President Muhammadu Buhari And British Prime Minister, Theresa May
President Muhammadu Buhari returned to Abuja from London today, Saturday at about 7 in the evening. He had been to London, where he attended the 2018 Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
The President who took off from London a little after midday was received at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport in Abuja by top government functionaries.
Buhari had told Theresa May, the British Prime Minister who drummed Nigeria’s support for same sex, at the CHOGM, that it is not the culture of Nigeria to accept same sex marriage.
“It is not in our culture for a man to marry a man, and a woman to marry a woman. The challenge we have in Nigeria is security and corruption. We will be better without same sex marriage.”
President also called on member nations of CHOGM to invest more in Nigeria, and that trade and investment are the surest way of getting millions out of poverty in his country. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that Chief Abdul Ganiyu ‘‘Gani’’ Fawehinmi, who died on September 5, 2009, was not an arm chair-critic, nor a rabble rouser who fomented trouble for its sake but a serious minded, articulate, cerebral and compassionate promoter of fundamental human rights, social justice, equity, fair play and national development.
In a tribute to mark his posthumous 80th birthday today, Saturday, the President described Gani Fawehinmi as Nigeria’s foremost social critic and selfless legal luminary, adding that the late legal icon ‘was a true conscience of the nation, defender of democracy and people’s rights advocate’’.
President Buhari fondly remembered Gani whom he said was a legendary patriot, for his altruistic services to the nation, which continue to be sorely missed.
“Gani was an extraordinary human being and a great reference for all progressive elements in society. He dared death and incarceration and was forced into prison 40 times without bowing to intimidation and molestation.
“He fought for and stood by democracy with every ounce of his blood and immense intellect. He deserves a lingering respect.”
President Buhari advised Nigerians, young and old, to imbibe the good deeds of the Ondo State born, detribalised, learned man and Muslim leader (the Seriki Musulimi of Ondo town), “for his doggedness, incorruptibility and fervent belief in the unity and progress of Nigeria as an entity.”
The President said that Chief Fawehinmi, who would have been 80 years old on 22 April 2018, will never be forgotten as a committed pace setter and pathfinder for the democracy that we practise today.
The President asked the contemporary civil rights activists and human rights advocates in the country to emulate the late icon, through constructive criticism and useful suggestions as partners in the pursuit of national peace, unity and development. [myad]
The Minister of Sports, Solomon Dalung has said that Nigerians are still waiting to see Presidential candidates of other political parties that will be able to match the integrity, commitment and honesty of President Muhammadu Buhari in the 2019 elections.
The minister, who spoke on a BBC Hausa programme said: “we are still waiting to see that person and we will tell that person not to suffer himself.”
According to him, those who are opposing the president are not sincere as they are only opposing the President because he has refused to yield to their selfish demands.
“They are after sharing the national cake and because he refused, they say he (Baba ) has failed.”
Dalung, who responded to questions on the state of the nation, insisted that the President is still the best candidate for the 2019 presidential election, stressing that he wanted to see those who think Buhari should be replaced with a better candidate.
Dalung debunked the insinuation that the President is shielding those in government from corruption probe, adding that he has been asking the wailers to provide proof on alleged offences.
“Like the case of the former Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Babachir, he asked those raised allegation against him to provide proofs and when at the end of the day he was found wanting, he was shown the way out.”
The Minister said that the President has been able to tackle the security challenges bedeviling the country, adding that pockets of attacks and killings in some states should not be used as yardstick to judge him as a failure.
“As all over the world people are being killed Nigeria is not an exception. Every country has its own peculiar challenges.” [myad]
Kaduna State governor, Nasiru Ahmad el-Rufai is now a grandfather, announcing by himself, the arrival into the family of a new baby girl.
El-Rufai on his tweeter handle @elrufai today, Saturday, wrote: “Alhamdulillah. I am officially a grand-father! My daughter-Inlaw Kamilah Bello El-Rufai delivered a baby girl about 30 minutes ago. Baby, mother and my son Bello are doing well. Please put them all in your positive prayers. ~ Nasir El-Rufai.”
This was even as the chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kaduna state, Felix Hyat has accused governor el-Rufai of abandoning the state for the past 11 days without communicating to anyone about his whereabouts.
In a statement, the PDP chairman said that the governor has not been seen in public for over 1i days and there is no formal explanation from his aides about his whereabouts.
Felix Hyat, said: “for more than 11 days running, governor el-Rufai of Kaduna State has disappeared from public glare, without transmitting power to his deputy.”
e condemned the APC’s style of leadership in the state “which is without recourse to Constitutional provisions.
“We advise the APC- led Government to respect the tenets of our democracy so as to sustain the hard-earned democracy the PDP and other Nigerians fought to put in place for the betterment of a liberal society.” [myad]
The Presidency has described those who faked the Facebook account of Zahra, daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari in which they posted incriminating words, as “merchants of mischief.”
