Adamawa State Governor Ahamdu Fintiri has inaugurated the construction of a bypass in Mubi, Adamawa State’s international commercial hub.

Mubi, which is also the second largest town after Yola, the state capital, has become choked up with vehicular traffic and a bypass has long been considered necessary.

Inaugurating the construction of the 6.8km Mubi Bypass Road yesterday, Governor Fintiri said the bypass is a project that Mubi people have expected for long.

The Mubi Bypass project which features a 45m, 3-span bridge, is estimated to cost Adamawa State N3.36 billion, and is contracted to Triacta Nigeria Limited, with the state Commissioner of Works and Energy Development, Alhaji Adamu Atiku Abubakar as the Chief supervisor.

Atiku announced that it is a dual carriageway with a trailer park, among other features.

He said the contractors would be officially expected to deliver the project in 18 months, even as he said they had promised that it would be ready in 12 months.

The Plateau State APC Chairman Rufus Bature has assured all aspirants under its platform of a level playing field.

He gave the assurance, when one of the gubernatorial aspirants, Dr Steve Fitka Bilshakka, a Surveyor visited him at the party’s Jos secretariat.

The Chairman said the party would advise and guide the aspirants to play by the rules as a disciplined party but would allow the people to make their choice during the primary election in order to produce the best candidate.

Bature advised the aspirants to be sincere, honest and act with the fear of God.

Dr Bilshakka told the Chairman that he had come to congratulate him and his exco on their well-deserved election.

Gombe State Governor Muhammadu Inuwa Yahaya yesterday commended MTN Nigeria for impacting 75,000 people in 509 communities across the country with its Y’ello Doctor mobile clinic truck.

Receiving the donation of the mobile clinic truck at the Government House Gombe, Governor Yahaya said MTN’s gift came at a time when the health sector in the state is highly challenged in terms of meeting the demands of the people.

He said it was in that regard that any intervention in the sector was always a welcome development to his administration in view of the need to improve the well-being of the people of Gombe State.

The MTN Senior Lead Sales and Trade Development, Mr Hanson Thliza who handed the vehicle over to the state said the initiative was to help in providing solutions to some of society’s biggest problems.

“This mobile medical outreach will focus on the treatment of diarrhea, malaria, respiratory tract infections, screening for diabetes, HIV, Hepatitis and general consultation services,” he said.

Thliza added that as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, COVID vaccination had been included as one of the activities to be implemented during the medical outreach.

Thliza said the vaccination leg of the initiative would span six states of Anambra, Gombe, Kano, Kwara, Lagos and Rivers through six mobile clinic trucks.

“So far, two phases of the project have been successfully implemented from 2014 to 2018 in six states, namely, Abia, Delta, Katsina, Niger, Ogun and Taraba, impacting 75,000 people in 509 communities across the country,” he said.

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Dr Habu Dahiru explained that the project was conceived with the objective to increase access of Nigerians living in rural and semi-urban communities to Primary Health care interventions through the mobile clinic platform.

This, according to the Commissioner, would be achieved through the deployment of a fully equipped medical clinic truck with requisite medical staff to selected communities on their market days so as to provide home-based care for the local populace.

Dahiru further said the initiative would also provide healthcare to traders who may be sick, without interfering with their economic activities.

He stressed that the intervention would include free consultations, screening for chronic non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes, screenings for Hepatitis B, Malaria and HIV among others.

“Free drugs will be dispensed to deserving patients while counselling and referral services will be available for those that will need further care,” he said.

According to him, the programme, which is expected to cover the 11 local government areas of the state, would last for one year with three weekly outreaches and one market session per month.

Police in Niger State yesterday urged residents of the state to continue to support them in the fight against banditry, terrorism, cattle rustling and other security threats.

In a chat with reporters in Minna, the Niger State capital, the Commissioner of Police Monday Kuryas assured that measures had been put in place to confront security threats, particularly at the Yuletide season.

