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Tag: President Muhammadu Buhari

  • Police recruitment: four centers designated for CBT

    The Enugu State Police Command says it has designated four centres for its Computer Based Test (CBT) for new recruits who passed its medical and physical screenings.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that President Muhammadu Buhari has recently approved the recruitment of 6,000 policemen to beef-up security nationwide test.

    The Command’s spokesman, SP Ebere Amaraizu, said in a statement on Saturday that candidates should go to their area command and State Command Headquarters, Enugu to confirm their names and examination centres.

    Also read : Nightmares in Benue schools

     “The command wishes to inform members of the public, particularly those who participated in the just concluded police recruitment screening exercise and were issued with computer print form, that the examination into the force will be conducted on Friday, May 25.

    “The four designated centres included: AFRIHUB ICT Centre – 2, which is located at Institute of Management and Technology (IMT) Campus 2 (Independent Layout, Enugu).

    “IMT Learning Management Centre 1.

    “IMT Learning Management Institute Centre 2 (Campus 3 Enugu)

    “Foretrust Digital Consulting Ltd; which is located at Plot 63A, Premier Layout, Ogui-Nike, Enugu,’’ he said.

    The spokesman said that examination in all centres would start at 7 a.m. prompt.

  • Buhari participates in Ramadan Tafsir

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday joined the Muslim faithfuls all over the world who thronged neighbourhood mosques for the Ramadan Tafsir – the translation and explanation of the Holy Quran.

    At the Mosque in the Aso Rock Villa, Abuja, the Chief Imam, Abdulwaheed Abubakar opened the exercise with gratitude to Allah for freeing the President of the ailment that kept him away from the country throughout this period last year.

    Read Also:http://staging.thenationonlineng.net/buhari-participates-in-ramadan-tafsir/

    A statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, said that the Imam wished President Buhari full health and the energy he needs to discharge the requirements of his office.

    The Imam thanked Nigerians for their prayers for the President and the nation, urging them to submit to the will of their creator.

    Imam Abdulwaheed also prayed to Allah for peaceful elections in the coming year.

     

  • Eagles to get Buhari’s blessing May 29

    Ahead of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, Super Eagles will meet President Muhammadu Buhari at the Aso Rock Villa in Abuja on May 29.
    May 29, being Democracy Day in Nigeria the Eagles will be using the D-day to get the presidential royal blessing.
    As gathered by NationSport, the three-time African Champions under the tutelge of German Coach Gernot Rohr will fly to Abuja after a scheduled friendly with DR Congo in Port Harcourt on May 28.
    According Rohr, the Super Eagles will open the World Cup final selection training camp on May 22 and the 30-players invited are expected to be in camp.
    “NFF have made provision for seamless logistics for the team all support officials including the assistant technical handlers and we would all be meeting with the Mr. President for his words for the national team,” Rohr said.
    Two days after the Democracy Day Eagles will fly out to London for its high-profile World Cup warm-up against England on June 2 and expected to announce the final 23-man squad for on June 4.
    Rohr further explained that Nigeria will depart for Russia on June 11, five days before their opening Group D match against Croatia.

  • Breaking: Senate passes 2018 budget

    The Senate on Wednesday finally passed the 2018 budget.

    The budget was increased from the earlier proposal of N8.612 trillion presented by President Muhammadu Buhari in December last year to N9.120trn.

    The Senate dissolved into Committee on Supply to do the clause-by-clause consideration of the budget.

    Read Also:National Assembly raises 2018 budget to N9.1tr

    Breakdown of the proposal show are N530,421,368,624 for Statutory Transfer; N2,203,835,365,699 for Debt Service; N3,512,677,902,077 for Recurrent Expenditure, N2,873,400,351,825 for Capital Expenditure, Fiscal Deficit of N1,954,464,993,775 and 1.73 percent Deficit to GDP.

    Earlier, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriations, Dajuma Goje, revealed that increase in the budget by N508 billion was done in consultation with the executive arm of government.

    House of Representatives headed by the Speaker, Yakubu Dogara also passed the budget.

    13-clauses accompanying the bill were also approved and passed.

    The House suspended it’s rules to immediately take the third reading of the bill and set up a conference committee headed by the Chairman House Committee on Banking and Currency, Jones Onyeriere to harmonize with the Senate.

    Before the passage of the appropriation bill. The House went into a closed -door session.

    In a bid to stop the payments of unappropriated subsidies and other payments not approved by the National Assembly, the lawmakers inserted the clause ” The minister of Finance shall ensure that only funds appropriated under this act are released to the appropriate

    Dogara said there was no request for subsidies and that it can only come through supplementary budget and that the House cannot give approval for what was not requested  “we’re not Father Christmas here, ” he said.

