Former Chief of Staff to Lagos State governor, Samuel Ojo, has donated food items and supplies to orphanages and charity organisations.
Speaking on his motivation, Ojo said: “With the hardship and rising prices of food items affecting low income households, many have had their livelihood disrupted.”
Beneficiaries included SOS Children Village, Isolo, and motherless children homes in Lagos.
The Commissioner for Youth and Social Development, Mr Agboola Dabiri has urged the management staff of the ministry to work in unity to achieve its desired goals in the overall interest of the state government.
Speaking during a retreat organised by the ministry at Pearlworth Hotel, Ikeja, Dabiri said desired goals will remain dreams in mind of management staff of any organisation if harmony does not exist amongst them.
Dabiri said: ‘’When we are alone, we can only do little, but when we are together, we can achieve a lot and even beyond our expected goals and desires.”
The Commissioner urged them to remain dedicated, committed and diligent at their respective duties and responsibilities, as the ministry will not relent in setting and achieving great goals.
The facilitator at the retreat, Adeyinka Adefope advised participants to engage in daily assessment of their activities and results to enable them raise the level of their performance at work.
Adefope appealed to the management staff to be willing to learn new ways of doing things, unlearn obsolete ways and relearn good strategies.
According to him, an illiterate is not one who lacks ability to read and write, rather one who is not willing to learn.
Lagos State government through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation has trained staff at the state level, local government areas and its local council development areas in curbing the spread of human trafficking.
At the One-Day Conference which was held at Agidingbi, Ikeja, Lagos, the Commissioner for Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Dr.Mrs. Lola Akande said it was timely and aimed at finding permanent solution to human trafficking. Her words “Human trafficking is an ugly trend which debases our citizens especially the young people and women, which constitutes a risk to our security at large”, she said.
“Lagos state government under the leadership of His Excellency, Governor Akinwunmi Ambode through the Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation embarked on mass empowerment of women to alleviate poverty, one of the main causes of human trafficking”, she said.
The training according to the Resource person and Representative, Zonal Commander, Lagos Command, National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) Mrs Kehinde Akomolafe is only a start-off for other programmes to be organised at the grassroots in all the local government areas. Beyond this training, Akomolafe said participants are expected to train others in their local areas. “It is a sort of Train-the-Trainers; it will still be replicated in all the local government areas. In NAPTIP, we believe that sensitization is key as a tool for preventing human trafficking. The training will be replicated in all the local government areas”, she concluded.
Staff of the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) under the auspices if the Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies has began a three day warning strike over what they described as refusal of the management of the establishment to effect the promotion of deserving workers since 2011 and implementing policies that are anti workers.
But the management of the establishment said there was no basis for the strike action as the demands by the workers have been largely met, while the remaining potion of their demand require ministerial approval which it is waiting to secure.
Addressing newsmen at the commencement of the action in Abuja, General Secretary of the Union, Comrade Ayo Olorunfemi said the workers had no other choice but to embark on the warning strike after series of notices to the management without sincere response.
He accused the management of refusing to conduct promotion exercise since 2011 for deserving officers, adding that a lot of officers of the agency who retired from service have been because of the stagnation created in the system.
The union also accused government of deliberately denying workers in the agency from rising above certain level, while using allocating positions that should be occupied by career civil servants to political appointees, pointing out that retired workers of the agency have been employed to fill positions that should be occupied by those in service.
They also accused the management of non payment of outstanding housing allowances to staff on grade levels 14 and above, refusal to remit statutory deductions from the salary of staff to the National Health Insurance Scheme and the National Housing Fund thereby denying them access to health care and housing.
He also said that the management of the agency has also not remitted tax deductions from workers salaries to the appropriate agency of government thereby denying them tax clearance.
Reacting to the allegations, Managing Director of the FHA, Prof. Mohammed Al-Amin said the agency has set in motion machinery to ensure that the position of a General Manager is occupied by civil servants and not political appointees.
