President Muhammadu Buhari today, Thursday, March 9, receives the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby at Abuja House in London where the President has been holidaying since January 19, 2017.
Buhari in a handshake with the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby at Abuja House in London when he visited the President today, Thursday in London. [myad]
In a bid to sustain the tempo of foreign exchange supply to the interbank FOREX market and ensure liquidity, the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has, again, offered the sum of $100,000,000 as wholesale interventions, even as it sold about $70,000,000 to meet requests for Business/Personal Travel Allowances.
Disclosing this to newsmen today, Thursday, the CBN Acting Director, Corporate Communications, Isaac Okorafor, said the Bank remained resolute in ensuring that it supplies enough forex to genuine customers of Deposit Money Banks and increase liquidity in the market.
According to him, the uniqueness of the Wholesale Forwards was that banks are allowed to use their winnings from auctions to fund matured obligations to meet Letters of Credit remittances, extinguish bills for collection and other forex demands.
With this development, importers who had hitherto been using bills for collection will now experience relief instead of having to patronize other more expensive sources.
It will be recalled that the CBN only on Tuesday, March 7, 2017 injected another sum of $100m into the interbank foreign exchange market in its resolve to ease the challenge of access to foreign exchange by genuine customers.
Thursday’s injection by the CBN takes the amount so far offered in the interbank forex market within the past few weeks to over $1.2 billion for both wholesale and retail interventions. [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari, who left Nigeria on January 19 for London on initial 10-day vacation, has been confirmed to return to the country tomorrow, Friday March 10.
A terse statement by the special adviser to the President on media and publicity, Femi Adesina said Buhari would return to Nigeria, without detail of what time he would come and where his plane will land.
Adesina however quoted President Buhari as having expressed appreciation to teeming Nigerians from across the country, and beyond, who had prayed fervently for him, and also sent their good wishes.
The spokesman recalled that the President left the country on January 19, 2017 for a vacation, during which he had routine medical check-ups.
“The holiday was extended based on doctors’ recommendation for further tests and rest.”
Earlier today, President Buhari played host to the Bishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Justin Welby at Abuja House in London where the President has been holidaying since January 19, 2017. [myad]
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed Saturday, February 16, 2019 for the Presidential and National Assembly elections, while the Governorship/State Assembly/Federal Capital Territory Area Council Elections are scheduled for Saturday 2nd March 2019.
In a statement posted on its website today, Thursday, the electoral commission said that the dates have been fixed in accordance to the constitution and the electoral Act, saying the Nigerian constitution provides for elections to hold not earlier than 150 days and not later than 30 days to the end of the incumbent’s tenure.
“In order to ensure certainty in our dates for elections, and to allow for proper planning by the Commission, political parties, security agencies, candidates and all stakeholders, the Commission has decided to fix the date for the National Elections for the third Saturday in February of the election year, followed by State elections two weeks later.”
The statement which was issued by the National Commissioner (In charge of South West), Prince Solomon Soyebi, said that the Nigeria’s democracy is maturing and that the Commission believes that there should be certainty with regard to the timetable for elections.
“For instance, in the United States, general elections always hold on the second PRESS Tuesday of November in the election year. In Ghana, it’s the 7th of December of the election year, while in other places like Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica and Switzerland, the dates are also known in advance.”
The commission promised that as part of its routine consultations with stakeholders, it would hold the next regular quarterly meetings with stakeholders as follows:
INEC assured Nigerians that it would remain fully committed to the sanctity of the electoral process and would never protect any of its staff, no matter highly placed, found to have violated the provisions of the Electoral Act and our guidelines. [myad]
Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Caretaker Committee, Senator Ahmed Makarfi has vowed to flush out the court-recognized Chairman, Senator Ali Modu Sheriff, from the party.
Makarfi described Modu Sheriff as a disaster for the party, and that he is “a snake under the party’s roof.”
This is even as Sheriff insisted that he meant well for the PDP and had agreed in totality with all the recommendations contained in Bayelsa State Governor, Seriake Dickson-led reconciliation committee for a national convention tentatively fixed for June 30.
The two factions made their positions known at separate media briefings in Abuja today, Thursday.
The Spokesman of the Makarfi camp, Prince Dayo Adeyeye, who spoke on behalf of the group, said the caretaker committee, in agreement with all organs and stakeholders in PDP, would deploy every available legal means to ensure that Sheriff is chased out of the party.
The Makarfi camp stressed that the spirit and letter of the February 17 judgment of the Port Harcourt Division of the Court of Appeal did not confer the chairman on the ex- Borno Governor, saying: “the general public will also recall that the judgment of the Appeal Court, Port Harcourt Division of Friday, February 17, 2017 that nullified the national convention of May 21, 2016 limited itself solely to the legality or otherwise of the National Convention of May 21, 2016 and not on the legality or otherwise of the appointment of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the Acting National Chairman of the PDP.
