The Nation Newspaper

Category: News

  • Fashola approves six-month leave for nursing mothers

    Fashola approves six-month leave for nursing mothers

    •Fathers to go on 10-day break

    Lagos State Governor Babatunde Fashola (SAN) has reviewed nursing mothers’ maternity leave from three months to six months.

    The governor also approved 10 days paternity leave for fathers.

    Head of Service, Mrs. Oluseyi Williams, who spoke with reporters in Alausa yesterday, said the maternity leave would be with full pay in the case of first two deliveries.

    She said government was concerned about the trend that parents spend more time at work at the expense of the home front.

    She said: “Medical science has also proved that the first few months of a child’s life has a great deal to play in the latter development of that child physically, mentally and emotionally.

    “However, at six months, that is 24 weeks, a baby is considered strong enough to be left in a decent crèche for proper care having gone through close affection and nurturing by the mother for those important and delicate first few months of his or her life”.

    The Head of Service expressed optimism that the new leave policy expected to take effect immediately would advance a balanced family-work life, “with the ultimate intent of having future leader who, as neonates, had enjoyed parental care and affection”.

    Outlining the health benefit of the new policy, Special Adviser to the Governor on Public Health, Dr. Yewande Adeshina, said aside the opportunity it presents for mother and child to enjoy emotional and social bond, the advocacy for six months exclusive breastfeeding can now be achieved without any hindrance.

    He said: “Mothers will also have no excuse not to take their children for the regular immunisation within the period and also monitor the health of their babies adequately.

    “It would allow the mothers stay with their children so they can sense when they are having a fever, when they are feeding well and seek intervention early, this will go a long way to check the cases of maternal and child mortality. With the policy, both the babies and mothers are winners”.

  • Nigeria is frustrating, says Fayemi

    Nigeria is frustrating, says Fayemi

    Ekiti State Governor Kayode Fayemi has said the turn of events in the country are frustrating Nigerians.

    He spoke at the maiden Lecture/Award Dinner organised by the Senate Press Corps in Abuja.

    The governor came to the lecture to honour one of the awardees, Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi, who represents Ekiti North Senatorial District.

    He said commitment to service and sterling performance are no longer the yard stick to measure success.

    Fayemi said genuine politicians have had cause to ask themselves whether the sacrifice they make is worth the while.

    The Senate and the House of Representatives, he said, may well be the last hope of democracy if they did not chicken out in speaking the truth.

    He said: “There is so much about our country that is very frustrating. There are times that you have to ask yourself, if you are a politician, whether it is worth all the trouble at all. I am here primarily, singularly to pay homage to service, intellect and activism.

    “Although I came for my friend but looking at the array of people being honoured this evening, I happen to know many of them and they are people I respect a lot beyond partisanship, they have demonstrated what it is to be committed to humanity.

    “I know that intellect is not supposed to be popular in our country right now. What counts to be popularity is what I hear is grassroots. If you are an intellectual, you are an elite and an elite is what should be thrown to be thrown into the dustbin not to be associated with.

    “Even as a very keen and detached interested observer of the Senate, I always stand very tall every time I listen to my own senator, my own representative in the Senate speak, and I also, always notice that the Senate is always, really silent, every time Senator Olubunmi Adetunmbi is on his feet because he never speaks from the partisan point of view.

     

  • ‘Hold APC responsible if anything happens to Ekiti INEC office’

    ‘Hold APC responsible if anything happens to Ekiti INEC office’

    The Ayo Fayose Campaign Organisation (AFCO) has urged Nigerians, including the security agencies, to hold the All Progressives Congress (APC) responsible should any havoc be done to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) offices in Ekiti State and the materials used during the June 21 governorship election.

    Reacting to allegation of plan to burn the INEC office made by the APC AFCO, while said in a statement by its Director General, Chief Dipo Anisulowo,said: “APC people should not be allowed to burn the INEC office in Ado-Ekiti the way they burn down the INEC office in Ido-/Osi Local Government during the 2009 rerun governorship election.”

    Anisulowo said the security agencies must not treat such allegation with levity.

    “If they are saying that plans are being hatched to have ‘strange fire’ occurrence at the INEC office in Ado Ekiti and all the materials relating to the just concluded governorship election will get burnt, security agencies must ask questions.

    “This is more so that the APC Spokesperson, Mr Segun Dipe, who issued the statement yesterday, also knew that the fire incidence would be blamed on some faulty power surge, he (Segun Dipe) must be made to give further details on the alleged plot,” Anisulowo said.

    While saying that there could actually be plans by the APC to burn the INEC office, the AFCO Director General said: “The modus operandi of the APC and its devilish members is to accuse others of planning to do what they have already set machinery in motion to do.

