President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria (PSC) Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa has warned Nigerians to take precautions following the rising wave of Delta variants of COVID-19 pandemic.

He called for total compliance of the laid down protocols as directed by the Nigerian Center for Disease Control (NCDC).

Ohuabunwa noted the daily increase of deaths from the Delta variant of COVID-19 pandemic is alarming across the nation.

Speaking in Ilorin at the 22nd Annual Scientific Conference of the Association of Hospital and Administrative Pharmacists of Nigeria (AHAPN), and tagged, ‘Advancing technological revolution in pharmaceutical service delivery’, Ohuabunwa urged Nigerians to curb the spread of the pandemic by adhering to the prevention measures.

He said: “We have seen the increase in the number of infections; we have seen the increase in the number of deaths. So it cannot be a lie.

“People are so disbelieving and I don’t know why, but COVID-19 is real. Nigerians should not allow what is happening in Senegal to happen to us. Senegal is closer to us here. It is not Europe nor is it Brazil.

“If it can get to Senegal and devastate the place, it can get here. About 98 percent of their hospitals are occupied then Nigeria is not very far. Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu just said yesterday that six people died in 24 hours which hasn’t happened for a long time. So Nigerians had to be careful by observing the protocols.”

National Chairman, AHAPN, Dr Kingsley Amibor pleaded with Nigerians to continuously observe the preventive measures on COVID-19 wearing of face masks, hand washing and observing social
distancing.

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“The pandemic no doubt has had a devastating effect on the global economy as well as incredibly high mortality put at over 4 million deaths.

“Even Pharmacists were not spared by the scourge with 12 Hospital Pharmacists succumbing to the pandemic”, he said.

Amibor who commended government effort in the fight against the scourged said a lot still needed to be done to ensure Nigerians have access to COVID-19 vaccine.

He said, “Federal Government has done well in the area of control, but a lot still needs to be done. Great number of Nigerians has not been vaccinated. It is important for the Federal Government to fast-track measures to ensure that more Nigerians have access to the COVID-19 vaccines. That is one sure way of getting protected from the
infection.

“Again, the government should do more in creating awareness on the need for Nigerians to stay alive by observing the protocols,” he said.

He however commended AHAPN members for rising to the challenge of the pandemic by producing millions of dozens of hand Sanitizers, disinfectants and detergents for the use of hospital Community as part of the preventive measures to check the spread of the infection.

Amibor said the association has achieved improved specialisation in the administration of drugs in government hospitals as well as the status of members.

“I am glad to report that just recently, the Federal government through the Federal Ministry of Health has directed all Federal Health Insti

Speaking on the theme of the conference, Director, Foods, and Drugs Federal Ministry of Health, Mrs. Olubukola Ajayi, who was represented by Andeyaso Kufasi, urged pharmacists to acquire modern skills to remain relevant in the profession.

Ajayi said: “In response to technological advancement, it is high time Nigerians acknowledged the use of trending systems and products such as automated dispensing units which allows medications to be installed
and dispensed near the point of care while controlling the traffic drugs distribution.

“The Nigerian government is committed to improve access to quality medicines and other health commodities in line with the second national strategic development plans.

“This shows the efforts of the government towards embracing the use of technology in providing health care services.
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“The ministry has also developed the national health logistic information system.

“In the face of all these technological advancements, pharmacists must ensure they acquire needed skills and knowledge in order to remain relevant.”

The Association of Public Health Physicians of Nigeria (APHPN), the largest professional organization of disciplinary public health physicians and other public health practitioners in Africa, has produced Prof. Alphonsus Rukevwe Isara of University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin-City, as its new President.

Prof. Isara, who was elected in an election that held during the 37th annual general meeting of the association, held recently in Abuja, took over from Prof. B. S. C. Uzochukwu. He will serve for a period of two years in the first instance, having served as the Secretary General of APHPN from 2009 to 2013. The current and immediate past Presidents of APHPN are top-notch medical scholars with decades of teaching and research experiences in medicine in Nigeria. They have produced medical experts, who are doing groundbreaking researches and written their names in gold as solution providers to health issues globally.

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Isara, a professor of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of Benin, and a Consultant Public Health Physician at UBTH, has been promoting public health in Nigeria for over two decades; at present, he is a member of the board of the Faculty of Public Health and Community Medicine, National Postgraduate Medical College of Nigeria; the Monitoring and Evaluation Officer of the Centre of Excellence in Reproductive Health Innovation (CERHI), University of Benin; and currently, the Secretary of Network on Behavioural Research for Child Survival in Nigeria (NETBRECSIN).

