Perhaps, it is only in Nigeria that adults, whose children have grown up to also earn the status of adulthood would throw pure insults at one another in the name of politics with no shame at all. Indeed, as the nation advances to 2015, another election year, there have been growing number of old people, and their younger counterparts throwing insults all over the place. Just imagine for a start, this portion of the remarks by Chief Edewin Clark who has been around in Nigerian politics since the first Republic in the 60’s: “Let Nigerians decide (whether President Goodluck Jonathan should win the 2015 Presidential election; not people like the crooked Dr. Junaid Mohammed in Kano who believes his people are superior to all other Nigerians. Dr. Junaid Mohammed is a very irresponsible person who has no regard for decency and behaves like a hired thug.” If in response, Dr. Junaidu heaped painful insults on a man that is supposed to be playing the role of statesmanship now, one wonders how his (Clark’s) children, who are now fully grown as adults, will feel. As a matter of fact, the social media is now a market for Nigerians to throw insults at one another, mostly on the basis of tribe, religion and region. Older or even oldest Nigerians and the intellectuals appear so frustrated and confused by the exigency of the moment that nothing else pleases them other than the usage of insultive words on fellow Nigerians at the slightest provocation. Just as lives of Nigerians, to terrorists, ritual and hired killers, as well as other sundry sadists no longer worth more than that of lizards, insults are so common that even the son would throw them freely at his father whenever he feels provoked. Must we return to the late 50’s when all that mattered in politics, for those who have dirty ambitions, is to throw stones in the market square, at whoever opposed them? Are we this crude: both the young and the elders that are supposed to be the guiding lights?
Gunmen, suspected to be hired-killers, last night, murdered the General Manager of a Kaduna-based New Democrat newspaper, Malam Ustaz Yunus. The newspaper company, a Weekly tabloid, is owned by Senator Mukhtar Aruwa.
Eye witnesses said that the gunmen stormed the residence of Yunus at Ungwan Dosa area of Kaduna metropolis at about 7.45 p.m., and shot him dead.
Some staff of the newspaper outfit, who did not want their names mentioned, said no single item was taken away from the residence of the victim.
“We suspect a political undertone to his killing because the killers did not take anything from the house. They just stormed the house, killed him, and disappeared,” said one of the staff.
Kaduna State Police Command’s spokesperson, Aminu Lawal, confirmed the incident.
He said investigations had commenced on the matter. [myad]
The Academic Staff Union of Polytechnics (ASUP) has suspended its nine-month strike and may return to the street after three months if government does not meet their demands.
The National President of ASUP, Chibuzor Asomugha, said today that the polytechnic lecturers would resume work Tuesday.
He explained that the strike had only been suspended for three months, an interlude the government is expected to meet the demands of ASUP.
The polytechnic lecturers began their strike on October 4, 2013. [myad]
An estimated 36,000 Nigerian women are said to be dying in pregnancy or at child birth each year with about 5,500 of them being among teenage mothers. This shows that Nigeria accounts for about 13 percent of the global maternal death rates.
This is even as Jigawa state topped the list of teenage mothers with 78 percent of its girls between ages 15-19 in early marriage. Jigawa is closely followed by Katsina, Zamfara, Bauchi and Sokoto states.
These figures were revealed in the Demographic Health Survey 2013 which also noted that 70 percent of the maternal deaths in Nigeria are due to four conditions: haemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis and abortion complications.
It disclosed that only 9.8 percent of Nigerian women use modern family planning methods , while 16.1 percent have an expressed unmet need for family planning.
“51 percent of pregnant women had at least four antenatal care visits…only 38 percent of the annual 6.6 million births in Nigeria were assisted by a skilled attendant,” it read.
Data made available by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) however noted that over the last 20 years, Nigeria has made significant progress in reducing the maternal mortality ratio. It however added that Nigeria has to make concerted efforts to reach the Millennium Development Goal of 300 per 100,000 (or under 20,000 annual deaths) by 2015.
