The Nation Newspaper

Tag: decries

  • Ihedioha decries education standard

    Ihedioha decries education standard

    House of Representatives’ Deputy Speaker Emeka Ihedioha has decried the standard of education in Imo State.

    Ihedioha, who spoke at the official distribution of scientific equipment at the Holy Ghost College in Owerri, the state capital, said stakeholders were concerned about the situation.

    He noted that no society could make meaningful progress without an educated population.

    “The state’s quality of education has become a primary concern to stakeholders. We are talking of not just education for its sake, but education that will lead to self-reliance. We are talking about education that will lead to industrial and the technological progress of our state.”

    The deputy speaker disclosed that the programme was designed to support the educational needs of pupils and to complement the efforts of government and the private sector repositioning education.

    The deputy speaker stated: “For educational progress to be made, we need to appraise where we are coming from, where we are and where we are going to. Sometime ago, a group of experts were commissioned to study and determine the level of preparedness by secondary schools in Imo State, in terms of equipment, re-agents, materials and qualified teachers, in teaching both basic and advanced sciences. The findings showed that funding for science education in Imo is low.”

    He lamented that the implication of the low funding of science education was that pupils in the secondary schools could complete their education without exposure to the basic experiments required in sciences.”

  • NDE chief decries wasteful foreign trips by officials

    The Director-General, National Directorate of Employment (NDE) Malam Abubakar Mohammed has decried the frequent  foreign trips by public officers in the name of seminar or investment drive.

    Mohammed, who spoke when a delegation of Netherland African Business Council (NABC) led by its President, Mr. Cliff Ogbede paid him a visit in Abuja, said most offshore events do not help the country, adding that any forum that is targeted at growing the economy should be held in the country.

    He said: “We have interacted and made some observations and I said we have been to a lot of countries, I am asking whether it is not time for us to have a paradigm shift; that is for such a forum to take place in Nigeria.

    “What I did was to put it in a very simple way as a local man, and I told them that in my place, it is people who go to the market and not the market that comes to the people. So I am saying the market is here and no one should tell me there is no security in Nigeria. Over 160 million Nigerians are still here and are living, yes we have  challenges, every country has it, they should not say they can’t come to Nigeria, I don’t accept that.

    He said: “If I am going to the forum, I can at most go with two directors but however if it is taking place here, I can bring the entire state coordinators of the NDE and other interested stakeholders can also come and we will be seen in our strength and also our weakness and correct decisions will be made. But going out for a day or two, we might not have the capacity to take everyone along.

    “So, with our suggestion, we hope to see some changes because there are many of such associations. I am even wondering that all the places we have been to, what is the tangible result we brought or is it just to go and deliver papers?”

    Earlier, Ogbede informed Mohammed and top NDE management workers that the forum would help  small businesses and their Dutch counterparts access a 700 million euro fund provided by Netherland for Africa.

  • Jonathan decries high school dropouts

    Jonathan decries high school dropouts

    President Goodluck Jonathan decried yesterday the high rate of school dropouts.

    The President, who put the phenomenon at 70 per cent, said it was too high and unacceptable.

    He spoke yesterday in Abuja at the inauguration of the Steering Committee for the Safe Schools Initiative.

    Last month, Jonathan opened the Safe School Initiative with N3.2 billion from the Federal Government and the organised private sector (OPS) to ensure a safer school environment for pupils.

    The initiative also aims to return about 10.5 million out-of-school children to the classroom.

    Harping on pupils safety, the President noted that tragic occurrences, such as the abduction of the over 200 Chibok schoolgirls should not occur again.

    According to him, a N30 billion Terrorism Victims’ Support Fund will be launched on July 16.

    He said: “Some states are fairly okay with one or two per cent. But other states are as high as 70 per cent. If the dropout rate of students at the basic level is as high as 70 per cent, that means only 30 per cent only goes to school. That is terrible.

    “In Borno State today, for example, children, especially girls, are not going to school because of the risk they face from terrorism and violence. This is not acceptable.

    “I understand we can only make schools safer within the context of a secured nation. But I want to assure you that my government will do everything possible to ensure safety of lifeand property nationwide. We have challenges; we are confronting it and we will surely overcome.

    “This country is passing through stress within this period, caused by the excesses of the Boko Haram sect, and our government has been approaching it from different fronts.

