Category: Northern Reports

•To also investigate Internal Revenue board chief

The Niger Government has constituted a committee to investigate circumstances that led to the death of former Commissioner for information, Malam Danladi Ndayebo, at the IBB Specialist Hospital.

Secretary to the Government Alhaji Ahmed Matane, said the state government received information of some level of alleged non-professionalism in the management of the deceased by the hospital in Minna.

He said it was alleged that the deceased was brought to the hospital with no single doctor on call to attend to him.

He said: “I received a call that morning to be informed that late Ndayebo and one other patient were taken to IBB Specialist Hospital in the night, unfortunately in the morning when I was called, there was no single doctor to attend to them as victims of accident.

 “When he was finally being attended to, he took his last breath some hours later. As government, we are very concern about public government hospitals that would respond to such emergency with level of levity and neglect.

 “But we will not conclude whether the circumstance leading to his death was as result of negligence. The committee is to go into what has happened to see how such situation can be dealt it with to avoid such unfortunate act in the future.”

 The SSG said the committee was to find out the circumstances that led to the death of Ndayebo and established whether or not there was any act of negligence on the part of the hospital or its personnel.

 He said that the committee is made up of Dr Chindo Sallah, Dr Joseph Kolo, and Dr Umaru Tiffin, representative of the state chapter of the Nigerian Labour Congress (NLC) among other.

In a related development, Matane said the state government had also set up a committee to investigate a petition against the chairman of the state Internal Board of Revenue, Mr Mohammed Etsu on misappropriation of funds.

 He said the committee was to identify the basis for the petition against the chairman and verified the issues raised in the petition, establish whether or not there were any financial or administrative infractions within the board leading to disaffection by the staff.

 He added that the committee was to make appropriate recommendations to ensure sustainable functions of the board and report back within two weeks on their findings.

 He said the members of the committee were the stage Account General, Permanent Secretary, Ministry for Water Resources, Mr Annas Salihu, Dr Yahaya Zakari and representative of the Nigerian Labour Congress.

The Katsina State government has announced plans to arm 3,000 newly recruited vigilante operatives as part of measures to support security agencies in the ongoing onslaught against banditry attacks in the state.

 Governor Aminu Bello Masari said this while receiving the newly posted Commissioner of Police, Shehu Usman Nadada, at the Government House.

 He said the decision was to complement the efforts of conventional security personnel to ward off banditry attacks in the state.

 He explained that the state government would arm the trained vigilantes through the Nigeria Police Force and using approved licensed weapons and other war equipment that are constitutionally allowed to enable them fight the criminal elements.

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 He said: “The state government has institutionalised the vigilantes in the state by subjecting its members to vigorous training by security agencies with a view to arresting the security challenges bedevilling the state.

 “In Katsina State, we have less than 6,000 policemen who are grossly inadequate and going by the statement of your predecessor, that under normal conditions we need 23,700 policemen to police Katsina but we have less than 6,000.”

 Earlier, Nadada told the governor that he came to the state with new policing goals that would decisively deal with the scourge of banditry, kidnapping, cattle rustling, cybercrime and other criminality in the state.

 He promised to work assiduously with other security agencies and critical stakeholders to ensure a hitch-free 2023 general election, adding that making the entire state safer remains his cardinal objective.

The Zamfara state Commissioner of Police, Mr Kolo Yusuf has restated commitment to ensure protection of tertiary institutions in the state.

 Yusuf stated this when he visited Federal University, Gusau, Federal College of Education (Technical) and Police Secondary School all in Gusau, the state capital.

 A statement by the Spokesman of the Command, Muhammad Shehu, a Superintendent (SP), said the measure was in line with the directives of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) Usman Baba, to secure schools across the country.

 The urged the staff and students to be security conscious, and report suspicious movements to the police and other security agencies.

 The statement further quoted the management of the schools as commending IGP and the Police for their concern to the security of the schools.

 “They promised to give all necessary support to the police and other security agencies in ensuring the safety of their schools,” Shehu said.

Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Sokoto, Mallam Saidu Umar (Mallam Ubandoma), has charged support groups to expand their outreach across the nooks and crannies of the 23 local governments of the State.

This, he said, will further compliment the gains the party have been recording across the length and breadth of the state. 

He spoke on Tuesday when he received  the leadership and members of Ubandoma/Sagir Face2Face Committee who, were on a courtesy call at his residence in Sokoto. 

Umar expressed happiness with the impressive unfolding events in the party that included the massive defections of chieftains of other parties to the PDP.

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He implored all the support groups to tighten their belts and canvass votes for the PDP in the coming months, saying it is the only party that guarantees positive change from the abysmal performance of the APC. 

Umar further emphasized that the only hope for Nigeria rests in PDP, saying it is the only party with a clear-cut plan to rescue Nigeria. 

Buttressing his point,  he said when PDP was at the helm of the nation’s affairs, Nigeria was economically buoyant and the investors were trooping to invest their fortunes in the country, he maintained. 

Ubandoma/Sagir Face2Face Committee, chaired by Alhaji Yahaya Isah, was founded by Alhaji Abubakar Aliyu Ubandoma.

The crisis in the Kano State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) between the majority leader, who is the member representing Doguwa/Tudun Wada Federal Constituency, Alhassan Ado Doguwa and the deputy governorship candidate of the APC, Murtala Sule Garo, has been resolved, courtesy of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

Doguwa confirmed the reconciliation in a Kano radio political programme aired yesterday.

“The matter is over for me,” he said.

Following the governor’s intervention, Doguwa, in the radio programme, said the skirmishes were over, disclosing that the reconciliation was spearheaded by Ganduje, who summoned the two of them to a meeting with some party leaders in the state.

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“Governor Ganduje summoned the reconciliatory meeting between us. The meeting was attended by Nasiru Koki and the state APC Chairman, Abdullahi Abbas. We reviewed the crisis and apologised to each other. The governor told us kind words. He showed each of us where we went wrong. He gave us fatherly advice and said he considers us as his two sons,” Doguwa said.

Doguwa declared he has put the matter behind him and forged ahead to continue commitment towards the success of APC in Kano and the country.

Borno State Governor Babagana Zulum yesterday disbursed N814.2 million empowerment support to 9,100 youths and vulnerable persons in the state.

Zulum who inaugurated the disbursement exercise in Maiduguri, said the support has been provided under the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme.

He said the gesture underscored his administration’s quest to minimise youth restiveness and empower them to become productive and self-reliant.

Read Also: Zulum: Beacon of hope, says Mohammed

The government, he said, empowered over 7,200 Small and Medium Enterprises in 2020, while 2,000 tricycle operators and 220 taxi drivers benefited from the gesture in Maiduguri and Jere Local Government Areas of the state.

He said: “We supported an appreciable number of auto mechanics and constructed a model state of art mechanic village. In 2021; 13,500 entrepreneurs had been supported with N500 million in Gwoza, Ngala and Jere LGAs in efforts to boost their businesses. This magnanimous programme is geared towards providing soft loans amounting to N719.2 million to 9,100 SMEs under the NG-CARES Result Area 3,” he said.

He said that an additional N93 million would be disbursed to 54 beneficiaries due to the nature of their businesses which are not incorporated under NG-CARES scheme.

The Women in Parliament has identified stigmatisation, financing and lack of economic empowerment as part of the reason why women’s participation in politics is at low ebb.

Its committee chairperson, Taiwo Oluga named other reasons as political violence; cultural as well as religious barriers are part of the bottlenecks that have continued to hold women down.

Oluga spoke at a briefing in conjunction with the European Union Support to Democratic Governance in Nigeria (EU SDGN) in Abuja.

She stated that despite the advocacy and attempt by women groups to increase women’s participation in politics, not much progress seems to have been made.

She explained that out of 1,101 candidates contesting for 109 seats in the House of Representatives, only 92 women are contesting.

A former Commissioner for Information and Strategy in Niger state, Danladi Ndayebo has died in Minna.

He died as a result of negligence on the part of health workers of the Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida Specialist hospital.

