By Vivian Emoni

Xploit Consulting Ltd in collaboration with Access Bank Plc, says it has donated 20 hand washing facilities to schools in Kano State to help stop the spread of COVID-19.

The organisations Communication Officer, Mrs Grace Taiwo, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria in Abuja on Tuesday.

Taiwo said that the two organisations also trained 110 youths on computer and handset repair, bead and soap making.

She said that the trainees were drawn from Kumbotso and Kano Municipal Local Government Areas of the state.

She said that the 20 hand washing facilities were donated to 10 schools in the two local government areas to support efforts in curbing the spread of COVID-19 in the state.

According to her, Xploit Consulting Ltd and Access bank are committed in ensuring that the spread of COVID-19 is prevented in the country.

The organisations have donated hand washing facilities in various states and are ready to do more.

The organisations are not only fighting the pandemic but also ensuring that young people are engaged in vocational skills acquisition.

All these efforts are to support the government in reducing poverty and unemployment as well as promoting development in the country, she said.

Taiwo advised the beneficiaries to use the facilities judiciously.

According to her, those trained should ensure that they also train other youths and utilise what they learned to enhance their livelihood. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Gabriel Agbeja

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), on Monday in Abuja, advised farmers in the North-Central zone against hasty planting to avoid losses due to the false onset of rains recorded.

Its Director-General, Prof. Mansur Matazu, in a statement by Mr Muntari Ibrahim, General Manager, Public Relations, listed Nassarawa, Niger, Benue, Abuja and neighbouring states like Kaduna, to adhere strictly to the advice.

According to him, the recent rainfall activities recorded over the central states, as well as Kaduna in the North-West between March 12 and March 20, is a false onset as captured accurately in the 2021 Seasonal Climate Prediction (SCP).

The recorded rainfall is as a result of the forcing functions namely: Mid-latitude wave and the Madden Julian Oscillation (MJO) that led to the Northward pull of the inter-tropical discontinuity (ITD) and increased moisture into the country.

The above, coupled with the abundant energy in the atmosphere, resulted in the recent rainfall events in and around Kaduna, Nassarawa, Niger, Benue and the Federal Capital Territory.

Onset of the rains in the South-South of the country has been established as predicted in the 2021 SCP, that is, March 1 to March 20, 2021, he said.

According to him, the forecast for the South-West and South-Eastern part of the country are gradually being established in line with the predicted date of March 13 to April 25.

The agency, however, recommended other preparatory planting activities such as clearing, purchase of inputs by farmers to commence as scheduled.

However, the earlier predicted onset of rains for the rest of the country remains valid, with the central states witnessing the rains in late April to Mid-May, while the Northern states would experience theirs in late May to June ending.

In line with its statutory mandate, NiMet will continue to issue update as the need arises, he said. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Emmanuel Oloniruha

A female aspirant, Sen. Uche Ekwunife (PDP- Anambra) has joined the race for the Nov. 6 Anambra governorship election under the platform of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Ekwunife, speaking with journalists after submitting her nomination form at the partys national secretariat in Abuja, said she was convinced of beating other aspirants.

She, however, pledged not to leave PDP even if she failed to secure the partys ticket.

I am a sitting senator of PDP and my tenure will be coming to an end in 2023.

If I dont get the partys ticket, am not defecting to anywhere but am very optimistic and also believe that I will get the ticket to run for the governorship, she said.

Ekwunife pledged to reform the security architecture in the state, if given the mandate.

If elected governor, I will reform the security architecture. I will partner with security agencies to make sure they are equipped with sophisticated weapons, she said.

Ekwunife ruled out the idea of a consensus candidate among PDP aspirants, saying it was too late.

I dont see how a consensus arrangement will play out now, considering the galaxy of men and a woman in the race. I am running to win, so I dont see how consensus arrangement will work, she said.

The senator pledged to continue to empower women if elected as governor.

I ran for the House of Representatives in 2007 under a very stiff competition and by the special grace of God, I won to represent the good people of Anambra central.

I was not a governor and you know that in that position, there is a limit to what you can do in terms of may be giving a woman a ticket.

But I worked with a lot of women and empowered a lot of them. I was the first that took women to Dubai to establish businesses for them but I cant give a woman ticket to go and run an election.