He said the command had reached out to traditional and religion leaders as well as stakeholders to mobilise residents to volunteer reliable information on criminal elements in their midst.

The Commissioner said with that approach, the police, in collaboration with other security agencies, would confront miscreants decisively.

He reiterated the commitment of the command to ensure the safety of lives and property of the residents.

“I assure the people of Niger State that the command has no room for kidnap, abduction and robbery; those perpetrating these acts should desist.

“All we want from the public is cooperation and willingness to volunteer information on the movement of criminal elements.

“We are battle-ready to confront any person or group of people undermining the peaceful nature for which Niger State is known,” Kuryas said.

The Judicial Commission of Enquiry set up by the Niger State Government to investigate the killing of worshippers and abduction of people in Maza Kuka and Kulho in Mashegu Local Government Area has commenced its public hearing.

Chairman of the Commission, Justice Ahmed Danladi, said the commission would restrict its assignment to the terms of reference as prescribed by the government, adding that the commission was not set up to investigate issues of banditry.

He noted yesterday that the commission is a fact-finding one, even as he said anyone invited for hearing is not on trial of having committed any offence until proven otherwise.

Danladi described members of the commission as “people of integrity who are versatile in their areas of profession. He solicited the support of stakeholders in carrying out the assignment.

Alhaji Ahmed Matane, Secretary to the State Government, said the government is committed to giving necessary support and the enabling environment for the commission to carry out its functions.

Matane described members of the commission as people with pedigrees and capabilities to handle the task given to them, adding that the government is not in doubt of their ability.

Lead Counsel to the Commission, Umaru Halilu, said adequate agreements had been made to protect witnesses that would give evidence to the commission. He assured members of the communities of their commitment.

Recall that no fewer than 17 worshippers were killed by gunmen who attacked Maza Kuka and Kulho while they were observing prayers in the Mosques on October 25.

On November 3, the government instituted a commission of enquiry to investigate the remote cause of the incident, identify people or groups of people responsible for the attack; apportion blames to people found culpable and suggest appropriate sanctions.

The member representing Gombe North at the Senate, Alhaji Sa’idu Alkali has distributed empowerment items worth millions of naira to his constituents.

The items distributed yesterday in Gombe included 50 cars, 500 motorcycles, 600 sewing machines and refrigerators, hand pumps for dry season farming, threshers for rice and maize processing to 1,000 farmers, among other items.

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Alkali said the gesture was a way of appreciating his constituents for finding him worthy to represent them for the third term in the Senate.

He said he constructed blocks of classrooms, health care facilities, provided water and road projects across the five local government areas he represents–Dukku, Gombe, Kwami, Funakaye and Nafada.  Governor Inuwa Yahaya commended the Senator for empowering his constituents, expressing his optimism that the empowerment items would impact the well-being of people of his constituency.

The special guest of honour at the event, the Senate President, Alhaji Ahmad Lawan, commended Governor Yahaya and Senator Sa’idu Alkali for touching the lives of people in so many ways.

The Air Force Comprehensive Secondary School Yola, the Adamawa State capital has won an inter-school competition organised to impact financial literacy on students and combat poverty.

The school was tops at the finale of the competition which began last week in Yola, as organised by Grow with Data Youth Foundation (GWDYF), a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

The finale, which was a Business Pitch presentation, involved three schools, from the initial 11 which began the competition on December 10 but dropped between the first two stages of the competition.

The remaining three schools turned up at Gotel Telecommunication, a Television/Radio House in Yola on Saturday and took part in the live televised business pitch presentations in which each school presented a pitch for which marks were awarded by a three-man panel of judges.

In the end, presenters who represented the Air Force Secondary School in Jambutu, Yola North Local Government Area got 52.3 points to become winners.

Fombina Royal Academy in Yola Town, Yola South Local Government Area, came second with 50.7 points, followed by AUN Charter School, also in Yola Town, with 37.7 points.

