With the report today, of the death of a doctor from Ebola Virus Disease in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, the state government has announced the opening of special cell phone numbers for the citizens to call in cases of emergency.
In a special broadcast to the people of the state today, governor Rotimi Amaechi gave the number, christened Ebola emergency numbers as 08167733939, 07036321076, 08033124314 or our State emergency call centre: 112.
The full text of the broadcast goes thus:
“My dear people of Rivers State, we woke up this morning to the sad confirmation that the dreaded Ebola virus disease has claimed its first victim in Rivers State.
Dr. Iyke Sam Enemuo died last Friday, August 22, 2014 as a result of what was suspected to be Ebola virus disease. The State Ministry of Health on becoming aware of the conditions of his death, immediately commenced investigations and contact tracing. As at today, about one hundred contacts from a hotel, patients of Dr. Enemuo and patients of the hospital where the late Enemuo was treated until his demise have been identified and restricted. The different locations are being decontaminated.
Our investigations reveal that:
1. A staff of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) on the team that received late Dr. Patrick Sawyer, the Liberian American diplomat who died of Ebola haemorrhagic disease in Lagos, Nigeria made a trip to Port Harcourt where he checked into a hotel and met with Dr. Iyke Sam Enemuo.
2. About a week after his departure, Dr. Iyke Enemuo took ill and was rushed to a hospital with symptoms of fever, diarrhea and vomiting. In the course of treatment, the managing physician became suspicious and took blood samples for investigation.
3. A few days later, Dr. Iyke Enemuo died, precisely on August 22, 2014. Dr. Iyke Enemuo’s widow, who is also a medical doctor and who cared for him during his illness has taken ill. She is being quarantined.
4. The diplomat who was seen by late Dr. Iyke Enemuo is alive and well.
There’s no need to panic. Everyone should remain calm and go about their normal businesses. The Government of Rivers State is doing everything possible to contain the effects and spread of the Ebola virus.
We have the material and human resources we need to fight and defeat the deadly virus. Officials from the Federal Ministry of Health and other international agencies are already here working with the state ministry of health to contain and combat the virus.
Now, we must all endeavour to adhere to basic hygiene rules. Wash your hands regularly with soap and water and avoid unnecessary body contacts like shaking of hands.
Anyone with symptoms indicative of diarrhea, high fever, vomiting, abdominal pain, excessive weakness of the body and unexplained bleeding, should call these our Ebola emergency numbers: 08167733939, 07036321076, 08033124314 or our State emergency call centre: 112.
It is a known fact that early detection and appropriate medical attention increases the chances of survival of an infected person. People have survived Ebola and more people can survive it. There is no need or reason to hide or run away. Seek immediate medical help. Call our Ebola help lines.
Together, we can contain and defeat the ebola virus.
The resignation of the chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC) and one of the party elders in Edo state, Chief Tom Ikimi from the party, is generating heat in the state. Chief Ikimi, who is Nigeria’s former Foreign Affairs Minister, quit APC early in the week, but did not indicate which party he would now align with as the nation prepares for 2015 general elections. In a response to Ikimi’s resignation, the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, described the development as being good for the party, adding that the party is studying the situation. “He (Ikimi) is giving himself an undue importance which he does not deserve because he is insulting all the leaders of the party saying that he is the only sensible person in the party. “That is not true and that is not possible at all. “What he is doing is reporting himself to the entire nation, and displaying the kind of person he is. What is happening really is that both the PDP and APC are being purified and that all the birds that flock together are beginning to flock together and that is a good thing for this country. It is good for the APC and the PDP. We don’t want people who don’t think like us, don’t have the same ideology or has not committed to that ideology. “We are losing some and gaining some. The process of ideological purification is underway and those who don’t share the same belief like us are all going the same way and that is nothing we have to regret at all. “I don’t know how many votes he controls that we will lose, but we will see. Maybe he will be able to make PDP win in Edo State because he controls the Edo voters. February is around the corner. He is arrogating to himself an influence he does not have either in Edo or nationally to affect the course of the February election, not even in Edo State.” Also the Edo State chapter of APC said it is waiting for the next political move of Ikimi before responding to the issues he alleged were the reasons for his resignation from the APC. The state chapter of the party, while wishing its former national leader best wishes, said the claims and counter-claims in his resignation letter would be appropriately addressed at the shortest possible time, adding that with his “exit, the party will be better organised at the local to win the next coming elections.” The Publicity Secretary of the party in the state and former state chairman of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Mr. Godwin Erhahon, said: “For now, the state chapter will not want to comment in details on the decision of Chief Tom Ikimi to leave us. At the appropriate time when he settles down in the PDP where he is obviously going, we will have time to respond to some of his outbursts. We saw a lot of claims and counter-claims in the letter he wrote; we will address them in due time.” On how the party feels about the departure, he said: “Even now in Igueben, the member representing Igueben in the state House of Assembly is from the PDP which means even while he was with us, he lost his local council to PDP and therefore we cannot lose more than that now that he is gone. We are also hoping that with his exit, the party will be better organised at his local level and by the next election, we are going to be able to defeat the PDP in that constituency and that tells you that we don’t believe that we have lost anything substantial or meaningful. “Like I said, we don’t want to join issues with him at this level. At the proper time, we shall reply him and when we reply him he will also know that we know what we are doing. And we wish him well wherever he is going but we sympathize with him because if he said he is running away from crocodile in APC, he is running into the lion’s den. “We see it as a good omen. In every system, God will always help those who mean well. We pray that whoever that will constitute obstacle to victory in the 2015 presidential election; God will push him or her out. God is not waiting till these people do damage to the system before sending them out. All of them who want to leave, we wish them well.”
