The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • Soldiers to vaccinate residents in volatile areas – FG

    Soldiers to vaccinate residents in volatile areas – FG

    By Moses Emorinken, Abuja

    Soldiers will give vaccine shots to persons living in security compromised areas, the Federal Government has declared.

    It further stated internally displaced persons (IDPs) and inmates are being prioritised to receive the vaccine because they are more vulnerable and less likely to get immunised.

    Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, made these known during a virtual briefing organised by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC).

    He said: “What we are doing in Nigeria is really learning from what was successful with the polio eradication programme. In 2020, Nigeria was declared wild poliovirus free.

    “One of the reasons we had a delay in eradicating the virus was because of the Boko Haram insurgency and the insecurity in the North East.

    “This made it difficult for health workers to access some settlements, and in some instances it was difficult to reach large communities.

    “We learnt our lesson from the polio eradication programme. In our planning for these security compromised areas, we engaged the military just like we did with polio.

    “With the polio eradication program, those areas that we could access, health workers and civilians were free to go and access the communities and ensure a comprehensive package of health services.

    “We did not go there with just polio vaccines, we went there with additional health services such as providing malaria treatment and nutritional interventions.

    “In those areas where due to insecurity, civilians and health workers will not go, we actually had military officers drop oral polio vaccines in the mouth of children in areas that are insecure. In the same vein, we have also mapped out strategies to make sure that the Military supports the vaccination of people in security compromised areas.”

  • NASS tackles Southern Govs over call for restructuring

    NASS tackles Southern Govs over call for restructuring

    By Bolaji Ogundele, Abuja

    The leadership of the National Assembly has warned elected political office holders to be wary of making calls capable of compounding the nation’s security and sociopolitical crisis.

    Senate President Ahmad Lawan and Speaker Femi Gbajabiamila, gave the warning on Thursday when they spoke in separate interviews after the Eid prayer in the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

    Reacting to some of the resolutions reached by 17 Southern Governors in Asaba on Tuesday, Lawan, faulted what he described as call for regionalism, pointing out as leaders, whatever challenges facing the country currently should be jointly tackled by elected political leaders from the three tiers of government.

    According to him, before Governors would start thinking of joining calls for restructuring, each of them must first look to how much of such restructuring has been achieved in his home state, which is a component of the units making up the federation.

    Lawan said: “What you may accuse the Federal Government of, whatever it is, you may also be accused of the same thing in your state.

    “So, we are supposed to ensure that we have a complete and total way of ensuring that our systems at the Federal, State and even local government levels work for the people.

    “We must allow people to participate in governance so that whoever feels he has something to offer to make Nigeria better does so freely without any let or hindrance.”

    Urging elected leaders to shun regionalism, Lawan added: “We should avoid regionalism. We are all leaders and we are in this together. The solutions to our challenges must come from us regardless of what level of government we are, whether at the federal, state or the local government level. I believe that Nigeria is going to come out of these challenges stronger.”

    Lawan also attributed the difficulty in solving the protracted security challenges in the country to the absence of a functional local government system.

    He noted while leaders at all levels seek solutions to the security crisis confronting the nation, the local government system should not be neglected, explaining the lack of autonomy for local government administration potentially inhibits solutions as well as efforts by the federal and state governments towards addressing the security challenge.

    “I also want to take this opportunity to say that we have diminished the local government system. I think we can attribute the security issues to the absence of a functional local government system.

    “I think the time has come for us to take up the challenge and ensure that the local government system functions. This is as we look for ways to curb the security challenge.

    “We must never neglect the local government system. We must go back to our local government system to ensure they are autonomous and functional,” Lawan said.

    Toeing the same line, Speaker Gbajabiamila maintained there might be genuine agitations but explicitly stated that elected leaders and Governors should particularly not champion the movement for restructuring without first replicating the idea at the state level.

    He believed those who have championed the call for secession might be misguided and do not mean well for the country.

