The Nation Newspaper

Tag: group

  • Group extols Tinubu’s qualities

    Group extols Tinubu’s qualities

    Members of Akinwunmi Ambode/Bayo Oshinowo Independent Campaign Group have extolled the leadership qualities of former governor of Lagos State, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which they said, contributed to the electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the general elections.

    The membership of the group cut across Olubori, Odun-Ifa, Idi-Araba and Mosafejo Community Development Associations (CDAs) and the Progressive Widows Association  in Oworonsoki Community, Kosofe Local Government Area of Lagos State.

    Chairman of the group Mr Olusegun Akinwunmi described Tinubu as a courageous, selfless and dedicated party leader, who worked tirelessly for the victory of the party during the elections.

    Akinwunmi who spoke with reporters in Lagos, expressed gratitude to God that the efforts of the party leader came to fruition. He congratulated President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, Senator Gbenga Ashafa, Hon Rotimi Agunsoye and Hon. Bayo Osinowo among others for emerging victorious at the polls.

    He called on Governor Ambode to site development projects in Oworonsoki, which according to him, is lacking good roads and functional drainage system, modern classrooms in   primary and secondary school, and potable water.

    Akinwunmi disclosed that there is only one primary and secondary school in Oworonsoki, which he said, was responsible for the congestion in the classrooms. According to him, there are over 100 pupils in a classroom. The solution, he said, is to establish more primary and secondary schools in the area given its population.

    The members of the group present at the coference were Mr Olusegun Bakare (General Secretary), Mrs Bola Adebisi (Public Relations Officer),  Mrs O. O. Lawal (Asst. Secretary), Mr Tunde Ajayi (Co-ordinator), Chief Tejumaiye Balogun, Mr E.A. Akinpelu (Whip) and Mr Bode Oladiye, Board of Trustees.

  • Top aspirants meet House of Reps’ pressure group

    Top aspirants meet House of Reps’ pressure group

    TWO top contenders for the position of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila and Yakubu Dogara, have been certified qualified to lead the Eighth House by a pressure group in the House, The Patriots.

    The group has, however, denied endorsing either of the contesting lawmakers.

    The group in a statement yesterday by its Chairman, Publicity Committee, Abdulrazak Namdas, said though the two contestants performed brilliantly in the integrity test, they must face Nigerians in a televised public debate.

    It reads: “In line with our mission to conduct integrity test for candidates wishing to contest leadership position of the House of Representatives, we wish  to state that the two leading candidates namely; Femi Gbajabiamila and Dogara Yakubu, have appeared before members of The Patriots.

    “Although, they appeared separately along with their campaign teams at our secretariat at No.4 Durban Street, Off Adetojumbo Ademola Crescent, they conducted themselves with utmost decorum.

    “The duo did not only state their mission and vision for the race, but answered several questions from members as part of effort to determine their confidence, competence, knowledge, experience, track records, versatility, reliability and networking among other parameters.

    “The engagement was the first time The Patriots has met with any candidate since its publicity emerged on  April 30, 2015 during the induction course organised for the 8th Assembly in Abuja.

    “However, in-spite of the separate engagement with the frontline candidates, The Patriots has yet to take side with any candidate, rather it is working towards organising a public debate to provide opportunity for members-elect and indeed Nigerians to scrutinise their credentials with the view to identifying the best.

    “As you are aware, The Patriots is a Bi-Partisan Assembly of both the returning and newly elected House Members committed to transparent and improved process of leadership selection in the green chamber.

    “The group members cut across parties, states, zones, ethnicity, faiths, gender and age group”.

  • Group plans leadership skill for 300 youths

    Group plans leadership skill for 300 youths

    As the Ramadan fasting period approaches, a Muslim group, Bodija Muslim Youth Forum (BOMYOM), has been inaugurated in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital to promote Islamic virtues and to engage 300 youths in intensive studies.

    The group will also collaborate with other organisations to serve Muslim youths and enhance capacity building, among others.