“Firstly, let us remind the public of our earlier calls on Senator Ali Modu Sheriff to stop parading himself as Acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) following the judgment of an Abuja High Court delivered by Justice Valentine Ashi on June 29, 2016 in which the court nullified the 2014 Amendment to the PDP Constitution that produced Senator Sheriff as Acting National Chairman of the PDP.
“This Judgment was never appealed by Senator Sheriff and the time frame stipulated by law for the appeal has elapsed; and as such, the judgment subsists.
“Another judgment delivered on August 17, 2016 by Justice Nwamaka Ogbonnaya of the FCT High Court in Abuja re-affirmed the ‘sack’ of Senator Ali Modu Sheriff as the Chairman of the PDP on the ground that the judgment of Justice Valentine Ashi which nullified his appointment has not been set aside or vacated and therefore it’s subsisting.
“Justice Ogbonnaya further held that all actions taken by Senator Ali Modu Sheriff are null, void and of no effect; and the order further restrained him from parading himself as the Acting National Chairman of the Party.” [myad]
President Muhammadu Buhari has described Vice President Yemi Osinbajo as a running mate that has turned a partner in the service to Nigeria and as a friend.
Buhari, on his Twitter handle to congratulate Osinbajo who turned 60 years old yesterday, Wednesday, said: “Sixty hearty cheers for @ProfOsinbajo, running mate turned partner in service to Nigeria; and friend. Happy Birthday, Professor!” the President wrote.
This was even as the President’s wife, Mrs. Aisha Buhari, also congratulated Osinbajo on her Facebook page where she wrote: “On the occasion of the birthday of Your Excellency, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo SAN, Ag. President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, I wish to extend my congratulations to you and to state that the years you have spent building your reputation in multiple capacities have today resulted in your ability to carry out your duties in line with the manifesto of the All Progressives Congress to ensure that a better Nigeria is realised.
“Congratulations and Happy Birthday Prof.” [myad]
A prominent politician in Kogi State, Prince Emman Omadivi has called on the state governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, to name an institution in the state in honour of Adinoyi Ojo Onukaba who died last week Sunday during an encounter with armed robbers around Akure in Ondo state.
In a statement, Prince Omadivi, who was gubernatorial aspirant in the 2015 in Kogi state, like the late Onukaba, said that the deceased was a dogged fighter against injustice, which had resulted into the creation and sustenance of the state today.
The politician, who is also the Managing Director of Spotlight Communications Limited, further described late Onukaba as a man of many parts whose death, he said, was tragic.
Late Onukaba, Prince Omadivi stressed was enigmatic, stoical and a patriot to the core.
According to him, the vacuum created by his sudden passage would take a long time to fill even as he sympathized with his family, the Kogi State government and Nigerians for what he called, ‘the monumental loss.’
He prayed for the repose of his soul. [myad]
The most basic necessities in the life of an average Nigerian include food, clothing, shelter and freedom. We tend to overlook these necessities in our day to day lives because we have them available all the time. But there comes a time when we are challenged in one or more of these necessities and this exposes our vulnerability. There may be a flood that washes away homes and farms, or fire disasters, or even war.
War or in the case of Nigeria, insurgency, did take away people’s source of livelihood, their security and their freedom. It even took away loved ones, leaving with them indelible scars. This insurgency moved millions from the land of their forefathers to lands of refuge, changing their nomenclature from citizens to refugees and sometimes from indigenes to internally displaced persons.
Over the last eight years, this has been the fate of thousands of families in the North East of Nigeria and the Lake Chad Basin region. Many families have been cut off from their farms, markets and their work places; the cost of food, medicine and transportation, where available or accessible has become unbearably high and therefore unaffordable. These families faced hunger and starvation.
Worse than these are those whose communities have been overrun by the insurgency; where many able bodied men and heads of households have either been killed or maimed, sometimes even mothers and children are not spared. Their homes may have been completely destroyed, along with their farms and the food they had stored for the rainy day. The survivors of these atrocities have one option; to leave and find security and succor elsewhere. This is not minding the wealth they had, the size of their farms, the size of their families or the amount of comfort that their homes had provided. Most IDPs have to seek out people willing to host them; other communities, friends, relations and sometimes even complete strangers.
The Africa Report on Internal Displacement, 2016 states that Nigeria accounts for 30% of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees in Africa; and according to NEMA, Nigerian refugees in Cameroon are 80,709, in Niger 68,321 and Chad 20,804. Most of these are returning home in droves. The Displacement Tracking Matrix, released in January, 2017, indicate that 1,899,830 still remain displaced in the North East, despite drop in hostilities, which resulted in huge outflow of the IDPs from the camps back to their original communities.