    “Most importantly that it is obvious that the APC as a party has tried unsuccessfully to discredit the June 21 governorship election by inventing various ridiculous arguments, including claim that the election was ‘photocromically rigged.’

    “If the party is now coming up with allegation of plan to burn the INEC office, it could be a pointer to a sinister plot by the APC people to burn the INEC office so as to be able to sustain their argument that the election was rigged and that they would have succeeded in upturning the election results at the tribunal if INEC office had not been burnt.

  • ‘SOSCAN not a terrorist group’

    The National Coordinator, South-South Community Association of Nigeria (SOSCAN), Reverend David Idabor has said the group was neither a terrorist organisation nor militant movement.

    Idabor, in a statement issued by the group’s media director, Sulaiman Soyombo stated that the group, which at the weekend inaugurated its Osun State chapter, was geared towards unifying the people of the South-South region.

    “SOSCAN is a body for all indigenes of south-south, integrating political, economic and religion interests to help promote Niger-Delta interest; nd her people.

    “The mission is to plan south-south community and produce one global identity for the Niger Delta people and make them role models of society.

    “The body is not a militant movement nor a terrorist organisation and does not belong to any political party,” he said, urging south-south people to join the crusade for the unification of the region.

  • Ogun commissioner urges youths to emulate Soyinka

    Ogun commissioner urges youths to emulate Soyinka

    Ogun State Commissioner for Culture and Tourism Mrs. Yewande Amusan has urged the youth to emulate the Nobel Laureate Prof. Wole Soyinka.

    Mrs. Amusan described Soyinka as an epitome of tradition,  cultural values ,  an icon and a global citizen of remarkable attributes worthy of emulation.

    The commissioner stated this during an interactive session with reporters yesterday at Prof. Wole Soyinka’s residence in Abeokuta on the occasion of his 80th birthday.

  • Dangote Cement to distributors: expect quality service, bonus

    Dangote Cement to distributors: expect quality service, bonus

    Dangote Cement Plc yesterday promised its distributors in the Southwest quality service delivery and an increased bonus in appreciation of their patronage.

    Its Executive Director, Sales and Marketing, Knut Ulvmoen, spoke at a Distributor Forum held in Ibadan.

    He said Dangote Cement is producing 19.25 million metric tonnes from its three plants in Obajana, Gboko and Ibese, adding that by the end of this year, additional 9 million would have been added from the 6 million Mtpa new lines in Ibese and 3 million Mtpa new line in Obajana.

    Ulvmoen said the company decided to be holding the Forum regularly so as to interface with the distributors and other customers.

    The Regional Director in charge of Southwest 1, Mrs Funmi Sanni, thanked the distributors for believing in Dangote Cement and assured them that the company would continue to give them superior product and better delivery services.

    She said N1.2 billion was given out early this year as sales bonus to distributors, adding that the company would increase the bonus in line with increase in sales.

  • Lagos to pay teachers’ allowance

    Lagos to pay teachers’ allowance

    Lagos State Government has promised to pay the balance of the 27.5 per cent Teachers Salary Scale (TSS).

    State Commissioner for Education, Mrs Olayinka Oladunjoye, told reporters at a news conference yesterday that teachers were not angry with Governor Babatunde Fashola over unpaid allowances.

    She said with the implementation of the Eko Project, teachers had been trained to give the best to the pupils and students.

    Mrs Oladunjoye said: “We are not unmindful of the need to fully pay the 27.5 percent special teacher allowance to its teachers; hence government is working assiduously with a view to paying the balance on TSS soonest. Government therefore craves the understanding of its teachers on this bearing in mind that it will not hesitate to pay the balance of their allowance as soon as possible.

    “Teachers are not angry with Fashola, they are happy with us. We are working hand in hand to meet their demands,” she said.

    Oladunjoye added: “Government is not unmindful of the critical roles and importance of teachers in the scheme of things.

  • Candidates, stakeholders agree to free, fair poll

    Candidates of the 20 parties contesting the August 9 Osun State governorship election and other stakeholders have agreed to ensure free and fair poll devoid of violence.

    They made the pledge at a sensitisation workshop organised for political parties and stakeholders by the office of the Special Adviser to the President on Inter-Party Affairs in Osogbo, the state capital.

    The parties in attendance include the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), the National Conscience Party (NCP) and Action Alliance (AA).

    Others are All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Alliance for Democracy (AD), Accord Party (AP) and Democratic Peoples Movement (DPM).

    Issues bordering on the smooth conduct of the election were discussed at the  meeting held at the Leisure Spring Hotel, Osogbo.

    Some of the governorship candidates, who could not attend the programme, sent their representatives.

    While the APC candidate, Governor Rauf Aregbesola, sent the party’s state chairman, Elder Adebiyi Adelowo to the event, the PDP’s candidate, Senator Iyiola Omisore, was represented by his running-mate, Adejare Bello.