    The budget is to run from the date in is assented into law till June 30th, 2019.

  • nPDP members leaving APC won’t reduce Buhari’s votes in 2019 – El-Rufai

    Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai on Tuesday said that the threat by the New Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) members to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC) won’t have any negative impact on President Muhammadu Buhari’s desire to win the Presidential election next year.
    He spoke with State House correspondents after meeting with President Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
    The Governor said “I don’t agree and I want to go back to 2003. What are we talking about? Who are these new PDP people that are threatening? This is Kwara, Kano, Sokoto, Adamawa, Rivers but I don’t think Amaechi is part of them.
    “So let’s take these four states, go back to 2003 and check. Buhari then under ANPP won in all these four states. Go back to 2007, Buhari won  in these four states. Even when Shakarau was running as a presidential candidate in 2011, Buhari defeated him in Kano.
    “And, I have no doubt in my mind that even if the people threatening to leave, leave, it will have absolutely no impact on the presidential elections, the president will win Sokoto, Kwara and Adamawa easily.

    Read Also: Ignore Baraje’s nPDP threat, Kwara APC urges Buhari

    “Kano is already in the bag, I mean if you saw the crowd that welcome the president without the former governor Kwanasho, Kano has always been the president’s base.
    “To me that is not the issue, the issue is that they have written, they have expressed grievances, some of the grievances are legitimate and should be looked into. But to threaten to leave the party is neither here nor there.
    “If they are honest with themselves they know that President Buhari  will win those states with or without them. But if you have a grievance, we are a party and politics is a game of addition not subtraction, so we don’t want to loose anyone.
    “So, I think those the letters were addressed to ought to study it and look into what is reasonably possible to accommodate them because politics as I said is a game of addition.” he said
    Asked why he deployed electronic voting in his state for the APC Ward congresses, he said “I didn’t come about it, it was the chairman of the state independent electoral commission, Dr. Saratu Dikko Audu, who was my chemistry teacher in the university that proposed the idea of electronic voting. Because, she felt that since we used the card reader in the 2015 elections, the next logical step is to connect the card reader to an electronic voting system and we supported it.
    “They went on a study tour to Brazil, India to study their own voting systems and they finally ended up with a manufacturer in China. The same  manufacturer that manufactured the card reader, designed and manufactured the electronic voting machines for us.
    “The independent electoral commission of Kaduna State, brought in 300 of the machines and spent some months going round the state, market places, people’s homes to test the use of the machines to show that ordinary people can use it. It cost us a lot of money, the entire election cost us in the region of N4 billion.
    “But, mind you with the electronic voting now we don’t need ballot paper, so we saved N1.7 billion in ballot papers alone. And, these machines can be used for three or four more elections because they can last for 10 years, all we need is to upgrade the software to add more parties and so on.
    “So, we believe that overall is good value for money and it has worked very well. What we are very happy about is that ordinary people could use it, the interface was friendly, simply and you can finish voting for the chairman and chancellor in less than 15 seconds.” he said
    On what difference it made in terms of credibility, he said that it gave people the confidence that their votes mattered.
    He added “And for many people that didn’t even want to go out to vote in the elections, curiosity of the electronic voting machines brought them out. It made a lot of difference because the electronic voting machine has a record of how many people have voted and once the time for voting closes, it closes and you cannot take it and add more votes.
    “Of course human factors intervened, some people abducted the presiding officers with the machines and engaged in multiple voting. Some people tried to change the results and of course we are still doing manual collection.
    “But the data in the electronic voting machine can still be used to discredit some of those changes during the tribunal process. And in areas where there were gross abuses in some of the wards and local governments, SIKON has decided that they will be by-elections.
    “One of the problems that led to the human factor problems that I mentioned, was because INEC denied us the use of the Card reader. When we were designing the machine, we had the option of integrating the card reader, so that you come with your voters card, put in your voters card biometrically confirmed that it is your card and then the machine will open for you to vote.
    “But we thought that that will be too complicated since people are used to being accredited separately, it is better we take INEC’s card reader for accreditation and then our machine for voting. But a week to the election, INEC said they are not going to give us the card reader. The reasons they gave to me were not acceptable.
    “I called the chairman and I tried to persuade him to make it available to us but we didn’t get the card reader. I am hoping, I have spoken to him again, that for the bye-elections, the two local governments and the other wards, we are going to get the card reader so that the human link that is subject to abuse would be eliminated and hen you cannot change anything.
    “If you change anything the card reader will expose the number of those accredited and that number must tally with the number of people that voted, otherwise the result gets automatically cancelled. So we are working on that.
    “So I have just seen Mr. President, I have briefed him on this and he has expressed his pleasure at the way and manner as a party in Kaduna, we are allowed free and fair elections. The president believes in free, fair and credible elections and he said it doesn’t matter if you loose some local governments, what is important is for the elections to be free and fair.
    “This is an APC government, it is a government of fairness and justice and he was very happy with the way we conducted the elections with Kaduna so far.” he said
    He disagreed with the claims in some quarters that the electoral law does not support electronic.
    He said “I don’t agree with that. There is an amendment to the Electoral Act that President Jonathan signed a few days before he left office which legitimize the use of the card reader and other electronic systems for voting. So, in my view the current Electoral Act has provision for the electoral voting.
    “But, that is not even what we used in Kaduna. In Kaduna, we enacted our own electoral law that made provision for the for electronic voting machine and card reader, everything was totally legitimized and passed by our State House of Assembly and I think every state can do the same. But, I also believe that the current legal framework allows for it.” he said
    He recommend the use of electronic voting to at the Federal, State government levels and everyone.
    “I have already offered to my colleagues state governors that are yet to conduct local government  elections that they can come to Kaduna and we can give them the machines on mutually acceptable terms.
    “All you will need is to change the software, it will have the logo of the state and the number of parties active in the state and the number of parties active in the state and they can use it. It is easy.
    “At federal level I will recommend it as well because with the card reader and the electronic voting machine, the era of rigging elections is almost over and I think that is when people will have confidence in the process and will come out enmass to vote for their leaders.
    “Having said that, I know we have been working on this for about one year before we got to where we are. Although it is possible for INEC to do it, it will be logistically difficult. But nothing stops them from trying if the resources are available. Because, the machines have already been manufactured, the designs are there, you only need to place the orders to the Chinese and I’m sure they will deliver them in no time.
    “But, you need some months to go round and do some advocacy, to show people how to use it. I think it may be possible to use it in the next elections but I am not INEC. INEC has better appreciation of their logistics challenges I can only give my own opinion about what I think. But, it is something that I highly recommend for adoption through out the country.” he stated