    “We always insist that the defence or security does not end terror. But we need to stop collateral damage on innocent people. For us to win the war, we need to look at it holistically: economic issues, educational issues, religious issues, socio-cultural issues etc.

    “At the federal level, we have the Presidential Initiative in the North East (PINE). They are looking at the totality of what the Federal Government can do in collaboration with (other) stakeholders.

    “Recently, we also received a copy of the report of the North East Economic Summit. Based on that report, we are looking at areas where government will come in.

    “Under the time, there are two subsets. The one we are inaugurating today, the Safe Schools Initiative, is actually under the Presidential Initiative in the North East. But this is pioneered by Gordon Brown (former British Prime Minister).

    “From statistics, the dropout of pupils at the basic level of education is quite high. The basic level is the primary and secondary. The dropout at that level is too high.”

    Jonathan said the Brown initiative was meant to see how stakeholders could tap into global fund and private sector and other philanthropists to contribute to it.

    He said: “We are also coming up with a package. This is because we know that we need to intervene to cushion the effect of Boko Haram. Many people have been killed, we have widows and orphans. Properties have been destroyed, schools burnt.

    “Government is also coming up with what we call Victims Support Fund. We believe that government alone cannot cushion the effect. We want to mobilise resources within and outside Nigeria just like we did during the flood of 2012.

    “We are trying to get somebody that will head that fund. We are looking at the 16th of this month to formally launch the fund. Government will put something and individuals will do to.

    “The safety of our children and the security of their education must be paramount to all of us.

    “Tragic occurrences like the kidnapping of the Chibok girls must not rise again anywhere in this country.”

    “In line with this, we have designed this initiative to enhance the safety of our chilciety.

     

  • Obama decries big bonuses at bank trading desks as risky

    Obama decries big bonuses at bank trading desks as risky

    President Barack Obama’s critique of trader bonuses at Wall Street banks as still risky to the economy drew objections from financial executives who said the compensation system already has been fixed.

    In an interview aired today on American Public Media’s Marketplace radio program, Obama said bonuses encourage traders to “take big risks” that imperil the financial system’s stability. Cutting that risk remains an “unfinished piece of business” and his administration will be “looking at additional steps,” he said.

    Even as White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters that the president wasn’t suggesting specific action, people in the financial community said Obama’s comments were off base.

    “This idea that Wall Street is this sort of great evil is at best simplistic,” Marketfield Asset Management Chairman Michael Shaoul said today on Bloomberg Television. “I think Wall Street is an easy target.”

    If Obama follows through it would add to pressure on banks that have already cut or reassigned scores of traders. Many traders have joined hedge funds ahead of a Dodd-Frank Act measure known as the Volcker Rule — named after former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul A. Volcker — that restricts the once-lucrative business of speculating for the accounts of the nation’s biggest lenders. .

    A separate regulation under the 2010 Dodd-Frank law would require delayed bonuses for some bank executives. A draft was released in 2011 but has since stalled without action at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

    Alan Johnson, founder and managing director of New York-based Johnson Associates Inc., who advises Wall Street banks on compensation, said in a phone interview that Obama’s comments were “just weird.”

    “Trading is so far down from the peak, they’ve spent an endless amount of time and energy to reform trader pay — to say that trader pay needs to be reformed is just bizarre,” he said.

    The ability to make big risky bets has been dramatically reduced, he said, calling Obama’s comments “just political — when in doubt, blame Wall Street.”

    Though Obama’s comments on bonuses aired today, the interview was recorded a day before government statisticians reported the economy added 288,000 jobs last month and the unemployment rate dropped to 6.1 percent, the lowest since before the financial crisis peaked six years ago.

    While U.S. corporate profits and stock indexes have soared to record highs, middle-class incomes haven’t yet made up the ground lost during the recession.

    Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

    U.S. President Barack Obama.

    Ahead of congressional elections in November, public disapproval of Obama’s handling of the economy is running higher than on the eve of the 2010 midterm elections, when the president’s Democratic party was handed what he called a “shellacking” and lost control of the House.

    Fifty-seven percent of Americans said they’re unhappy with Obama’s economic stewardship in a June 6-9 Bloomberg National Poll compared with 51 percent in October 2010. Almost two-thirds say the country is on the wrong track.

