The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Five years

  • ‘We have trained 7,000 learners in five years’

    Director, STEM METS Resources, Jadesola Adedeji, has said her organisation, which provides quality, innovative and alternative educational learning platforms for children, has trained over 7,000 learners in its five years of existence.

    Speaking at a programme to mark the firm’s fifth anniversary, Ms Adedeji said since it started in 2015, the organisation has delivered world-class Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (S.T.E.M) based programmes to children to promote creativity and innovation and ensure that they have the required skills to succeed in their careers.

    She said STEM METS had organised over 50 workshops across the Southwest, reiterating its commitment to doing more.

    She said: “We are committed to bridging the 21st Century skills gap within the Nigerian educational system by providing hands-on  and project-based training programmes to children ages three to 16. These STEM-based programmes develop critical thinking, problem solving, communication and collaborative skills and the knowledge of these skills will equip the Nigerian child with future ready, employable skills to compete in the technology enabled future work place. We want to develop and nurture creative thinkers who will bring innovation into solving local problems, inspire entrepreneurship and also teach them HOW to think not WHAT to think.”

    She thanked those who had supported the organisation over the years.

    The event featured a panel discussion, which featured Ms Folawe Omikunle of Teach for Nigeria; Lanre Oniyitan, and Modupe Adefeso-Olateju of The Education Partnership (TEP) Centre, who provided insights into the importance of education and skills development for economic development. They emphasised the significance of building transferrable skills for pupils necessary to improve the overall quality of education in schools, and called on corporate bodies to invest in sustainable projects that will impact the quality of education in Nigeria.

    STEM METS Resources programmes include Bricks4Kidz, The Little Engineer, and Robotics and Computer Programming, which are available through after-school enrichment clubs, holiday camps and teachers workshops.

  • Five years in captivity

    •Govt must do more to return the remaining Chibok girls and Leah Sharibu to their families

    For five years, 112 of the kidnapped Chibok girls are still in Boko Haram captivity. That is five years of excruciating trauma for the family. Also, for over a year, Leah Sharibu is still held by a faction of the Boko Haram, following the Dapchi kidnap. Significantly, the families appear to have lost faith in the capacity of the country to rescue their children. So, they handed over their hope to a popular pastor in Lagos, T. B. Joshua, for his spiritual intervention.

    The tragic incidents in Chibok and Dapchi portrayed our nation as one  in free fall. A classic case of a failing state, when a non-state actor like the Boko Haram audaciously moved into a Government Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, on April 14, 2014, took 276 female students captive and drove off into the forest. The Federal Government under President Goodluck Jonathan was so remiss that it spent days prevaricating and arguing whether the abduction was not a hoax. While the government dithered, Boko Haram expanded its conquered territory.

    Perhaps that was one major reason the government was sacked at the general election in 2015. President Muhammadu Buhari’s government that took over, promised to do everything possible to secure the release of the Chibok girls. That promise yielded only a partial success, such that five years after their abduction, 112 of the girls are still in Boko Haram custody. Could it be that our country has surrendered the fate of the Chibok girls to Boko Haram, since their status was not even made a campaign issue during the last general election?

    That may explain why the families of the girls and their communities have lost faith in the secular power and surrendered their trust to a religious leader. We hope those in authority understand the import of such loss of faith on the psyche of the citizens. While the families of the Chibok girls and Sharibu have resorted to prayers as their self-help, others who have lost faith in the capacity of the state to perform its responsibility may resort to other variants of self-help.

    Of note, while the government of President Buhari takes praise for securing the release of some of the Chibok girls, a similar audacious invasion of Government Girls’ Science and Technical College (GGSTC), Dapchi, in Yobe State, took place on February 19, 2018. Agreed, the government moved swiftly to gain the release of 109 out of the 110 girls abducted, the remaining girl,  Sharibu, remains a sorry reminder of that incident.

    While the regime of President Jonathan takes the blame for the poor handling of the Chibok kidnap, the present government must take all necessary steps to reunite the remaining girls to their families. After all, the primary essence of government is to ensure security of lives and property of citizens. When a government fails in that responsibility, as it has done with respect to the Chibok girls and Sharibu, then citizens resort to self-help.

    The general insecurity in the country is reaching a boiling point, and President Buhari and his government must rise up to the occasion. With kidnappings, armed banditry and killings of citizens becoming an everyday occurrence, we are afraid the country may slip into anarchy. Notably, during a debate on the state of insecurity, the senate demanded for the establishment of state police, which we have also canvassed severally. Stakeholders have also requested for amendment of the exclusive legislative list to give the states greater economic activities.

    Without hesitation, Nigeria must chart a new beginning; one in which the citizens can live in peace and harmony.

  • 112 Chibok girls now five years in Boko Haram captivity

    The 112 Chibok girls still being held by Boko Haram will   have spent five years in captivity if they are not released by next Sunday.

    Over 200 students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State were abducted by the terrorists on the night of April 14, 2014.

    Over a hundred of them were released following pressure from the federal government, and the intervention of well meaning Nigerians and the International Red Cross.

    The Bring Back Our Girls (BBOG) movement said yesterday that the girls have already spent 1, 819 days in Boko Haram captivity.

    Read also: Buhari: It will take decades to repair Boko Haram damage

    It said the anniversary of their abduction next Sunday would only bring sadness.

    “Sadly, we are coming up to five years in captivity for 112 of our Chibok Girls,” the BBOG said on its Whatsapp platform yesterday.

    “This is not a date we ever imagined we would come to.

    “However, should it come without their return, we intend to organize a few activities to ensure that the Chibok Girls are not forgotten.”

