The Nation Newspaper

Tag: minister

  • Kinsmen back minister

    Kinsmen of the Minister of State for Education, Prof. Anthony Anwukah, in Egbuoma community in Oguta Local Government Area of Imo State have urged him to display the high moral values for which the community is known in the discharge of his duty.

    In a communiqué issued by the Egbuoma Stakeholders’ Forum and jointly signed by the Chairman, Sir Simon Muomah, Secretary, Nkeonye Okeke and the Publicity Secretary, Comrade Uche Chukwudi respectively, the community assured that the minister is one of the thorough bred politicians from the state who will fit in properly in President Muhammadu Buhari’s change agenda.

    According to the communiqué, the community has suffered indescribable marginalisation in the past, despite being an oil-producing community and as a result will give all necessary support and prayers for the minister to succeed as a mark of appreciation to President Buhari and Governor Rochas Okorocha for nominating one of their sons as a minister.

    The communiqué stressed further: “In line with the norms and values of our community, we will continue to support our son as he assumes duty as the Minister of State for Education and we also thank President Buhari and Governor Okorocha for remembering our community.

    “We are not in doubt that Anwuka will deliver on his mandate. We are assuring Mr President that his entire community is behind him and that his antecedents conform strongly to the change agenda.

    “We are equally seizing this opportunity to appeal to President Buhari through the minister to address some of the challenges confronting the zone, which include lack of basic infrastructure, environmental degradation and unemployment, among others.”

     

  • FCT Minister to prioritise mass rail

    Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Mallam Muhammad Bello has promised to prioritise the Abuja Rail Mass Transit projects of the administration. Bello assured that he would do everything possible to fast-track the completion of the project, considering the relief it would bring to commuters in and around Abuja.

    Deputy Director/Chief Press Secretary FCT Muhammad Sule made it known in a press statement and said that the minister stated this when he visited the project sites at the Airport, Wupa, Idu and Ring Road II Stations, which forms part of his familiarization tour of projects and facilities in the FCT. He also added, “He remarked that the FCT Administration would support any project that would have positive impact on the lives of the common man especially as this would go a long way in reducing traffic congestion in Abuja.

    “The Minister expressed satisfaction with the quality of the job done so far, but however charged the contractors (CCECC Nigeria Limited) to redouble their efforts in delivering the job on schedule. “Malam Bello reiterated that everything must be done to ease movement, particularly public transportation in the city to make it at par with other modern cities around the world.

    “His words: “This is a very important project for the residents of the Federal Capital Territory and everything would be done to see to its early completion because of its utmost benefit”.

    “The Managing Director of CCECC Nigeria Limited, Mr. Li Quigyong who led the Minister and his entourage round the sites remarked that his company takes the project with seriousness and would do all it takes to complete it.”

  • Our expectations from Labour Minister, by NLC, TUC

    Our expectations from Labour Minister, by NLC, TUC

    Labour – the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and the Trade Union Congress (TUC) – has outlined workers’ expectations from the Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige.

    NLC President Comrade Ayuba Wabba said the appointment of  Ngige and the Minister of State, James Ocholi, came at a time Nigeria is weighed down by challenges. He said the ministers have the task of ensuring industrial peace and harmony.

    He said the ministry was unique in that it handles industrial relations matters, adding that the ministers must address casualisation.

    He said the ministers must tackle the “prevalent cases of casualisation and outsourcing of workers, which a number of employers have resorted to as a way of cutting costs and maximising profits that cut across both public and private sectors.”

    Wabba said there was the need for the ministers to sufficiently equip the ministry’s Factory Inspectorate Division to function optimally.

    “The Ministry is a specialised one because it deals with issues of industrial relations, labour treaties and convention and it’s a tripartite platform. Therefore, the ministers need to understand the workings of the ministry,” he said.

    “People think the ministry of labour exists just to manage strikes, but it goes beyond that. It is about managing people. The greatest asset that we have is the human resources, therefore, it is the most viable asset outside capital. In fact, labour is more important than capital because you can’t have the capital if you don’t have the mix of expertise and human resources,” he said.

    Wabba also said the ministers must address unemployment,  arguing that casualisation and outsourcing of workers are burning issues, which must not be left unresolved by the administration. He said employers resorted to casualisation and outsourcing because they don’t want to pay terminal benefits and decent wages to their workers.