Vice President Mohammed Namadi Sambo has given a run-down of how the Federal Government plans to industrialise Nigeria by first setting up Industrial Revolution Plan, which is a home grown initiative. Namadi Sambo, who represented President Goodluck Jonathan at the 42nd Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) in Lagos today said that the quest to diversify the economy and sources of revenue through industrialization has begun, with a unique pathway to Nigeria’s industrialization. “Our industrialization plan includes interventions in access to affordable finance, industrial skills, quality and standards framework, provision of electricity and improving investment climate.” The Vice President made it known that government initiated the nation’s first comprehensive real sector funding intervention under a programme called the ‘Financing Value Chain Initiative. Namadi Sambo said that the initiative “is geared at addressing the structural and specific issues that have made it difficult for manufacturers to raise affordable funds in Nigeria and when fully implemented, will provide long term funding on reasonable terms to both large and small businesses In Nigeria.” He said that sectorial policies will be backed by law to ensure that there is no policy somersault even as he said: “the Nigerian government, in conjunction with the European Union (EU) have embarked on our nation’s largest ever repositioning of Quality Management for made in Nigeria goods with the aim of creating Nigeria’s first ever National Quality Policy.” According to him, the world has taken cognizance of Nigeria’s industrial agenda which is evidenced by the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) selecting Nigeria as one of the two countries in Africa with the potential for rapid industrialization in the coming years. “Government has made transformational progress in specific sectors of automobiles, petrochemicals, infrastructure, power, cement etc. and can only support a trade agreement that does not threaten the ongoing industrialization agenda.” The Vice President commended members of the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria and advised that Nigeria should move towards boosting its industrial capacity. “We must manufacture goods; we must create more jobs and wealth for our people.” Earlier, the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Olusegun Aganga had said that the administration had identified the Manufacturers Association of Nigeria (MAN) as critical to the transformation of the nations’ economy, adding that the agenda of the MAN has been at the centre of national discourse since the sector is capable of generating employment, empowering the youths and changing their destinies. He said that the need for competitiveness is crucial to the attainment of the desired industrial revolution plan. The President of the MAN, Kola Jamodu expressed appreciation to President Goodluck Jonathan for the numerous fiscal and monetary measured introduced by this administration to ensure the positive repositioning of the manufacturing sector which in turn translates into increased productivity of the sector. According to him, MAN has become the voice of the manufacturing sector in Nigeria and is playing a leading role in the industrialization of Nigeria, adding that it has also partnered with government over the years in providing a platform for the government to leverage on matters affecting the development of the manufacturing as well as other key industrial sectors in Nigeria.
Today marks 136 days since April 14, when 219 daughters of Nigeria were taken captive from our midst at close to midnight while we all slept. The Presidential Facts Finding Committee on Chibok Abduction which was set up evidently to validate to those who doubted the tragedy, helped confirm that our daughters that went to acquire knowledge were forcibly taken by terrorists. In all, the report stated that 276 school girls were abducted from Government Secondary School on that fateful night and that fortunately, 57 of them courageously took the risk of self-rescue and are since reunited with their families. After many weeks of tentativeness arising from indifference, doubt, visible irritation and buck passing a rescue effort was finally launched by the Federal Government, supported by countries that include the United States, Britain, France, China, Canada, Israel and Australia. However, after four months and with no news of their rescue nor any slimmer of evidence of actions being taken to bring them back, the desperate reaction of all who empathise with the girls and their families has become “where is the result from the rescue effort?” For some others, despondent and yet willing to hold on to the tiniest ray of Hope, the demand is that the Federal Government offers Nigeria the whole truth on the matter of their rescue effort. Why so? There have been too many discordant and contradictory information on the status of the rescue of the girls by our government. Those who ask for the truth, therefore do so mindful of the need to not compromise intricacies of operational strategy while yet insisting that our government can act and convey with sincerity a series of confidence inspiring measures it is taking to resolve this massive scale of human tragedy. Like we say in life, parents and other citizens would rather be slapped with the truth than be kissed with lies. There are after all three well known options that are possible in the rescue of abduction victims- first, military action, second, negotiation/dialogue which may be direct or indirect and third, a mix of both military action and negotiation. Anyone who has mapped and analysed all the statements ever made by our Government since we were informed by the Chief of Defence Staff on May 24 that they had located our girls; cannot but wonder what to believe. In the quest for truth it does not help that when the dots are connected drawing from diverse statements made by our government at various times dismissing each of the options for one reason or the other, nothing tangible remains. Could it be that the evident complexity of their rescue has led to inertia or paralysis that surely portends grave danger to our #ChibokGirls …our daughters? Could this be the reason many more people now think we should be silent, move on and allow “whatever” is being done about their rescue to “quietly” continue? If it is then there is no better response to give than “Not