  • Drug dealer bags five years

    Drug dealer bags five years

    A Lagos Federal High Court has sentenced a 37-year-old man, Gafar Yaya, to five years in prison for dealing in hard drugs.

    Yaya was arraigned yesterday before Justice John Tsoho by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), on a one-count charge of drug trafficking.

    When the charge was read to him in Yoruba, the accused pleaded guilty.

    The prosecutor, Mr Jeremiah Aernan, told the court that the accused was arrested by NDLEA officers on August 10 at Abule-Oki Bus Stop in Iyana-Ipaja, while selling cannabis sativa popularly known as Indian Hemp.

    He said Yaya was found with 800 grammes of cannabis sativa “a narcotic drug similar to cocaine, heroin and LSD”, adding that the offence is punishable under Section 11(c) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act, Cap 30, LFN 2004.

    The prosecutor tendered a transparent envelope containing remnants of the drug and urged the court to convict the accused based on his plea and the evidence.

    Justice Tsoho held that he was satisfied with the prosecution’s evidence.

    He said: “I am satisfied of the guilt of the accused; I pronounce him guilty of the offence and convict him summarily.

    “The convict is hereby sentenced to five years imprisonment beginning from August 10 when he was arrested.”

    The judge ordered that the drugs be destroyed by NDLEA after 90 days if there is no appeal against the verdict. Aggrieved parties are entitled to appeal within 90 days of this judgment,” he said.

  • Jonathan and ‘the next four or five years’

    If it wasn’t such a self-serving projection, President Goodluck Jonathan’s optimistic conclusion about the country’s immediate future should be very welcome. It was interesting that he made his rosy but thought-provoking remarks at the Christ Apostolic Church, Garki Area 1, Abuja, on the last Sunday of the year; but this doesn’t necessarily translate into a confident and infallible prophecy.

    Jonathan said: “As a nation, we have not reached where we want to go; definitely not. But we are coming up with a number of policies.” He continued: “Those who are taking pains to look at what we are doing will agree with us that if we progress as a nation steadily in this manner, in the next four or five years, this country will be a better place.”

    For a politician who is seeking re-election next year, it was probably expected that he would seize every platform for self-promotion; but even that could be carried too far, and could be done against the dictates of reason and the dictates of conscience.

    Evidently, to go by his words, Jonathan considers himself a strong factor when it comes to realising the dream of a better Nigeria. Well, he is certainly entitled to his exaggerated sense of self-importance; and he is free to imagine things, not to say hallucinate. But it is surely beyond the bounds of sense to suggest that the country has made steady progress on his watch. It is even more unreasonable to believe that staying on the same track with Jonathan will result in the country’s desired progress.

    By now, those who are familiar with Jonathan’s irreverent use of pulpits for the purpose of political promotion should no longer be dismayed. If he insists that the pulpit is where a president should make strange claims about railway improvement, agricultural advancement, creation of employment opportunities, economic stabilisation despite falling oil prices and the coming elections, then it further reveals that he probably has not only a misplaced sense of place, but also a misplaced sense of propriety.

    The truth is that the sacred environment cannot positively transform falsehood, even when the person involved is falsely credited with having brought transformation to the country by those who tag themselves “Transformation Ambassadors of Nigeria.” Jonathan’s tales of progress never pass the truth test, which is the honest truth about his dishonesty.

    Consider what he said in church about the 2015 elections. Jonathan said: “None of us should begin to think that he is the best person to be anywhere from state houses of assembly to the president. There are a thousand and one Nigerians that are super qualified more than those people who are even aspiring to occupy offices.”

    If he wasn’t just acting a deceptive script, he must be aware that his actions contradict his words. This is the same man who outrageously stage-managed his emergence as his party’s unchallenged presidential candidate, driven by a fantasy that he is the best and there is none as qualified as him. Or does he mean the people should hear his words and be blind to his deeds?

  • Gani: Five years after

    SIR: Tomorrow September 5, it will be exactly five years ago that Chief Gani Fawehinmi, popularly called Gani by all, died as a result of complications from Lung Cancer. He died at the age of 71 on September 5, 2009.
    We remember with sweet memory five years after the exit of an uncommon Nigerian who bestrode the nation as a colossus that he was. We celebrate his life and times because of his unflinching love for the oppressed, the cheated, the persecuted and the vulnerable who he virtually donated his entire life to serve at very high risk. For Gani’s loyalty to the cause of the poor and the struggle for a better, corruption-free Nigeria where no one is oppressed, successive government and the hated political class in Nigeria violently abridged his right through several illegal detentions, imprisonment, physical attacks, abductions and assassination attempts. Yet Gani remained absolutely undaunted till death in his peaceful and selfless course for the defence of human rights, freedom, democracy and good governance.
    As a radical legal luminary, and an acknowledged Senior Advocate of the Masses, Gani used law as a weapon to fight for social justice, equal rights, democracy and good governance. He would always be remembered for his decades of free legal services to the poor, through which many oppressed Nigerians including students, workers, peasants and artisans had unfettered access to justice.
    Perhaps Gani’s most remarkable among his countless remarkable feats in using the instrument of law for social change was the legal victory he secured at the Supreme Court for the registration of the National Conscience Party after a legendary legal battle with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). That singular judgment obtained from the highest court in Nigeria has helped to widen the vista of democracy, freedom of association, popular participation and legally simplified the formation of political parties in Nigeria as against the previous illegal hard rules and impediments set by INEC.
    On this occasion of the fifth anniversary of his death, the best way to remember Gani, the social crusader and man of the masses, is for all his ideological soul-mates to redouble our commitment to the struggle for social justice, human rights, democracy and good governance in Nigeria, the course that Gani Faweninmi lived and died for fearlessly.
    • Adeola Soetan
    Ijaye, Lagos