Nigeria also has about 260,000 neonatal deaths annually, 13 percent of which can be prevented with live saving interventions such as provision of required maternal health medicines and supplies. On child marriage, it was revealed that Nigeria has one of the highest child marriage prevalence rates in the world. [myad]
A 53-year-old Pastor in Nsukka, Enugu state, Timothy Ngwu, alleged to be fond of tricking women into his church for sex in the name of God, has been exposed by his wife, Veronica, who said that he has even impregnated her teenage niece.
Timothy, of the Ministry of Holy Trinity, has subsequently been arrested by the Nigerian police after allegedly had sexual relations with several women in the name of God.
Veronica who exposed her husband after she confronted him about his deeds, managed to escape with one of her daughters.
She was said to have approached the Criminal Investigations Department unit, which handles child sex abuse cases, and lodged a criminal case against her husband.
Veronica, in her written complaint, alleged that when the Pastor converts married woman and single girls, he would fool them, claiming that God wanted them to have sexual relations with him.
“I could not stomach his ‘rascality’ anymore,” Veronica stated in her complaint.
Following his arrest, the accused Pastor confirmed that he had intercourse with married women but that he was guided by the Holy Spirit to do so even as he insisted that he used to do it after taking the consent of their husbands.
The police investigations also found that the accused Pastor had fooled several young gullible girls.
The investigators also found two young women in the church property who had left their husbands and were living with the Pastor. The women claimed that the Pastor had asked them to leave their husbands as the Holy Spirit wanted them to serve the anointed servant of God.
The Pastor has now been charged with child sex abuse. It is believed that at least 100 women, including girls as young as 11, might have been victimized by the accused. [myad]
Israel pounded Gaza for a fifth day Saturday as it vowed no let-up in its air campaign to halt rocket attacks by militants which has killed more than 120 Palestinians even as defiant Hamas fired five more rockets into Israel as the Islamist movement rejected growing international calls for a halt to hostilities, insisting Israel must act first.
Diplomatic efforts to stop the violence saw US President, Barack Obama telephoning Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu and Washington offering to use its relationships in the Middle East to bring about a return to calm.
But speaking at a news conference in Tel Aviv yesterday, Netanyahu said he would not end the military campaign until he achieved his goal of stopping the Hamas fire and preparations gathered pace for a possible ground assault.
“No international pressure will prevent us from striking, with all force, against the terrorist organisation which calls for our destruction,” he said.
“No terrorist target in Gaza is immune.”
Despite international concern, truce efforts have been unsuccessful, according to Egypt, which has been key in mediating previous ceasefires between Hamas and Israel.
“Egypt has communicated with all sides to halt violence against civilians and called on them to continue with the truce agreement signed in November 2012,” the foreign ministry said.
“Unfortunately, these efforts… have met with stubbornness.”
After weeks of rocket fire into its southern flank, Israel appeared bent on dealing a fatal blow to Hamas.
Ismail Haniya, Gaza’s former premier and the most senior Hamas official in the coastal enclave, ruled out any halt to hostilities.
“(Israel) is the one that started this aggression and it must stop, because we are (simply) defending ourselves,” he said.
Israel says preparations are under way for a possible ground attack, with tanks and artillery massed along the border and some 33,000 reservists mobilised out of 40,000 approved by the cabinet. More armour was seen heading south on Saturday morning.
Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said he expected a political decision on a possible ground operation by Sunday.
“At the moment we are dealing with the first phase… air attacks,” he told Channel One television.
“I imagine we shall decide tomorrow (Saturday) or the day after on the next stage.”
Early Saturday, 16 Palestinians died in a wave of Israeli air strikes as Operation Protective Edge entered its fifth day, taking the overall death toll to 121, medics said.
The Israeli military said it had struck “several terrorists conspiring to launch rockets at Israel” and “a weapons cache concealed within a mosque in the central Gaza Strip.”
So far, no one in Israel has been killed. Two have been seriously wounded, including a man at a petrol station hit by a rocket.
