Cleanliness is next to godliness so goes a saying. This was the message the wife of Executive secretary of Ikeja Local Government Area, Mrs Olaide Adeokun sent to the resident of Ikeja community during the February sanitation exercise in the area..
In an effort to ensure cleanliness in the communities within the Ikeja Local Government Area, the office of the Executive secretary organised the monthly environment sanitation exercise which hold on the last Saturday of every month.
The programme which was kicked off at council headquarters at Ikeja was led by the deputy Executive Secretary, Prince Oluranti Olufon and involved other council officials.
Sanitation tools such as hand gloves, brooms, rakes and waste nylon were distributed to the participants.
Mrs Adeokun urged residents of the community to imbibe good satiation habits as a way of staying healthy and keeping environmental hazards at bay.
She advised the residents to dispose of their wastes properly rather than dumping them in drainage channel which could trigger health problems and cause severe flooding.
Mrs Adeokun said poor sanitation habits could jeopardise the people’s health, thereby reducing their productivity.
Also speaking Deputy Executive secretary said that the council was disturbed over the nonchalant attitude of some residents who block water channels with domestic wastes.
More than 100 houses have been destroyed by a rainstorm in Ifira-Akoko, Akoko South East Local Government Area of Ondo State.
The 30-minute downpour was accompanied by a heavy storm that uprooted trees and damaged poles and houses.
Two churches and a private secondary school had their roofs blown off.
A community spokesman, Chief Boboye Ojomo, said property worth millions of naira was destroyed.
The Olufira of Ifira, Oba Olu Olugboja, urged the government and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to aid the affected people in his domain.
Drama is all about make-belief. This explains the moving performance of Theatre Arts students of the Kogi State University (KSU) Anyigba, who depicted, life in Geregu, a community in Ajaokuta Local Government Area. MOHAMMED YABAGI (300-Level Mass Communication) reports.
DRAMA is life. This aphorism was brought home when Theatre Arts students of the Kogi State University (KSU) in Anyingba, staged a Drama, depicting life in Geregu, a sprawling community in Ajaokuta Local Government Area. It was a satirical play with a punchy delivery. Satire is a literature tool used to criticise behaviour, vices, follies and shortcomings using humour.
During the four-hour event, the mood of the audience members rose and fell with the play’s tempo.
The characters were participating in the town and gown project of the department, tagged: Community Theatre for Development (CTD), which uses theatre as a tool to expose societal ills and to make people conscious of their cultures.
The students were led to Geregu by their teachers, including the Head of Department, Dr Williams Onogu, and course tutors Prof James Ator-Alachi and Mr Jonathan Okpanachi. They gathered the residents on an open field for the event.
The drama started with pupils of LGEA Primary School staging a cultural dance, which drew intermittent applause from the crowd. The pupils danced to the tune played by Gbadankolo – a group of elders in the community.
The students came on stage, rendering folksongs. The delivery excited the locals, who sang along with them.
Dramatising the lack of lavatory facilities in most houses in Geregu, the students sent message on the importance of sanitation.
The community, according to the drama, is not environmentally friendly, resulting in diseases, such as diarrhoea.
The play also touched on congestion and high cost of rent in the community. An episode illustrated how people purify well water with alum to make it safe for drinking, because the community lacks pipe-borne water. The students, through the play, taught the residents alternative way of purifying the water.
Poverty is not strange in Geregu as it is in many communities. This was also captured in the drama, which depicted how families could not afford basic necessities of life.
The drama demonstrated how Geregu’s proximity to Itobe, an Igala town, threatened commerce in the community market, and why collapse of Ajaokuta Steel Company also affected trading. The illustration was captured in a song: “Aja steel don go, market don go” (Ajaokuta Steel Company has become moribund, so also has Geregu market).
Other societal phenomena captured in the drama included illiteracy, child trafficking, street hawking, teenage pregnancy, gambling, smoking and excessive drinking of alcohol.
Prof Ator-Alachi hailed the students for the “brilliant performance”. The drama, he said, took the students two weeks of rehearsal. He described theatre as the best medium to tell emotive stories about people and societies.
He said: “The students were taught different skills on developing scenario into drama; the skill of facilitating, watching and talking about societal challenges through a play. As was seen in the drama, the characters were interested in exposing the ills in the community and the failure of leadership. In doing that, they tried to inject life into the drama and the people were surprised to know what has been going on in their community.
“We hope to use this project to assist the people to prioritise their problems and find a way of solving them. We need to ensure that they are assisted in channelling their grievances to the right quarters, whether it is government or an individual that would help attend to these problems.”
Dr Onogu said the project sought to use drama as tool for development. “We want to show that it is not every problem in the society that is caused by government; people also have their own faults. This is the kind of theatre arts that seeks to merge the town and gown. It is taught in all universities that offer theatre arts as a course,” he said.
