The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Coordinator

  • Coordinator seeks increased funding for malaria eradication

    TheRE is need to increase the  funding of malaria control, National Malaria Elimination Programme (NMEP) National Coordinator,  Audu Mohammed, has said.

    Mohammed noted that malaria remains an important public health issue as it accounts for 30 percent of childhood mortality and 11 percent of maternal mortality.

    The World Malaria report 2017 and that of this year have shown that  the progress in malaria elimination had been stalled and that the world was off-track in meeting the milestone for 2020 as reflected in the global technical strategy for malaria 2016-2030.

    Nigeria was blamed for stalling the  malaria process, noting that to get back to form, it would require that the global GTS morbidity and mortality milestones for 2025 were achieved, a response is required to change the trend in countries that are off-track, especially in the 11 highest burden countries, which includes Nigeria.

    Based on the World Malaria report by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the estimated number of malaria cases rose from 52.4 million in 2016 to 53.7 million in 2017. The number of cases, according to the report, represents 25 per cent and 52 per cent of cases globally and in the West African region.

    The report, however, showed a decline in the number of deaths due to malaria from about 98,378 to 81,640 in 2017.

    According to experts, this is still significant, as it constitutes about 19 per cent of global deaths caused by malaria, and 21 per cent of deaths among children under five is due to malaria.

    At the moment, about 191 million Nigerians are estimated to be at the risk of contracting malaria.

    Mohammed, who spoke in Abuja at the NMEP fourth quarter media chat 2018, said the government and the private sector should give more resources to malaria control.

    He said the private sector could be a major contributor to malaria eradication.

    Mohammed, who was represented by the Head of Advocacy Communication and Social Mobilisation (ACSM), Chukwu Okoronkwo, said: “We need the government to give more resources for malaria control activities in the country. This is not limited to the Federal Government, local or state governments alone. The private sectors can also be a major contributor to this fight.”

    He noted that the private sector does not need to give money to NMEP; all they need to do is to do something within their own environment.

    Mohammed called for a major subsidy on malaria commodity to ensure easy access to them.”One critical area about domestic funding is the issue of subsidy of malaria commodity. Commodities in the private sector cannot be accessed because they are too expensive.These commodities are already subsidised at the government health facilities because donors are bringing them in at subsidised rates. That also has to happen for all health facility, whether government or private,” he said.

    The World Malaria Report 2017 and 2018 was not encouraging.  The report indicated that around 70 per cent of all deaths in 2017 took place in 10 African countries and India. While admitting that new cases fell steadily up until 2016, the report stated that the number rose from 217 million to 219 million in 2017.

    Also, NMEP chief said Nigeria needs to redouble efforts to make an appreciable impact in the malaria landscape. He urged the public to maintain environmental sanitation in and around the places they live and work.

     

  • Presidential Amnesty Programme not owing school fees —Coordinator

    Prof. Charles Dokubo, Coordinator, Presidential Amnesty Porgramme, has refuted allegations that it had failed to pay the school fees of some beneficiaries.

    He told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja that those who were alleging that they had not been paid either came into the programme through the “back door’’ or had personally decided to extend their degree programme.

    He said, “There is no other stipend that has not been paid, anything you hear about sometimes it is either people have been misinformed. We have a record in our office on those who are on stipends, others went into the programme through the back door.

    “If I identify those who came in through the back door,  most times  I don’t pay them because it is eating  deep into the budget that you were not part of. So I don’t pay.

    “Although sometimes I have a conscience because I say (to myself that) these people are Niger Deltans, how can we send our children out into the streets.

    “But we have to look at a way we can manage it so it does not eat deep into our budget and yet manage them because they are from Niger Delta.

    “Furthermore, there is also that idea of after your first degree you want to continue to do a Masters’ degree while you were just sent there to do a first degree, you go and register yourself and then go on protesting that the amnesty is not paying you your money.

    “Everything that those who complain and protest say we have to take with a bucket of salt because amnesty cannot send their students and refuse to pay their school fees.

    “People claim that they have not been paid and all that but if you check the records we pay those who are not getting payment is that they have finished their studies and have refused to come back.’’

    While also commenting on the issue of payment of back log of stipends, Dokubo said since he was appointed he had tried to pay most of the outstanding backlog.

    He stressed that payment of stipend was an important factor in maintaining the peace and security in the region.

    According to him, “if you do not pay them, they will go on a rampage, so in recent times I paid about three months at a time, so that this people could have money and I could have my rest.”

    He added that he had recently put the office on an alert situation where they do not have to wait till the end of the month to pay.

    The Professor, however, noted that the people saw they stipend as a sense of entitlement which affected the people involved in the programme.