    The chairman of BOMYOM, Alhaji Abdur-Rahman Balogun said theý focus of the group is to ensure that Muslim youths regain their glory and excellence, adding that membership of the group is open for any Muslim youth from the secondary school age.

    “It is obvious that the youth of any country constitute the chunk of the population. Nigeria is no exception as the youth; especially the Muslim youths constitute the large majority in the society. Thus, the Bodija Estates and its Environs Muslim Community (BEEMC) though it wise not to neglect this important segment of the Ummah and the future leaders.

    “So, creation of BOMYOF for the youth in the community and its environs was in line with local, national and global practices. It is to fill the vacuum and cater for the spiritual, social, economic and moral development of the youth,” Balogun said.

    According to him, the challenges that need to be confronted by Muslim communities are very real. He said they include lack or absence of islamically marriageable partners, bad partnering, lack of opportunities and jobs.

    He further said illiteracy, lack of true Islamic knowledge, poor education systems, countering violent extremism, and lack of empowering programmes for women, call for urgent attention.

    Part of the activities to be used to address this anomalies by the group include “organisation of extra mural classes aimed at helping the younger ones in their academic pursuit and other vocational training.

    ”As part of our family-centered core value, we intend to have series of marriage counseling and networking, family picnic and other forms of halal social interaction, recruiting, training and developing the leadership skills of Muslim youths to conduct peer education and advocacy, developing trainings for staff and community members to enhance programmes that address the needs of Muslim youths and increasing awareness of the issues affecting Muslim youths on local, national and international levels.”

    Prof. Ayo Hammed, a Lecturer in the Department of Guidance and Counseling, University of Ibadan, urged stakeholders to engage youths productively towards building a safer and more just society.

    While delivering a lecture entitled “Challenges Facing the Muslim Youths in the 21st Century,” Hammed said stakeholders should join hands in strengthening the youth, while also engaging them in policies, programmes and decision-making.

    He stressed the need for investment in the youth during the childhood and adolescent stages, adding that it was the time life-long patterns of behaviour begins.

  • Oshiomhole disowns group

    Oshiomhole disowns group

    Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole has dissociated himself from a group – Seminar Group organising a conference – ‘Gatekeepers Foundation, Change Ambassadors of Nigeria and Niger Delta Media Professionals’.

    A newspaper advertorial published on Sunday, May 31 by the group listed Oshiomhole as a keynote speaker in the seminar titled: ‘President Muhammadu Buhari Change Agenda and The Niger Delta Struggle for Development’, which is scheduled for today.

    Oshiomhole said yesterday: “My attention has been drawn to a statement issued by an amorphous body purporting to be speaking for Niger Delta.

    “This so-called group is unknown to me. No one met or contacted me, much less mentioned the idea of any conference or the motive behind it to me.

    “For anyone to have gone ahead to advertise a seminar with my name without even the courtesy of my fore-knowledge is fraudulent and unacceptable.

    “By this statement, I hope this body will stop promoting themselves with my name”.

     

  • Group seeks minister’s intervention on cassava bread grants

    The Delta Youths For Agriculture (DYFA) has  called on the Minister of Agriculture, Dr Adesina Akinwunmi, to intervene in the stalemate over Cassava Bread Out-grower Intervention Fund.

    The Coordinator of the group, Mr Lucky Aruoture, made the appeal at a seminar organised by the group in Warri, Delta.

    The group accused the Bank of Agriculture (BoA) and the Ministry of Agriculture of frustrating access to the fund by potential beneficiaries.

    He coordinator said BoA failed to release the fund approved for Jopat Nig. Ltd under the Cassava Bread Out-grower Fund even when it had fulfilled the conditions.

    Aruoture said the development had frustrated the dreams of young Nigerians on agriculture.

    He said the conditions spelt out for accessing the fund in January 2014 included payment of N5,000 per hectare and a minimum of two hectares and maximum of four hectares per accredited beneficiary.