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To win the competition, the Air Force Comprehensive School appeared to have first won the hearts of the judges by presenting a pitch anchored on improving the lives of the less privileged through a skills training organisation they named Hope Restoration Foundation.

“The Hope Restoration Foundation will be providing skills acquisition in areas such as catering, tailoring, agriculture, bead making, and so on.” Evergreen Mosugu, who made the school’s pitch presentation, said the Foundation would further work with trained less privileged ones towards self-empowerment.

The Fombina Royal Academy did a business pitch on poultry production with diversification to feed milling, while AUN Charter School did a pitch on Fodder Production.

On the Financial Literacy Inter-School Competition, the Founder and Executive Director of the Grow with Data Youth Foundation, Mrs Nnenna Mosugu, said the Financial Literacy Competition concept was to get young people to imbibe the culture of self-reliance through disciplined economic activities.

She said: “Alarming poverty informed the establishment of the GWD Youth Foundation in 2019 to show young Nigerians how to legitimately make wealth for themselves and others rather than relying on their certificate to look for jobs that are getting increasingly scarce.

“Through our activities and our Financial Literacy Clubs in participating schools, these young ones learn to generate money, grow the money and use it to make even more money, helping in the process to create jobs and spread the wealth.”

She added that after two years of the Financial Literacy Clubs operating at individual school level, her organisation, in conjunction with Gotel Communications Limited, organised the televised Financial Literacy Inter-School Competition so that other children not yet reached by the financial literacy campaign of her organisation can be inspired.

About 1.2 million youth will benefit from a capacity-building project for youths tagged The August Project (TAP) which is managed by the Office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goal (OOSAP-SDGs) Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire.

The TAP project was aimed at achieving the United Nations mandate on Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Quality Education), 8 and 9 (Decent Work and Economic Growth).

Global Director, TAP Project SDGs Mission, Prince Abdulsalami Ladigbolu, disclosed this at the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) orientation camp in Sagamu, Ogun State when sensitising and recruiting corps members into the project.

In a statement in Abuja on Friday, Ladigbolu said capacity building was a platform to create a broader base economy needed to create employment through strategic innovations among the youth.

The statement reads: “The essence of the programme is to complement the priority and aspiration of the country, especially the effort of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Economy Recovery and Growth Plan towards lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty through sustainable economic growth.

“The duration of the programme is 10 years and it is targeted at the youth who have higher education qualifications and non-higher education qualifications in Nigeria.

“We are working closely with the Office of the Senior Special Assistant on SDGs (OSSAP-SDGs) towards helping 1.2 million Nigerian youths to benefit from the programme so that they can become a relevant global workforce with external validation credentials so that they can compete favourably with their counterparts across the globe.

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“The programme is targeted at the youth because we believe that the prosperity of any country will determine how you treat the youth and giving them an opportunity will play an important role in complementing the efforts of the president in uplifting 100 million youths from poverty.”

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals, Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire said the Federal Government would continue to encourage the youth to develop sustainable livelihoods after inaugurating the Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development Training Centre for Corps members in Ogun State Permanent Orientation Camp in Sagamu.

The multi-million naira training centre established by the office of the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Sustainable Development Goals and the TAP Project funded by her office, OSSAP-SDGs aimed at promoting social equity, employment generation and sustainable development of the youth.

Orelope-Adefulire said the state-of-the-art Skills Acquisition and Entrepreneurship Development Training Centre was the first of its kind with workshops for metal fabrication, automobile, woodwork, leatherwork for automobile, block moulding, tailoring, and the ICT where the TAP beneficiaries will also make use for their TAP Project training.

According to her, the facility has 50 desktop flat-screen computer sets with accessories, tables and chairs, 100 sewing machines, wheel balancing and alignment machines, classrooms and a big conference hall for meetings, among other facilities.

She added that the TAB ZEBB scholarship scheme was a physical Master’s programme created to support the TAP graduates by getting more relevant external certificates.