    “If you have been empowered, given a job and been trained, you have to disengage from the programme. That is what I am trying to do and I believe I will l do that with the support of the staff I have in my office.’’

    On the issue of a recent report on mismanagement and corruption in the programme, the amnesty boss said he set up a committee to look into it when he was appointed.

    “I set up a committee to look into the organisation when I just took office, before I started work, they made a commendation for me, they have seen where they are loopholes and also were they are deep holes.

    “So definitely these holes have been closed, I cannot go into how it happened and all that but this committee I set up made it possible for me to close such holes.

    “You know when you come into a place if you do not look at if carefully before you start doing things you also will also be trouble and then that office is a very dangerous office.

    “Even if you are doing all the best you can, there are people to put you at a disadvantage, so you  are always on top of the job , looking at  it as if where is the next one coming.

    “You cannot stop it, our people have that sense of contestation and protestation, it has been imbibed either through a period of conflict in the region, so we will try to deal with it at our own time.’’

  • Council Coordinator abducted, tortured by unknown gunmen

    Council Coordinator abducted, tortured by unknown gunmen

    Armed youths have abducted and tortured the Coordinator of Ikwo South Development Centre, Marvin Anari in Ebonyi State.
    The incident it was gathered happened at Ukwuachi playground, Amagu in Ikwo local government area, venue of the stakeholders meeting of the town.
    “A band of armed men invaded the venue, dragged the Coordinator out of the crowd, rendered him stark naked, and defied pleas of the elders to spare him from assaults.
    “They took him out of the venue of the meeting to Eke Amagu market, brought a coffin, pushed him inside it in his pool of blood and closed it”, a source told our reporter.
    Villagers later discovered where he was dumped by his assailants and took him to the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki where he is receiving treatment.
    At the time of filling this report, the council Chief’s condition has been stabilised by doctors although he still remains in coma.
    The state state governor, David Umahi on a visit to the hospital on Sunday described the incident as barbaric.
    He called for full investigation into the circumstances surrounding the abduction of the council boss and urged all security agencies to arrest and prosecute those behind the act.

    Governor Umahi further warned that his administration will no longer tolerate anybody taking laws into his or hands in the name of politics.
     He vowed that those found culpable in the act would be dealt with to serve as deterrent to others.
    “This type of barbaric action is highly condemnable and unacceptable by us as a people, we must fish out those who lost every sense of humanity in them to do this type of wicked things against a fellow man. I have directed the Commissioner of Police and other security Chiefs in the state to move into the area and fish out those responsible for this evil act,” he said.

    Meanwhile, there was wild jubilation at the Federal Teaching Hospital, FETHA when Governor Umahi paid an unscheduled visit to the hospital and cleared medical bills of all patients who have been unable to pay their bills and return to their homes.

    Governor Umahi who visited the hospital after church service at Christ Embassy Church, Abakaliki went round the wards within the hospitals and identified such indigent victims and settled their medical bills.
    He also made a cash donation of N500, 000 for feeding of all the patients in the hospital.

  • Shippers’ Council gets Southwest coordinator

    The Nigeria Shippers’ Council has appointed Olurotimi Anifowose as the zonal coordinator for its Southwest Zonal Coordinating Office.

    He replaces Tolulope Jaiyeola, who was redeployed to the council’s corporate head office in Lagos.

    Anifowose joined the council in 1992 as Public Relations Officer 1. He conceptualised and implemented its corporate communications strategies till 2010, when he took over as head, Industrial Relations & Welfare Services.

    A 1988 graduate of Olabisi Onabanjo University, and later University of Lagos in 1991, Anifowose will coordinate the functions and activities of the council in Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, Ekiti, Osun and Kwara states.

    He has attended workshops, conferences and seminars locally and internationally, and is a member of Nigeria Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), International Dispute Resolution and Energy Institute of Nigeria, among others.

  • Kaduna: Women farmers seek single digit credit line

    Kaduna: Women farmers seek single digit credit line

    Women farmers in Kaduna State on Saturday urged the state government to provide them with credit facilities to enhance food production.

    Mrs Agera Liti, Coordinator, Small-Scale Women Farmers Origination in Nigeria, made the appeal at a two-day capacity building workshop for women farmers, held in Kaduna.

    The workshop was funded by Action Aid, and Trust Africa, as part of the Malabo Declaration to boost food and security in Africa.

    Liti said the government should open a credit line at a single-digit interest rate and remove conditions that required collateral and guarantors, to make farming gender friendly.

    “We need processing and packaging equipment, and facilities should be provided for small holder women farmers.

    “The government should also provide silos, dryers and other facilities to control post–harvest losses for small holder women farmers.”

    The coordinator canvassed that government budget process should be open, to encourage participation of women farmers in its planning and implementation.