I encouraged a lot of women and in fact, a lot of women are under my watch and they have tried their bests to get into elective positions, she said. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Kamal Tayo Oropo

African Ministers of Finance, Planning and Economic Eevelopment on Tuesday decried slowness in accessing COVID-19 vaccines and funding for vaccine equity.

The ministers expressed their disappointment in a communique issued at the end of the 53session of Conference of Ministers organised by the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA).

The hybrid event, under the theme: Africas sustainable industrialization and diversification in the digital era in the context of Covid-19, ended on Tuesday.

It was hosted by Ethiopia and monitored in Lagos via a webinar by the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday.

Participants said without rapid access to vaccines, the tidal wave of coronavirus will overwhelm Africas fragile health systems, decimate limited human resources and set back its recovery.

They noted that by March 18, the continent had crossed the grim milestone of 4.1 million coronavirus infections, with a case fatality ratio in excess of the global average.

The ministers expressed deep concern over the impact of the pandemic on the health of African citizens, economies, as well as on the continents prospects of achieving the African Union 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Agenda 2063.

According to the ministers, the impact of the pandemic on Africas economies has been devastating.

For the first time in a quarter century, Africas economies are in recession, as real GDP growth contracted by 2.4 per cent in 2020.

They noted that 30 million people lost their jobs and slipped into poverty, as revenues plummeted while expenditures soared in response to the pressing needs of the crisis and the exigencies of climate change.

African countries are now allocating significant proportions of their budgets to implement policies that respond to the impact of extreme weather events, including droughts, floods, crop failures, and infrastructure destruction.

In some cases, up to 10 per cent of GDP has already been diverted towards climate-change adaptation. Our fiscal buffers are now truly depleted.

These developments have undermined the economic outlook of several African countries, triggering credit rating downgrades in at least 12 African countries.

Six African countries, including Sao Tome and Principe, the only African country set to graduate from Least Developing Country (LDC) status, are now in debt distress.

For those African countries that have been successful in regaining access to capital markets, the yield spreads on their sovereign bonds are excessive, ranging from 890 to 1,710 basis points for South Africa and Uganda, respectively.

These premium rates will increase debt burdens and threaten the future debt sustainability of our nascent economies, the communique read in part.

Earlier, the Executive secretary of the ECA, Vera Songwe, stressed on the need for a swift, bold and positive response on Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).

She also pointed out that SDR, in the range of 500 billion to 650 billion, is now needed to arrest the devastating impact of Coronavirus on the continent.

According to her, most of the advanced countries who benefit more from SDR because of the quota system, do not need the money in the immediate.

She said most of these countries had already given themselves stimulus, but African countries need the SDR to purchase all the vaccines they need.

It is important that the SDR goes to everybody in an equitable manner. Many countries have not been supporting as much as they should be doing, she said.

Similarly, the ministers pointed out that based on Africas current IMF quota share, a new issuance would provide a maximum of SDR 33.3 billion in additional resources to Africa if 650 billion of new SDRs were issued.

They said this would barely be adequate to meet the continents financing needs.

To supplement these resources, the ministers requested the G7 to support an on-lending mechanism that channels, on a mutually agreed basis, SDRs to low-income and middle-income countries.

The IMFs Poverty Reduction and Growth Trust (PRGT) should be considered for this purpose.

Funding the PRGT with SDRs will facilitate additional financing for urgent country priorities in light of this crisis, including the acquisition of vaccines by low-income countries.

The SDRs can also be used to acquire vaccines and increase market re-entry access for eligible countries.

We are conscious of the fact that new issuances of SDRs are infrequent and often contested events.

To this end, we believe that, it is imperative that we seize the moment by leveraging these resources to power catalytic investments in Africas recovery.

The SDRs must be transformative for Africa and help the continent to access the trillions of dollars needed for a green recovery. This is within reach.

Market-based instruments, such as the proposed Liquidity and Sustainability Facility(LSF), combined with intruments like the Policy- Based Guarantee of the World Bank Group can play an important role in this respect.

This they can do by catalysing investments, creating jobs and supporting African countries in building forward better, they said. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Chiazo Ogbolu

The Nigerian Customs Service (NCS) handed over a case file of a vessel carrying cocaine into Nigeria to the NDLEA on Tuesday in Lagos..

Customs Area Controller, Comptroller Mba Musa, told a news conference that the cocaine was contained in a vessel MV SPAR SCORPIO which also carried 42,000 tonnes of raw sugar from Brazil.