    “If truth be told, we all have equal shares in the blame for what’s happening today.

    Whatever challenges we have, we must all come together to make sure that we resolve these issues we’re facing. We must imbibe that spirit of oneness, togetherness, unity and love that would take us through this,” he said.

  • Two million vaccines reserved for second jab, says FG

    Two million vaccines reserved for second jab, says FG

    By Moses Emorinken, Abuja

    Two million doses of the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine have been reserved for the second dose in the first phase of vaccination, the Federal Government stated on Thursday.

    It explained with 1,748,242 Nigerians vaccinated as of May 12, 2021, the percentage targeted with the first jab is 86.9 percent.

    Noting the vaccination with the second dose of the vaccine has started, it urged persons who have received their first dose of the vaccine to ensure they check their vaccination cards to know when they are due for their second jab.

    The Executive Director of the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), Dr Faisal Shuaib, made these known during a virtual briefing organised by the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (ACDC) on covid-19 response.

    He said: “Vaccination is ongoing across all states. As of today 1,748,242 Nigerians have been vaccinated. This represents 86.9 percent of the number of Nigerians that have been targeted with the first those of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.

    “Due to the current increasing uncertainty in global vaccine supply which is facing our continents and most of the world, Nigeria’s Presidential Steering Committee (PSC) made a strategic choice to utilise our current covid-19 supply to administer double dose rather than single doses. This will ensure that every Nigerian who receives a vaccine from our present supply, receives their second dose before the recommended time span between doses passes, which is between 6 to 12 weeks.

    “Administering these two doses of the vaccine within the recommended time frame is very important to ensure full inoculation benefits.

    “This means that with the current supply, we will fully inoculate roughly 2 million Nigerians rather than partially inoculate 4 million Nigerians. We are removing an element of risk that is becoming too high.

    “We have already started administering second doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine. In addition to health workers, frontline workers aged 18 years and above, and persons aged 50 years and above are being advised to visit any designated vaccination site to receive their vaccine doses whether the first or the second dose

    “We are also advising that people who have received their first dose should check their vaccination cards for the date of the second dose, and ensure that they receive their second dose to gain full protection against covid-19.”

    Shuaib added: “Concerning the number of doses that are left in Nigeria, what we did in Nigeria was to actually divide the four million doses into two compartments.

    “Just about 2 million Nigerians have gotten their vaccines, which is about 90 percent. But with the second doses, we are now beginning to vaccinate those people who already have the first dose, and have gone at least 6 weeks since they had the first doses.

    “Approximately, we have around 2 million doses that we plan to give exactly the same people that have taken their first doses, bearing in mind that we have to give an interval of 6 weeks to 12 weeks to make sure that we get the greatest response for these vaccines.”

  • Bloody Sallah as Customs allegedly kills four, injures one in Iseyin

    Bloody Sallah as Customs allegedly kills four, injures one in Iseyin

    By Segun Showunmi, Ibadan

    No fewer than four persons were allegedly shot dead by stray bullet and one other critically injured on Thursday in Iseyin, Oyo State when men of the Nigerian Customs Services (NCS) shot sporadically in the town.

    The Nation gathered the Customs operatives started shooting after intercepting smuggled goods through the borders when they got into the town.

    Some residents, who were out to enjoy Sallah celebration, were allegedly hit by stray bullets.

    The incident caused pandemonium in the town as relations and friends of those affected protested.

    When contacted, Public Relation Officers of Oyo/Osun Area Command of NCS, Kayode Wey, said he was not aware of the incident.

    He said he was not sure if the Customs men were from his Command.

    He however promised to get back as soon as he had information on the incident but was to do as the time of filing this report.

  • N45b hotel facility makes debut in Lagos

    N45b hotel facility makes debut in Lagos

    By Kelvin Osa-Okunbor

    Airline crew and passengers travelling through the Murtala Mohammed  International Airport (MMIA), Lagos have been called upon to embrace premium hospitality services as a new facility – Lagos Marriott Hotel, Ikeja – opens its doors for business.