In a statement, the special adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, said: “merchants of mischief have taken their antics against the first family further by creating a fake Facebook account in the name of Zahra, President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter.
“The fake account, conspicuously different from the authentic one, was used to post a message on April 17, 2018, at 9.07 a.m.
“A picture of President Buhari, with snowflakes all over him, and being welcomed to a foreign country was used, alongside this message: “Children of God, here is a 75 years old man walking in the snow without cardigan just to rescue the battered economic status of Nigeria and some of you senseless people feel he travels too much, as if he travels for partying or merry making.
“God bless Nigeria. Please share…”
Femi Adesina said that the Presidency repudiates the Facebook account, as it does not belong to Zahra even as he advised members of the public to be wary, and see through the intentions of those behind the fakery.
“They seek to attract odium to the first family, and also do not mean well for our country.” [myad]
“We are all gathered here this morning to witness the launching of Gani Fawehinmi’s new book People’s Right To Free Education At All Levels.
It is not my place to review this book: this is a task reserved for literary critics, one of whom I am not. But after a careful study of the book, I feel able to say, in all seriousness and truth, that
PEOPLE’S RIGHT TO FREE EDUCATION AT ALL LEVELS is not only extremely readable and instructive, but also a very timely and telling contribution to a long-drawn debate on a great national and ideological issue which now appears to be approaching the happy climax of unanimous acceptability.
I strongly commend this book to every Nigerian, indeed to anyone in the so-called under-developed countries, who wants to take part in the debate on, or who merely desires to educate himself as to, why education at all levels should be free to all.
The author, Mr. Gani Fawehinmi deserves to be warmly congratulated for the industry and diligence which he has put into researching for and writing this valuable book.
As is well-known, Gani is a brilliant and busy advocate as well as a jurist of growing reputation. That he is able to
MAKE THE TIME , I repeat MAKE THE TIME , in the midst of his exacting and crowded professional activities, to write a scholarly and thoughtful book like this, should be an object lesson to all those young people who work for only about 8 hours a day, and still complain of lack of time to devote to study and creative sidelines.
Says Napoleon: ‘Three hours’ sleep is enough for any man ’.
The trouble with many of our youths is that they sleep too much; play too much; and indulge too much in idle chatter and gossip.
In this connection, my advice to every educated young Nigerian is that he should take each day as a sacred unit which must not be misused or dissipated, and see to it that, out of the 24 hours available to him, he spends at least 8 concentrated hours on work, plus at least 8 hours in serious study, creative leisure and self-development. Eight hours are enough for feeding, relaxation, and sleep.
On an occasion like this, when the platform is People’s Right To Free Education At All Levels it is appropriate to say a few words on some of the weightier aspens of the Compulsory Universal Primary Education which the Federal Military Government has decided to introduce in the near future.
The inalienability of free education as a fundamental human right, and the economic, political, and other advantages which are accruable from education for all our citizens have been fully and competently dealt with by Gani. I do not, therefore, want to take any of your time to restate these points.
But there are three important aspects of this matter which I would like to take this opportunity to stress.
The first is that, whatever may be our beliefs, predilections or ideological orientation in the matter, once we accept Compulsory Universal Primary Education as a necessary national policy and are desirous of raising the standard and quality of teachers and teaching in all our primary schools, we must, as wise and practical people, realise that free education at the other two levels (that is, secondary and post-secondary levels) ipso facto becomes an inevitable and indispensable prerequisite of the successful launching and operation of the CUPE.
In this connection, having regard to the experience acquired from elsewhere and, in particular, from the preparations for and operation of free primary education in the Western State during the past 20 years; and, in any case having regard to the need to raise the quality of teachers and the standard of instruction in all our primary schools, I am assuming, among other things, (i) that only teachers not below Grade II would be allowed to teach, in future, in all our primary schools; (ii) that candidates for a two-year teacher training course would only be those who have already gone through a Secondary Grammar or Secondary Technical course and have passed the School Certificate Examinations; (iii) That about 60,000 additional teachers (that is double our present rate of annual output of teachers and three times the number of annual passes in the West African School Certificate Examinations) of the requisite qualifications would be required on the introduction of the CUPE scheme; (iv) that the headmasters of every primary school would be a university graduate in education, or holder of National Certificate of Education; and (v) that, to ensure, as much as possible, a uniform quality among the products of all our Secondary Schools and Teacher Training Colleges, only university graduates in education, or holders of National Certificate of Education will be allowed to teach in any of our Secondary Grammar and Secondary Technical Schools, and Teacher Training Colleges, throughout the country.
