“Senate has acted in its own wisdom to say ‘No, we don’t want him’, and we can say, ‘This is our candidate… we like the gentleman and we want him to continue.’”
These were the views as expressed by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, a professor of law, at an interaction with news men at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
He made it clear that there is no plan to drop the acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Magu, even after the Senate had rejected his nomination for the job on two occasions.
The Vice President stressed that the Senate lacked the powers to determine which appointee of the president should go, saying: “the President reserves the right to say, ‘this is who I want.’ I’m fully in support of Magu as the EFCC chairman just as the president is.”
He said that the constitution gives the president the powers to appoint certain heads of government agencies, including the head of the anti-corruption agency, with or without parliament approvals.
“It is up to the senate to make their judgment, and it is up to us what we want to do. If our candidate is rejected, we can represent him. No law says we can’t represent him.” [myad]
A 48-year-old clearing agent, Francis Stephen, has accused his wife of sleeping around with her pastor and his younger brother.
He said: “My wife is sleeping with her pastor. When I got to know of it, I confronted her and she confessed to me.”
Francis told a Customary Court in Lagos while responding to a request by his wife, Ogechi, for the dissolution of their 13-year-old marriage that apart from having sex with her pastor, she was also cheating on him by sleeping around also with his younger brother.
The man also accused his wife of being violent, saying: “there was a day we had disagreement. She picked up a stone and broke the windscreen of my car.”
He said that Ogechi ran away with their children to her village when he told her that he would drag her to his family to confess.
“Last year, my wife absconded with our children to her village without my consent, she later sent me a message that she had gotten to her family in Imo and that she is no longer interested in the marriage.
“The children have stopped school since last term because my wife refused to bring them back to Lagos.
“One of my children who was due to write common entrance missed it.
“Her brother called me and told me that I should come and take the children that if I leave them for my wife, they may die of starvation.
“Please grant me the custody of my children because my wife is not working, she cannot take care of them, she just wants to punish me by denying me access to them,” he said.
Francis begged the court not to grant his wife’s wish for the dissolution of their marriage, saying that he still loves her and the children will need a mother to live with.
The petitioner, Mrs. Ogechi Stephen, had approached the court seeking to end her 13-year-old marriage over frequent beatings and drunkenness.
She said that her husband beat her on slightest provocation, adding: “he always beat me during heated argument. I live every minute of my life in fear. Our marriage has been turbulent and fraught with fights and quarrels. There is no peace of mind.
“There was a day my husband threatened to pour fuel on me. As he was bringing the fuel towards me, I quickly ran for my dear life. There was a night he was inciting incantation calling demonic power to kill me.”
The 42-year-old house wife said that her husband drinks and smokes heavily.
“My husband drinks to stupor and smokes, after which he usually loses self-control,” she told the court.
The mother of four said that her husband packed her belonging to her village claiming that he was no longer interested in the union.
She begged the court to dissolve the union, saying that she was no longer in love with Stephen.
The court president, Adegboyega Omilola, adjourned the case to June 6, for further hearing.
The United Nations Children Education Funds (UNICEF) has argued that children being used as ‘suicide bombers’ by members of Boko Haram around the Lake Chad area are ‘victims’ and not perpetrators.
This is even as it announced that the number of such children in suicide attacks’ has surged to 27 in the first quarter of 2017, compared to nine over the same period last year,UNICEF said in a new report released today.
A statement from UNICEF quoted Regional Director for West and Central Africa of the body, Marie-Pierre Poirier, as saying: “these children are victims, not perpetrators. Forcing or deceiving them into committing such horrific acts is reprehensible.”
The statement said that for no fault of theirs, girls, boys and even infants have been viewed with increasing fear at markets and checkpoints, where they are thought to carry explosives.
The statement said that in interviews, many children who have been associated with Boko Haram report that they keep their experience secret because they fear the stigmatization and even violent reprisals from their community.
“Some are compelled to bear their horrors in silence as they remove themselves from other groups for fear they might be ousted and stigmatized.
On the increase in the children used as suicide bombers, UNICEF said: “in the first three months of this year, the number of children used in bomb attacks is nearly the same as the whole of last year – this is the worst possible use of children in conflict.”
It said that the increase reflects an alarming tactic by the insurgents, adding that so far, 117 children have been used to carry out bomb attacks in public places across Nigeria, Chad, Niger and Cameroon since 2014: four in 2014, 56 in 2015, 30 in 2016 and 27 only in the first three months of 2017. Girls have been used in the vast majority of these attacks.
UNICEF then called on parties to the conflict to commit to the following actions to protect children in the region.
End grave violations against children by Boko Haram including the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict as so-called ‘suicide bombers’.
Move children from a military to civilian environment as quickly as possible. Children who have been taken into custody solely for their alleged or actual association to armed groups should be immediately handed-over to civilian authorities for reintegration and support. Handover protocols should be in place in each of the four countries for children encountered during military operations.