The 47-year-old deceased is survived by a wife and a child.

Ndayebo, who was a Commissioner and Chief Press Secretary during the administration of the Dr Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu, was said to have been involved in an accident on Sunday evening along the Suleja-Minna expressway and died on Monday afternoon at 2pm.

According to his brother, Usman Ndayebo, the late Ndayebo did not sustain any injury during the accident as he only complained of chest pains.

Usman said despite the complaints about the pain in his chest to health workers at the IBB Specialist hospital, there was no staff to operate the scanning and x-ray machines to ascertain the reason for the chest pain all through the night till Monday morning.

“From the time they were brought to the hospital, there were no staff to operate the scan machine or the X-ray machines to carry out tests on him. There is a scanner and an X-ray machine in the hospital but the staff were not on ground to operate the machines.”

The North-East Development Commission (NEDC) has taken over the responsibility for the daily feeding of 169,174 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Maiduguri, Borno state, and Yola, Adamawa state.

The daily feeding comprises of 24,908 households in Maiduguri and 27,900 households in Yola.

The IDPs camps in Maiduguri were in Madinatu, Muna Garage, Customs House, Goni Kachallari, Shuwari and other host communities, while in Yola, the camps are located in Fufore, Malkohi and St. Theresa.

The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Mustapha Habib Ahmed said the taking over of the daily feeding followed the meeting he had with the Managing Director of the Commission in October where the Commission boss pledged to take over the responsibility of the food and non-food items of the IDPs.

“As of the end of September, 2022, NEMA is providing daily feeding to 149,448 persons comprising 24,908 Households in Maiduguri. At the same time in Yola, Adamawa state, NEMA is feeding 19,626 comprising of 2,992 Households in the camps earlier enumerated,” Ahmed said.

Ahmed expressed gratitude for the taking over, asserting that the collaboration between the Agencies would go a long way to ensure speedy recovery and restoration of normalcy to the North-East region.

The NEMA boss lamented that the Boko Haram insurgency in the Northeast as well as other unexpected humanitarian crises across the country are eating deep into the limited resources available for the agency, stressing that the recent floods which devastated farmlands, homes and infrastructures across Nigeria have worsened the situation.

 Managing Director of the commission, Alhaji Mohammed Alkali said the collaboration between the two agencies has become imperative to avoid duplication of duties in the restoration of peace and stability to the region,  stating that state and local governments can enjoy interventions that would have considerable impacts on lives of the people based on the collaboration.

Sokoto Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) governorship candidate, Mallam Saidu Umar (Mallam Ubandoma Sokoto) has received a massive endorsement from residents of the largest ward in the State ‘Waziri B ward’.

Umar, who was in the area at the weekend for a book launch organised by the Waziri B Youth Solidarity for Ubandoma/Sagir Door 2 Door Campaign, was received by cheering residents who trooped out as his motorcade drove along the precincts of Bazzah to the heart of the contiguous Gidadawa area.

Basking in the euphoria of the rousing welcome, Umar stated he was not surprised by the spontaneous turnout of people, because historically Waziri B ward was well known to always identify with the good side of politics in the State.

He assured residents that Sokoto under his watch will consolidate on the gains of the present administration.

He said if voted into power, his administration would ensure that women and youths were carried along in different spheres of life.

On education, Mallam Ubandoma said his administration will continue with the feat recorded by Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal administration. He promised to invest more in the sector to meet the demands and needs of future generations.

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He averred that the challenges were, God willing, surmountable as his joint ticket with Hon Sagir Attahiru Bafarawa had all its takes to move Sokoto forward.

Hon Abdullahi Maigwandu said the crowd that came out to receive the PDP gubernatorial candidate was indicative of the overwhelming support the PDP enjoys in the area.

Hon Maigwandu, a party chieftain, who is also the Commissioner for Local Government Affairs, promised the area will deliver its large chunk of votes to the PDP.

While making his points, the PDP Chairman in Sokoto North LG, Alh Bello Maikarfi, assured Mallam Ubandoma and all the candidates of PDP at different levels that the Local Government will record a landslide victory in 2023.

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