Other officials elected with Prof. Isara include: Prof. Mustapha Jamda, of the Department of Community Medicine, University of Abuja, FCT, Vice President I; Dr. Sunday Aderibigbe, of Department of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, Ilorin, Vice President II; Dr. Alphonsus Aigbiremolen, of Cedar Centre for Health and Development, Ekpoma, Edo State, Secretary General; Dr. Ulunma Mariere, of Department of Community Medicine & Public Health, Federal Medical Center, Yenagoa, Assistant Secretary; Dr. Omosivie Maduka, of Department of Community Medicine, University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital, Port Harcourt, Publicity Secretary; Dr. Achunam Nwabueze, of Department of Community Medicine & Primary Health Care, Nnamdi Azikiwe Teaching Hospital, Nnewi, Internal Auditor; Dr. Adesuwa Aigbokahode, of Department of Public Health, Federal Medical Center, Asaba, Treasurer; and Prof. Vivian Omuemu, of Department of Public Health & Community Medicine, University of Benin Teaching Hospital, Benin City, Editor-in-Chief.

At 71, Otunba Temitayo Onabajo is not tired of learning.  On Friday, last week, he was one of  the 23 graduates who successfully completed the Technical and Vocational Education programmes at the Builders’ Hub Academy, Ifako, Lagos.

The septuagenarian spent three months studying Masonry at the Builders’ Hub, which offers training in trades relevant to building and construction.

In an interview at the graduation, Onaubajo, who retired as civil servant, told The Nation that he was motivated to take the course to rebrand himself.

“I am 71 years old and a retired civil servant. What motivated me is the need to rebuild myself. I am an advertising practitioner, a public relations consultant, and also a legal practitioner.  I studied property and I decide that it is necessary to rebrand myself in building and construction as it is the most important industry nowadays”

“Being an elderly person, I still need to rebrand myself. In 1966, Tafawa Balewa said we should never wait for anybody to do anything for us because the person you are expecting to do it for you is yet to start his own. That is where we are today. I do not want anybody to do it for me, I prefer to do it by myself.” he said.

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Chief Executive Officer of Builders’ Hub, Mr. Kehinde Owolabi, lamented that Africa lacked enough institutions to pass down applicable skills to young ones – a gap he said Builders’ Hub exists to fill.

“It is a reality that skill empowerment in vocation transforms people’s lives and cure poverty. Everybody is complaining about lack of skills, lack of job, and all of that. Our vision is to contribute our own quota in making sure that we can improve on youth unemployment and ensure that people are employed and skilled,” he said.

Speaking at the event, Permanent Secretary, Lagos State Ministry of Education Mrs. Abosede Adelaja, urged the graduating students to remodel themselves with the knowledge they acquired from the institute as it will enhance their entrepreneurial skills.

Keynote speaker and Chairman, Skills Empowerment and Entrepreneurship Development Initiative Mr. Laolu Oguntuyi, said that most Nigerian graduates are not employable because they do not have the required skills. He told the graduands that technical and vocational education and training are imperative for wealth creation and poverty alleviation.

“Technical and Vocational Education and Training are the keys to generate jobs, wealth, prosperity and alleviating poverty.The required skills you acquire here will make you employable; it will make you to compete with your colleagues globally because in this centre, we have combination of so many subjects. You are not only being taught the technical skills, entrepreneurship is also embedded in your programme.” he said.

The Lagos State Education Commissioner, Mrs. Folasade Adefisayo has called on teachers to embrace their profession and regard it as a craft as it was the only way for them to improve and produce outstanding students.

Speaking at the 15th Annual Merit Award of the Lagos State Education District II on Thursday last week, the Commissioner said it was imperative for teachers to continue learning themselves.

“They say learning from a teacher who has stopped learning is like drinking from a stale river so you too must continue to study; you must continue to research; you must continue to improve on your craft because that is the only way you can get better. Things are changing every day and there are so many ways you can teach children now and they will enjoy your teaching, they will learn a lot. Whatever you do as a teacher, part of it shows in the students that you are teaching. What I will encourage all of you to do is regard this teaching as a craft and when it is your craft, you want to be the Mastercraft you want to be the best,” she said.

Adefisayo said organising the merit award was of great significance as it is important to celebrate teachers because their work is not an easy one.