He said the vessel discharged two bags of forty packages suspected to be hard drugs at one of the terminals at the Tin Can Island Port on Feb. 8

The vessel came in with a crew list of 20 and had visited eleven ports including Brazil, USA, Panama and South Korea before it came into Nigeria. It did not report carrying any drug.

The terminal operators promptly alerted the Nigerian Ports Authority of their find and the latter notified the NDLEA which took possession of the substances.

The vessel was subsequently detained and the suspects confined to it as investigation continued, he said,

Mr Smart Akande, NCS Legal Adviser, said that the essential part of the event was to demonstrate NCS collaboration with sister agencies,

We are mindful of the fact that the mandate to prosecute and investigate for drugs is expressively preserved for NDLEA.

When we discovered these drugs and investigation commenced, we did our part and now we are handing over to the NDLEA, the suspects and the ship.

In his remarks, Mr Adeofe Adeyemi, Director of Operations and General Investigation at the NDLEA, thanked the NCS for the handover and the synergy with the anti-drug agency. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Oladapo Udom

The Nigerian Army, 81 Division, on Tuesday started a two-day workshop to educate officers on Human Rights and Humanitarian Laws to boost the image of the security group.

Maj.-Gen. Lawrence Fejokwu, the Divisions General Officer Commanding (GOC), who spoke at the opening of the workshop in Lagos, said that the training would help to support the strategic vision of the Chief Of Army Staff (COAS), Gen. Leo Irabor.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the sensitisation workshop was taking place as a fallout from the events of the #EndSARS protest in 2020.

Fejokwu, who spoke through his Chief of Staff, Brig.-Gen. Nsikak Edet, said that the COAS vision was to build a Nigerian Army repositioned to professionally defeat all adversity in a joint environment.

For instance, the case of EndSARS which we handled as a Division brought about a lot of issues bothering on proper management of social media space.

So, this lecture will instill high quality character on how officers should comport themselves when on duties.

People are watching, taking videos and recording and this can be used against such an officer in a negative form, he said.

The GOC said that officers would be educated on how to ensure that their troops do not take and send unauthorised videos, recordings or pictures to the wrong set of people.

So many photographs that are not supposed to be on the social media space are there and some of them were taken by our own troops.

So, it is necessary to ensure that when conducting operations, officers should not be allowed to do the things that can jeopardise the instinct of the strategic directive of the command.

Such an officer will be arrested, investigated and court martialed when caught, he warned.

Fejokwu further said that another key lesson to be learnt from the protest would be the legal status of a soldier and the justification of the use of force.

According to him, a soldier should know when to use force and the degree of the kind of force to be applied to conform with the principle of use of minimum force.

One of the principles of the international security treaty is the use of minimum force.

So, the troops need to know how to apply force, what will make them apply that excessive force or minimum force as the case may be.

Therefore, the officers and soldiers will be sensitised on these laws to guide them in all their operations to work in accordance with the law, he said.

The Divisions Training Officer, Brig.-Gen. Shuaibu Nuhu, said that the workshop would educate officers on the importance and challenges of having a next of kin.

Nuhu said that there had been cases where at the demise of an officer dies in the course of duty, several family members would come to claim the officers benefits.

The workshop, therefore, serves as a platform to educate on professionalism, responsiveness in the Nigerian Army through appropriate awareness of human rights and humanitarian laws.

We want to make sure that everything we do is transparent by engaging our officers to have mastery of the laws so that they will not take laws into their hands, Nuhu added. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Ibrahim Bello

The Police Command in Kebbi says it has arrested three suspected kidnappers and rescued a two-year-old victim.

This is contained in a statement issued by the commands Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Nafiu Abubakar, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Birnin Kebbi.

Abubakar said that the two-year-old victim was kidnapped at Ambursa town in Birnin Kebbi Local Government Area of the state.

He said, On March 20, one Hussaini Muhammad of Ambursa town, Birnin Kebbi LGA, reported that on March 19, his two-year-old daughter (name withheld) got missing.

Later, an unknown person, who claimed to be a kidnapper, called him (Muhammad) and demanded payment of N500,000 ransom, failure of which the child would be killed, he stated.

Abubakar added that the police operatives immediately swung into action upon receiving the report.

During the course of investigation, the victim was rescued and a 21-year-old neighbour to the victim was arrested.