  • Inherited debts: FG to settle contractors

    …to clear civil servants’ promotion arrears with N34.2bn

     

    The Minister of Finance, Mrs. Kemi Adeosun, Tuesday disclosed that the Federal Government would settle the inherited debts and contractual obligations to local contractors between 2006 and 2015.

    A statement issued and signed by Oluyinka Akintunde Special Adviser, Media and Communications to the Minister of Finance said Kemi Adeosun made this known while appearing before the Ad-Hoc Committee of the Senate on “Promissory Note Programme and Bond Issuances.”

    According Akintunde, “she explained that the debts owed to various classes of contractors, including the terminal benefits of ex-Nigerian Airways workers, would repaid through promissory notes and bonds issuance.”

    The Minister also stated that the unpaid Federal Government obligations constituted a drag on economic activity across many sectors, adding that the present Administration was determined to address the problem.

    She listed the unpaid obligations to include obligations to pensioners and salary and promotion arrears to civil servants.

    With regards to obligations to contractors and suppliers the minister lamented that they in turn, owe banks, thus increasing the quantum of non-performing loans. The federal government is also burdened by backlogs of unpaid electricity bills by the Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

    Read Also: Govt to refinance debts with $3b, says Adeosun

    Others are: exporters owed funds under the Export Expansion Grant Scheme and unpaid refunds due to State Governments in respect of projects undertaken on behalf of the Federal Government.

    “The Federal Government is working towards settling these inherited debts. The Small and Medium scaled Enterprises are the lifeline of our nation. The Federal Government will be stimulating the economy by paying these legacy debts,” Adeosun told members of the Ad-Hoc Committee.

    The Federal Government, according to her, has approved the issuance of promissory notes and bonds to settle its contractual obligations subject to the approval of the National Assembly.

    On the ex-Nigerian Airways workers, the Minister explained that their terminal benefits have been reconciled and agreed upon at N45 billion following verification.

    She debunked claims by the ex-workers that there was a presidential approval for the payment of terminal benefits of N45 billion to the workers.

    “There has been a misconception in the media that the President had approved the payment of N45 billion terminal benefits to the workers. There is no presidential approval and no appropriation yet for the payment of N45 billion to the ex-workers,” she said.

    Akintunde noted that earlier, the representative of the Accountant General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Usman, told members of the Senate’s Ad-Hoc Committee that the Government has paid N34.2 billion to clear the promotion arrears to workers in the MDAs.