    On the challenges before the new ministers, TUC Secretary-General Comrade Mohammed Lawal said the appointment of the ministers was a welcome development. He said Ngige, who was once a governor and civil servant, would bring his experience to bear on the labour sector, especially now that the sector is engulfed in minimum wage crisis.

    He said the ministers would have to stabilise the relationship between labour and the Federal Government. Another challenge before Ngige, he said, is how to resolve the crisis arising from the planned reversal of the minimum wage by some state governments.

    According to him, the new minister will also need to use the labour sector to promote the change mantra being championed by President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

    He said TUC was ready to partner with the new ministers to resolve labour issues and promote economic growth.

    However, the Deputy President, National Union of Electricity Employees (NUEE), Comrade Ntukubes Mbang, said Ngige was a square peg in a round hole. He argued that as a medical doctor, he lacked the finesse and skills to resolve or manage industrial crisis.

    He, however, said the new minister would be challenged on how to tackle the hydra-headed problem of casualisation and outsourcing in the  sector.

  • Minister queries IGP’s absence from function

    Minister queries IGP’s absence from function

    Minister of Interior Gen. Abduraman Dambazau (rtd) yesterday expressed displeasure over the continued absence of Inspector General of Police (IGP) Solomon Arase since he resumed duty at the ministry.

    President Muhammadu Buhari had merged the Police with the ministry to cut cost.

    But since the new minister resumed office, the police boss has not shown up at the ministry’s public functions.

    Dambazau, who was shocked again at Arase’s absence when the Nigerian Legion visited him, asked when he entered his conference room for the beginning of the event: “Where is the police and Civil Defence? I have not seen police.”

    The minister, however, said the members of the legion were so lucky “because police will pay three times the amount of money I will pay”.

    Sources at the ministry, who have observed the trend, expressed concern over what they described as “total disregard for the minister by the police hierarchy”.

    One of them said: “We have also observed the IGP’s continued absence at the minister’s functions. When others heads of agencies will come, the IG has been sending representative since the minister resumed.”

    The National Chairman of the Nigerian Legion, Col. Micah Gaya, who visited the minister, said the legion has a duty to support widows and children of the fallen heroes.

    He added that the legion was also supporting its members, who were in the Internally Displaced People’s (IDPs) camps in the Northeast.

    Dambazau, who was decorated by the legion’s chairman, said the ministry would do everything to support the legion

    He said: “We have a lot to do for our fallen heroes. They paid the supreme price and almost all of them left behind somebody. So, imagine if you were in their shoes.

    “I think there is nothing too big or too small to give to them in appreciation.”

  • Minister warns broadcast media owners against ‘agents of disunity’

    Minister warns broadcast media owners against ‘agents of disunity’

    Minister of Information and Culture Alhaji Lai Mohammed has appealed to private broadcast media owners not to surrender their platforms to agents of disunity.

    He spoke in Abuja yesterday when the Northern Broadcast Media Owners Association (NBMOA) visited him in his office.

    Mohammed reminded the private broadcast media owners of their influence because of their wide reach.

    He said: “They (private broadcast media owners) must realise that to be able to practice their profession at all, they must first have a peaceful and united country.

    “It is important for the private broadcast media owners to avoid the temptation to use their platforms to promote ethnic or religious agenda that are inimical to the emergence of a strong, peaceful, united and developed nation.”

    The minister said radio and television constituted very powerful platforms, because they were instant, emotive and sources of news and information for a large number of people.

    “That also increases their ability to help shape opinions one way or another. This is why owners of such powerful platforms must exercise a high level of responsibility, be patriotic and also ensure that they put the national interest above sectional or sectarian considerations.

    “Lest we be misunderstood, we are not asking you to shut out those whose opinions may not agree with yours. We are saying you must show great restraint in turning your platforms over to those whose opinions serve to divide us as a people,” he said.

    To buttress his point, Mohammed mentioned the role played in the 1994 Rwandan genocide by the Radio-Television Libre des Mille Collines (RTLMC).

    “RTLMC, which began broadcasting In June 1993, helped to prepare the ground for genocide in Rwanda by demonising the Tutsi and encouraging hate and violence. In the end, over 800,000 people died in that genocide,” he said.