He explained that the reposition of the agency before his assumption of office removed it from government budget and slated it for privatization, adding that on assumption of office, he advices the government against outright sale of the place.
•ASUU urges Fayose to take action on arrears
Three workers of Ekiti State University (EKSU) died in one week due to hardship occasioned by unpaid salaries, the local branch of the Academic Staff Union Universities (ASUU) has said.
The union claimed that four workers died in the last two months in similar circumstances.
ASUU Chairman Prof. Olufayo Olu-Olu, who addressed reporters at the weekend, urged the government to pay the seven-month arrears owed EKSU workers.
The union leader said ASUU was crying out to refute the claim on the state radio and television by Governor Ayo Fayose that his administration was not owing.
Olu-Olu said: “The situation at EKSU is very pathetic because three of our workers died in the last one week while four of our workers died in the last two months.
“When people start dying like that, we have to take action because things are going out of hand. Our College of Medicine students have been here in the past eight years without graduation because there was no accreditation.”
He regretted that although ASUU wrote to Fayose in August, urging him to take action on the arrears his administration owed EKSU workers, the governor had done nothing to alleviate the suffering of workers.
The ASUU chief said the union had taken the sorry case of EKSU workers to traditional rulers, including the Chancellor and Alara of Aramoko, Oba Adegoke Adeyemi and Founder of Afe Babalola University in Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD), Aare Afe Babalola (SAN).
He added that ASUU also reached out to the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of Council, Mr. Dele Adesina (SAN).
Olu-Olu said the situation was compounded by massive recruitment of workers without corresponding increase in subvention.
According to him, EKSU’s monthly wage bill oscillates between N450 million and N455 million, but the monthly subvention has been reduced by the Fayose administration to N130 million, from N260 million.
He added: “It is undoubtedly expected that a state as ours, which exists to manage poverty, should watch its spending, especially in this period of economic recession, but the situation at EKSU is different.
“Different game players within and outside the ivory tower have been overloading the ‘EKSU ship’ to a point that all have started expressing fear of a ‘shipwreck’ comparable to none ever witnessed before.
“Within the last one year or so, the number of additional workers has almost caught up with total number of employees since inception without any increment in budget allocation to the institution.”
The Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja workers will soon undergo mental health assessment screening/test. According to the Chief Medical Director (CMD), Prof Wale Oke, the step is necessary to enable the hospital pick in time any of its staff from breaking down or slipping into depression, traceable to workload.
Prof Oke made this known at this year’s World Mental Health Day observed by the hospital’s Psychiatry Department. The theme was: Mental health in the work place.
According to Prof Oke, if there is anybody that needs to undergo mental health assessment screening/test in the hospital, it is him because, “the work here at LASUTH is much, and when one needs to take decisions but cannot due to procedural demands in the system, and the answers are not coming, such creates anxiety. One cannot but wonder how one copes in such situation. In addition, I listen to all the complaints”.
He said most times people walk into his office and accuse him of inefficiency, not realising that everything is not under his control but that he needs directive from the parent body of the hospital, “that alone can give one psychosis and neurosis. However, I have developed mechanism to adjust. Anybody that walks into my office and gives me stress, I ensure such leave with measured laughter or hope.”
He said worldwide doctors, nurses and hospital workers account for largest part of the statistics that made up suicide because they are faced with a lot of frustrations and things they cannot control, “so we have resolved that anybody coming into the employment of LASUTH will be subjected to mental health assessment screening/test. That will also extend to gradual and progressive levels. The results will be noted and once the personnel want to cross the border, we can easily pick same.”
Prof Oke told the staff not to panic over the mental health assessment screening/test policy that is about to start, or fear being labeled ‘mad’, “but the policy is to assist us know the level of stress of each worker, and how it has affected your capacity, so as to prevent it from escalating to a level where it becomes so bad that hospitalisation is inevitable,” said Prof Oke.