    She said that seven unions comprising over 9,000 women under the group were engaged in crop, fish, poultry and livestock farming in the state.

    She said the two-day training would boost cooperative group management and increase the production skills of women.

    Mr Dauda Ashafa, Programme Manager, Kaduna State Agricultural Development Project, said the government was committed to upgrading the standard of farming by women in the state.

    Ashafa urged women and youth to form cooperative groups, so as to benefit from various packages introduced by the government to promote agricultural production, processing, packaging and marketing.

    Ashafa, who was represented by Mrs Deborah Yusuf, Head of Women in Agriculture unit in the Agency, advised the group to tap into the Anchor Borrowers Scheme supported by Central Bank of Nigeria and Bank of Agriculture.

    He said that the Agency had registered 75 farmers cooperative groups benefitting from its various programmes.

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  • FG concludes plans for Boko Haram rehabilitation

    FG concludes plans for Boko Haram rehabilitation

    Arrangements have been completed for the deployment of 800 repentant Boko Haram members to Gombe state for rehabilitation and onward integration back into the society.

    Brigadier General Bamidele Shafa, Coordinator, Operation Safe Corridor, the Federal Government programme for the rehabilitation of repentant Boko Haram militants spoke in Gombe when the Director General of National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Malam Muhammed Sani Sidi visited the camp on Monday to supply food items.

    General Shafa said the operation was not an entirely military as there are 14 other government agencies, and Non-Governmental Organisations involved in it.

    He said the operation was humanitarian but being led by the military at the moment because “operations in the north-east of Nigeria are largely handled by the military.”

    “I want to believe that as soon as the military operations are wind down, Operation Safe Corridor could be ceded to civil authority which by constitution is supposed to handle such operation,” he added.

    He said Operation Safe Corridor is a programmed designed by the Federal Government to de-radicalise, rehabilitate and reintegrate members of Boko Haram who have repented and willingly surrendered their arms.

    He said the programme would be conducted in line with the international standards and about 12 different trades and vocations would be taught them while they undergo rehabilitation so that they could be self-reliant by the time the exercise is over.

    He said the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) which would avail their facilities training and some NGOs would be on hand to help in for the skills acquisition aspect of the Operation.

    Malam Sani Sidi, Director General, NEMA who was at the campsite to present foodstuffs to be used during the rehabilitation said what the Agency presented was enough to last for three months.

    He said there were enough foodstuffs in their store to last for atleast on whole year, but that it would be released on quarterly bases.

    Some of the food items handed over are: 410 bags of rice, 400 bags of beans, 200 bags of millet, 200 bags of sorghum, 750 cartons of spaghetti, 50 cartons of Maggi cubes and 810 cartons tomato paste..

    Others include: 101 Vegetable oil in 20 liter jerry-cans, 101 palm oil in 20 liter jerry-cans, 50 bags of salt, 100 bags of sugar, 420 cartons of milk and 420 cartons of Milo chocolate.

    The non food items include: 800 pieces of mattress, 500 hundred pieces of blanket, 500 pieces of nylon mats, 1000 plastic buckets, 1000 plastic spoons, 1000 plastic cups 1000, plastics plates, 1000 plastic pairs of slippers, 2000 men’s wear, 63 cartons of bath soap and 1000 bath towels.

    Sidi said the Federal Government through NEMA was ready to provide all the needed support and collaboration in the area of food supplies, to ensure the success of the programme.

    The camp Commandant pledged total commitment to the programme’s success as well as to use the items provided for the purpose they were meant for.

  • Labour leaders betrayed us, say ekiti workers

    Labour leaders betrayed us, say ekiti workers

    …NLC Chair: it’s not true

    Workers in Ekiti State have accused labour leaders of betraying them by agreeing to a one month pay out of the six months owed them by the state government.

    They described the failure of the union leaders’ decision to convince the government to pay at least three months as a “coup against the long-suffering workers who had endured misery, hunger and hardship in the last six months.”

    According to a bulletin released on Tuesday by the Enlightened Workers’ Forum (EWF), an interest group signed by the Coordinator, Mike Bamidele, the workers claimed that they have evidence that the labour leaders received N10 million bribe to end the strike.

    The group faulted the decision of the labour leaders to suspend the strike and agreed to monthly payment of N10 million to pensioners which it described as grossly inadequate doubting the government’s capacity to access another bailout funds owing to the stringent conditions attached.

    Bamidele said it was a mark of failure for the leaders of the state councils of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Trade Union Congress (TUC) and Joint Negotiating Council (JNC) to hurriedly suspend the strike after being promised only one month pay by the government.

    He described as very “irresponsible” the directive issued to workers by one of the labour chiefs to resume work and await the payment of one month salary seven days after suspending the strike.