without our daughters”. For, indeed, the 219 girls of Chibok are our daughters. Anyone who is a true parent and real human being would admit that it is almost impossible not to think of the fate of these girls in personal terms. It is impossible not to think how deep their agony would be should children sired in their loins or carried in their wombs be experience what these innocent young women are suffering. Most of the empathetic gestures given to their cause have been framed especially the women advocates who are mothers, as being simple acts of humanity because they do see the faces of their own daughters whenever they look at the picture faces of the abducted girls. They knew they had to lend a voice to their cause once they started seeing and connecting to them not just as pieces of news from some remote region of the country or the world, but as flesh and blood that could have been their own daughters. These are the women and men who today out of deep empathy continue to stand and to speak for our girls even after the rest of the world moved on to other issues buffeting our troubled world. The second resonant point of convergence for those who advocate for the cause of the girls is the sadness that all things considered, these girls are merely victims of a society that failed them. Our Chibok girls are victims in every sense of the word; suffering serious injury for no fault of their own. The sad but true reason our ChibokGirls continue to languish in the den of our common enemies more than four months after their abduction is that many among us see their vicissitude as one of those tragedies similar to what others have suffered in our country. The known fact is that in the fifty four years of our independence, too many of our citizens have been victims of our nation suffering all kinds of tragedies and situations alone. Victims abounded in events leading up to, during and after the Nigerian civil war. Did we care? No, we simply moved on. We created another set of victims during the decades of military rule. Did we care? No, we again moved on. In the last fifteen years of our nascent democracy 1999 transition, we have kept on creating victims. Have we cared? Not really, we have to move on. Within the last four years that bloody insurgents have launched a most vicious attack against our citizens, abducting, maiming and killing in thousands, have we really cared? Not really. Those it does not affect may not even give a passing thought to the victims just like it was in the past. So, are we just going to keep moving on for as long as each tragedy does not affect us, ignoring the new sets of victims of our nation to “take care of their own pain?” I have seen, heard and known how our society victimizes the victim. Can a people survive and sustain this manner of distribution of suffering in which the strong at any given point disregard the pain of the victim? No. A society where everyone carries the wound of having once been a victim that was abandoned to suffer alone can neither last nor achieve greatness. How then can we not see that there is something about the present travail of our Chibok Girls that presents us the best opportunity to awaken our deadened souls that have since our coming together missed out on the wholesome value of empathy? How can we not see that the only and true victims in this abduction saga are our 219 daughters of Nigeria? How can we possibly move on without daughters? We must not move. We must give everything possible to save them. They can become the symbol of our catharsis – our purging – our cleaning from the accumulated toxin of bitterness and wound spread across our country from all manner of tragedies and injustice of the past. By all agreeing not to move on without our daughters, we make a statement that as a people, we are determined to confront our common enemy together. By refusing to sacrifice our daughters that we can save, we send the strongest signal to our common enemies that our society will fight to defend our humane values and the right to life of our children, our women, our men, our young and our old regardless of their religion, politics, language and culture. By staying determined to stand with our endangered ChibokGirls, we as Nigerians would measure up to the standard of Ghandi’s words that “The True Measure of Any Society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” If we all did everything possible to bring back our daughters from the clutches and den of evil erected by our common enemies within our own territory; our ChibokGirls will become a historical break from our shameful past as an uncaring society if people. It will be a statement of a united people of the kind we see every day we gather for their cause at the Unity Fountain and loudly declare that “we are from Chibok”- regardless of our ethnic, political, religious, ideological persuasion. When we do so, it is not because we are unaware of past and other present victims. It is that our daughters are in a special category of being alive and can be saved. It is a protest against the idea that the suffering of other people does not matter and can therefore be denied, ignored and even mocked. It is a kick against the lack of empathy that reflects in the poor choices over several decades that have stagnated and kept us as a tottering country that never evolved into a nation. History teaches and research validates that when a country of diverse people evolve into a nation, the probability of achieving development that benefits the largest number is significantly higher. The combination of these two factors- daughters and victims should imprint on the mind of everyone that we could all be the biological parents of children who due to no fault of their own became victims of deadly danger. As one very involved with the formation and leadership of the #BringBackOurGirls advocacy that is championing the citizens advocacy for the rescue of our Daughters, the two factors steadfastly give me perspective regardless of what other people may think or say. We cannot afford to move on without our daughters. Everyone who can raise a voice to compel action for them should really do so without feeling embarrassed. Everyone who has the power to act decisively and quickly to rescue must not consider them a secondary priority. Personally, I have advocated for our ChibokGirls since the 15th April when news of their abduction broke. On the 23rd April a demand one made to have everyone