Provide care and protection for separated and unaccompanied children. All children affected by the crisis need psychosocial support and safe spaces to recover. [myad]
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has gone haywire, discovering various denominations of currencies, hidden by unknown people across the country.
The latest one was the discovering of a large sum of money in a house in Ikoyi, Lagos today, Wednesday.
According to the EFCC, operatives from Lagos Zone,, the operatives uncovered about $38 million, N23 million and £27,000 from the apartment.
This was even as the Commission recovered €547,730 and £21,090 as well as N5,648,500 from a Bureau de Change operator in Balogun Market, Lagos two days earlier.
Also six days before then, the EFCC recovered N449, 000, 860 hidden in an abandoned shop also in Lagos. [myad]
The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has released additional $250 million on 7 to 30-day forwards for agriculture, airline, petroleum products and raw materials.
The Bank also called for bids for wholesale spot for $100 million for Basic/Personal Travelling Allowance, medicals and tuition fees.
Confirming this today, Wednesday, the CBN’s Acting Director of Corporate Communications, Mr. Isaac Okorafor, said that the Bank has also commenced heavy injections into the spot market in addition to the settlement of requests for wholesale spot bids for invisibles like school fees, medicals and personal travel allowance.
It will be recalled that earlier this week, the apex Bank had disbursed $20,000 each to the Bureau De Change (BDC) operators in two tranches of $10,000 each, which according to Mr. Okorafor underscores the commitment of the Bank to ensure liquidity in the foreign exchange market. [myad]
To educate means to train the mind, to build character and develop ability. Education is responsible for the transfer of skills, values and benefits from one generation to another; it is probably the most important aspect of human development and the key to successful living. Since women are responsible for child upbringing in the society, it follows that education should begin with them; and they should transfer such education to children, especially girls, to ensure the continuity of the cycle. Good education makes girls better mothers, good home keepers and efficient leaders.
Girl-child education has always been negatively affected by cultural and religious misconceptions. Female education is seen as wasteful because culturally, women are seen as being confined to domestic chores and procreation. This is in contrast to boys, who are seen as bread winners and custodians of the family lineage. In most cases, while making the choice of sending a child to school due to limited resources in the family, it is the boy that is chosen. Girls are often sent out to work, trade or hawk at a tender age to generate additional income for the family, exposing them to many dangers.
Even when allowed to attend school, girls are vulnerable in many ways; at puberty, they may skip school for days when observing their monthly period due to lack of water and sanitation at school. They may also be forced to leave school due to harassment by teachers or fellow students, or even early pregnancy. School distance sometimes also contributes to girls dropping out of school.
According to a UNICEF report, the number of out of school girls is very high, with proportion of girls to boys in school ranging from 1 girl to 2 boys and even 1 to 3 boys in some states and zones; North Central and North West present the worst national scenarios. Girls’ access to basic education especially in the northern states is very low, with only twenty percent of women in North West and North East attending school; current female literacy rate for ages 15 and above in the country is put at 59.4 percent which is less than male literacy rate of 74.4 percent.
Some cultures believe that no matter the level of education a girl attains in life, once she gets married to another family, she answers their name, thereby glorifying their status. In most villages of northern Nigeria, educating a girl is not considered a priority, as most of them are married out early. In fact, early marriage affects every eighth girl. One in seven girls are said to give birth by age seventeen. The easiest justification for this practice is that it serves as a strategy for reducing burden on the family. But in reality, among other problems, early marriage accords northern Nigeria with having the highest number of Vesico-Vaginal Fistula (VVF) cases.
Religious misconception is another militating factor, making many parents to believe that formal education is not meant for girls. It is assumed that the primary responsibility for which they were created is domestic chores. In most cultures, school is seen as a distraction, especially in places where women and girls are the home makers who must stay at home to cook, clean, take care of the children and the sick. These women also fetch water, sometimes from long distances, for drinking, washing, sanitation, and cooking for the entire family. This in many cases has a direct effect on their health.
It is also assumed that staying for many years in school might cause a girl not to marry on time. Suitors also have their issues with educated girls; they believe that education makes women to look down on men. This reason dissuades many parents from sending their girls to school; they believe once a girl has her first monthly period then she should be in her husbands house.
Poverty and unemployment are determinants of girl child education. Girls are denied the opportunity to develop their talents and contribute to the society and nation building, because parents consider them as agents for generating income for the family; the expectation on girls input into the family income is very high.
For girls that have grown to be mothers, they do not accept this state of affairs; they want a better deal for their daughters and they believe that education is the road to this better deal. That explains the effort that has been going on in favour of girl-child education. Both from government, the development sector and the voluntary sector. In the end, the outcome expected is an improvement in the number of girls that receive education.