In the course of further investigation, the suspect confessed to have conspired with two others to carry out the kidnap, he said.

The police spokesman added that one of them, also a neighbour to the girl, kidnapped and took her to the other person residing in Gulumbe village in Birnin Kebbi LGA.

He said that all the suspects, arrested in connection with the case, would be charged to court after the completion of investigation.

Abubakar, however, said that the victim had been reunited with her family.

The PPRO quoted the Commissioner of Police in the state, Adeleke Adeyinka-Bode, as urging the people of the state to be vigilant andbe wary of criminals.

He advised them not to entrust their children with their neighbours and relations. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Ismaila Chafe

President Muhammadu Buhari says Nigeria will continue to stand with all her neighbours in the fight against terrorism.

The president stated this in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in Abuja on Tuesday.

The presidential aide said Buhari was reacting to the recent killing of 137 Nigeriens by Boko Haram and Islam in West Africa, (ISWA).

President Buhari called his Nigerien counterpart, Mahamadou Issoufou, on phone, to sympathise with him and citizens of the neighbouring country over terrorist attacks.

The Nigerian leader condemned the terrorists attacks, describing it as heinous.

Our deepest and heartfelt condolences to the families of victims and people of Niger Republic. Nigeria stands with all her neighbours in the fight against terrorism, he said.

Shehu revealed that Buhari and Issoufou had agreed to strengthen sub-regional security as a way to push back against Boko Haram and Islam in West Africa, ISWAs worrisome assertiveness in sub- Sahara and Sahel regions. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Idowu Gabriel

The Director-General, National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Brig.- Gen. Shuaibu Ibrahim, on Tuesday warned politicians to stop harming corps members during elections.

Ibrahim said a continued harming of corps members would mean that they would not be taking to work at polling units again.

The D-G gave the warning during an on-the-spot inspection of a corps member, Saidu Mohammed, who sustained gun shot injuries at Omuo Ekiti during last Saturdays bye-election held in part of Ekiti.

I want to appeal again; whenever there is an election, dont touch my corps members. Nobody should touch my corps members during election period, he said.

The NYSC boss who spoke with journalists at the Federal Teaching Hospital, Ido-Ekiti, (FETHI) where the corps member was receiving treatment, described the situation as worrisome.

What happened to Mohammed on Saturday during the bye-election in Omuo-Ekit is not a good one.

I want to appeal to Nigerians, election is not a do-or-die affair, it is service to humanity.

Politicians should sell themselves to the electorate and win in a free, fair and violence-free election.

Let the process of election be seamless; free and fair, it should not get to the extent of harming innocent people, Ibrahim said.

He said that Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti had assured him that the law enforcement agency had arrested some suspects.

But government must ensure that the perpetrators are dealt with in consonance with the laws to serve as deterrents to other like minds, he said.

I know involving in electoral matters is voluntary, so for corps members to volunteer to participate in election, shows that such corps member is patriotic.

I can assure you that where there is security issue, we will not take our corps members to such places again, he said.

The Chief Medical Director of FETHI, Dr Adekunle Ajayi, informed the D-G that the corps members condition was stable.

Ajayi said: We are monitoring our patient, his condition is now stable. I assure you that in few days time he will be discharged.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mohammed, a Veterinary Doctor, serving in Ikole-Ekiti, is among the victims of Saturdays bye-election violence. (NAN)

Source: NAN News

By Aisha Gambo

A 43-year old businessman, Salisu Ibrahim, on Tuesday dragged his wife Basira Adamu before a Sharia Court sitting in Magajin Gari, Kaduna, for allegedly committing an abortion.

The complainant said through his counsel M.M. Dahiru, told the court that the defendant also trespass into his house and took away some of his belongings.

She travelled to Kano with her sister in-law without my permission, claiming that she had a miscarriage due to a motorcycle accident, he said.

The counsel noted that Ibrahim divorced his wife under duress.

My client upturned the divorce because of the love he had for her, he said.

In her defence, Adamu through her lawyer Murtala Idris, said that the miscarriage she had was not planned.

My client is no longer his wife because he granted her divorce and she has completed her waiting period (Iddah), he said..

The judge, Malam Nuhu Falalu, said that a man and his wife are one in statutory law and as such, their is no criminality between them.

He urged the two parties to try to settle the matter out of court and adjourned the matter untill April 26 for report of settlement. (NAN)

Source: NAN News