Highlights of the event held at the school hall of the Immaculate Heart Comprehensive Senior High School, Maryland included a raffle draw and presentation of plaques and gifts to outstanding teaching and non-teaching members of staff, students and schools in the district.

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Winner of the raffle draw, Mr. Fola Amore, went home with a brand new Lexus ES300 model car.

Amore, of Community Senior Secondary School, Bayeku, thanked the Tutor General/Permanent Secretary of the district, Mrs. Anike Adekanye for the initiative.

“When I got to know I was actually shocked that how could it be me? I want to appreciate the TG/PS for the initiative.  Initially people were saying it iwas not real but now everyone can see it that it is real; that you can actually win,” he said.

In her speech, the TG/PS, Mrs. Adekanye, said that the event was organised to appreciate the excellent efforts of students, staff and schools in the district.

“This year’s edition of our Annual Merit Award is aimed at recognising and rewarding in a very special way, the most distinguished efforts of our members of staff, students and schools who consistently exhibit excellent values in the discharge of their duties and to acknowledge outstanding achievements in our schools and officers.

“This year’s award tagged: Enhancing Excellence in the New Normal, is to ensure that the high flying spirits of our teachers and students are encouraged to keep on soaring like the eagles because the result and expectation of hard work is more work,” she said.

With digital skills becoming even more in demand because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC)is set to hold two technology camps for girls and young children during the long summer holiday.

The She Creates Camp for teenage girls aged 13-17 would run virtually from August 17 to September 10, while the Early Innovators Camp for seven to 12-year-old children, both boys and girls, would run from August 2-27.

A statement by the W.TEC Communications Officer, Mr. Adeyemi Odutola noted that girls would learn about UI/UX Design, website design, Artificial Intelligence with Python Programming, and Film Editing during the four week camp which has as theme: “Solve for X”.

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For the Early Innovators’ Camp, participants would learn 3D Modelling, Video Game Design for Beginners with Kudo; Video Game Design for Intermediates with Roblox; and Junior Filmmakers.

Odutola said last year, when the first virtual camps held, W.TEC recorded participants from across Nigeria and even Europe.  He called on organisations to partner with the centre to sponsor girls for the STEAM camp, which cost N30,000 per week and N20,000 for the Innovators camp.

“W.TEC is open to partnerships with organisations, corporate bodies and individuals who would like to provide in-kind or cash support or sponsor girls to participate in the camp,” he said.

Odutola said past participants displayed enhanced leadership skills; creativity; problem-solving and communication abilities as a result of participating in the camp.

 

Public school pupils in Adamawa State have given a good  account of themselves in an inter-school debate held at the state capital, Yola.

Pupils in government schools in three local government areas in the three senatorial zones who participated in the debate made the audience marvel at their fluency despite being from supposedly neglected public schools.

The participants were all girls in the debate organised by pro-girl-education NGO, African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Development (Centre LSD), which has for two years been promoting girl-child education in the state with particular focus on the three local government areas of Maiha (Adamawa North), Song (Adamawa Central) and Numan (Adamawa South).

The secondary school girls proved in the debate the superiority of education over illiteracy as they marshalled their points on the topic, “Investing in Girl-child Education – A waste or a worthy investment”.

The three girls represented each LGA – with Team Numan and Team Song speaking for girl-child education; and Team Maiha arguing against it.

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At the end of the competition, Team Numan won the trophy for the debate while Team Song came second.

In addition to the three-man panel of judges who scored the girls on time management, expression and voice projection, comportment and self-confidence, many in the audience expressed high regards for the debaters.

Chairman of Shelleng Local Government Area, Danjuma Abdullahi, said he was proud as a public official to behold such high quality in students attending public schools.

“The government of the day and development agencies such as the Centre LSD have been working hard to put quality in the delivery of education in our schools, but I did not quite expect such eloquence and knowledge in these girls.  I am in deed proud of you,” he told the girls.

Senior Project Manager, Centre LSD,  Amodu Lawal, said the debate was meant for the girls to express their ideas around girl-child education while developing their capacity for public speaking.

Additional to the debate was a Spelling Bee among pupils from Yola North and Girei LGAs, as well as a vocational skills display by out-of-school girls learning skills in centres established by the Centre LSD and operated as safe spaces for such category of girls to make the best of themselves, all with support from Malala Fund.

Amodu said the safe spaces, 16 of them in Adamawa State, were established essentially to engage girls of school age who are for some reason not in school, and to also feature in-school girls so that both can learn from and share experiences with each other.