Evil political seeds are being sown by enemies of Taraba State ahead of the 2019 elections in the state. The youth wing of the Christians Association of Nigeria, CAN, in Taraba State recently uncovered the plot and raised the alarm. The group has established, to the surprise and consternation of all peace-loving people of Taraba, cases of ill-motivated re-deployment of many officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, who are Christians in many Local Government Areas of the state. All the re-deployed staff were replaced by Muslims, according to the group’s findings.
At a well attended news conference addressed in Jalingo, September 22, 2017, Pastor Ephraim Kwanchi, chairman of the CAN youth wing, said the re-deployments were part of a grand plan being masterminded by some religious bigots in and outside Taraba State to manipulate “the on-going processes of producing the updated voters register nationwide by the national electoral body.” The plot, the group said, “is aimed at disenfranchising Christians in Taraba State and possibly inflating the number of prospective Muslim voters through the registration of under-aged persons. The entire plot is aimed at influencing the outcome of future elections in the state in favour of Muslim candidates.
The group quoted statistics on past and recent deployments of INEC electoral officials in the state to support its allegation of bias and injustice against Christians. It said that during the 2015 general elections, “only three out of the 16 electoral officers were Christians. The remaining were Muslims. But following the post election review carried out which saw to the reshuffling of electoral officers nationwide, 12 out of the 16 officers posted to or retained in Taraba State were Christians while the remaining four were Muslims.”
The group observed that the most recent re-deployments of six out of the 12 Christians who have now been replaced with Muslims now brings the number of Muslim electoral officers to 10 leaving six Christian officers. It then asked a pertinent question: “Why is INEC removing six Christian electoral officers now and replacing them with Muslim electoral officers when it did not deem it necessary to do same during the 2015 general election when there were 13 Muslim electoral officers and only three Christian electoral officers?” The group said it found it curious that the six affected electoral officers were deployed only two months after they were posted to the Local Government Areas affected by the recent postings.
The development, according to the group, is worrisome because of the potential threat it poses to peace and security in the state. “It is very clear to us that the motive behind this unacceptable action of INEC is for these Muslim electoral officers to ensure that non-Muslims are denied the opportunity of registration and the permanent voters card. We suspect that this is part of the grand design to manipulate the outcome of major future elections. This is unacceptable to the Christian community in Taraba State.” It condemned these deployments as an attempt by religious bigots to manipulate the voters registration exercise and the entire electoral process and warned those behind it to retrace their steps.
In case INEC leaders in Jalingo and Abuja do not know, the CAN youth wing that addressed the press on this sensitive issue spoke the minds of millions of Christians in the state. They demonstrated a huge amount of courage and patriotism by taking the bold, mature and legitimate steps they have taken to draw the attention of INEC authorities to this highly explosive issue. They deserve commendation for their choice of this very mature approach of channelling their complaints. Some other groups would take to the streets in protest and in the process cause mayhem. It is now left for INEC to heed the advice the group has voluntarily offered on this issue. It must act fast in nullifying the suspicious re-deployments and halt further similar actions that are suggestive of religious bias.
There are two lessons to be learnt from the patriotic action of the CAN youth wing in Taraba on this issue. One is that, Nigeria is a religiously sensitive country. Taraba State is no exception. Any important institutional arrangement such as elections must not exhibit any form of bias against any of the two main religious persuasions – Christianity and Islam. What INEC has done with the clearly ill-motivated re-deployment of INEC officials in Wukari, Kurmi, Karim Lamido, Ussa, Ibi and Jalingo amounts to sowing the seeds of political discord that is destined to lead to bitter and regrettable consequences in future. We all must thank God that these youths chose the mature path of drawing attention to this political landmine in good time.