    Usman, who is the Director of Funds in the Office of the Accountant General of the Federation, added that the payment process was still ongoing.

    According to him, “these payments were made to the accounts of the beneficiaries in the MDAs after detailed verification of all documents attached as proof of promotion,” he said.

  • Nigeria’s economy improving, says Buhari 

    …Says future is bright

     

    President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the nation’s economy is steadily improving, as he urged Nigerians to remain optimistic as the future of the country is bright.

    He spoke at a State dinner held Monday, in his honour by the Government of Jigawa State during his two-day working visit to the state.

    In a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, President Buhari called on Nigerians to continue to support his administration’s well thought-out economic policies.

    He said “The future is bright for Nigeria, as the economy has taken a turn for the better, our foreign reserves are almost twice the level we met, boosting investor confidence and stabilising the Naira, and inflation has declined consecutively for more than a year.

    “The Federal government released over N1 trillion for capital projects in 2016 and N1.5 trillion in 2017, figures that are unprecedented in Nigeria’s history,” the President said.

    Read Also:‘Nigeria’s economy is destination of choice’

    President Buhari listed the ‘Shuwarin overpass’ and ‘Dutse-Shuwarin-Kiyawa’ portion of the Kano – Maiduguri expressway as well as the ‘Dutse-Laraba highway extension as part of areas in which Jigawa State has benefited from the federal government’s commitment to infrastructural rejuvenation.

    He commended Governor Mohammed Badaru Abubakar of Jigawa State for emulating his administration’s commitment to infrastructure development despite severely limited resources available to the State.

    The President also lauded the State government for subscribing to the Federal government’s renewable energy master plan by having the largest solar power investment portfolio in the country — the 330 megawatts joint solar power development station situated in Gwiwa Local Government of the State.

    Commending the success of the federal government’s Social Intervention Programme in Jigawa State, the President urged states that are yet to access the over N500 billion budgeted for the scheme due to “its stringent eligibility guidelines” to fully take advantage of the programme.

    He equally lauded Governor Badaru’s efforts as the head of the fertilizer supply and distribution programme which has resulted in “unprecedented availability of fertilizer to farmers at zero level.”

    The President told the governor: “Your Excellency, you have done well. You deserve the support of your people to keep it up.”

  • I will not disappoint Nigerians- Buhari

    President Muhammadu Buhari, on Tuesday said his administration would not disappoint Nigerians, saying everything possible was being done to ameliorate their hardship.

    Buhari stated this during an All Progressives Congress(APC) rally in Dutse as part of activities of his two day working visit to Jigawa.

    He said that he was aware of hardship faced by people as a result of the economic crunch and hike in prices of essential commodities.

    The President said that the Federal Government has stopped the importation of rice to encourage the local
    encourage local production and empower farmers.

    Also read : We are passionate in fighting corruption – Osinbajo

     He thanked the government and people of Jigawa for their warm reception and support to the administration.

    In his remarks, Gov. Muhammad Badaru of Jigawa State reminded the people that President Buhari had been doing his best , adding that the economy of the country was in a mess when he (Buhari) took over.

    Badaru said as part of his contribution, the state government would continue to embark on projects that would impact positively on the lives of the people.

    “Recently, we introduced social security allowances of between  N50,000 to N100,000 in all political wards
    to cater for immediate problems of people before approaching the government for intervention,” he said.

    He said these problems included minor repairs of boreholes and medication, among others.

    The governor said that the present administration would continue to remain focused in line with the policies and
    programmes of the Federal government.

  • Nigeria’s agricultural revolution on course, says Buhari 

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday in Auyo, Jigawa State, said that Nigeria’s agricultural revolution is real and on course.

    He spoke at an event marking the commencement of the rehabilitation and expansion of the 6,000-hectare Hadejia Valley irrigation project in the state.

    President Buhari, according to a statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Garba Shehu, also assured Nigerians that his administration would sustain the positive momentum in the sector by implementing the right policies and providing the needed financial resources for people-oriented projects.

    The President, who is in Jigawa State for a two-day working visit, expressed delight that the Federal Government’s economic diversification and inclusive growth programmes were yielding positive results, particularly in key food-producing states.

    He applauded the World Bank’s assistance to the project, which when completed would increase water availability for all-season farming in the State and beyond.

    Also speaking, the Minister of Water Resources, Alhaji Suleiman Adamu explained that works on the Phase One of the project which started in the early eighties during the administration of President Shehu Shagari and received some funding under the Petroleum Special Trust Fund had suffered frequent abandonment due to lack of funds.

