Category: General

President Bola Tinubu has approved the appointment of Mr Ali Muhammed Ali as the new Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

This is contained in a statement by Chief Ajuri Ngelale, Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, on Thursday in Abuja.

The other new leadership of the departments and agencies in the Ministry of Information and National Orientation are:

(1) National Orientation Agency (NOA) — Director-General /CEO — Mr Lanre Issa-Onilu

(2) Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) — Director-General/CEO — Mr Salihu Abdulhamid Dembos

(3) Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria (FRCN) — Director-General/CEO — Dr Muhammed Bulama

(4) National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) — Director-General/CEO — Mr Charles Ebuebu

(5) Voice of Nigeria (VON) — Director-General / CEO — Mr Jibrin Baba Ndace

(6) Advertising Regulatory Council of Nigeria (ARCON) — Director-General / CEO — Dr Lekan Fadolapo

(7) Nigerian Press Council (NPC) — Executive Secretary / CEO — Mr Dili Ezughah

The President tasked the new leadership to innovate and create new opportunities for Nigerians to leverage on through the effective reform of these key institutions of government.

He added that these institutions function to unify the people, reshape mindsets, and showcase Nigeria to the rest of the world.

The appointments of the new leadership take immediate effect. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Gov. Caleb Mutfwang of Plateau has urged the indigenes of the state living in the U.S. to unite and form a cohesive alliance aimed at mutual development.

Mutfwang made the call at a Gala Night of the 2023 Annual National Convention of Plateau Association USA, Inc. (PSA-USA), held in Columbia, Maryland in the U.S. on Wednesday.

This is contained in a statement signed by the group’s General Secretary, Nanjul Wuyep, and its Public Relations Officer, Franca Keyen, was made available to newsmen on Thursday in Abuja.

Mutfwang urged them to embody the quintessential Plateau spirit marked by love, togetherness, friendship, tolerance, and peace as they reside abroad.

He stressed the need for all Plateau sons and daughters residing in the Diaspora to come together and project the image of the state for accelerated growth and development.

According to him, no single tribe on the Plateau can stand in isolation, no matter its strength.

He said such collective effort was the first step towards ushering development back to their cherished homeland.

The President of PSA-USA, Dr Barth Shepkong, assured the governor of the group’s commitment to attract substantial Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) for Plateau’s growth.

Shepkong expressed his profound gratitude to Mutfwang for his exemplary leadership in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Gala Night was a melting pot of cultures and friendship, as representatives from various associations extended their support.

Friends of PSA-USA, including the Zumunta Association, USA; Igala Association; Berom Association; Middle Belt Association, Canada; and distinguished guests from Kaduna, Igbo, Yoruba, Trinidad and Tobago, Rwanda, Cameroon, and other communities, graced the event.

NAN reports that the PSA-USA is dedicated to promoting public service excellence, fostering collaboration among leaders, and addressing critical challenges facing communities in Plateau.

Founded in 2005, PSA-USA, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non-political, non-religious association exclusively organised for charitable, scientific and educational purposes, more specifically to engage in education, health, social, and economic development activities both in the U.S. and in Plateau.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

The Defence and Police Officers Wives Association (DEPOWA), on Thursday sensitised school girls in military and police schools in the FCT on cervical cancer prevention.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the sensitisation programme was organised as part of the 3-Day Medical Outreach by the association to mark the Cancer Awareness Month.

The President of DEPOWA, Mrs Oghogho Musa, said that the awareness was to encourage women and girls to go for early detection and treatment.

She added that the outreach was to reach out, create awareness and sensitise the children on the common health conditions and preventive measures, as cancer has affected millions of people worldwide, causing immeasurable pain and suffering.

Musa said the programme was also to encourage students to get involved in cancer awareness, adding that they would also be availed of the Human Papilloma Virus (HPV) vaccine that would be launched on Oct. 24, for girls of between nine and 14 years.

“This is because Nigeria has one of the highest death rates among women and children hence my passion towards providing you with adequate information that you need to prevent or fight this scourge.

“Furthermore, this month of October is cancer awareness month and this is important because breast cancer is the second commonest cancer in the world while cervical cancer is the fourth most frequent cancer in women.

“These two conditions have taken several lives of our women and we also have positive stories of survivors amongst us which informed our 3-day medical outreach,” she said.

Mrs Musa said every girl-child should be able to examine her breast at home to detect lumps early, because early detection saves lives.

She added that more than 200 Adolescent girls from tri-service schools would be sensitised on HPV infection, and the vaccine for the prevention of cervical cancer.

“Also, we will reach out to orphans and vulnerable children including children of our fallen heroes to encourage them on healthy practices, deworm them, provide medical services and support them with school supplies.