If Nigeria sincerely intends, firmly and consistently, to tread the path of economic development, it must seek deliberately to reduce the number of people working in the agricultural sector as well as modernise the means and improve the terms of employment in this sector; it must also, simultaneously, provide sufficient employment of the opportunities in the manufacturing and services sectors for the labour force displaced from the farms; and, in order to ensure efficient performances in all the sectors of the economy, it must also educate and train the reduced labour force in the primary sector as well as the released labour force which is being absorbed into the secondary and tertiary sectors.
All these can only be done by embarking on Free Education at all levels NOW.
We have told ourselves, again and again, that we are a people in a hurry. Indeed we are. And, thank goodness, that we have the manpower and natural resources to accomplish, in the economic-development race, such shining records as have been set by Japan and the USSR.
In other words, it is within our power to transform this dear land of ours into a developed country within the next twenty-five years at the most.
However, we must not be deceived. Unless we introduce free education at all levels NOW, this great objective would elude us: The majority of our people would, in spite of our oil boom, continue to wallow in abject peasantry and poverty; and, at the turn of the century, we would probably still be numbered among the most poverty-stricken of the under- developed nations of the world.
This is the full text of the address delivered by Chief Obafemi Awolowo at the launching ceremony of Mr. Gani Fawehinmi’s new book, entitled ‘People’s Right To Free Education At All Levels’, which took place at Ondo Town Hall on Saturday, 27th July , 1974, at 11.00 a.m.
A very interesting and worrying topic trending around Nigeria today is the issue of laziness among the youths. It is interesting for those of us who have been worrying all along about the new generation of youths that are dangerously destroying the fabrics of the society and making none sense of our heroes past. And it is worrying that just because it is President Muhammadu Buhari that said something to that effect, the same youths and their parents have turned it into politics and or jokes.
The question we should really reflect on is: are the Nigerian youths lazy or not lazy?
Let’s attempt at answering the question by some simple analysis or logic.
Today and even long before now, we have been breeding very lazy Nigerians, starting from the very first day a child is born. Indeed, an average couple would not feel comfortable if their child is not enrolled in kindergarten school a little over one year after such child is born. From the point such child is in the kindergarten up to secondary school, the parents would pamper him by taking him to and from school everyday either in a car or on a motor bike. The parents make sure that the child is always with a lunch box loaded with all sorts of junk foods. When the child returns from school, he is offered another set of food; he is sent to bed for siesta and subsequently, he returns to the sitting room to watch films, some of which are images and comedies.
After the secondary education, the parents would take it as their responsibility to find a university admission for him, by hook and or by crook; from where they would continue to bribe lecturers all through the university to see that such child graduates.
This scenario can be replicated millions times around the country. And so, when these children now grow and become adults, all they ever know is that they have been spoon-fed and made to believe that either their parents or the society owe them the responsibility of offering jobs to them. They become, like the topic we are treating, lazy. They are lazy either because they graduated by default, without assimilating the courses or the professions they read and therefore not employable, or because their parents are unable to get them jobs. They sit at home to watch films all day long and sometimes go out all day long, with their fellow lazy friends for unproductive purposes. They eventually become nuisance in the society and embarrassment to their parents.
The fact remains that most of the graduates in Nigeria today only go through universities but are actually not educated and are not useful outside the four walls of their parents’ homes. Some of them are even mannerless.
And those that are not so privileged to be educated grow up to resent the society and become envious of every other person that is fortunate to be productive. Both the educated and not productive ones, and uneducated that are also not productive have the same thing in common: they become ready-made fertile minds for mischief making, including armed robbery, drug addiction, drug trafficking, kidnapping, oil bunkering, yahooyahoo, pipeline vandalism, herdsmen killing, Boko Haram, area boy activities and so on.
As a matter of fact, how many of some notable rich young men and women in Nigeria today would admit honestly that they attain such riches through hard work? From the Niger Delta creeks where hundreds of youths have hit millions and billions, to the Southwest where even some young millionaires have gotten high chieftaincy positions, to the Southeast where millions of naira is scooped via armed robbery, up to the North, where lazy youths are cruising in posh cars and private jets, it is all about the young generation devising all sorts of devious means to make it big. And they are making it big with obviously free money.
Come to think of it, there are a lot of young Nigerian youths who have never seen N1,000 in their lives through the work they do with their hands but who have been turned into millionaires by overzealous politicians. These youths become willing tools in the hands of such politicians who offer them huge amounts of money for thuggery. Such young Nigerians would certainly not be ready to look for productive work, including learning useful handiworks or arts and crafts to survive so long as they earn, through political thuggery, within days, what they ordinarily would have earned in more than ten years.
At any rate, it was the UNESCO that first floated a figure of 63 million Nigerian youths that are out of schools and therefore, automatically jobless in 2017. This was out of 108 million youth, representing 60 percent of the Nigerian 180 million population.