    The N45 billion infrastructure put together by SIFAX Group, an investment conglomerate spanning aviation, oil and gas, maritime, haulage and logistic as well as hospitality sectors, according to its managers, has been positioned to drive a hub status for MMIA  in West and Central Africa.

    Speaking at a briefing to herald the opening of the facility next week, General Manager, Lagos Marriott Hotel, Janse Van Rensburg said the facility was delivered after six  years of spadework in a partnership with  SIFAX Group and the renowned global hotel brand Marriott International.

    The 250-bed, five-star hotel built on 11 floors, has modern facilities, including exclusive flight crew lounge, VIP lounges, 1,000 – capacity ballroom, executive meeting rooms, 400- capacity car park, 206 standard rooms, 44 suites; including three presidential suites, well equipped gym, continental restaurants and other facilities.

    He said a team from both groups had been working round the clock to use the infrastructure as a signature offering to redefine the nexus between the travel industry and hospitality.

    He said though the company was conscious of the cluster of brands around its location – Ikeja GRA, it intends to utilize the value of premium  services to pull the aviation and allied sectors to leverage patronage.

    Using the Lagos Airport as catchment, the managers said they are working out a template to leverage value to pool patronage for the facility.

    Rensburg said the desire to offer premium hospitality services to the Lagos market was responsible for the huge investment in the hotel.

    He said: “”Every client of Lagos Marriott Hotel is set for an unimaginable premium experience like never before. We assure them of world-class hospitality, super customer satisfaction and royalty treatment. Frequent travelers who have points using the Marriott hotel franchise globally can also redeem their points here in Nigeria too. We have an in-club system for our premium members located on the first floor of the hotel.

    “The unique selling propositions of this hotel are the various amazing products we offer our clients which are non-existent in the country’s hospitality industry. The security of our guests is very paramount to us and that’s why every door and window in the facility is bomb-proof. Our pricing is also very commensurate with the quality that we offer.”

    Rensburg further noted that the hotel, which is in the classic premium category on the Marriott quality ranking, will be managed by the franchise owner, Marriott Hotel, for quality assurance purposes.

    Speaking also at the event, Chike Ogeah, Managing Director, Mac-Folly Hospitality Limited, the SIFAX Group’s hospitality subsidiary, applauded Dr. Taiwo Afolabi, Group Executive Vice Chairman, SIFAX Group, for bankrolling the multi-billion naira investment, adding that his vision of a premium hospitality business in Lagos has manifested through the new hotel.

    He said: “The building of this hotel took us six years. We took our time to tastefully select all the materials and equipment that were used in order to serve our clients the best. As a man that has travelled all over the world and experienced first-hand hospitality at its peak, our Chairman, Dr. Taiwo Afolabi, decided to build this hotel in Nigeria in order to promote the hospitality and tourism industry in Lagos and provide opportunities to further improve the economy.

  • Fuel subsidy: beware of (mis)advisers

    Fuel subsidy: beware of (mis)advisers

    Hardball

    President Muhammadu Buhari should beware of his economic advisers telling him to remove fuel subsidy.  When the huge social cost comes, only the president would bake in the furnaces.  These so-called (mis)advisers would chill in their air-conditioned suites.

    Indeed, that the 6th regular meeting, of the Doyin Salami-chaired Presidential Economic Advisory Council, told the president to remove fuel subsidy should worry everyone, given the state of stress and disaffection in the land.

    Without prejudice to the expertise and knowledge base of the economic council, that advice rippled too much of IMF fetish — that all-too-glaring penchant to toss the people under the bus, just that some cold numbers could look good.

    The irony is these “periphery of the periphery” votaries screech in worship of their people-last orthodoxy, when the metropole god himself, in the so-called “centre of the centre”, had all but junked this doctrine, at least in this terrible season of COVID-19.