Wife of the president Mrs. Aisha Buhari as any other mother has been an advocate of girl-child education all her life. She has been involved in the campaign for this fundamental right to be upheld so that the pain women and girls go through in life can be alleviated. Primarily, she sees awareness creation among mothers as the first step of the campaign.
One of the important things she did, was to advocate for the girl child education bill by the National Assembly and urged women across the country to come together to make it a reality. Mrs. Buhari has maintained that no Nigerian girl child would be left in her campaign to fight illiteracy.
She advocates directly, as well as through community and religious leaders, drawing attention to the significant difference education makes in women’s lives including knowledge of their rights and privileges, opportunities, issues of nutrition, basic health care, self-awareness, health-screening, both for them and their immediate families.
Mrs. Buhari has also been advocating on the importance of employing female teachers in grassroots areas because they would encourage parents to allow girls have access to education at least up to secondary school level. Whenever she had the opportunity, she had encouraged young girls to actualize their dreams of having a bright future not only through marriage, but also through education.
For out of school girls and those hawking on the streets, Mrs. Buhari has organized and promoted training programmes on skill acquisition, after which they are empowered with funds or tools to start their businesses for socio economic reliance. Skills acquisition training is very important as it enables them boost their confidence and empowers them to be in charge of their lives and to be good mothers. To the community, it reduces poverty, and increases wealth creation.
For those girls that have left school and are having difficulty continuing their education, Mrs. Buhari is making special arrangement for them to be tutored so that they can reattempt qualifying examinations and move on and graduate. There are many girls staying at home, either married or unmarried that desire an additional chance but are restrained by lack of means or simply lack the confidence to reattempt failed examinations.
Without clean water, girls will continue to miss school, therefore, she has been advocating for the provision of clean and safe water, especially in hard to reach communities, so that women and girls, who bear the burden of fetching water will be relieved. In order to show example, she had provided bore holes and tube wells across the country, so that these can be utilized and girls can remain in school and be freed from this burden.
Girl child education is the best investment for development, as it has multi-dimensional impact; for illiteracy, child and maternal mortality, disease and poverty to be overcome in our society, therefore, girls must be given equal access to education and must be provided with relevant skills to establish and run their own businesses.
Aisha Bunu writes from the Office of the Wife of the President. [myad]
Centre for Values in Leadership has scheduled a year-long training in entrepreneurship in the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme for one hundred aspiring entrepreneurs.
The training, which begins tomorrow, April 13 in Warri, Delta State, is the third of four cities where the Centre is conducting the training for 400 would-be entrepreneurs. The 100 young people emerged from a pool of 726 candidates.
A statement from the Centre said that other cities for the training are Ibusa, Agbor, and Ozoro and that it had commenced at Ibusa and Agbor while it would take off at Ozoro on April 18 at the Holy Trinity Catholic Church.
“Participants for Warri and Ozoro training come from local governments in the area. They include Warri South, Warri Central, Warri North, Udu, Okpe, Uvwie, Ughelli North, Ughelli South, Isoko South, Patani, Burutu, Sapele and Bomadi.
“Under the Youth Entrepreneurship Development Programme, the Centre for Values in Leadership (CVL) would partner several organisations and individuals to teach, mentor and guide the participants. A further 200 persons would participate in a finishing school.”
The statement quoted Professor Pat Utomi, founder of the Centre as saying that the 400 participants would receive training valued at N3.5 million per head over the period and that their curriculum would include Self Mastery, Pedagogy of the Determined, Marketing, Entrepreneurship, Finance and Operations. There would also be Vocational Skills Training. The training is free.
It said that the participants would intern in organizations in Onitsha, Benin and Asaba and that they would also deploy the vocational skills developed in their training in a community service project to construct prefabricated houses from kits imported into the country.
The statement added that the Centre would donate the homes, valued at N2 million each, to widows and elderly females with housing challenges. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has forwarded the list of his five nominees to the Senate for confirmation as Non-Executive Directors of the Board of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN).
This is in accordance with Sections 6 (1) (d) and 10 (1) and (2) of the Central Bank of Nigeria (Establishment) Act, 2007.
According to a statement by the special adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, the letter to the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki, contained the following as the nominees:
Professor Ummu Ahmed Jalingo – North East
Professor Justitia Odinakachukwu Nnabuko – South East
The Catholic Archbishop of Abuja Diocese, John Onaiyekan, the Chief Imam of Apo legislatives quarter’s Juma’at Mosque, Mouhammed Khalid and other prominent Nigerians, today, Tuesday, joined the BringBackOurGirls (BBOG) group in a march for the yet-to-be-recovered female students of the Government Girls Secondary School, Chibok in Borno, abducted by members of Boko Haram on April 14, 2014.