at the UNESCO event inaugurating Port Harcourt as the 2014 World Book Capital stand in solidarity and demand their rescue resulted in our social media hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The march for them on the 30th April inspired by Hadiza Bala Usman and the daily “sit-out” in Abuja by incredibly sacrificial Nigerians who are there even today for the 120 such gathering is a testament to the irony of the divine quality of our suffering Chibok Daughter. These days, when members of our movement are taunted with questions like “when will you realise the futility of your advocacy and stop?” Like typical Nigerian, we have learnt to answer questions of this sort with some simple questions. Interestingly, one question to which not even the irredeemably heartless have ever been able to answer without shame is “Did 219 girls also willingly offer themselves to be denied their freedom and their lives?” If they did not, why then should we make victims out of children who already are victims? “Would you say want us to stop if any of them were your daughter?” We cannot afford to move on without our daughters. Everyone who can raise a voice to compel action for them should really do so without feeling embarrassed. Everyone who has the power to act decisively and quickly to rescue must not consider them a secondary priority. The three possible options of rescue are narrowed and clear to all. Until our Federal Government demonstrates that our ChibokGirls are not being abandoned by showing that it is taking any of the three and that we shall no longer move on and forsake victims of our society as we during the fifty four years of history-there will always be voices; if even just one demanding that our daughters must be rescued from our enemies. So, when next time you hear that chant or read that chant #BringBackOurGirls and ever go on to ask “when will you stop.?” there are two answers you can be sure of “#UntilOurGirlsAreBackAndAlive and best of the two, #NotWithoutOurDaughters!
Mrs Ezekwesili is a former Education Minister and one of the BBOG Coordinators
A Perth-based international adviser, Dr. Stephen Davis, who survived months of extreme danger to try to rescue more than 200 schoolgirls kidnapped by terrorist group, Boko Haram, has alleged that one of the primary sources of funding for the terror group are Nigerian politicians. He did not give detail about the names of such politicians. Davis has been one of the key federal government negotiators trying to secure the release of the Chibok girls from the clutches of Boko Haram. Davis has worked in Nigeria in the past with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Head of the Church of England, Justin Welby, to negotiate the release of kidnapped oil industry workers in the Niger Delta. Speaking in an interview on ABC News, an Australian television station, Davis, 63, said he had realised the only way to stop the kidnappings was to stop the sponsors of Boko Haram. While Al Qaeda was involved in training Boko Haram recruits, Davis said one of their major sources of funding – aside from raiding banks – was Nigerian politicians. “That makes it easier in some ways as they can be arrested, but of course the onus of proof is high and many are in opposition, so if the president (Goodluck Jonathan) moves against them, he would be accused of trying to rig the elections due early next year. “So I think this will run through to the election unabated. These politicians think that if they win power they can turn these terrorists off, but this has mutated. “It’s no longer a case of Muslims purifying by killing off Christians. They are just killing indiscriminately, beheading, disembowelling people – men, women and children and whole villages. “I would say it’s almost beyond the control of the political sponsors now. Terror groups are linking up in Somalia, southern Sudan, Egypt and we have fairly strong evidence they are talking with ISIS members. “They will link up with ISIS and Al Shabaab and I think that what we are seeing in that region is the new homeland of radical Islam in the world.” Davis, who returned to Australia after a four-month sojourn with rare footage of the intense fighting in Nigeria’s North-east, as Boko Haram stepped up efforts to establish an Islamic state, said he established extensive contacts with tribes and terrorist groups in Africa, including three small cells of Al Qaeda, while working as a troubleshooter for oil and gas company Shell in the Niger Delta. When news broke in April about the girls’ kidnapping from a school in the village of Chibok, near the Cameroun border, Davis, who had recently moved to Perth from London, decided he could not sit on his hands. During the journey in North-eastern Nigeria, his life was threatened more than once, but his Australian passport saved him. “When confronted by groups with an AK-47 in my face they’d say, ‘you are American, we have to kill you’,” Davis said. “When you say, no I’m not American, they think you are British, and say you will still die, but when I said I’m Australian, they said that’s all right. I have no idea why but it’s certainly been helpful.” The devout Christian managed to smuggle out of the country footage of a handful of schoolgirls who escaped from Boko Haram. They detailed the atrocities they endured, including being raped almost on a daily basis. Following media reports that nobody knew where the girls were, he decided to reach out to his contacts. “I made a few phone calls to the Boko Haram commanders and they confirmed they were in possession of the girls. “They told me they’d be prepared to release some as a goodwill gesture towards a peace deal with the government, so I went to Nigeria on the basis of being able to secure their release.” Arriving in Nigeria, Davis quickly set up talks with commanders and he believed he had brokered a deal. Fearing being arrested, the Boko Haram commanders – holding the girls across the border in Cameroun – had a list of conditions. They wanted the military to stand down and promised to drop the girls in a village before phoning to give their exact location. Davis said they lived up to their promise, but in a region ravaged by war and corruption, the rescue was sabotaged. “The girls were there, 60 girls, there were 20 vehicles with the girls. “We travelled for four-and-a-half hours to reach them, but 15 minutes before we arrived they were kidnapped again by another group who wanted to cash in on a