    “The payment of N20,000 for four hectares as equity contribution to access the loan/grant, land preparation and all other conditions have been met.

    ‘’All approved beneficiaries in our group have received SMS alerts confirming approval since September 2014, so we wonder why the bank and the ministry of agriculture have not released the funds,’’ he said.

  • Group urges Buhari to address SMEs funding

    Group urges Buhari to address SMEs funding

    Associationof Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria(AMEN) president, Prince Saviour Iche  has urged  the  government to address  funding  challenges  of small  and medium enterprises (SMEs) as  the  current economic situation  has placed financial pressure on all companies.

    Speaking  with The Nation, Iche  said, with access to working capital remaining a substantial challenge for most businesses, especially SMEs, there is a  need to create  alternatives  as  the resultant cycle of liquidity shortfalls puts further pressure on their ability to conduct business and service overheads.

    Although many businesses are aware of potential sources of funding, he said,  the costs and requirements for accessing funding are  prohibitive, as a result, many potential entrepreneurs are prevented from accessing secured debt financing from  financial institutions.

    He implored banks to establish SMEs to promote entrepreneurial development and provide finance to local businesses.

    Unreliable electricity supply, poor quality and limited breadth of road and rail networks, and poor communications infrastructure, he said,  are  having a significant impact on the cost of doing business.

    To ameliorate  this,  he   called  on the  incoming  government  to    make  energy an urgent priority to  save enterprises  from collapsing following  increasing  expenditure  on  generators to run their  factories.

    Iche  said businesses have been forced  to depend on generating their power  needs  as  current problems with load shedding is  not helping energy throughput for  industrial consumption.

    While   urging    the incoming government to   explore and bring to fruition opportunities to secure  power supply ,  Iche  stressed  the need  to  intensify infrastructure development such as roads and  electricity, adding  that achieving  the  vision of a more prosperous and productive nation will require successful local entrepreneurs.

    He reiterated  that  SMEs believe that they shared  responsibilities for employment creation, poverty reduction and youth development, but need  the  government support  to  participate in the national  effort  at improving standard of living, reducing crime rate, increase in per capita income and rapid growth in Gross Domestic Product(GDP) among others.

    He noted that  the  economy  needs  industrialisation policies to  favour medium and large enterprises, to stimulate economic growth and development, adding  that renewed emphasis on the SMEs is  a catalyst to the nation’s   industrialisation quest.

  • Group urges Buhari to check corruption in education

    A group, Exam Ethics Marshal International (EEMI), has urged the incoming government to beam its anti-corruption searchlight on the education sector.

    Founding chairman of the group, Mr Ike Onyechere, decried the high level of malpractices in the education sector in a proposal to President-Elect, Gen Muhammadu Buhari on how best to tackle education malpractices.

    He recommended an eight-point agenda for ‘the Buhari Presidency’ to “signal zero-tolerance for exam malpractice, academic dishonesty and corruption in education.”

    “It is important to send an immediate and unmistakable signal of zero-tolerance for corruption in the education sector. Exam Ethics recommends an eight-point programme of action for sending such a signal,” he said.

    In the agenda, Onyechere canvassed for the re-launching of exam malpractice blacklist initiative to name and shame invigilators, supervisors and schools that aid and abet malpractices.

    He flashed back to the inception of the blacklist initiative under the administration of Dr Oby Ezekwesili as Minister of Education in 2007, where names of schools operating as magic centres, individuals and organisations involved in malpractice were published in the media, but failed to publish the execution of any form of sanctions on the parties involved; and charged the incoming administration to shun secrecy of the names of defaulters as is the norm.

    He also recommended re-visiting the Need Assessment Report on federal universities to identify and sanction those involved in criminalising the tertiary education process.

    The third point of the agenda suggested that all regulatory agencies of tertiary institutions, including National Universities Commission (NUC) and others, be directed to take action on recent government white papers on state tertiary institutions, as “immediate action is needed to curb the regime of impunity of state functionaries in many state tertiary institutions.”