On how the department came about the story, Onogu said: “We go to communities to conduct research into their lives. We try to know the challenges they face and use it to write our script. On the case of Geregu, we carried out extensive research on the community and sat down to analyse the information and data we got. It is from the data that we write our scripts. What we do first is to create a scenario from the sketch and then develop it.”
The community head, Alhaji Habib Idris Geregu, said the drama struck an emotional chord in people’s hearts. He said: “The drama illustrated all aspects of our problems in this community. They have shown us our faults and what we are not doing well as members of the community. Parents learnt what our youths and children indulge in behind our back. We have learnt from this and we will sensitise our people to change their ways. We also urge the government to initiate development projects in the community.”
Anambra State Governor Willie Obiano at the weekend averted what would have been a mayhem in Awka. He suspended the election of a president-general until after the general elections.
The monarch of the kingdom, Obi Gibson Nwosu and the Ozo society, who had been at loggerheads for four years, reconciled.
The suspension of the election into the position held by Tony Okechukwu, an engineer, whose tenure would end on March 17, was contained in a letter to the community by the state government, written by the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Oseloka Obaze.
The meeting was held in the home of the head of Ozo society and the oldest Ozo in the land, Ozo Obiorah Eselu.
The community hailed Obiano for what he was doing in Awka and his intervention in the looming crisis over the president-general election.
Comrade Obi Ochije, the chairman of 20 villages in the community (Ezinano), said Obiano’s intervention was an achievement.
After a medical outreach team visited Kwaita in Kwali Area Council of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), the traditional ruler Abuhumudi Garba and his people have heaved a sigh of relief. TONY AKOWE reports how the Buhari Support Organisation tackled River Blindness and other ailments in the community
They were simply at the mercy of diseases. Their main source of water is a well or a stream. The community borehole has since packed up. Any surprises that residents of Kwaita, a community in the Federal Capital Territory, are afflicted with River Blindness and other diseases?
Help has come. A staff of the Buhari Support Organisation, Aisha Ojene Abu, who initiated the medical mission, said she and her colleagues saw a Channels TV documentary on the plight of Kwaita and decided to intervene.
They visited on a market day and set up their stand at the palace of the community leader.
She said, “We watched this documentary on Channels Television where they reported that Kwaita community is impoverished and they suffer from River Blindness. So, we thought of a way of lending a helping hand by giving them drugs. That is what brought up this idea. We are conducting various tests; the doctors do the diagnosis while the pharmacists dispense the drugs”.
Speaking further, she said the mission was “different from the normal rallies that we are used to. We are impacting directly on the lives of the individuals and to achieve the sixth goal of the MDGs. We intend to reduce the prevalence of malaria and other diseases in this community. We realised that they have a stream which is the point of infection. The aim of this programme is to reduce these diseases and make them better people”.
Head of the medical mission, Dr. Maina Elijah, a general surgeon, told The Nation that they came to “to support the people who have been having the problem of River Blindness and other ailments. Because of the changes General Buhari wants to bring when he comes to power, he has encouraged his support organisation to come and provide free medical aid to the people of this community. This is a small step in a bigger project regarding the changes General Buhari wants to bring when he comes into power. The people here are very appreciative of this gesture. They have been receiving consultations and been given drugs completely free and I think this is something laudable. I think this will continue on a larger scale when General Buhari comes to power.”
•Patients wait for their turn
Dr Elijah said further that they are “expecting between 100 and 200 people to benefit from this. Today is a market day here and we have already had quite a number of people coming for consultation. In addition to the diseases I have mentioned, we have been able to get some drugs like anti-malarial and others drugs which we will leave behind for them to use. This is just to prove a little point about what the health sector will be like when General Buhari comes into power.”
He said further that the team has identified two cases of River Blindness among those attended to and “we have been able to give them the relevant drugs for it. Unfortunately, we are not going to be able to see everybody. Like we said, this is just a pilot project. At the end of the day, when we have the resources and Buhari gets into government, we will do even bigger projects. There is going to be a lot of improvement in the health sector. A lot of money has been spent on medical tourism abroad and we have to stop that”.
Why did the team decide to use the palace instead of the health centre in the community?
He said, “The health centre is a small place and we chose to use the palace for logistical reasons. First, it is near the palace and today is a market day and with the permission of the traditional ruler, we have been able to use his palace here”.
Head of Media of the Buhari Support Organisation, Dr. Chidia Maduekwe also told The Nation that they embarked on the medical mission to create some sensitisation and awareness on the need for people to seek western Medicare as a platform to redress maladjustment in their health status.