reward. “The police had offered a reward of several million naira just 24 hours before we went to pick them up. “I understand, from the Boko Haram commanders I spoke to, the girls eventually ended up back with them. “I don’t know what happened to the group that took them but I suspect it wasn’t good.” Davis said a young man kidnapped by Boko Haram and used as a driver later helped a handful of girls to escape. One kidnapped girl, who managed to avoid having her mobile phone confiscated by turning it off and hiding it in her bra, managed to call her family while hiding in bushes, but had no idea where she was or which direction she should be heading. After being told to walk west by following the sunset each evening, the four girls managed to cross the border from Cameroun and into Nigeria before being reunited with their families. So far they are the only girls to have escaped from a Boko Haram camp. When Davis later tried to contact, via text, the young man who helped them, he received a sobering reply. “The person you are trying to contact has gone on a journey from which there is no return,” the reply read. “He was an infidel.” Davis said the longer he stayed in Nigeria the more it dawned on him the kidnappings would not end. “It became very clear that if I was able to get 50 girls released, then another group would kidnap 70 or 80 more. So by freeing 50 you were consigning 70 or 80 more to the same fate.” Davis said initially journalists from around the world including CNN, the ABC and BBC flocked into the country, but they concluded it was far too dangerous to send any crew into the North-east of the country. He said since then, the violence in North-east Nigeria and the threat of foreign journalists being kidnapped and beheaded, there has been limited coverage of the crimes being committed by Boko Haram. “Boko Haram used to telephone Nigerian journalists and give them a story, but that doesn’t happen anymore. “They go straight to social media. They post their own material and they’ve learnt to become very savvy on social media and use it as an instrument to terrorise.” Davis, who has a PhD in political geography, has worked as an adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. He also worked for Shell in Nigeria in an advisory capacity between 2002 and 2004.
A heavy rainstorm has left no fewer than 2,000 residents homeless and destroyed valuable property in Fugar community, Etsako Central Local Government Area of Edo State. The rainstorm, which followed a heavy downpour destroyed homes, hundreds of livestock and displaced the residents, including women and children. Although no life was reportedly lost, two persons were, however, said to have been hospitalised after sustaining injuries in the storm. It was also gathered that the worst hit areas were Ivinone, Ulumoghie, Iviocha and Iviavia in the local government. During an assessment of the affected community and the victims, the Deputy Governor, Pius Odubu, while commiserating with the residents over the loss of property and their temporary displacement, decried the level of damage caused by the storm. Odubu, who was accompanied by other government officials, assured the victims that government, in collaboration with the federal government, would soon commence the distribution of relief materials to alleviate the plight of the affected residents. The Chairman of Etsako Central Local Government Area, Mr. Emmanuel Momoh, while explaining that 116 houses and essential amenities, such as electric polls, were affected by the disaster, disclosed that the council had begun the disbursement of relief materials. [myad]
A prominent Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark has described Nuhu Ribadu as not being trustworthy.
In an open letter he addressed to the national chairman of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to which Ribadu recently decamped, Alhaji Adamu Mu’azu, he said the PDP would be making the biggest mistake of its life if it granted a waiver to the former chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to enable him contest the Adamawa State governorship primaries next week.
He recalled how President Goodluck Jonathan restored Ribadu’s rank of assistant inspector general of police and retired him gracefully after he had been dismissed, an action he said Ribadu refused to be grateful for.
Clark said that Ribadu has on many occasions, embarrassed the President with his actions, adding that bringing Ribadu into the PDP would dent the image of the party and also affect its fortune in Adamawa State, where he said Ribadu has no value, politically.
“In 2011 election, Ribadu ran for President on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria, lost at his family home polling booth, and also his ward, scored a mere 32 votes in Yola, and 32,786 total in Adamawa, against Gen. Muhammadu Buhari’s 344,526 and President Goodluck Jonathan’s 508,314.” [myad]
President Goodluck Jonathan is thinking of welfare package for Nigerians that are jobless but that lack of adequate national data has been a stumbling block towards the implementation of the package.
He said that it has always been his idea that government should not wait for people to carry arms to kill others before the government would help them.
“When the issue of the crisis in the north came up, some people came up with the idea of how we could replicate amnesty programme in the Niger Delta in the North. And I said look, we must not wait for people to carry arms against the state before we help them. I said let us, as a government identify those without jobs, I asked those in finance to see our resources and how we can accommodate them.
“Not to wait for youths to carry weapons against the state in the south east, south south, north east before you can think of how to address their needs. I then asked the then Minister of National Planning, Shamsudeen Usman, to come up with a blueprint because we must know the figures, we must know what we have. We cannot venture into what we cannot conclude, it is difficult because we don’t know ourselves, and upto this time it is still paper work.”
President Jonathan spoke today at the formal launching of the issuance process for the national electronic identity card (e-card) Scheme at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
President recalled that during the 2011 elections, there were crisis in some states and properties were burnt but that there was no defined way to address it?