In northern Israel, at least one rocket fired from Lebanon struck an open area near the town of Metula on Friday, prompting troops to respond with shelling, the army said.
The military believed a Palestinian group fired it in solidarity with Hamas, public radio reported.
The escalating violence brought more offers of truce negotiations from the White House Friday.
“There are a number of relationships the United States has that we are willing to leverage in the region to try to bring about an end to the rocket fire that’s originating in Gaza and, as we saw this morning, in Lebanon,” said White House spokesman Josh Earnest on Friday.
He referred to taking steps as the US and Egypt did in November 2012 to broker a truce between Israel and Hamas.
Kuwait requested an emergency Arab foreign ministers meeting to discuss “the deteriorating situation”, which a diplomat at the Arab League said will be held on Monday.
Israeli strikes on residential buildings in Gaza brought a rebuke from the UN’s human rights office over the number of civilian casualties.
“Even when a home is identified as being used for military purposes, any attack must be proportionate… and precautions must be taken to protect civilians,” said spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani.
A group of 34 charities and NGOs also called for an end to the fighting.
“Military actions by all parties must stop,” said a statement signed by groups including ActionAid, CARE, Oxfam and Save the Children.
Amnesty International called for the United Nations “to immediately impose a comprehensive arms embargo on Israel, Hamas and Palestinian armed groups” and launch an enquiry into “violations committed on all sides”.
Since the start of Israel’s operation on Tuesday, about 525 rockets have struck the Jewish state, and Iron Dome has shot down around 138, an army spokeswoman told AFP on Saturday.
The army Twitter account said that overnight strikes “hit over 60 terror targets, making a total of 1,160 since the beginning of Operation Protective Edge.” [myad]
Ninety two Nigeria lawyers, including three female ones have failed to make it to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in an examination conducted by the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC). The Registrar of the Supreme Court and Secretary of the LPPC, Mr. Sunday Olorundahunsi, who addressed journalists after the committee’s meeting yesterday said That out of the 109 lawyers who applied for the rank, only 17 of them sailed through, adding that there were only three females who could not make the final list. He said that the 17 lawyers who passed the ultimate test were chosen from the 23 that were shortlisted for an interview, which held on June 8 and 9, adding that the new SANs would be sworn in on September 22. The new SANs, whose names were released today, include Dr. Olu Onagoruwa, who was the Attorney-General of the Federation during the regime of the late Head of State, General Sani Abacha; Professor Josah Amupitan, Olusola Idowu, Dr. Ernest Ojukwu, Ahamefula Ejelam, Chike Onyemenam, Tawo Eja Tawo, Olatunde Adejuyigbe and Sylvanus Ogwemmoh. Others are Dr. Adewale Olawoyin, Dr. Joshua Olatoke, Teslim Busari, Kevin Nwufo, Dr. Amuda-Kannike Abiodun, Oluwakemi Balogun, Hakeem Afolabi and Gerald Ezeuko. The list of the successful lawyers were released after a meeting of the LPPC at the Supreme Court on Thursday. Two of the of successful lawyers – Amupitan of the University of Jos and Idowu of the Nigerian Law School – were awarded the rank on the basis of their scholarly contribution to the development of the law (academia). Olorundahunsi made it clear that the LPPC “adhered strictly to the provisions of the guidelines” in arriving at the list of the successful candidates.