“This is just a pilot project which is starting today in one of the 774 local government areas in the country,” Dr, Maduekwe said. “We are starting it with the hope that when the General assumes power, the leadership of this country will do a national launch of this programme of reaching the unreachable on the platform of the Buhari Support Organisation. Today is a day that marks that one step of the journey of a thousand miles”.
Where is the money for the project coming from?
“We are running a volunteer-based organisation,” he said. “From the money we realised from those who have volunteered to support Buhari candidacy, we have decided to put a part of it into this aspect of health care. That is the source of the money and it is devolving the same benefit back to the people in the area of health care. I am aware that not too long ago, the President of the Nigeria Medical Association said that none of the presidential candidates has said anything about health. I want to say that we have been saying something about health.
“We realised that most illnesses could be prevented. So, when government is investing money on curative approach to healthcare, something is wrong with that health care system. So, we are going to concentrate of preventive health care which will involve provision of potable water because health and water work hand in hand. Most of the diseases are water-borne. So, if you don’t have potable water for the people, you end up creating more diseases.”
Some of the beneficiaries expressed gratitude to the medical team for the assistance. Abubakar A. Abubakar, who claimed to have come to Kwaita from Bosso in Niger State, was full of praises for the team for coming to their aid and giving the drugs free and called on the government to emulate them.
For Mary Alayi, medical team was a godsend. Even though she was yet to be attended to when she spoke, Mary who said she was suffering from diabetes said, “We thank them for what they have brought to us. It is of great help to us. Many people heard about it and they came here and we are very grateful”.
An elderly woman said, “I have seen drugs and I am going home happy. They have given me drugs for ulcer. I pray that God will grant them their heart’s desires. I want to appeal to others to come forward to receive this same treatment.”
The Village head of Kwaita Hausa whose palace was used for the exercise, said “I am very happy for the drugs they brought to us. I have never seen this kind of thing before. I pray to God to let the person that will help Nigerians win the forthcoming elections. The person that has done this, may God help that person. You have seen the crowd of people here. Nobody has gone out to call them. They are just coming on their own”.
Hajia Zainab Akilu who heads the mobilisation team of the Buhari Support Organisation said, “This wind of change that is going on is amazing. These young medical personnel have volunteered on their own and this is inspired by the integrity of the person of General Buhari and they are doing this out of inspiration and the value they attached to his person”.
THE people of Etap Ayip Kasuk II Qua Clan, a community of over 30,000 inhabitants in Calabar Municipality of Cross River State, have decried alleged unlawful demolition of their houses and properties by the state government without prior notice or any form of compensation.
Village Head of Eta Ayip Kasuk Qua Clan II, His Highness Chief Ededem Ayito, said the situation has rendered them homeless.
He lamented: “No one came to us prior to the time of the demolition, neither was any notice in form of a letter of warning sent to us. All we saw were officials from Town Planning acting under the authority of Cross River State Ministry of Lands.
“The only money that was ever paid to my community was N650,000 for the economic trees cut down during the inception of the construction of the new airport bypass. No other money has been given ever since and now they have started demolishing our houses.
“They want to take over 150 metres of both sides of the road, which will in no small way affect more than 500 houses and render thousands more homeless. Many people are now living in anxiety because they can come at any time for mass demolition.”
The secretary of Etap Ayip Town Council, Prince Innocent Agbor Okon, said all the landlords in the community had lodgment certificates and had been living in the area for more 20 years.
He said: “Many people in the community are now stranded, and this is a huge threat to the very existence of the people of Etay Ayip Kasuk II Qua Clan. We need the ministry involved to follow due process in this matter and do what is right. As it stands, we don’t even know our fate.”
A landlord in the area, Mr. James Effiong, also said it was like a movie when they came to his place and started punching the walls of his house.
“I had to move my wife and kids to my brother’s place for safety, although they only created holes on my building which they only marked on Monday and backdated to December 19, 2014 without any notice, but they didn’t touch my neighbour’s house because he is a naval officer. I just believe it is political because I don’t see why they would skip some houses and demolish others.”
When contacted on the phone, the Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Surveyor Ralph Uche, said all compensations had been taken care of.
He said a company was in charge of compensations.
Uche said the only challenge they had initially was funds and when the money was available, they would swing into action.
As a heavyweight boxer, Dereck Chisora is used to working hard.
But even he seemed to be struggling as he got to grips with his community service this week.
Chisora was spotted in north London hauling heavy bin bags and shovelling dirt after he threatened to kill a man in a car park last year.
The 31-year-old has not fought since losing to British rival Tyson Fury last November.
A week later, he lost his temper with a man whose friend blocked his Mercedes while they visited the Post Office.
Chisora swore at driver Mansor Nikpor and threatened to kill his passenger Majid Rezaemi.