“We set up committee to inventories of things; take data of people but by the time you want to do payment, the duplications will be so much, those who are affected will not get the money.
“I remember when I was in OMPADEC as the Head of Environmental Protection Unit, if there is no oil spillage if you go to any environment in Niger Delta, you can trek across one kilometer you will hardly see goats. But when there is spillage, everyone square meter you go, you will see baby goats everywhere. So the spillage that was suppose to drive everyone away reproduce goats everywhere because every baby goat is entitle to some compensation. So these are the problems we have.”
The prepared speech of the President goes thus:
At the formal launch of the enrolment exercise for the issuance of the National Identification Number (NIN), last October, I did express my desire to see the commencement of the issuance process for the National Electronic Identity Card (e-ID Card) Scheme. I am happy that this important milestone, in the roll out of the National Identity Management System, (NIMS), has been realised today.
I am impressed with the quality of the e-ID Card and the work of the corporate partners that have made it possible. I commend especially the MasterCard World-Wide Corporation and Access Bank Plc, as well as the Commission, who followed all laid down procedures in achieving a World-class product. The combination of intricate security features and other multiple functions in the e-ID Card, improving its functionality and versatility is also significant.
Following successful local and international tests, the e-Card Scheme has now finally taken off. It is important that the Commission’s on-going efforts at ensuring local content capacity in the Card Body production process is sustained with the same zeal as the meticulous rechecks of ensuring payment functionality, in compliance with international best practice. Such high standard will help create economic and employment opportunities, consistent with our commitment to National Transformation.
We must at the onset keep in mind that the journey to capture the populace, by issuing over 100million Cards has just begun. You should therefore ensure that the issuance process is prompt and swift enough to enable many more Nigerians obtain their own e-ID Cards, as soon as possible.
The Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, will oversee that funding requirements, as budgeted, will be met and matched with appropriate delivery by the commission. It is important to ensure that this e-ID Card issuance process, proceeds smoothly, and that all MDAs, and indeed the private sector, can benefit from its designed functionalities, as soon as possible.
The Commission should immediately complement the efforts of the Integrated Personnel and Payroll System (IPPS) and Pension Department by ensuring that Federal Civil Servants and Pensioners are enrolled and issued their Cards promptly, so that the e-ID and the secure payment platform can both facilitate speedy and safe payment of salaries and pensions.
The identity authentication and verification services that are in pilot phase, as demonstrated, should immediately be further extended to other Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs). It should also be made available at the Airports and other border posts, for enhanced security checks.
The Commission should also ensure that all registrable persons as provided for in Section 16 of the NIMC Act No. 23, of 2007 are enrolled into the National Identity Database and that all Government Ministries, Agencies and Departments (MDAs) involved in data capture activities, must align their activities, with a view to switching over to the NIMC infrastructure.
The Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) should also ensure compliance immediately. The regime of duplication of Biometric data bases must now have to give way to harmonization and unification with the e-ID scheme, which shall be the primary data base.
The SGF, the Attorney General and Minister of Justice and the Governor of the CBN should, in conjunction with the Commission, reach modalities for the harmonization of their biometric projects, including other ongoing projects in other MDAs, with the e-ID card scheme.
Proliferation and duplication of efforts is neither cost effective, nor security-smart. It is important to remove obstacles that may impede the NIMC from the discharge of its constitutional functions and statutory obligations.
The NIMC must now focus all its energy on ensuring that the remaining two components of the NIMS roll out – Identity Authentication and Verification and the Alignment and in particular, Switching Over by the MDAs through the harmonization and integration framework – are deployed without fail.
The logistics and speed of data collection must have to be improved upon, and this will reduce the justifications given by MDAs, as reasons for duplicated biometric options. Hopefully, the Harmonization programme will help to achieve this, especially, by the Commission ensuring that MDAs switch or at least align their existing infrastructure, as data collection agents to the NIMC System.
This should be the primary reason for expediting the Harmonization programme: more so, in this way scarce Government resources will be better optimized for significant national benefits.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I have taken keen interest in this project, primarily because of the pervasive impact it can have on every facet of the socio-economic fabric of our dear nation, which is in sync with the Transformation Agenda of my Government.
The fact that the project helps to establish the identity of the individual in such a way that privacy is assured and updating personal information is made easier. The project will also create effective access to the database in a more secure and user-friendly and reliable manner for the MDAs and even the private sector.
Given also that the National e-ID Cards can be issued and reissued with, ‘proof of identity’ possible, means that amongst other things, there will be more clarity around all forms of transactions and relationships. Significantly, some of the issues around identity- related theft and other such criminal vices and activities that are inimical to our national interests would be better addressed more efficiently.
Last year, I used the occasion of the launch of the enrolment exercise for the National Identity Number (NIN) to call on the private sector to invest promptly in this project. Let me reiterate that call and emphasize that it is good business to do so.
In this regard, the Board of NIMC must act decisively to increase investor confidence, in a very professional way, so that the various opportunities can be rapidly identified and exploited for the good of our economy.