Election, as members of the group observed in the press statement they read at the press conference, is the major ingredient for the sustenance of democracy. It is also the best means of political recruitment for service to the people. If election is flawed, democracy will be gravely hampered. Therefore, nothing must be done to put the electoral process in jeopardy. The deliberate advantage that the replacement of re-deployed Christian INEC officers by their Muslim counterparts seeks to guarantee Muslim candidates in future elections is a clear attempt to bastardise the electoral process in the state. It amounts to rigging the elections right from the voters registration stages. Tarabans are not as politically naive as those behind this unfortunate rigging plot probably think.
The second lesson is the need to avoid anything that will threaten peace and security which the Governor Ishaku administration has achieved for the state through hard work. There cannot be peace if there is no justice. This obviously biased re-deployment of INEC electoral officers is one clear case of injustice done against the Christian community in the state. It has evoked impassioned sentiments which, if not promptly and properly redressed, could threaten peace and stability in the state.
The issue is now at the door-steps of INEC. What it does with the points raised by these patriotic young Christians will go a long way in determining the peaceful conduct and the legitimacy or otherwise of the election of 2019. It will also determine whether the people will go into the elections in peace or in crisis fuelled by injustice and mutual suspicion. The choice is INEC’s to make. And it must do so quickly by nullifying the controversial re-deployments and resist further attempts to be cajoled into making unfair decisions capable to inducing tension and crisis in the polity.
MTN Nigeria Communications Limited has faulted the judgement of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN), Akure Division, which ordered the company and MTN International, Mauritius, to pay its former Network Group Operations Manager, Mr Paul Odunewu, $13,419,728.54, £10,000 and N2,540,000 (totalling N4, 825,036,735.9) following alleged wrongful termination of employment.
Justice Oyejoju Oyewunmi gave the order on Wednesday, September 27, 2017 following Odunewu’s suit challenging his 2006 termination and the deprivation of his entitlements including share options valued at $13,144,512.00.
In a statement on Saturday responding to the judgment, the telecommunication company said the position of the National industrial Court on the suit filed by its former employee is “detrimental to our interests.”
“The court’s position has been reviewed by our internal and external counsels. Following that review, we have approached a higher court requesting that the decision of the industrial court be set aside.
“We believe that there are critical elements of our case which were not fully considered by the lower court before taking its position. We are confident that the outcome at the superior court will be different and that justice will not only be done but will be seen to be done in this case, “ the company stated,
MTN said it is committed to a policy of openness, integrity, diligence and professionalism in the conduct of business – with customers, shareholders and each other.
“Our Code of Conduct stipulates high labour standards regarding all our employees. In addition we have processes in place to ensure that we act in accordance with international standards and local laws.
“ We therefore maintain that we treat all our employees fairly, as captured in the details of our employment contracts, signed and legally binding. This situation was no different. The most basic commitment we make – to our customers, our shareholders, and each other – is to conduct ourselves in an ethical, honest and respectful manner”.
MTN Group Limited, South Africa; MTN Nigeria and MTN International, Mauritius were first, second and third defendants in the suit which lasted 10 years from the Lagos State High Court to the NICN.
Justice Oyewunmi ordered that the sums be paid by the second and third defendants, “except the issue of costs which is to be paid by all the defendants.
The judge ordered MTN to make the payments within 30 days following which the sums would appreciate at 21 percent interest per annum.
In reaching judgment, the court agreed with the submissions of Odunewu’s counsel, Mr Kemi Balogun (SAN) that MTN unfairly imposed a restraint of trade on Odunewu, thus preventing him from working for a period.
The judge upheld Mr Balogun’s submission that the evidence showed that Odunewu neither committed any serious, persistent breach of the provisions of the agreement or the company’s code, nor was ever summoned to a disciplinary committee or found guilty of any misconduct or non-performance.
Justice Oyewunmi observed, among others, that the defendants failed to controvert the testimony of a former MTN Chief Executive Officer, Mr Adrian Wood, regarding the offers made to Odunewu which persuaded him to quit his job in The United Kingdom and join MTN. Odunewu, a UK-based chartered engineer, was employed by MTN Nigeria in 2001.