The two men left a note on their car with a mobile number if anyone wanted them to move their car while they were at the post office.
Chisora shouted at them as they walked away and again on their return. Mr Rezaemi threatened to phone the police but Chisora responded by saying: ‘I’m late for my appointment. I’ll kill you.’
The former European champion was ordered to pay each victim £100 and complete 60 hours of community service after he admitted threatening behaviour with intent to cause fear or provoke unlawful violence towards the pair.
Akungba Akoko, AAUA’s host community, hosted the new Vice Chancellor, Prof. Igbekele Ajibefun, and other principal officers at the Alale palace.
The Regent, Princess Oluwatoyin Omosowon, and chiefs of the community, received them.
Ajibefun thanked the community for the warm reception and the cooperation the university has enjoyed over the years. He also called for its support.
“I am here as Vice Chancellor to add to the work on the ground. I want to solicit your continuous support. The way you have supported my predecessor, Prof. Femi Mimiko that he succeeded, I am also seeking your support so that I will be successful in office too,” he said.
Princess Omosowon thanked the Ondo State Governor, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, for not holding back resources from the university; and prayed for the outgone Vice Chancellor, Prof. Mimiko, for the judicious use of the institution’s funds. She prayed for a successful tenure for the new Vice Chancellor, assuring him of the community’s support.
The people of Igbide, Isoko South Local Government Area of Delta State, have endorsed Senator Ifeanyi Okowa for governor. Okowa, a former Secretary to Government, is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate.
Rising from its meeting at Owodokpokpo-Igbide, the Igbide Political Elite Forum (IPEF), described Okowa as the best man for the job.
The group aslo endorsed Senator James Manager for the Senate, Hon. Leo Okuweh for the House of Representatives and Hon. Johnson Obokparo Erijo for the House of Assembly in Isoko South Constiotuency 11.
In a statement representatives of the community; Chief Daniel Erara Egwero, Prince Godspower Obukeni and Alex Ovie, the people promised to mobilise for Okowa’s victory at the poll.
They described the candidate as an experienced politician, who has served the state as a local government chairman, commissioner, Secretary to Government and senator.
As part of its corporate social responsibility to its host communities, the management of Chevron Nigeria Limited, CNL, operators of the NNPC/Chevron Joint Ventures, last weekend inaugurated the Ekpan Women Development Centre in Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State.
The facility was constructed under CNL’s Project Specific Agreement (PSA) with the Urhobo host community and is aimed at sustainable development of the host community through its women folks.
The Secretary to the Delta State Government, Mr Ovouzorie Macaulay, who was a special guest at the occasion, described the centre as an edifice that would be a money-spinner for the community and urged the people to put it to the best use.
Macaulay, who was represented by Mr Vincent Omorie, described the ceremony as a dream come through for the people, urging them to “own the project; it can also be put into other commercial purposes. It should be driven to enviable height.
He assured that the government would continue to intervene on behalf of the community and other host communities in the state.
Earlier in his remark, the General Manager, Policy, Government and Public Affairs (PGPA), Chevron Nigeria Limited, Mr. Deji Haastrup, said NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture believes very strongly in partnership and is resolutely committed to enhancing partnership with relevant stakeholders to achieve the goal of sustainable development of communities around its areas of operations.
Haastrup, who was represented at the occasion by Mr Trust Inimgba, said, “This achievement is a testimony to the company’s Tradition of Care for communities around its areas of operations and the value it places on women development as bedrock of the development of any society. I salute the Chairman and Members of the PSA Board, and members of the Project Review Committee for their commitment and selfless service.”
While noting that NNPC/Chevron Joint Venture had continued to contribute to adding value to the lives of people around them, the Chevron’s PGPA GM encouraged the Ekpan people to put the facility to good use and maintain it for the benefit of the community.
In the same vein, Mr. Haastrup commended the Delta State Government for the continued support, which he said facilitated the successful completion of the project and also the Ekpan traditional and community leaders for their commitment and support in actualizing the objective of the PSA.
He added that without their support and cooperation, it would not have realized its mutual dream of providing the facility for the use of the women.
He specifically thanked the Secretary to the Delta State Government, Comrade Ovouzorie Macaulay, who he said has shown high visibility throughout the planning and implementation of the project.
Speaking on behalf of the beneficiary community, Mr Godwin Omasibro, Chairman of Ekpan Development Committee, commended the management of the American oil firm for judiciously and sincerely funding the project, which he described as “a befitting gift for developing the women of the community.
“We sincerely cherish the commitment of the company to our wellbeing and socio-economic development and we promise to ensure that the centre being handed over to us today lives up to its primary objective of facilitating sustainable development of Ekpan community.”