After Syria, Iraq and Libya, trouble for the West could be brewing in corrupt Nigeria. Goodluck Jonathan is a Bad News president. Three months after the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls there is still no sign of them. Slowly, too slowly for the teenagers who made the perhaps fatal mistake of wanting to sit their exams, it is becoming clear that the president is largely indifferent to their fate. As he is no longer in the Western spotlight, President Jonathan has lost any sense of urgency. One day he will wake up to find he has lost his country too.It’s not just our flickering attention span that now makes the West complicit in this crime, or its tardy solution. It is part of a broader betrayal, a sense of hopelessness that makes us too quick to wash our hands off problems too difficult to solve. You could call it PontiusPilatePolitik. Remember how we demanded that Bashar Assad step down as Syrian leader? We don’t do that any more; apparently we may need him to defeat Islamist terror. Apparently we may need Iran too. As for the Western hard line on Vladimir Putin’s encroachment on Ukraine, you may notice we don’t mention Crimea much any more. And so it is with President Jonathan. Forget the dizzying desertion of his responsibilities to his citizens—they are after all his citizens, not ours. Let’s move on, cry the apologists. Look where gun-toting sheriffing of the world got us in the past decade. Syria, Iran, Russia: they are not measures of our retreat from the world but just a recognition of the limits of our power, a new realism. One day soon an EU or State Department official will let it be known—strictly off the record, mind—that the West needs President Jonathan in a rebranded war against terror. Tell that though to the girls wrenched from their boarding school in Chibok. The social media campaign #bringbackourgirls picked up momentum because the education of girls was such an obviously universal cause; its denial by force so obviously a crime that affected more than the northern Nigerian province of Borno. A state worthy of its name had a duty to shield them. Its continuing failure to do so is not comparable to the president’s other failings: his patchy record on bringing electric power to the country, the terrible roads. That is up to Nigerian voters to decide in next year’s election. When a government abandons its children though, it is time to step in. The locals are calling for an intervention by the United Nations. It is easy to understand their plea.The novelist Ben Okri warns of a crisis “that if not contained could trigger something terrible in our country.” It has gone, he says, “beyond anything the government is equipped to deal with.” He’s right. Inaction, the washing of hands, is the worst possible response to what is going on in Nigeria. At the Berlin Conference, in 1885, Bismarck steered the European partition of Africa. Today the European Union, poised to integrate more closely, and reluctant to engage elsewhere in the world, has become a numbed spectator to a new era of partition—in Syria, Iraq, Libya and, if the centre collapses, in Nigeria too. The malevolent power of Boko Haram may be exaggerated by President Jonathan in an effort to legitimize his rule; he is a leader in search of enemies. It thrives, though, on popular disdain for the corruption of the Jonathan government, and for the army of which he is commander in chief. Last February, the president suspended the head of the central bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, who had pointed out that $20 billion was missing from the national oil accounts. Earlier he made enemies by sacking bankers, demanding the dismissal of thousands of civil servants and accusing a minister of leasing her own private planes to the government. Sanusi, now the emir of the northern fiefdom of Kano, is a man to whom we should be talking. We napped in the years ahead of the Arab Spring, getting into bed with dictators who served our commercial interests and missing the rumble on the street. Now, as we flee any knotty international problem, we risk being on the wrong side of a brewing African Spring. The corruption of African states has to be our concern in shaping aid and foreign policy. Crooked officialdom worries the new middle class of the continent’s fast-growing countries because it is beginning to destabilize governments rather than consolidate tribal loyalties; it must, therefore, become part of our calculations too. Nigeria could have been as rich and as self-confident as Indonesia. Instead it is teetering on the edge of chaos, its poverty of ambition exposed by the fate of 200 girls held, and perhaps brutalized, by fanatical Islamist hoodlums somewhere in the northern forests.