    Wall Street employees took home an average bonus of $164,530 last year, the most since the 2008 financial crisis and the third highest on record, according to estimates released in March by New York state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.

    While the collective bonus pool rose 15 percent to $26.7 billion in 2013, the increase was fueled by compensation deferred from prior years. Delaying payouts is meant to discourage employees from trying to reap quick payouts by taking risks that can hurt their firm in the future.

  • Ndigbo Lagos decries Boko Haram incursion into Southeast

    Ndigbo Lagos, the umbrella body of Igbo organisations in Lagos State, yesterday decried the incursion of the Boko Haram sect into Igboland.

    The group was especially worried that soldiers arrested 486 Boko Haram suspects in Abia State, with one of them identified as “a notorious and wanted kingpin of the dreaded murderous Boko Haram”.

    In a statement by its Director of Communications and Strategy, Chief Chuma Igwe, the group said: “It is instructive that the apprehension of these 486 suspected Boko Haram members in 33 Toyota Hiace buses in Abia State, on the Enugu-Port Harcourt Road at about 2am, occurred just a few days after the timely discovery of six timed bombs at the Port Harcourt Road branch of Winners’ Chapel Church, Owerri, a church that reportedly has over 10,000 worshippers on Sunday services.

    “While we salute the gallantry and courage of the Nigerian Army for intercepting the suspects, and the vigilance of worshippers in identifying the bombs, there are indications that these subtle but deliberate push by the terrorists into Igboland has included the use of Fulani herdsmen to penetrate and infiltrate the underbelly of the Southern Nigeria – from the remote frontier villages of Enugu and Ebonyi states.

    “It is on record that among many such complaints in recent weeks, the people of Ezeagu Local Government Area of Enugu State have cried out about the infiltration of their villages by AK-47 wielding ‘Fulani herdsmen’.

    “According to the Vanguard Newspaper of June 10, Dr Obiora Ozobu, the President-General of Ezeagu General Assembly, was quoted as saying that in a neighbouring village ‘…a farmer was shot dead by these Fulani people, and we have had of three reported cases of rape of village women who went to their farms.’

  • Jega decries voter apathy

    Jega decries voter apathy

    THE Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Attahiru Jega, has decried apathy among voters during elections.

    He  spoke yesterday in Calabar, the Cross River State capital, at the opening of a two-day retreat of the National Inter-Agency Advisory Committee on Voter Education and Publicity.

    Jega said apathy was still prevalent among voters, despite the resources the commission and its allies were expending on voter and civic education.

    He said: “In our elections, there is still a high degree of apathy, an intolerably high percentage of voided votes traceable to limited knowledge and awareness. Too few females are participating in elections as candidates, and other disadvantaged groups still feel left out of the process.”

    Jega, represented by the National Commissioner in charge of Publicity, Dr Chris Iyimoga, said the electoral process was still being hampered by corruption, vote buying, snatching of electoral materials, intimidation and threat, among others.

    The INEC chairman said these meant the current strategies for meeting the challenges had not been “altogether successful”.

    He said: “There is, therefore, the need to identify and close the gaps in our overall voter education programme and develop one that is not reactive but pro-active in its approach, responsive in its deployment and effective and sustainable.”

    Jega advised the meeting not to shy away from acknowledging existing shortcomings but to confront them to meet the people’s aspirations.

    In his keynote address, a former Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC), Dr Tom Adaba, urged INEC and media organs to make voter education a continuous process rather than the current periodic exercise.

    The veteran broadcaster said there was also need for collaboration between INEC and the media to make debates among political parties regular and mandatory, from the Presidency to the local government level.

  • Ghana’s guild decries influx of Nigerian actors

    The leadership of the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG) has expressed concern over what it described as the influx of Nigerian actors into the Ghanaian movie industry.

    Consequently, it has placed a new regulation on Ghanaian movie producers in Kumawood who intend to involve foreign actors in their movies.

    According to reports, any producer who wishes to feature a foreign actor in his or her movie would be expected to pay a certain levy to the Film Producers Association of Ghana (FIPAG) and the Actors’ Guild.

    The measure, according to Asare Hackman, president of FIPAG, is meant to protect the Ghanaian movie producers and the industry as a whole.