    The EWF boss revealed that the untold story of the whole saga was that “the labour leaders only succeeded in negotiating their own welfare as we have evidence that six of them collected N10 million which eventually led to the sell-out which is already causing ripples among other leaders who were left out.”

    Bamidele said: “One wonders what gave Labour the impression that the Federal Government would again be willing to release another bailout to Fayose when the first one had not been accounted for.

    “This is a mark of failure on the part of the Organized Labour and we in the EWF are not surprised about the development as we had anticipated this failure right from the onset.

    “Against this background, therefore, it will be wrong and illegal for any Labour to attempt to coerce the workers back to work through the back doors without achieving anything. Negotiating one month salary on their behalf after about five weeks strike is not only anti-worker but also criminal.”

    While denying the allegation, the state NLC Chairman, Ade Adesanmi, denied the workers’ allegation challenging anyone with evidences of bribery against them to come out with same.

    Adesanmi: “I didn’t sign the pact with government culminating in this resumption because I compromised, I signed because of the fear that this allocation may be spent without the payment of worker salaries.

    “The same workers we were fighting for were coming to work during the strike to assist government in spending monies that could have been kept and added to the current allocation to pay workers. This is highest level of wickedness and prosperity will judge all of us.”

     

  • Group accuses Senate over attempt to blackmail Buhari

    Group accuses Senate over attempt to blackmail Buhari

    A Buhari support group, the Buhari Media Support Group (BMSG), Thursday asked the Senate to put the interested the nation above personal interest and stop blackmailing the President over court summon on its principal officers over forgery allegations.

    In a statement signed by its Coordinator, Muhammad Labbo, and Secretary, Cassidy Madueke and made available to newsmen in Abuja, the group said it was disappointing that the Senate wants to blackmail the president into submitting to its whims and caprices by stampeding him to stop the court summons of principal officers of the Senate to defend themselves against allegation of forgery.

    The group also said that as lawmakers, the senators should be on the same page with the president and his administration to uphold the laws of the land.

    They said further that rather than constitute themselves into obstacles in the quest to reposition the country and ensure obedience to the rule of law, the senators should be seen to show good example to the citizenry.

    The statement said: “we wish to remind the Senate that President Muhammadu Buhari has sworn to an oath to uphold the nation’s constitution, and no attempt should be made by any individual or group to undermine this sacred responsibility.

    “Additionally, it needs to be restated that the summons emanated from the petition raised by some senators over the forgery of the Senate standing order, a ground norm for conducting business in the hallowed chambers of the Senate.

    “The BMSG strongly believes that the individuals mentioned in the summons will have an opportunity in the court to prove their innocence, rather than using the hallowed chambers of the Senate to fan embers of division, and ill-feeling against the President.

    “The BMSG implores that as the representatives of their various constituencies, the senators should always work together with the executive to address the myriad of problems besetting Nigeria.

    “We therefore urge the Senate to immediately withdraw their uncouth language against the president and render an unreserved apology to Nigerians.”

  • Coordinator: Amnesty for UK students not suspended

    The Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP) has said the funding of foundation students undergoing training in the United Kingdom (U.K) has not been suspended or stopped, contrary to speculation.

    In a statement in Abuja, PAP’s Coordinator Gen. Paul Boroh (retd) said foundation students sent for training in the U.K in 2014 were returning because of the expiration of their one-year visa.

    The statement, by PAP’s Head of Media and Communications, Mr Owei Lakemfa, reads: “Foundation students sent to the U.K in 2014 under the Presidential Amnesty Programme are returning to the country following the expiration of their one-year visa. Apart from the completion of their one-year foundation course, they are required to return to the country to renew their visa, where necessary. This has nothing to do with the funding of their programmes, as being insinuated.

    “Also, the Presidential Amnesty Office reiterates that there is no policy or plans under the programme to pay housing or accommodation allowances. It is, therefore, not correct for any beneficiary under the programme to claim he is being owed or is expecting such an allowance.

    “Furthermore, the Amnesty Office reiterates that all allowances and payments under the programme have been effected. However, some beneficiaries, especially in South Africa and United States (U.S.), experienced some delays, perhaps due to the Central Bank’s implementation of the TSA policy. Happily, the affected beneficiaries have started getting alerts, confirming their banks’ receipt of the funds.

    “The Special Adviser to the President on Niger Delta and Coordinator of the Presidential Amnesty Programme, Gen. Paul T. Boroh (retd) appreciates the support of the leaders and members of the various groups and camps under the Amnesty Programme.

    “He reiterates that only under a peaceful atmosphere will investors be attracted to the Niger Delta Region, and sustainable development achieved.”