    President Joe Biden has not only pumped some cash into the pockets of hurting Americans, congregants in the high cathedral of IMF orthodoxy, he is also dreaming an ambitious infrastructure programme, not only marked by power, roads and bridges, but which radically pushes the primacy of humans, as the ultimate infrastructure.

    Prof. Salami and co are advising a contrary path, even if Nigerians under President Buhari are experiencing probably more stress than Americans, under President Biden –to orthodoxy be the glory!

    The economic council drove in its advice with a slew of red herrings:

    No subsidy was captured in the 2021 budget — couldn’t there be a supplementary budget?

    Subsidy payment, directly by NNPC, could shrink the cash available for state governments to share — what dents have these governments, as a collective, made on the people’s misery, except joining in the anti-centre cacophony?

    Retention of fuel subsidy would repeat 2015, when states survived by federal bailout –just a stacking of cards.   It’s debatable if this council, which would live or die by IMF orthodoxy, would have approved such bail-out back then. It would have claimed some arcane theories that trumped common sense!

    That lands the matter back at the very beginning.  It doesn’t take any especial acuity to spot the dissonance that has plagued the Buhari economic policy, just because it craved some economic “expat experts” [of the IMF hue] — to mimic Wole Soyinka’s immortal quip in the novel, The Interpreters.

    The old Economic Management Team (EMT), under Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, bossed the administration’s safety-net programmes — schools feeding, Trader-moni micro-credit, N-Power, conditional cash transfer, etc, all targeted at youths and the country’s most vulnerable.  That was in rightful recognition of Nigeria’s dire poverty situation.

    Yes, the first fuel pump price increase took place back then.  But the trade-off, of doing something to combat poverty, served as dampener.  Pray, what trade-off is the Salami council offering, aside from IMF bean-counting?

    The president must learn to say no to some hurtful advice.   When trouble comes, these advisers could even join in sweet finger-pointing, the Nigerian popular cynical pastime.

    Rather, it should focus on local refining, which should eliminate the paradox of fuel pains, when crude prices go up.  But that is the umpteenth Obasanjo-era illogic of liberalizing the oil downstream by fuel importation.  It was always going to end in tears.

  • Abia, Imo, Ondo, Ekiti, Anambra owing doctors’ salaries, says NMA

    Abia, Imo, Ondo, Ekiti, Anambra owing doctors’ salaries, says NMA

    By Moses Emorinken, Abuja

    The Nigerian Medical Association (NMA) has stated that five states – Abia, Imo, Ondo, Ekiti and Anambra – still owe doctors backlogs of salaries and other statutory benefits.

    It, therefore, urged the states to clear the backlogs, as it has endorsed all lawful action that its state chapters may adopt in obtaining their due benefits and compensations.

    NMA President Prof. Innocent Ujah, who made these known in Abuja during a news briefing, also hailed Kogi and Edo states for clearing the backlog of salaries for their doctors.

    He said: “The Annual General Conference/Delegates Meeting (AGC/DM) of the NMA, which held between April 25 and May 2, 2021, reviewed the level of progress in clearing the backlog of salary arrears of doctors in Abia, Imo, Ondo, Ekiti, Kogi, Anambra and Edo states. Governments of Kogi and Edo states were appreciated for clearing the backlog of salaries for their doctors, but expressed dismay and dissatisfaction with the remaining states for their failure to pay doctors their deserved wages.

    “AGC/DM, therefore, strongly appealed to the concerned state governments to clear the backlog of entitlements owed her members and endorsed any lawful action that those state chapters may adopt in obtaining their due benefits and compensations for work already done.”

    The NMA, in its effort to stop quackery which significantly puts the lives and wellbeing of Nigerian at risk, has directed its National Officers Committee (NOC) to appraise all issues connected with the effective implementation of Doctors’ Stamp.

    It stated that Nigerians can recognise a qualified doctor from a quack by demanding to see their practicing licence, which is usually issued by the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) yearly. It noted that the licence can hardly be forged.