    Its fourth agenda for Buhari would be to set up task teams to carry out re-accreditation of courses in all public and private universities in the country, disregarding previous accreditation reports.

    It further proposed the re-validation of the educational qualifications of all workers in the Federal Ministry of Education, agencies and institutions of education, “as nobody can give what he does not have.”

    The group also asked that certified professional associations be compelled to institute stronger self-regulatory mechanisms, with the notion that “the real danger to society is that licensed assassins cannot be stopped because they are covered by certifications and licenses awarded by educational institutions.”

    In addition, the group urged the government to compel the West African Examinations Council (WAEC), the National Examinations Council (NECO) and other public examination boards to make public, the names of candidates barred from taking their exams.

    “The names, exam numbers and pictures of candidates involved in exam malpractice in Nigeria should be published in newspapers as is the case in other West African Countries,” the statement read.

    The final point of the agenda recommended that leadership and institutional support be provided for the group, Exam Ethics, for their efforts in sustaining the campaign against corruption in education since its inception in 1996.

    Emphasising the importance of the eight-point agenda, Onyechere said: “The consequences of corruption in education are particularly fundamental, pre-eminent and most devastating for society.  This is because it is the role of education to produce leaders, professionals, workers and citizens with the character to shun corruption and the competences to transform national potentials into developmental realities.

    “Education is not playing this role when institutions are virtual breeding grounds for corruption, where leaders of tomorrow are weaned on diets of fraud and where the processes of admissions, training, examination, certification, registration and regulation are criminalized.”

  • Buhari’s reform ‘ll be pro-masses, says group

    The National Coordinator Nigerian League of Democrats (NLD), Otunba Niyi Adebanjo, has said President-elect Muhammadu Buhari will transform the country.

    He said the emergence of Buhari has put an end to the 16 years of the Peoples Democratic Partys (PDP’s) arrogance, adding that the self acclaimed biggest party in Africa fell from the people’s favour.

    He said: “At its height and in control of the Federal Government the PDP with so much impunity and  with little thought for Nigerians who were groaning under the weight of a massively corrupt government, the looming presence of insecurity, grinding poverty, wholesale unemployment and the darkness foisted on the people, the party acted as if nothing was wrong.

    “The fate of the PDP is therefore a veritable lesson note from which to draw nuggets of wisdom in governance to offer as recipes, guidelines, signposts and even beacons to the government in waiting. That is what the NLD has done in the form of suggestions that the organisation has carefully put together for General Muhammadu Buhari as he prepares to lead a team of change agents into Aso Rocks come May 29, 2015,” he said.

    Adebanjo explained that Buhari has the capacity to change the country to where everybody will live in peace.  “It is our belief that as a former army general, with a lot of war strategies under his epaulettes, it should be expected that the president elect is aware that he cannot fail in the battle field.

    “The president-elect should give consideration and attention to the number of national problems and tackle them headlong as government begins business. General Buhari should avoid the disease that commonly plagues governments at the local, state and federal level when they try to dissipate energy in covering the entire field without getting anything done at the end of their tenure.

    “The battle to reach zero tolerance for corruption, provision of affordable electricity, reduction in the army of unemployed youths and improvement in the level of infrastructure development should rank very high for the administration.

    “The NLD believes that people guilty of corruption should not only be made to forfeit the proceeds of self-enrichment but should equally serve a term of jail time, to make them suffer just in the same way they inflicted punishment on the citizens who were denied of the provisions that was due to them if the money so allocated was not misappropriated.

    Adebanjo called for a synergy that will guarantee a seamless operation in government, noting that Buhari must revisit the Steve Oronsaye’s report on civil service reform. “Premium should be paid on professionalism in the civil service. A radical approach that will bring the civil service to the admirable service oriented public office of the 1960s should be the standard that the new government must resolve to reach.