    The Special Adviser to the President on Inter Party-Affairs, Senator Ben Obi, while opening the workshop, stressed the need for all the political parties and their candidates to shun violence during the election.

    Obi said free and fair election is a panacea to peaceful co-existence in any society and pledged that the governorship election would be conducted in a fair atmosphere.

    He also urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to create a level-play ground for all political parties before and during the governorship election.

    He said: “Most of our political parties have negated a lot of their duties and concentrated mainly on elections and attaining political power at the expense of an entrenched democracy.”

    “I am calling on all the stakeholders in the Osun State governorship election to embrace peace. All the political parties contesting the election should have equal access to the media. And we want all political parties to have the freedom to publicise their programmes and agenda.”

     

  • Aregbesola to Sambo: winning Osun is wishful thinking

    Aregbesola to Sambo: winning Osun is wishful thinking

    •Governor says state rejected PDP long ago

    Osun State Governor Rauf Aregbesola has described the remark by Vice President Namadi Sambo that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) would win the August 9 governorship poll as mere wishful thinking.

    Aregbesola alleged that Sambo had impugned on the integrity of the judiciary by referring to the Election Petition Appeal Tribunal’s judgment that restored the mandate of Aregbesola after the 2007 governorship poll as verdict through “the back door.”

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, who spoke through his Director, Bureau of Communication and Strategy Semiu Okanlawon, said Sambo could not have been referring to the Osun where the people have demonstrated their total rejection of anything that has any traits of PDP.

    Sambo’s statement, Okanlawon said, “aptly captures the depth of self-delusion and deceit to which PDP leadership indulges in.”

    He said the development should be blamed for the total failure of the PDP-led Federal Government in all facets of the Nigerian life.

    “Sambo’s statement did not come to us as a surprise. It is the character of the PDP and its leadership to live in a different world far away from the stark realities that daily confronts our people.

    “For the umpteenth time, we wish to remind Sambo and the entire PDP structure and its candidate for the August 9 poll that Osun has remained different for so many reasons and this is why the macabre dance PDP and its agents of electoral fraud organised in Ekiti cannot be replayed here in Osun.

    “Has Sambo forgotten so soon that while PDP reaped from its electoral fraud in all parts of Nigeria in the 2011 election, it was only in Osun that PDP recorded  most humiliating defeat.

    “In case Sambo has not thought about it, that was less than six months of the Aregbesola administration when not much had been put on ground in form of sterling performance and massive transformation of Osun.

    “More than three years down the line, Osun people have witnessed unprecedented development in various ways. Peace has returned. Wealth has been created. Lives have been saved and improved. Aregbesola has touched lives in the education, food production, youth employment, and other sectors.  This state has been rescued from the morass it was plunged in almost eight years of the PDP rule. What then does Sambo expect his party to woo the people of Osun with in an election that is less than one month?” he added.

    On Sambo’s alleged derogatory comment on the judiciary, the statement said the verdict of the tribunal confirmed that PDP robbed in the 2007 poll.

    “In some saner climes, PDP and its leaders ought to apologise to the entire country and the people of Osun in particular for the trauma they were subjected to due to the robbery of the Aregbesola’s mandate. But the culture of impunity, which PDP promotes, won’t give room for such decency. It must however be noted that never will our people embrace the rule of terror and cluelessness which PDP represents,” the statement said.

    It added that the entire Nigeria and the international community have been monitoring the shenanigans in the build up to the election, saying the PDP candidate has lost the contest before the August 9 date.

  • AP: politicians should stop using indecent language

    AP: politicians should stop using indecent language

    Osun State Accord Party’s (AP) governorship candidate Niyi Owolade has urged politicians to desist from using indecent language during their campaigns for the August 9 poll.

    Owolade, who spoke at a media briefing in Osogbo, said no amount of character assassination could make the electorate vote against a good candidate.

    He warned the electorate to look out for those calling themselves Awoists, but do not exhibit the late sage’s principles, urging the people to vote against such people.

    Owolade, who was Commissioner for Health in the Bisi Akande administration, said there were no first class Awoists in any political party, but half-baked. He added that original Awoists were no more.

    He said the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who some politicians professed that they were following, would not use fowl language at political rallies.

    “He would address issues rather than attack personalities. The All Progressives Congress political philosophy and democratic process are not in the same wave length with that of Awolowo’s political doctrinal principles which are people-oriented and respected humanity,” Owolade added.

    He appealed to the people to vote for him as the governorship candidate of the Accord Party in the August 9 election, promising that there would be qualitative education for students if voted in as governor.

    He also promised an effective and robust agricultural scheme that will employ 18,000 graduates within 12 months of being in power, saying his administration would construct good road network.