Nigeria may face economic ‘Tsunami’ from next year when demand for its crude oil, which represents over 80 percent of its national income, is predicted by Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to decline by about 300,000 barrels per day (bpd). OPEC predicted similar decline in demand for crude oil from the other 11 member oil-cartel by the same quantum of bpd. The prediction is predicated against the backdrop of surging supply from non-OPEC producers, particularly the United States (US). The US was said to have overtaken Saudi Arabia and Russia to become the world’s biggest producer of oil as extraction of energy from shale rock strengthens the nation’s economy, Bank of America Corporation said in a report last week. With efforts towards lifting the almost 40-year-old ban on crude oil exports in the US gaining attraction, Nigeria and other oil-exporting West African countries are at risk of losing a share of the global crude oil export market when US crude exports come online. In its monthly oil market report, released yesterday, OPEC said that it expected demand for crude produced by its members to fall to 29.4 million bpd in 2015, down from 29.7 million bpd estimated for this year. “The above forecasts suggest a demand for OPEC crude of 29.4 million bpd in 2015, a decline of 300,000 bpd from the current year,” OPEC said. “Therefore, even if next year’s world economic growth turns out to be better than expected and crude oil demand outperforms expectations, OPEC will have sufficient supply to provide to the market,” the cartel said. OPEC said its crude oil production fell by 79,000 bpd to 29.7 million bpd in June from 29.78 million bpd in May, according to secondary sources. Iraq led the crude oil output decrease, while crude oil production from Saudi Arabia and Nigeria experienced an increase in June. Production from Nigeria last month, according to secondary sources, was 1.911 million bpd, up from 1.868 million bpd in May. Based on direct communication, only Nigeria had no data for its crude oil production in June. Non-OPEC supply is expected to grow by 1.3 million bpd in 2015 to average 57 million bpd. OECD Americas is expected to see the highest growth, with contributions from the US and Canada, followed by Latin America, due to the increase in Brazilian production. World oil demand in 2015 is forecast to grow by 1.2 million bpd to average 92.3 million bpd, higher than the growth of 1.1 million bpd estimated for 2014. For the first time since 2010, OECD oil demand is expected to grow, increasing by 40,000 bpd, with America being the only OECD region exhibiting growth. Following the significant decline in crude imports to the US from Nigeria in the past few years, on the back of shale oil production boom, crude exports from Nigeria and other West African countries to Europe have been steadily increasing since 2010 from 870,000 bpd to 1.42 million bpd last year, according to shipbroker Gibson, in its recent report. But there has been a persistent overhang of West African crude oil cargoes on the market since May. Trade is said to have been slow due to lower demand from Asia and Europe. [myad]
Nigeria Minister of Health, Onyebuchi Chukwu has warned members of the National Association of Nigerian Traditional Medicine Practitioners (NANTMP) not to compromise ethical standards in the practice of their trade.
Receiving the executive members of the association in his office today, the Minister said that though government has created the enabling environment to encourage herbal medicine practice in the country, but that the government would not fail to use the big stick if any practitioner fails to observe the ethics of the profession.
He assured that the Government is not resting on its oars to make sure that herbal medicine in Nigeria is taken to the next level and at par with any herbal medicine in the world; adding that Nigeria will soon begin to export herbal medicine provided they are verified by NIPRD and registered as well as certified by NAFDAC.
On the issue of exporting herbal products to chart the way forward, he said that there is going to be a multi-sectoral approach, pointing out that the Government will soon put a body in place to drive that process.
Onyebuchi Chukwu stressed that Government will involve conventional doctors who are doing herbal medicine, the Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria, the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Research and Development (NIPRD), NAFDAC and the Federal Ministries of Health, Science and Technology, Trade and Investment would be part of the process.
On the issue of efficacy and safety of the herbal products, the Minister charged the Traditional Medicine Practitioners not to leave anything to chance by making sure that the products have the necessary ingredients. He said that they should take the issue of storage of the medicine seriously by ensuring that they are not contaminated. Adding, they should comply strictly with standard guidelines and the issue of dosage should be strictly adhered to.He reaffirmed that the Government is determined more than ever before without sentiment or prejudice to encourage herbal medicine practice in Nigeria.
Speaking earlier, the National President of the National Association of Nigerian Traditional Medicine Practitioners (NANTMP), Omon Oleabhele, noted that traditional medicine practice in Nigeria never had it so good like what it is witnessing in this present dispensation. [myad]
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Ninety two Nigeria lawyers, including three female ones have failed to make it to the rank of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) in an examination conducted by the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC).