    He, however, stated that it was not intended to “scare foreigners”.

    At the moment, a few Nigerian actors have been spotted in some famous Kumawood movies, a situation which appears to be gaining grounds in Ghana.

    The FIPAG president said: “The coming of Nigerian actors and actresses into Ghana to shoot our local movies is a worry to me and FIPAG as well. It is a worry basically because most of our local films are not in English. You know, we have a huge market for Twi movies in Ghana and if we allow these artistes to come and take the role of Ghanaian artistes, it means that we are depriving our artistes here in Ghana from getting jobs.”

    According to Hackman, the new trend was due the absence of any regulation to check the situation “making it look like it was free for all.”

    He further stated that “At least, what we have put in place now will check the situation. People are starting to be cautious about the foreign artistes they bring down. Indeed, some producers can afford to pay all the sanctions, but what we are trying to do is to try to put some measures in place to check the industry. We should be careful about the seed that we are sowing as producers; otherwise, the likes of Lil Win and Kweku Manu will start to charge as much as our local producers pay the Nigerian actors.”

  • Civil society decries poor electricity supply

    Civil Society Group, acting under the aegis of Citizens Centre for Integrated Development and Social Rights has decried the current poor electricity supply in the country.

    Rising from its meeting, the group described the persistent government’s apologies as new smart methods of covering up for cheating electricity consumers. The group therefore, said the power reform drivers should refund every electricity consumer under the monthly estimated bill rate regime, all the payments they have made without corresponding power supply.

    “We summarily condemn the hypocritical apologies being offered by the drivers of power sector reform over the poor power supply in recent months. One wonders whether the Ministry of Power and Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) just woke up to discover this power sector malady.

    ”The most worrisome aspect of their public apologies is that before now, they have consistently promised Nigerians that very soon, the power supply situation will improve. We have lost count of increases in megawatts that were promised in numerous occasions. “While Nigerians believed what appears today to be a cork and bull story and waiting for power improvement, the drivers of the reform were busy preparing how to aplologise,” the group said.

  • PDP decries APC’s criticism of Judiciary

    PDP decries APC’s criticism of Judiciary

    THE ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has decried the criticism by the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the ruling by a Federal High Court on some defecting members of the House of Representatives.

    The APC had objected to what it called a misinterpretation of the court’s ruling, to the effect that the defected lawmakers were asked to resign their membership of the House.

    The leadership of the House also went to court to appeal the “miscarriage of justice”.

    It said the judge granted a relief the plaintiff never sought in the matter.

    But in a statement yesterday in Abuja by PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, the ruling party said the APC’s alleged battle would have “tragic consequences” on institutions of democracy.

    It said: “Wherever the APC is drawing this inspiration or motivation is surely far from the continent of democracy and right within the conclave of dictatorship. The APC is doing everything to scuttle democracy.”

    The PDP expressed worry that the APC tended to blackmail judicial officers, when the opposition failed to secure its bidding, but defended them when the reverse happened.

  • Dickson decries N6b cost of running state varsity

    Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson decried yesterday the yearly N6 billion cost of running the state-owned Niger Delta University (NDU) on Wilberforce Island.

    A statement by Dickson’s Chief Press Secretary, Daniel Iworiso-Markson, said the governor made the observation when he visited NDU at the weekend.

    The governor described the cost as unsustainable and asked the institution to explore other sources of income.

    Dickson, who announced the award of N6.1 billion contracts in the university, regretted late payment of bursaries to students.

    He attributed the delay to scholarships awarded to postgraduate students.

    Addressing stakeholders at the meeting, he said: “This university is the only state-owned university that has a high recurrent expenditure.

    “Available records show that the school spends close to N500 million monthly on salaries and sundry entitlements.

    “I have told the vice chancellor and the governing council that it is not sustainable.

    “What is the students’ population for which the state is spending N6 billion yearly? This is outside investments on infrastructure?

    “I am aware that the responsibility entrusted on me at this point in our history to bring about restoration means that we must take decisions that are right and fair even when they are sometimes unpleasant.

    “I like to appeal to your sense of commitment and patriotism on this journey.

    “I am urging the university authority working with our team to re-order its priorities, so that we can have some funds for capital development, because we want this university to be one of the best in the world.”