He said MTN pleaded with him to return home from the UK and help the company to develop its telecommunications in Nigeria. He averred that he was promised, among others, a Share Option, a long-term incentive scheme being developed by MTN. Odunewu said when he complained that the Share Option was not contained in his offer letter, MTN persuaded him to accept the job, adding that he would be entitled to the shares after three years.
Odunewu said he worked at MTN for over four years, and was responsible for the network’s outstanding achievements, which continues till date. The former manager said he was responsible for the company’s pre-paid and post-paid revenue, subscription, voucher management and real-time charging. Odunewu commenced the suit against the defendants in 2007 before the High Court of Lagos State, but in 2012, it was transferred to and began afresh at NICN which had exclusive jurisdiction. Trial commenced on January 29, 2014.
On September 1, students, staff and the entire Abia State Polytechnic community, clad in their traditional outfits, took advantage of the public holiday declared by the federal government to gather on the grounds of the polytechnic to mark the 2017 edition of the institution’s culture day.
The event lasted about five hours, with spectators glued to their seats as they were entertained with various dance steps. Students from different ethnic groups paraded their cultural troupes and masquerades to the admiration of the crowd. A representative of the Minister of Information and Culture and members of the institution’s management team were in the audience.
The event owed a lot to the initiative of a former rector of the institution Elder Allwell Abalaogu Onukaogu, who is determined to fight the decline of the Igbo culture and language.
The President of Abia Poly Student Union Government (SUG), Comrade Igwe Samuel described Nigeria’s cultural heritage as important and must be protected by all, stressing that the day presented the students the message that they need to have spirit of unity, love and tolerance among themselves in order to live and work together to make Nigeria a better place to live.
Samuel, who admitted that Nigeria’s culture was gradually fading away, noted that it was important that as students, they needed to combine education with culture to support the efforts of government and other stakeholders in ensuring that the cultural heritages and values of the people won’t fade away going by the way the youths were embracing foreign cultures.
He said, “As we celebrate our culture today, it reminds us of ourselves and takes us away from the western lifestyle we have come to embrace; neo-colonialism and want from things outside the shores of Nigeria had gone deep in us…Let us ensure that we promote unity amongst students and fight to preserve Nigeria’s culture against the rampaging Western culture. We must also encourage our children to speak our various mother tongues fluently.
“You might not know the value of something until it is taken away from you. It might interest you to know that a lot of Westerners come over to (Nigeria) celebrate our culture. Nigeria’s culture is worth celebrating, but it is unfortunate that, we Nigerians don’t celebrate our own culture,” lamented Samuel.
The minister of information and culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed while addressing the audience, urged students and parents to embrace their respective indigenous languages and cultures.
Mohammed who was represented at the event by Mr. Uche Idika Kalu, the curator of National Museum of Colonial History, Aba lamented the way people were abandoning their cultural heritage.
The information minister who also expressed worries over the way people were running against their customs and traditions said that events like the cultural day celebration reminds people of the importance and the need to promote the people’s cultures and traditions.
Describing Igbos as people who are highly industrious and hospitable, the information minister used the opportunity to condemn the rate of quest for materialism especially among the youths.
He, however, called for patience and hard work, stressing that anyone who tries to be faster than his creator in life or tried to acquire wealth through ill-gotten means will end up in regret.
The rector of the Polytechnic, Prof. Friday Ezionye Eboh described the event as important and one that rekindles in the mind of the students and adults as well the spirit of promoting their cultures and traditions regardless of any environment that they found themselves.
Eboh who was optimistic that the Igbo culture will not die in the near future stated that the school decided to mark the annual cultural festival to help promote different Nigerian cultural heritages and traditions of various Nigerian ethnic groups.
He urged parents to join hands with the school and other stakeholders in the campaign to ensure that customs and traditions of various ethnicities in the country continue to exist despite the challenges posed by westernization to our cultural values and heritages.