Goodluck Jonathan Is A Bad News President (UK Times), By Roger Boyes
After Syria, Iraq and Libya, trouble for the West could be brewing in corrupt Nigeria. Goodluck Jonathan is a Bad News president.
Three months after the abduction of more than 200 schoolgirls there is still no sign of them. Slowly, too slowly for the teenagers who made the perhaps fatal mistake of wanting to sit their exams, it is becoming clear that the president is largely indifferent to their fate. As he is no longer in the Western spotlight, President Jonathan has lost any sense of urgency. One day he will wake up to find he has lost his country too.It’s not just our flickering attention span that now makes the West complicit in this crime, or its tardy solution. It is part of a broader betrayal, a sense of hopelessness that makes us too quick to wash our hands off problems too difficult to solve. You could call it PontiusPilatePolitik.
Remember how we demanded that Bashar Assad step down as Syrian leader?
We don’t do that any more; apparently we may need him to defeat Islamist terror. Apparently we may need Iran too. As for the Western hard line on Vladimir Putin’s encroachment on Ukraine, you may notice we don’t mention Crimea much any more.
And so it is with President Jonathan. Forget the dizzying desertion of his responsibilities to his citizens—they are after all his citizens, not ours. Let’s move on, cry the apologists. Look where gun-toting sheriffing of the world got us in the past decade. Syria, Iran, Russia: they are not measures of our retreat from the world but just a recognition of the limits of our power, a new realism.
One day soon an EU or State Department official will let it be known—strictly off the record, mind—that the West needs President Jonathan in a rebranded war against terror.
Tell that though to the girls wrenched from their boarding school in Chibok. The social media campaign
#bringbackourgirls
picked up momentum because the education of girls was such an obviously universal cause; its denial by force so obviously a crime that affected more than the northern Nigerian province of Borno. A state worthy of its name had a duty to shield them.
Its continuing failure to do so is not comparable to the president’s other failings: his patchy record on bringing electric power to the country, the terrible roads. That is up to Nigerian voters to decide in next year’s election. When a government abandons its children though, it is time to step in.
The locals are calling for an intervention by the United Nations. It is easy to understand their plea.The novelist Ben Okri warns of a crisis “that if not contained could trigger something terrible in our country.”
It has gone, he says, “beyond anything the government is equipped to deal with.” He’s right.
Inaction, the washing of hands, is the worst possible response to what is going on in Nigeria. At the Berlin Conference, in 1885, Bismarck steered the European partition of Africa. Today the European Union, poised to integrate more closely, and reluctant to engage elsewhere in the world, has become a numbed spectator to a new era of partition—in Syria, Iraq, Libya and, if the centre collapses, in Nigeria too.
The malevolent power of Boko Haram may be exaggerated by President Jonathan in an effort to legitimize his rule; he is a leader in search of enemies. It thrives, though, on popular disdain for the corruption of the Jonathan government, and for the army of which he is commander in chief.
Last February, the president suspended the head of the central bank of Nigeria, Lamido Sanusi, who had pointed out that $20 billion was missing from the national oil accounts. Earlier he made enemies by sacking bankers, demanding the dismissal of thousands of civil servants and accusing a minister of leasing her own private planes to the government.
Sanusi, now the emir of the northern fiefdom of Kano, is a man to whom we should be talking. We napped in the years ahead of the Arab Spring, getting into bed with dictators who served our commercial interests and missing the rumble on the street.
Now, as we flee any knotty international problem, we risk being on the wrong side of a brewing African Spring.
The corruption of African states has to be our concern in shaping aid and foreign policy. Crooked officialdom worries the new middle class of the continent’s fast-growing countries because it is beginning to destabilize governments rather than consolidate tribal loyalties; it must, therefore, become part of our calculations too. Nigeria could have been as rich and as self-confident as Indonesia. Instead it is teetering on the edge of chaos, its poverty of ambition exposed by the fate of 200 girls held, and perhaps brutalized, by fanatical Islamist hoodlums somewhere in the northern forests.
thetimes.co.uk. [myad]