The African proverb which says that what an elderly man sees sitting down, a young man may not see it standing even on the heel top, has brought into focus, the way the remark of President Buhari is being interpreted, even among the youths today. In civilized countries, when an elder or leader speaks on any issue, the intellectuals would analyze the content of the speech for the purpose of advancing the course of the country’s progress. I doubt if we, in Nigeria, have lost such hordes of intellectuals to the extent that the field is now left open freely to the brigands. Or are we all being turned into brigands at the altar of politics? Or are the few ones still having good heads above their shoulders, including the very few productive agile, dynamic youths leaving the field for such brigands to make none sense of what our heroes past had been able to bequeath to us?
Of course, one cannot divorce whatever the President says now from politics, especially as we approach or are even in the campaign period, but there ought to be a time when we should look beyond politics. After all, President Buhari is old enough to be able to personally offer his honest opinion about what the youths in Nigeria are turning into; the situation that makes their future looks gloomy.
It is only liars and the usual deceptive politicians desperate for power at all costs that would rob white paint on a black spot just so that the people would hail them as their friends. And it looks as if that are the types of politics and politicians that our intellectuals and youths want.
In any case, if President Buhari were to be such desperate politician and leader and had said that all Nigerian youths are productive, active and dynamic, surely, the same set of Nigerians, playing politics, would still have attacked him. They would have called him all sorts of names, including the fact that he has abandoned his renowned integrity, honesty and truthfulness just so as to enable him gain acceptance.
What would politicking Nigerians not query as long as it is Buhari that says it? [myad]
Two commanders of Boko Haram, a physician, a woman leader of the group and three children have surrendered to the Nigerian Army.
The Theatre Commander, Operation Lafiya Dole, Major General, Rogers Nicholas, who gave the information today, Friday in Maiduguri said that they all surrendered to the troops at Kumshe in Bama Local Government Area of Borno State.
He said the insurgents surrendered voluntarily following the Safe Corridor Scheme initiated by the Federal Government to encourage laying down of arms.
He said as a result of the scheme, many insurgents were willing to surrender and enjoy the opportunity by the government.
“We had a contact group and two insurgents’ commanders, a local doctor and their women leader and their children surrendered to the troops.
“We gave them clothes, food and medication and assured them of safety: we are not killing anybody.
“Our duty is to protect lives and property, we call on the insurgents in the bush to come out, surrender and join the peace building process.”
The Theatre Commander said the terrorists who had surrendered would be deradicalised, rehabilitated and engaged in a skill acquisition training programme.
Umar Ibrahim, one of the commanders that surrendered spoke of the problems the others who had not yet surrendered were having.
According to him, their leaders were preventing them from coming out to surrender for fear of being killed by the troops.
“We were told that the army will kill us and feed on our flesh when we surrender.
“The sect’s leaders also planted landmines to stop us from coming to the troops.
“Many insurgents are willing to surrender in view of the fact that we are against the destructive ideologies propagated by the sect.
“We hardly feed, people are starving due to the lack of food in the camp.
“We want peace and we want to join in building peace in our country, we ask Nigerians to forgive us.”
The world entertainment space will be stormed by a new arrival nex Friday, April 27, when OELA music brand will drop an R&B single titled: ‘Suffering-No-More’ to inspire the world to overcome all impossibilities. The song to be available for download on iTunes, Apple Music, YouTube and over 30 other channels was inspired by the need to understand that suffering in Africa and many other parts of the world is not destined, neither a cross to bear, but due to a wrong mindset about who we are. OELA, the Nigerian based Artist in the song, takes the world through a journey of self-consciousness about injustice that breeds suffering with people complaining about lacks and limitations, stagnation, no job, no food, no light, no house, no money to spend! The song writer, Segun Adeleye said that music is one of the most powerful tools one can use to inspire the world to become a better place because while in the mood of relaxation and enjoyment, music will pass the message with a lasting impact. He made a reference to the United Support of Artists (USA) for Africa song, ‘We are the World’ in 1985 by Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie and other top global artists, saying besides its financial success, millions of people around the world were inspired by the call to care for the less privileges. According to Adeleye, suffering is real and it’s an injustice, as many are perpetually trapped, but it should not be that way if people know who they are in the context of what to do, their duties to fellow human beings in a world where lack and abundance live side by side. He said the message in the song is for human beings to be conscious that they are created to reject any situation they don’t like and follow the right principle of God to prosper, multiply and dominate. “It is for people to realise that their lives could not have been by accidents, they should seek and know their purpose, they should refuse to be angry and suffer, but replace the lacks in their minds with all the precious and pleasant riches of the world.”
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Two commanders of Boko Haram, a physician, a woman leader of the group and three children have surrendered to the Nigerian Army.
The world entertainment space will be stormed by a new arrival nex Friday, April 27, when OELA music brand will drop an R&B single titled: ‘Suffering-No-More’ to inspire the world to overcome all impossibilities.