Archbishop Onaiyekan told news men at the Federal Secretariat junction of the Presidential Villa, in the course of about three kilometres trek which began from the Unity Fountain in the Central Business District of Abuja: “life is important. We have still almost 200 girls out there missing for about three years. So I feel concerned not only them about the remaining Chibok schoolgirls but also maybe running into hundreds of other Nigerians who are missing, carried away by kidnappers”, the Catholic Cardinal stated.
“Their families are languishing. We came to draw the attention of the whole nation. We are glad that we are able to carry out this simple exercise of walking down the streets from the Unity Fountain to here. And we thank government for making police available to protect us.
“This is not the first time I am joining in this kind of walking. I was here a year ago. At that time, most of the Sambisa forest was still under the control of Boko Haram and when we were marching, we were hoping that our girls were somewhere in the hands of the Boko Haram within those premises.
“Today, the situation is different. We have been told that the whole of the Sambisa forest has been completely cleared. The question we are asking now is: Where are our girls? They cannot disappear.
“Those who are responsible for taking away these girls, whether they are Boko Haram or not, they have the first major responsibility to tell us what has happened to our girls and then whether they are alive or they are dead, whether they are around or they have been sold off. They have the responsibility to tell not only the parents and the family of the girls but the rest of Nigerians.
“And we believe too that the government ought to step up action in this direction. That is what is bringing us here and I believe the rest of the world has been waiting to hear and they can’t understand that we lose people like that and nothing seems to be happening”, he said.
“One of the major reasons why I came too is because this matter concerns me personally, and that is why I brought my brother here. The Holy father was taken away by kidnappers over a year ago and up to now, we have had no information about him.
“Now that touches me and I am sure there are many Nigerians who are suffering the same thing from the loss of members of their families. And so, this march is not just about Chibok girls, it is about the whole idea that Nigerians can just disappear, missing and we are not able to trace them, either dead or alive.”
The Islamic cleric, Sheikh Khalid, told journalists also that he agreed with the position of Archbishop Onaiyekan, adding: “I joined this action because I want to equally send the message that His Eminence is sending to Nigerians and to the government that we can never allow the terrorists to win the war.
“If they get away free with those girls, then they have relatively won the war. That is what we can’t afford. And also, we are tired of having Nigerians kidnapped, abducted and just like that. We want more actions from our government.
“It is true that some clerics like myself have been killed in the course of the insurgence of Boko Haram. We are not saying that the government is doing nothing, we are telling them to do more.”
Among those who marched for the Chibok girls were the conveners of the BBOG group, Aisha Yesufu and Oby Ezekwezeli.
The group began the seven-day global week of action activities on Friday last week.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo has warned that if the government of Muhammadu Buhari is not able to sustain the current fight against corruption, Nigeria will be in grave danger.
“If we are not able to sustain the trouble against corruption, we will end up in a very, very bad way as a nation.”
Osinbajo, who spoke today, Tuesday, when he received in audience, members of the Nigerian Association of Law Teachers at the Presidential villa. Abuja, expressed worry over the Defence contract of $15 billion which was frittered away in people’s pockets, saying that it is half of Nigeria’s foreign reserves.
The Vice President said that the fight against corruption is a difficult fight and that “we have seen it in so many different ways that at almost every state, corruption fights back and fights very fiercely.”
Professor Osinbajo however cautioned: “we should be able to examine our priorities because for us, corruption is not a moral issue; it is an existential issue. To a large extent, it will determine whether we will survive as a corporate whole because of the way people feel that when I get into an office I will go after the resources of the state, and I will go after it in the most vicious and the most reckless manner that is possible.”
He advised that in response to the malaise of corruption, the intellectual elites, whether religious, political in particular or academic elites must stand up for what is right.
Earlier, the leader of the Association, Professor Godwin Nwabueze Okeke, appealed to the Vice President to declare open the forthcoming 50th Conference of the Association which is taking place in Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka in June, 2017.
He said that the Association is solidly in support of the Federal Government and is ready to assist in whichever way needed.
Also, today at a separate meeting, Vice President Osinbajo restated that the Federal Government is keen in its desire to support the establishment of a Chamber of Commerce for young people across the Niger Delta region to drive creativity and entrepreneurship.
He said, when he met with a delegation of Niger Delta Expatriate Mentorship Committee an initiative led by the Minister of Niger Delta, Mr. Uguru Usani Uguru in his office, that the expatriate mentorship scheme which is in partnership with UNESCO is in alignment with the commitment of the Buhari Presidency for the region and is capable of catalyzing development in the region.
He observed that the international mentorship/internship will expose beneficiaries to international standard, best business practice and technology.
the leader of the organization and Chief Mentorship Officer, Mr. Chika Olejeme said that under the National Expatriate Mentorship Strategy, selected youths will be sent abroad for international mentorship and internship and that 30 countries in Europe and the United States of America have already signed up to the programme. [myad]
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