ijeoma while making a remarks said, the current administration is working hard to reposition the educational sector in the country. He added that, the facilities commissioned are impressive and would go a long way producing quality teachers.

Nigeria Police Force Moves To Restore Civil Authority In The North East

Africaprimenews

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21/01/2016

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Nigeria Police Force Moves To Restore Civil Authority In The North East

Abuja (Nigeria) – The management team of the Nigerian Police force has taken a step towards the restoration of civil authority in the liberated areas of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, north-east Nigeria that were affected by activities of the Boko Haram insurgency.

To that regard, the force has deployed the Deputy Inspector-General of Police in charge of Department of Operations, DIG Sotonye Wakama, to move with a team of intelligence officers to the area for need assessment and other scooping activities.

Speaking recently in Abuja during an interactive session organised by the Nigerian Senate, the Inspector-General of Police, (IGP) Solomon Arase, pointed out that the Police is carrying out a scooping mission aimed at relieving the Military of some duties for law and order to be restored in the region.

Arase explained that, guaranteeing the safety of persons, property, and restoring public trust in the maintenance of order and stability remain a cardinal key in re-establishing a working society after violent conflict.

He further said the Nigeria Police Force will deploy more personnel and equipment to the region to provide Police security and to create a secure environment necessary for the return of IDPs to their respective communities.

“The Nigeria Police Force places a high value on the preservation of human life and believed that the prevention of crime is its number one operational priority and will therefore involve the community in the delivery of these services. Police operational response will result to an improved quality of life for citizens”, he added.

He however called on all stakeholders, especially the press to give maximum cooperation to Police officers and other law enforcement agencies to ensure the restoration of civil authority and successful integration of the people who were displaced by the activities of the Boko Haram insurgency.

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