    The minister said for too long, Nigerians have taken the country’s unity for granted, adding: “We have failed to make a conscious effort to continue to play up those things that unite us, while playing down the ones that divide us.

    “We have failed to take a cue from countries like Canada, which would have lost the province of Quebec, but for its consistent and conscious effort to work on the country’s unity.”

    He sought the support of the NBMOA for the nationwide campaign, to be launched soon by the ministry, ‘’to change the way we, as Nigerians, do things’’, as well as support the war on terrorism.

    Mohammed added that the campaign would also enable the citizens to know that “it is not just a war for the military, but also a war for all Nigerians. Hence, they must give the military all the necessary support”.

    On the issues raised by the Chairman, Executive Council of NBMOA, Dr. Ahmed Tijjani Ramalan, the minister assured the association that he would consider their requests impartially, especially the need for a level-playing field for broadcast media owners.

     

    Ramalan congratulated Mohammed on his appointment as a minister and expressed the commitment of the association “to positively respond to government policies that will be aimed at rebuilding and preserving the sanctity, integrity and unity of the Nigerian state.”

    He said the NBMOA consists of 15 licensed private broadcast operators with a combined platform of 22 radio and television stations, employs more than 5,000 workers and has an audience base in excess of 50 million.

     

  • Minister urges youths to help Buhari

    Minister urges youths to help Buhari

    •Dalung: student unionism now for sale

    Minister of Sports Mr. Solomon Dalung yesterday urged youths to assist in achieving the aims of President Muhammadu Buhari’s change agenda.

    He said youths have become more committed to materialism than service to their fatherland, expressing regrets that student unionism was now for sale.

    Dalung spoke in Abuja at the opening of the National Conference on Youth Against Corruption, which was organised by the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

    He said: “We (the youths) have offered ourselves as cheap tools; we are no more the conscience of the nation. In the past, we led popular and genuine protests against anti-people policies.

    “Today, we are no longer playing that role; we prefer to be used by some people. We are more committed to materialism instead of a common cause.

    “If the youths have surrendered their leadership to the manipulation of a particular set of people, can we say what they are doing is in the interest of Nigerian youths?

    “Now that we have elected a government of change, now that we have achieved change, what is left for the Nigerian youths is to declare war against their conscience.

    “Do not be determined to amass wealth, to become rich men and don’t go after materialism. A society with a collapsed moral system cannot develop. We must agree to build a nation of our own pride to guarantee the future for our children.”

    The minister queried why some student leaders have to be using vehicles worth N10 million.

    “We now see some student leaders in a convoy of five vehicles more than a minister. We have corrupted our conscience; we have magic oriented minds.

    “Today, students hold their conferences at Eagle Square in Abuja; not on campuses. Something is wrong with us.”

    On his part, the ICPC chairman, Mr. Ekpo Nta, said the agency has “successfully closed down three degree-awarding mills in the country” as part of the sanitisation of the nation’s university system.

    He, however, promised that ICPC will do its best to re-orientate the youth.

    “We will listen more to the youths, learn from them and retool our responses to anti-corruption fight,” he said.

     

  • Minister woos media

    Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Alhaji Mohammed Bello has urged the media to support him in the discharge his new duties.

    He spoke at a meeting with the FCT Press Corps, noting the redemptive mission of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.

    He said, “This administration has come on board based on the yearnings of Nigerians for specific changes in our polity, in our society and how we operate as people, so we will need to change out attitude, behaviour and the way we do things.

    “The essence of the entire process is for good governance but good governance in itself has to have an objective which is for the people to be better off and have a good life.

    “I wanted to meet with you, for those people that I have met in the past, to thank you and for those that I am just meeting for the first time, to appeal for your support and cooperation, I am sure that you know of the enormous responsibility bestowed on me and I need your support. You are the eyes, ears and vanguard, a lot of things that you are privy to know will be based on your own maturity, professional judgment, goodwill and integrity to determine what needs to be deciminated, I leave it up to you, you know your training and what you are suppose to do. I assure you that we are going to work very closely together as friends and family.”

    Bello at the occasion, announced the appointment of Sani Abubakar, Chairman of the FCT Press Corps as his Special Adviser on Media.

     

  • Memories of FCT Minister Bello as Corper

    SIR: Understandably, one of the goals of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) is to make Nigerian youths, leaders of tomorrow – to know more of their country, its cultures, its people and its diversities.