  • JUSUN vows to countinue strike until Fed Govt begins deduction from source

    JUSUN vows to countinue strike until Fed Govt begins deduction from source

    By Eric Ikhilae, Abuja

    The striking judiciary workers have vowed not to call off their over one month old strike, except the Accountant General of the Federation (AGoF) commences this month, the deduct from source, of the budgetary allocation submitted to the office by the 36 states’ judiciaries in October 2020.

    The striking workers, under the aegis of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN), arrived at this position after reviewing the recommendations of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF) on how to end the strike over financial autonomy for the judiciary.

    The NGF had presented its recommendations at a stakeholders meeting with the Minister of Labour and Employment last week Thursday, which was adjourned till May 11 to enable JUSUN and members of the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) consider them and report back.

    JUSUN’s position not to end its strike until the Federal Government commences deduction this month, formed part of the resolutions reached at its National Working Committee (NWC) meeting held last Saturday to consider the NGF’s recommendations.

    Members of JUSUN’s NWC, at the meeting, frowned at some of the recommendations by the NGF, which they said was not consistent with the resolution arrived at during an earlier meeting of stakeholders with the Chief of Staff to the President.

    The various resolutions reached at the JUSUN’s NWC, which was the union’s response to the NGF’s recommendations, formed the Judiciary workers’ position, which they submitted to the Labour and Employment Minister at the last stakeholders’ meeting on May 11.

    In the document seen by The Nation in Abuja on Wednesday, members of JUSUN’s NWC “agreed that the Accountant-General of the Federation shall deduct from source from the Federation Account, the budgetary allocation submitted to him by the 36 States Judiciaries in October 2020 and pay same directly to the National Judicial Council (NJC} from which the Heads of Courts of the 36 states will be paid, failure therefore, the strike continues.

    “NWC-in-session further agreed that the deduction be effected in May 2021 FAAC and with arrears from October 2020 inclusive. “

  • Dethrone Seriki Fulani now, Miyyeti Allah tells Oyo govt

    Dethrone Seriki Fulani now, Miyyeti Allah tells Oyo govt

    By Segun Showunmi, Ibadan

    Miyyeti Allah in Oyo State on Wednesday urged the state government and the Alaafin of Oyo, Oba Lamidi Adeyemi, to dethrone the embattled Seriki Fulani of Oyo State, Chief Saliu Kadiri.

    He said the allegation against the Seriki is affecting the image of the Fulani community.

    The Nation recalls that Kadiri was recently chased out of his Igangan home by aggrieved youths led by a Yoruba self-acclaimed activist, Sunday Adeyemo popularly called Sunday Igboho, following his alleged involvement in kidnapping and other crimes in the area.

    Miyyeti Allah advised the Alaafin of Oyo and the government to replace Kadiri with a tested and trusted personality among the Fulani community.

    The Seriki Fulani, however, described the allegation as false.

    He urged the government and the Alaafin of Oyo to ignore it.

  • Modakeke community: probe killings of mother, son

    Modakeke community: probe killings of mother, son

    By Toba Adedeji, Osogbo

    Modakeke community in Osun State yesterday demanded probe of the killings of a mother and her son on a farm at Alapata village.

    The Nation reports that there was tension in Modakeke and Ile-Ife on Tuesday after two people were killed and their bodies dumped on a farm at Alapata.

    Modakeke youths suspected that they were killed by Ile-Ife indigenes.

    Spokesman for Modakeke Progressive Union Venerable Debo Babalola  confirmed the identities of the victims.

    He said the deceased were mother and son identified as Titilayo Gbadegesin and Reuben Gbadegesin.

    “Titilayo was into farming and buying of farm produce, while Reuben, her eldest child, was planning to travel out of the country. We are demanding investigation into the gruesome killing of the mother and her son.”

    Police spokesperson Yemisi Opalola also confirmed that a woman and her son were murdered on their farm at Alapata.

    She said investigation is on.