The IDP camps we hear about every day is populated by such families; some have gone far away from their homes to other states. These are the ones addressed as the internally displaced. Others have crossed international borders and are called refugees.
The IDP camps reveal a lot about the kind of people living in them. There are many camps in Borno, Yobe and Adamawa states, each bursting with people whose basic physiological needs have to be met by the managers of the camps; the food they eat, their health and their shelter. Most camps do not have adequate room and toilet facilities. The daily bill of such camps is staggering, even to government, which is already struggling to fund other budgetary items.
Well-meaning Nigerians and organizations, both local and international opened their hearts to those in the IDP camps, and helped them to meet the basic necessities of life. Some brought nourishment, some provided clean water, even clothing as well as simple tools for sanitation and hygiene.
Wife of the President, Her Excellency Mrs. Aisha Buhari is one such humanitarian actor who is fully aware of the challenges faced by the IDPs. As a mother, she is concerned with their condition and that is why, through her project, Future Assured she has made a lot of interventions and made a difference in their lives. She had targeted the weak and the vulnerable; these being women, children, young people as well as old people.
Young people (0-18 years) account for 56% of all IDPs, so they become primary targets of attention. 45% of these are male and 55% are female, 8.7% are infants below one, while 7.5% of all IDPs are above 60 years of age. Each of these group has peculiar needs.
The primary vision of Mrs. Buhari beyond reaching out to the IDPs with relief materials is to draw attention to the plight of these vulnerable Nigerians, so that others could see the magnitude of the problem and make their own contribution. Many individuals and organizations have keyed in, either directly or through her Future Assured Initiative.
In order to have a consistent, and standard protocol for providing assistance to the IDPs, Mrs. Buhari set up a task team of people who live within the North East to handle needs assessment and distribution of relief materials both to the host communities and the camps. She named the team Wife of the President’s Committee on the Distribution of Donated Items (WIPCOMDI) and charged it to identify the kinds of support that different groups of IDPs might require.
Over time, this committee had conducted its assignment and had delivered boreholes at IDP camps and host communities, clothing, food items – including bags of rice and garri, as well as cartons of sugar, noodles, macaroni and other items; sleeping materials including blankets and mats; enriched food formulas to expectant and lactating mothers and babies; baby sets including bath tubs, potties, soaps and body creams for the new born. These donations cover young and old, male and female and the basic necessities of life, especially in the IDP camps.
When our gallant soldiers conquered the insurgency, most of the IDPs began to return home, while others had to be encouraged to do so. Both sides require support to make this happen. The Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) had indicated that 1,099,509 IDPs have been confirmed to have returned to their homes by January, 2017; aside trauma, these people have lost their homes; so returning to their villages means rebuilding broken homes and broken lives. It is a hard process, especially for people who have lost everything. There is a lot of community work and government reconstruction going on in these communities; that is why these efforts need to be appreciated and supported by all Nigerians.
Future Assured has keyed into this by reaching out to those villages through the committee, interacting with the villagers to know what kind of assistance they would require beyond the relief materials they received at the IDP camps. Resulting from this interaction, communities were supported with building materials including roofing sheets, wood and nails.
It is gratifying to see the IDPs overcome their displacement and return home to their initial livelihood. These formidable Nigerians will overcome their scars and rebuild their lives, thanks to the love and care they have received since leaving their homes.
Haruna, spokesman to the wife of the President, wrote from Abuja. [myad]
Nigeria’s Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, surrounded by members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC), revel in joy, laughed along with joyous minsters as he turned 60 years today, March 8, 2017. Photo by Sunday Aghaeze. [myad]
“Those individuals and groups that are bent on destabilizing our country I think they have to wait till maybe, the next three or four millennia for them to do that. That is, maybe if the next generation of officers and men will allow them at all.
“Having been given the millennium hero award, I want to call on all the agitators for separation and other acts of destabilization; they better forget it, not in this era, not in this millennium.”
These were the words of the Nigeria Chief of Army staff, Lt. General Tukur Yusuf Buratai after receiving an award conferred on him by a coalition of over 80 civil society organizations (CSOs).
The army General who specifically targeted those who are agitating for creation of the Republic of Biafra, spearheaded by the Independent People of Biafra (IPOB) and the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), asked them to “forget it.
“I want to say that we would continue to do our best to maintain security atmosphere that is needed as provided for in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. We have been tasked to defend our country.
“We have taken a number of measures to ensure that the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists who are on the run are finally cleared, many have surrendered, and many of them have been captured.” [myad]