“The program will round up with free medical check-up for DEPOWA members and a road march/aerobics exercise to encourage our women to be physically active and take care of their health so they can continue to take care of the home front, their husbands and children,” she said. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

An NGO, Save the Children International Nigeria, has called for more investments as well as synergy to achieve children’s rights and Sustainable Development Goals especially as they relate to children in Nigeria.

Mr Ebrima Saidy, Chief Impact Officer, SCI, made the call at a news briefing on Wednesday in Abuja .

According to Saidy, the primary duty bearer and the responsible entity to deliver children’s rights is the government therefore.

He, therefore, said that SCI’s role was to complement the efforts of the governments at all levels to achieve the goal of providing the rights for children .

Saidy said that in 2022 ,SCI’s programme reached more than 24.4 million children and families in over 70 Local Government Areas in 17 States of the Federation.

According to him, the NGO has been providing life-saving humanitarian assistance and responding to emergencies.

He said that since January 2023,SCI had reached out to more than 1,590,047 individuals, comprising 64 per cent children .

Saidy said he visited some SCI works sites in Nigeria and was impressed by the success rate of projects impacting on children.

They include stabilisation centres where children suffering from severe acute malnutrition were being treated with an average success rate of 94 to 95 per cent .

He said, “It makes me very proud and positive that we can indeed achieve our breakthroughs in Nigeria that no child dies from preventable causes before their fifth birthday.

“Every child is able to access and learn from good quality education, and that violence against children is no longer tolerated anywhere in any household or any community.

“We are going through a strategy refresh process, trying to figure out what the next 10 years of achieving impact in Nigeria look like for SCI.

*In partnership with the government and communities, we are really excited about the opportunities that are provided for us. ”

Saidy said that there were a lot of SDGs indicators that would be achieved like; access to education.

He added,”But, with the indicators around quality of education, we may not be able to achieve that by the year 2030 and that’s not just in Nigeria, but also in many countries around the world.

“This is because of the quality of instruction, the resourcing of schools, the resourcing of teachers, the enabling environment for teachers to provide good quality education, and the infrastructure that is required. We are still way behind on a number of these.”

Saidy said that the case was similar in the health sector ,which is strong in some states but relatively weak in others, saying, “so we are not quite there.

“We are committed to the SDGs.We know from the data where we are doing well and where we are not doing well.

“I think the right thing to do is to identify the areas that we are not doing very well and increase government investment in those areas, and coordinate the work of NGOs and the work of the development partners, to say everybody all hands on deck. ”

According to Saidy, working together under the coordination of the government would make it possible to make significant strides to get close to the SCI target as possible by the year 2030.

” It is not too late for us. We are still optimistic that we may not achieve all but we can still push the boundaries as best as possible, but we have to partner to work better together.

“We have to complement each other. We all bring different expertise and different roles and responsibilities; it is about including the children and the communities that we work in.

“We need to work better with the government. We need to work better with donors and our development partners.

“We want to be able to raise more funding to be able to increase the amount of states that we work in, but also the depth of our work in some of the states that are very, very deprived, “he said .

Saidy said that Nigeria contributed one of the largest number of early child and forced marriages and out- schooldays children to the global caseload .

He said that all the children deserved a better future so the rights of children should be fully protected and fulfilled.

This is through the creation and adoption of suitable policies ,strategies, plans and making sure that those frameworks were budgeted for and implemented to transform children’s lives.

Saidy said that there was the need to put checks in place to protect children especially from the diphtheria outbreak.

He added, “Since Nigeria already has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world as only 42 per cent of children under 15 in Nigeria are fully protected from diphtheria.

“SCI therefore , calls for a launching of a wide-scale health response with mass vaccination campaigns across the worst hit areas.

“It is also appealing to donors to support the comprehensive response being launched by the government and Humanitarian actors to support local health services to combat diphtheria.”(NAN)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

Dr Mohammed Ibn Chambas, the African Union (AU) High Representative for Silencing the Guns, on Thursday urged African states to learn from the Chinese experience if the continent is to achieve its dream of development.

Chambas gave the advice when he delivered a webinar keynote address to participants at the 2023 Abuja Forum, a conference organised by the Gusau Institute in collaboration with the Zhejiang Normal University of China.

The forum which was held in Abuja, had the theme: “Promoting Africa-China Belt and Road Cooperation for a New Era of Common Development.”

Speaking further in his address, Chambas said, “there are a few lessons that I see we can learn from the Chinese experience.

“Many commentators see China’s rapid development as a miracle but it is obvious to me that this was no miracle.

“No, it was not a miracle. It came about as a result of careful and meticulous planning directed by a national vision.

“The saying that ‘failure to plan is planning to fail’ is a truism.