    Adamu said with N9.6 billion allocated under the $495 million World Bank-assisted Transforming Irrigation Management in Nigeria (TRIMING) project in five different irrigation locations in  Nigeria, the project would be completed by 2021.

    ‘‘By the time the project is finished in three years, there would be about 6,000 hectares of farmland and the Jigawa State Government also plans to key into the project that will benefit over 25,000 farmers,’’ the Minister said.

    In Jigawa, the President commissioned the 42-kilometre Tasheguwa-Guri Road and the 32-kilometre Abunabo-Kadira-Guri road constructed by the State government to facilitate easier movement and evacuation of farm produce.

    President Buhari also commissioned the 250,000 solar- powered water supply scheme.

    The project is one out of nine of such projects which will add nine million litres to daily water supply in Dutse and environs.

    Read Also:Buhari seeks reform of UN, AU conventions on repatriation of stolen assets

  • Buhari seeks reform of UN, AU conventions on repatriation of stolen assets

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday called for the reform of Article 51 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and the Article 16(1)(c) of the African Union Convention for Preventing and Combating Corruption for easier repatriation of stolen assets.

    He made the call at the opening of the 8th Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa holding in Abuja.

    Buhari, who was represented by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said that the conventions were in urgent need of reform to remove all conditions militating against the repatriation of stolen assets.

    He said “The effective implementation of these conventions depend to a considerable extent on the willingness, cooperation and the assistance of states in the areas of Mutual Legal Assistance (MLA), law enforcement cooperation, asset recovery and return, and technical assistance.

    “Regrettably, the procedures to obtain Mutual Legal Assistance to seize, confiscate and repatriate proceeds of corruption are often complex and problematic, and in urgent need of reform.” he added

    Fighting corruption, he noted, would be futile if nothing was done to ensure that the proceeds of corruption find no safe haven and that such proceeds are fully recovered and promptly repatriated.

    “Recovering stolen assets not only accomplishes the goal of restitution, it also serves as a potential deterrent to future corruption,” he said.

    He said that the absence of a legal basis for cooperation in some countries, differences in legal and procedural frameworks, language barriers, bank secrecy, jurisdictional issues, a lack of funding –   are some of the obstacles standing in the way of effective mutual legal assistance.

    He said it was the complex web of public-private collusion that resulted in proceeds of corruption ending in foreign countries and especially in their financial institutions and systems.

    President Buhari said Nigeria has been at the forefront of sponsoring resolutions aimed at enhancing Mutual Legal Assistance, MLA, on assets recovery and return.

    Among these was the “Facilitating International Cooperation in Asset Recovery and the Return of Proceeds to Crime” – Resolution 6/2 2015” sponsored by Nigeria and South Africa, which was  passed at the 6th Session of the Conference of States Parties of the United Nations Convention against Corruption held in St. Petersburg, Russian Federation in 2015

    Others were the “Facilitating International Cooperation in Asset Recovery” – Resolution 5/3 2013 at Panama City, Panama in 2013 and the “Strengthening Mutual Legal Assistance for International Cooperation and Asset Recovery”- Resolution 7/1 2017, in Vienna, Austria in 2017; both of which were sponsored exclusively by Nigeria.

    “Nigeria has also worked hard to mobilize other countries, especially African Countries, around the issue of asset recovery; and we were key participants in the London Anti-Corruption Summit of 2016, which marked a milestone for our administration’s anti-corruption agenda,” he added.

    President Buhari said an additional US$320million that was recovered from funds looted by former military dictator, Late General Sani Abacha, was invested in the Conditional Cash Transfer, one of the components of his administration’s flagship programme, Social Investment Programmes.

    He said this was one of the aftermaths of the Global Forum on Asset Recovery (GFAR) which held its inaugural meeting in Washington, DC, in December 2017 and brought together four countries from which resources had been stolen, including Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Tunisia and Ukraine.

    He said that the GFAR saw the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between Nigeria and the government of Switzerland on the return of the Abacha loots, which included a commitment that funds would be invested in the Conditional Cash Transfer scheme “targeted at the poorest and the most vulnerable households in our country.”

    In her speech, the Secretary-General of the Commonwealth, Baroness Patricia Scotland, assured that Nigeria is getting its money back.

    She pointed out that over three billion dollars of ill-gotten gains from Nigeria have been recovered.

    In his welcome address, Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu lauded President Buhari for his commitment in the fight against corruption.

    Others who spoke were former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Onnoghen, Nobel Laurette, Professor Wole Soyinka, two former Heads of State, Yakubu Gowon and Abdulsalami Abubakar.

    Read Also: Reps seeks US’ support in repatriating stolen funds