The President, American University of Nigeria (AUN), Margee Ensign, has given the Federal Government some tips on how to reach children who are not attending school in the country.

She advised the government to adopt the use of technology to reach out-of-school children even in their homes.

According to the National Personnel Audit (NPA) Report conducted by the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) in 2018, Nigeria has 10, 193, 918 children that are not in school, with most of the kids concentrated in the northern region.

The AUN President noted that the school used its Technology Enhanced Learning for All (TELA project) to reach 30, 000 children in Adamawa during the peak of insurgency in the Northeast.

She said the school will be expanding its work to reach more children who are not in school.

Ensign said: “I think pretty constantly about those kids who are out-of-school and I hope all of you do too because we have solutions for those kids.

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‘’No society could afford to have those numbers of children not in school.

“I hope at AUN we can expand our work in that area through our Technology Enhanced Learning for All project.

“When we were dealing with insurgency few years ago, we used radio and computer tabloid to reach over 30, 000 kids who were not in school in our community. We really hope to expand some of those projects not just in our community but in our region and other crisis area.”

The AUN president also called for the protection of schools against attacks from bandits.

According to her, every child deserves the right to go to school, adding that the closure of schools to prevent attacks from bandits was not the solution.

She said: “If this hotel were under attack would we say close it? If the airport were under attack, would we say close it? But that is what we have done to schools. They are under attacks so let us close the schools; why not protect the schools?

“Where is the protection for these kids? They have a right to go to school.

Until that happens, the schools are probably going to be closed and we all need to find a way to get them an education.”

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) has said over N300 billion would be disbursed in 2021 to about 226 tertiary institutions in the country for staff training and infrastructural projects development.

Chairman, Board of Trustees, Tetfund, Kashim Ibrahim-Imam, made this known in Asaba at an audit and accounts reconciliatory meeting with the benefiting institutions in Delta.

He assured that TETFund was committed to building the education sector through training of the academic staff and the building of projects such that would make teaching and learning more conducive.

He said the 10-year-old agency had over 10,000 projects across the various tertiary institutions in the country.

“Our performance impact is visible in every institution. At the University of Lagos alone, we have completed and ongoing 75 projects.  At Lagos State University, we have 68 projects.

“There is no tertiary institution that I have visited that does not have at least minimum of 50 completed and ongoing projects fully funded by Tetfund and I want to assure all the institutions that we are going to do much more than we have done in the past.

On Academic staff training and development, Ibrahim-Imam said, “In the past 10 years, TETFund has successfully trained more than 30,000 lecturers across the country for Masters and PhD programmes locally and internationally.

“This year alone, the overall budget of TETFund is about N300 billion: each university will be accessing overall budget of about N900 million, each polytechnic will be accessed in excess of N800 million while the colleges of education will access in excess of N700 million.

“We have about 226 tertiary institutions on our records as at the last count and we are counting more; for academic staff training and development, each university will access about N150 million, Polytechnic and colleges of education N120 million each this year.

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He stressed the need for various institutions to evaluate the costs of staff training abroad vis-a-vis the need for local training owing to depreciation of the naira.

He said, although, TETFund places premium on academic staff training and development, more funds are deployed to infrastructure.

He said it is necessary to ensure lecturers and students have a conducive learning environment.

His words: “For this reason, physical infrastructure takes up of about two-third of our annual intervention but we place our premium on training of lecturers and that is why you have so many beneficiaries of our training programme here and we are here to see you physically and hear from you’’.

Mr Muhammad Sulaiman, Head, Academic Staff Training and Development, TETFund disclosed that no fewer than 1,127 lecturers have been trained from nine tertiary institutions in Delta State by TETFund at the cost of over N5 billion between 2015 to date.

Suleiman said the visit is to harmonise the records with beneficiaries of the programme and also to interact with returnee scholars to tap from their experience particularly those that have travelled overseas in the period under review.

“From inception, TETFund has invested over N161 billion for staff training and over N32 billion for conference attendance and teaching practice and out of this investment, we have trained both local and international more than 30,000 academic staff across the country.

“We also sponsored over 68 conference attendants and over 79, 000 for teaching practice outings. The essence of the exercise cannot be over-emphasised because there has never been an attempt since inception by the fund to look at both end in terms of record keeping”.

Some beneficiaries of the programme lauded the fund while asking for the expansion and timely releases of fund to beneficiaries