To all Nigerians, I say, remember the National Identification Number (NIN), is your Identity. The Card is not only a means of certifying your identity, but also a personal database repository and payment Card, all in your pocket!
Once again, I commend the Board, Management and Staff of the NIMC; it is now my honour and privilege to formally kick-off the issuance of the National e-ID Card, Scheme for the good of our country.
Little Miss Fridausi Ahuoiza Yusuf marked her second birthday on August 26th with strong determination, amidst all odds, to live on. We wish her many happy returns and happiness along the way.
The management of Nigeria National League club, Kogi United Football Club has suspended its Chief Coach, Abdullahi Biffo and Team Manager, Ameh Henry for a week with effect from today. They were suspended for leaving the club without proper permission from the management while Henry joined him from staying out of club’s activities.
This was in a statement signed by the club secretary, Mallam Tijani Ibrahim.
The statement further directed Yinka Kelvin to act as Chief Coach while the club secretary, Ibrahim Tijani is to move in as acting Team Manager of the Confluence State Club.
Kogi United are currently fourth in the NNL log with 40 points and next travel to Minna to play Niger Tornadoes on Sunday. [myad]
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With the report today, of the death of a doctor from Ebola Virus Disease in Port Harcourt, the Rivers state capital, the state government has announced the opening of special cell phone numbers for the citizens to call in cases of emergency.
President Goodluck Jonathan is thinking of welfare package for Nigerians that are jobless but that lack of adequate national data has been a stumbling block towards the implementation of the package.
We Cannot Afford To Move On Without Our Daughters , By Oby Ezekwesili
Today marks 136 days since April 14, when 219 daughters of Nigeria were taken captive from our midst at close to midnight while we all slept. The Presidential Facts Finding Committee on Chibok Abduction which was set up evidently to validate to those who doubted the tragedy, helped confirm that our daughters that went to acquire knowledge were forcibly taken by terrorists. In all, the report stated that 276 school girls were abducted from Government Secondary School on that fateful night and that fortunately, 57 of them courageously took the risk of self-rescue and are since reunited with their families.
After many weeks of tentativeness arising from indifference, doubt, visible irritation and buck passing a rescue effort was finally launched by the Federal Government, supported by countries that include the United States, Britain, France, China, Canada, Israel and Australia. However, after four months and with no news of their rescue nor any slimmer of evidence of actions being taken to bring them back, the desperate reaction of all who empathise with the girls and their families has become “where is the result from the rescue effort?”
For some others, despondent and yet willing to hold on to the tiniest ray of Hope, the demand is that the Federal Government offers Nigeria the whole truth on the matter of their rescue effort. Why so? There have been too many discordant and contradictory information on the status of the rescue of the girls by our government. Those who ask for the truth, therefore do so mindful of the need to not compromise intricacies of operational strategy while yet insisting that our government can act and convey with sincerity a series of confidence inspiring measures it is taking to resolve this massive scale of human tragedy. Like we say in life, parents and other citizens would rather be slapped with the truth than be kissed with lies.
There are after all three well known options that are possible in the rescue of abduction victims- first, military action, second, negotiation/dialogue which may be direct or indirect and third, a mix of both military action and negotiation. Anyone who has mapped and analysed all the statements ever made by our Government since we were informed by the Chief of Defence Staff
on May 24 that they had located our girls; cannot but wonder what to believe. In the quest for truth it does not help that when the dots are connected drawing from diverse statements made by our government at various times dismissing each of the options for one reason or the other, nothing tangible remains. Could it be that the evident complexity of their rescue has led to inertia or paralysis that surely portends grave danger to our #ChibokGirls …our daughters? Could this be the reason many more people now think we should be silent, move on and allow “whatever” is being done about their rescue to “quietly” continue? If it is then there is no better response to give than “Not without our daughters”.
For, indeed, the 219 girls of Chibok are our daughters. Anyone who is a true parent and real human being would admit that it is almost impossible not to think of the fate of these girls in personal terms. It is impossible not to think how deep their agony would be should children sired in their loins or carried in their wombs be experience what these innocent young women are suffering. Most of the empathetic gestures given to their cause have been framed especially the women advocates who are mothers, as being simple acts of humanity because they do see the faces of their own daughters whenever they look at the picture faces of the abducted girls. They knew they had to lend a voice to their cause once they started seeing and connecting to them not just as pieces of news from some remote region of the country or the world, but as flesh and blood that could have been their own daughters. These are the women and men who today out of deep empathy continue to stand and to speak for our girls even after the rest of the world moved on to other issues buffeting our troubled world.
The second resonant point of convergence for those who advocate for the cause of the girls is the sadness that all things considered, these girls are merely victims of a society that failed them. Our Chibok girls are victims in every sense of the word; suffering serious injury for no fault of their own. The sad but true reason our ChibokGirls continue to languish in the den of our common enemies more than four months after their abduction is that many among us see their vicissitude as one of those tragedies similar to what others have suffered in our country.