    For this reason, the Nigerian youths upon graduation are sent out to serve their fatherland for one year outside their states of origin. So it was when skinny, slightly built Muhammadu Musa Bello graduated from Ahmadu Bello University in 1977, the NYSC authorities found he was from Adamawa State and chose to post him to Lagos State.

    The Lagos NYSC handlers, when Walter Oyatogun ‘Wakie –Wakie’ was their spokesman, also decided to post Bello to Holy Saviour’s College, Isolo. That was when corps members T. Ayuba, M.M Bello and O. Amupitan became flat mates in Isolo -three young Nigerian graduates from Plateau, Adamawa and Kwara states were brought to Lagos to face a little southernisation, designed to weld Nigeria into a better whole.

    Did I hear somebody say the morning shows the day? This axiom is very true of Muhammadu Musa Bello. It was in the era when if you were a Nigerian varsity graduate, you would have been trained to be as good as anyone else from any other university across the globe.

    There were only five universities graduating students in Nigeria as at that date. They admitted the best leaving the rest to seek admission abroad. That was the era that produced Musa, as we simply called him then, and he was very good and diligent. He taught two streams of Form Five with 50 students each, and many students again in Form Three.

    Believe me, it was a herculean task, because in truth, those pupils had neither seen much of good tutoring nor imbibed the culture of determined self-scholarship. The long free time from Friday to Monday, when yours truly would have been whisked away to Palmgrove to rock whatever Owambe that Lagos could offer, Musa would stay back in that backwater environment forming lesson notes and marking some 200 scripts, as if he was a true staff, not a mere corps member.

    In those roaring years of the 70’s, when Nigeria’s problem reputedly was not money but how to spend it because of its abundance, when not many people placed much premium on matters of faith, Musa was different. He would get us to lower our booming stereophonic system and chatters that he could knock his forehead repeatedly to the ground on five separate occasions per day.

    Much later on, when I learnt Musa had become chairman, National Hajj Commission, I heaved a sigh of relief that people were beginning to put right pegs in right holes. Now again after many meritorious years’ service to the Muslim ummah, Musa has mounted to this place of greatness as Minister of the Federal Republic, in a government of progressive tendency. Now it is clear; those big big books on socialism that Musa was always pumping down his gumption were not in vain after all. He has finally helped the berth of a government that plans to put premium on the needs of the Nigerian people as a whole, not on only a few thereof, that Musa has been propounding since his youth, even as a Lagos corper. Congratulations Honourable Minister, FCT

     

    • Ola Amupitan,

    Lagos. 

  • ‘Support minister-designate Daramola’

    The A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Northern District of Ondo State, Mr. Boye Ologbese has called on the leadership of the party to support the minister-designate from Ondo State, Prof. Claudius Daramola.

    This, he said, is to facilitate unity among supporters of the party to pave way for the victory of the party in next year’s governorship election. Mr. Ologbese gave the advice while speaking with reporters in Akure, the state capital.

    According to him, the new position that Prof. Daramola has assume from today that President Muhammadu Buhari has inaugurated his cabinet has given him the rare opportunity of being one of the APC leaders.

    He noted that, with the latest development, there was a need for every member of the party to see him as a rallying point.

    Ologbese, who is a Special Assistant (SA) to the lawmaker representing Akoko Southwest/Southeast Federal Constituency stressed that the integrity of the ministerial nominee is unquestionable.