     

     

  • Group wants SMEs’ ministry

    Group wants SMEs’ ministry

    To ensure a better level playing field for small scale industries, the  President, Association of Micro Entrepreneurs of Nigeria (AMEN), Prince  Saviour  Iche,  has  called  on the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari(rtd), to create a special ministry for small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

    In an interview with The Nation, Iche  said  the establishment of a special ministry for  SMEs  would  help  the  government   to address the  problems of the  entrepreneurs  in a better way and provide more facilities to the sector to ensure better growth.

    He  expressed concern that the sector has  not been able to record growth in terms of expansion and jobs creation, attributing  this  to  high  cost of managing  the power crisis, which has led to the use of generators to power businesses, coupled with its attendant high cost on business overheads.

    He however said that improvements in the economy could soon be negated if SMEs’ competitiveness levels continued to decrease.

    While expressing  dissatisfaction with access to finance, a long-standing issue in the sector,  Iche  noted  that  the  issue of high business costs remained the key concern, adding  that  small  businesses are rapidly losing  competitive edge and has called on the government to review of all business costs.

    Iche  said  the  SME sector needs an effective financial support scheme and a taxation system to stimulate long-term growth, adding that though the outgoing  administration has  set the foundation, there is need  to  implement  SMEs  friendly  policies as this will provide the backbone for the country’s economy.

    He urged the in-coming government to  put in place import restrictions on certain products to protect local industries. This ban policy, he explained, should be on items like soaps, cosmetics and  other products that can be  made locally. This will help to boost domestic manufacturing.

    According to the AMEN boss, cheap and sub-standard imports from the Asian continent have continued to hurt many companies. He advised that drastci and urgent measures should be taken to curtail this situation before the entire country become a dumping ground for sub standard, finished products from other countries.

    Though the world has become a global village, characterised by a breakdown of trading barriers, he noted there was a need for the Government to protect  the local industry from inferior goods as  small businesses face the challenge of competing with imported products in the domestic market.

    He said the local textile industry has the capacity to compete with their foreign counterparts but were being affected by the smuggling of cheap products into the local market.

    To  this end, he said local companies  were making efforts to improve on production efficiency and quality to be competitive.

     

  • Group challenges Buhari on corruption

    Group challenges Buhari on corruption

    A non-governmental organisation (NGO) with international network and interest in African affairs, Jose Foundation, has urged President-elect, Mohammadu Buhari, to fight corruption. In a statement in London, the foundation also canvassed for the setting up of a shadow government by the opposition, as it is practised in the United Kingdom, to checkmate the incoming government and help fight corruption rather than defecting to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). The statement signed by its President, Prince Martins Abhulimhen, congratulated Gen. Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan for his support for the incoming government. Abhulimhen added that the foundation is at an advanced stage of organising a technical workshop in London targeted at Nigerian politicians, as part of its contributions towards strengthening democracy in Nigeria. According to him, the workshop will educate and enlighten politicians on the need to set up a shadow government to check the activities of the ruling government and proffer solutions when and where necessary. Gen. Buhari recently expressed reservations over politicians defecting to the APC, saying “I hope the people that are defecting will accept the fact that they are joining the people who succeeded. So, I don’t think they will just come and say they want to be ministers next month, simply because they were ministers before.” The foundation, Abhulimhen added, “will contribute its technical know-how to assist Nigerian politicians in setting up the shadow cabinet, to help deepen the culture of democracy, in the context of the evolving political order.” Abhulimhen advised Gen. Buhari “to look beyond party to get honest Nigerians who will serve Nigerians and put the interest of the country beyond selfish interests.” He noted that Nigeria is blessed with many qualified and enlightened men and women that will be useful in the new Nigeria and that the President-elect should look both within and outside the country, with a view of inviting capable hands to move the country forward. The foundation’s president called on well meaning Nigerians to cooperate with the incoming government, so that it can deliver dividends of democracy to the benefit of the people.