The known fact is that in the fifty four years of our independence, too many of our citizens have been victims of our nation suffering all kinds of tragedies and situations alone. Victims abounded in events leading up to, during and after the Nigerian civil war. Did we care? No, we simply moved on. We created another set of victims during the decades of military rule. Did we care? No, we again moved on. In the last fifteen years of our nascent democracy 1999 transition, we have kept on creating victims. Have we cared? Not really, we have to move on.
Within the last four years that bloody insurgents have launched a most vicious attack against our citizens, abducting, maiming and killing in thousands, have we really cared? Not really. Those it does not affect may not even give a passing thought to the victims just like it was in the past. So, are we just going to keep moving on for as long as each tragedy does not affect us, ignoring the new sets of victims of our nation to “take care of their own pain?” I have seen, heard and known how our society victimizes the victim. Can a people survive and sustain this manner of distribution of suffering in which the strong at any given point disregard the pain of the victim? No. A society where everyone carries the wound of having once been a victim that was abandoned to suffer alone can neither last nor achieve greatness.
How then can we not see that there is something about the present travail of our Chibok Girls that presents us the best opportunity to awaken our deadened souls that have since our coming together missed out on the wholesome value of empathy? How can we not see that the only and true victims in this abduction saga are our 219 daughters of Nigeria? How can we possibly move on without daughters? We must not move. We must give everything possible to save them. They can become the symbol of our catharsis – our purging – our cleaning from the accumulated toxin of bitterness and wound spread across our country from all manner of tragedies and injustice of the past.
By all agreeing not to move on without our daughters, we make a statement that as a people, we are determined to confront our common enemy together. By refusing to sacrifice our daughters that we can save, we send the strongest signal to our common enemies that our society will fight to defend our humane values and the right to life of our children, our women, our men, our young and our old regardless of their religion, politics, language and culture. By staying determined to stand with our endangered ChibokGirls, we as Nigerians would measure up to the standard of Ghandi’s words that “The True Measure of Any Society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members”
If we all did everything possible to bring back our daughters from the clutches and den of evil erected by our common enemies within our own territory; our ChibokGirls will become a historical break from our shameful past as an uncaring society if people. It will be a statement of a united people of the kind we see every day we gather for their cause at the Unity Fountain and loudly declare that “we are from Chibok”- regardless of our ethnic, political, religious, ideological persuasion.
When we do so, it is not because we are unaware of past and other present victims. It is that our daughters are in a special category of being alive and can be saved. It is a protest against the idea that the suffering of other people does not matter and can therefore be denied, ignored and even mocked. It is a kick against the lack of empathy that reflects in the poor choices over several decades that have stagnated and kept us as a tottering country that never evolved into a nation. History teaches and research validates that when a country of diverse people evolve into a nation, the probability of achieving development that benefits the largest number is significantly higher.
The combination of these two factors- daughters and victims should imprint on the mind of everyone that we could all be the biological parents of children who due to no fault of their own became victims of deadly danger. As one very involved with the formation and leadership of the #BringBackOurGirls advocacy that is championing the citizens advocacy for the rescue of our Daughters, the two factors steadfastly give me perspective regardless of what other people may think or say.
We cannot afford to move on without our daughters. Everyone who can raise a voice to compel action for them should really do so without feeling embarrassed. Everyone who has the power to act decisively and quickly to rescue must not consider them a secondary priority.
Personally, I have advocated for our ChibokGirls since the
15th April when news of their abduction broke. On the 23rd April a demand one made to have everyone at the UNESCO event inaugurating Port Harcourt as the 2014 World Book Capital stand in solidarity and demand their rescue resulted in our social media hashtag #BringBackOurGirls. The march for them on the 30th April inspired by Hadiza Bala Usman and the daily “sit-out” in Abuja by incredibly sacrificial Nigerians who are there even today for the 120 such gathering is a testament to the irony of the divine quality of our suffering Chibok Daughter.
These days, when members of our movement are taunted with questions like “when will you realise the futility of your advocacy and stop?” Like typical Nigerian, we have learnt to answer questions of this sort with some simple questions. Interestingly, one question to which not even the irredeemably heartless have ever been able to answer without shame is “Did 219 girls also willingly offer themselves to be denied their freedom and their lives?” If they did not, why then should we make victims out of children who already are victims? “Would you say want us to stop if any of them were your daughter?”
We cannot afford to move on without our daughters. Everyone who can raise a voice to compel action for them should really do so without feeling embarrassed. Everyone who has the power to act decisively and quickly to rescue must not consider them a secondary priority. The three possible options of rescue are narrowed and clear to all. Until our Federal Government demonstrates that our ChibokGirls are not being abandoned by showing that it is taking any of the three and that we shall no longer move on and forsake victims of our society as we during the fifty four years of history-there will always be voices; if even just one demanding that our daughters must be rescued from our enemies. So, when next time you hear that chant or read that chant #BringBackOurGirls and ever go on to ask “when will you stop.?” there are two answers you can be sure of “#UntilOurGirlsAreBackAndAlive and best of the two, #NotWithoutOurDaughters!
Mrs Ezekwesili is a former Education Minister and one of the BBOG Coordinators
[myad]