  • CCT trial: Orubebe alleges witch-hunt , denies taking bribe

    CCT trial: Orubebe alleges witch-hunt , denies taking bribe

    With a strong message for President Mohamadu Buhari to halt alleged witch-hunting by some government agencies, former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Elder Godsday Peter Orubebe has dismissed allegations of false declaration of assets and acceptance of a N70 million bribe.
    The former Minister is to appear before the Code of Conduct Tribunal on November 9 on a four-count charge of receiving N70 million bribe from a contractor and failure to declare his ownership of two plots of land in Abuja.
    Speaking with reporters in Abuja on Sunday afternoon, Orubebe who said that he personally collected the tribunal’s summons last Friday asserted that he had been wrongly blamed for the disappearance of N600 million that vanished during his successor’s tenure while some government departments have been inviting him for questioning unnecessarily.
    “This simply tells me it is an issue of witch-hunt and it is not good for the development of this country,” he stated while urging President Mohammadu Buhari to stop government agencies’ undue harassment of perceived foes.
    “If these things are coming out because of the role that I played at the International Conference Centre as an agent of the PDP, then it is unfortunate.
    “The role I played that day, I played it diligently to the best of my ability as an agent representing my party and since that day, we have allowed sleeping dogs to lie quietly.
    “God has given victory to Buhari, what we expected of him is to use his good office to carry everybody along, to move Nigeria forward.
    “It would be sad to use that office that is meant to serve Nigerians, to try to intimidate people with government departments; before now, I had been called to appear before government institutions over things that I know nothing about,” he said.
    Addressing the specific allegations for not declaring his ownership of two plots of land, Orubebe who noted that he was only one of a few who ever served Nigeria as Ministers for more than six years stated that government gave him two plots of land which he disposed to take care of his needs as Minister, adding that he cannot declare continued ownership of a gift that he had disposed of.
    “Normally, government gives land to ministers, governors and others; the government that I served gave me these plots of land – one in the outskirts of Asokoro and one in Kyami near Abuja.
    “ I make bold to tell you that I never saw the land at any point in time; these were not land that I bought with my money, they were given to me by the government and all ministers were given land as had always been the practice.
    “They allege that I left government temporarily and didn’t declare the land but the salary of a minister cannot meet up with the needs of a minister in Abuja. So, when you have opportunities like having such land, you do something with it to meet up your needs.
    “If you give me a piece of land that ended up not being my own, I do not see any reason why I should still come and declare that I still have such land.
    “ I committed no offence there; I did not buy the land, it was government that gave me the land and I used them the way I needed to use them, they were no longer mine,” he stated.
    Responding to questions on the N70 million bribe allegation, the former minister said that there is unnecessary confusion over the sum and his alleged role.
    According to Orubebe, he asked President Goodluck Jonathan, the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Bureau of Public Enterprises to revoke about seven shoddily-handled contracts for the construction of Skill Acquisition Centers, only for a Pastor who owned one of such contracts to pay N20 million into the accounts of Glory Christian Sanctuary, an evangelism center built by the ex-minister in his village.
    “ I am the founder of Glory Christian Centre for evangelism in my village and while going through their records, I saw that there was N20 million deposit in the account of the centre; I asked them who brought the money and they said it was my private secretary, Akpokome, a civil servant.
    “I asked and he told me that it was the pastor that gave him the money; I was so furious and I told him that the same way he collected the money, he should return the money to the man; I told the officers managing the centre to return the money to the account from which the money was sent (into ours) and they returned it.
    “I then asked the Permanent Secretary to constitute a committee to investigate the matter – all these happened in 2012- and involved the EFCC.
    “It was in the course of the investigation that we realized that the man gave them N50 million and it was out of that N50 million that they sent N20 million to the sanctuary account and shared out the remaining.
    “The investigative committee made recommendations and disciplinary actions were taken against him (Akpokome) and all the papers, including account details, were forwarded to the EFCC.
    “I never saw any money, he never discussed with me; he (pastor) paid through them and I blew the whistle; a disciplinary committee was set up, disciplinary actions were taken.
    “I could not have taken money from someone whose contract I had cancelled, raised an alarm and then do what he alleged. There is a formal letter, including findings from the ministry of Niger Delta to EFCC dated 26th June, 2013,” he said.
    Alleging that there is a clear systematic effort to smear his name, Orubebe said that he has never been corrupt, adding that he even deserves some special recognition for his contribution to Nigeria’s economic well-being.
    “I found these charges very empty and frivolous; I served this country as a minister for over six years which is a feat on record, that so many people have not gotten from 1960 till date.
    “This was the minister, when Nigeria was going down economically in 2009, risked his life to go to the creeks, to sleep in the camps, eat with militant leaders and brought them together. I worked with so many other people and we had the Amnesty Programme that has economically sustained this country to date.
    “To get this of treatment from the Nigerian system is unfair; it is not good enough, it is not good for the future of Nigeria
    “I want to say categorically that I, Elder Godsday Orubebe was, is and will never be corrupt; as a minister, I never took any bribe from anybody throughout more than six years when I was a minister of the federal government of Nigeria.
    “I dare any Nigerian to tell the people of this country if they ever gave me bribe,” he stated.