“The Chinese were able to correctly analyse and understand their situation and decide where they wanted to go, and set out to plan the exact steps to be taken to get there.

“But we all know that planning alone isn’t enough.

“Therefore, the second important lesson we can learn from the Chinese experience is the discipline of policy implementation.

“No matter how well one plans, without proper execution everything will come to naught. Admittedly, we have a serious problem with following through with our plans in Africa.

“I have seen a fair share of good policy documents prepared by experts at the country, regional, and continental levels which have remained on the shelves while the problems that they were designed to solve linger on.

”I am curious to see how Africa-China partnerships could help us develop this discipline of implementation and delivery.”

He said China’s goal of achieving full integration into the global economy over the longer term, currently manifests through two separate but interconnected global initiatives, namely – the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the “International Capacity Cooperation” initiative.

According to him, BRI projects China’s global economic connectivity and influence along two major axes (the on-land Eurasian bridge referred to as the “Silk Road and Economic Belt” – and the maritime route which connects seaports in China to those in Asia, Pacific, and Africa – referred to as the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road) whereas the “International Capacity Cooperation” initiative aims primarily to move offshore, in the form of project-specific investments.

“China has also set up a variety of special purpose infrastructure investment funds, such as China-Arab Investment funds; China-South America Fund; China-Africa Development Fund, and the China-Africa Fund for Industrial Cooperation aimed at bolstering support for China-Africa industrial capacity cooperation, toward Africa’s industrialisation drive, the former ECOWAS president said.

“Thirdly, the Chinese have been able to develop without compromising their culture, history, and way of life.

“It is remarkable that they have been able to weather all global pressures including ideological, philosophical, cultural, moral, economic, and political pressures to keep their culture.

“From my perspective, it is this ability to maintain and improve upon their way of life that has helped the Chinese to come this far.

“What this teaches us is that we cannot develop by seeking to copy everything from other places.

“Development after all is a positive evolution of culture.

“So how do we take stock of our history and culture, improve upon the positive aspects, and resolve the negative aspects such that we can take full advantage of our enormous resources to build the prosperity that we so desire as Africans.

“This is a question that should continually agitate our minds as we engage our partners,” Chambas said.

He noted that as the AU High Representative for Silencing the Guns, he is “particularly optimistic about what the China-Africa relationship means for peace and security.

“The Africa-China cooperation equally aims at building a safer, stable, and more peaceful Africa by upholding the common, comprehensive, cooperative and sustainable security concepts.

“China and Africa have continued to pursue peace through cooperation and resolving differences through dialogue and consultations.

“China supports African countries in seeking African solutions to African problems,” he added.

He stated that the two parties are jointly promoting the timely accomplishment of “silencing guns in Africa”.

Chambas, therefore, urged all sides in the Africa-China partnership to make the collaboration durable and a win-win for both sides.

He expressed optimism that the partnership would help Africa realise its vision captured in Agenda 2063.

Speaking earlier, Founder of Gusau Institute, retired Lt.-Gen. Aliyu Gusau said that the yearly conference “is billed to advance dialogue and foster more understanding between African nations and the People’s Republic of China.

”It also provides the opportunity for critical discussion of issues that mutually affect China and Africa.”

Gusau said that coming against the backdrop of wide-ranging interactions between “our regions”, there was no doubt that the forum could promote closer friendship, greater economic engagement, and other mutually beneficial activities.

According to him, it has become imperative that in the fast-changing political, economic, and other global ecosystems, more attention should be focused on the importance of effective collaboration, in this case, between Africa and China.

“This is not only appropriate but timely if we are to develop a new and workable strategic framework for tackling the increasingly intricate challenges of this era.

“We are convinced, following recent events, that any effort to shape a new international order that is stable, inclusive, and beneficial to all regions of the world, should be a collaborative effort,” he added.

He expressed optimism that the conference would witness very engaging and productive interactions.

“At the Gusau Institute, we believe that what Africa needs most now is an entity that will generate new ideas for dealing with old and emerging challenges facing the continent.

“Such a body should comprehend how global issues affect Africa. It should also articulate the course of actions needed to effectively address the numerous security problems that plague both the continent and the rest of the international community.

“A core value of our Institute is to develop long-term working relationships and partnerships with similar organisations around the globe, as we have with Zhejiang Normal University.

“We believe that fostering strong international relationships is paramount in ensuring the world’s sustainability and future growth,” the former National Security Adviser to former Nigerian presidents Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Goodluck Jonathan said.

Highlight of the conference was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the institute and the Zhejiang Normal University.

The MoU is aimed at promoting academic collaboration, conference hosting, book-writing, student exchange, and information sharing on how to secure funding for academic purposes. (NAN)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria

The National Directorate of Employment (NDE) has commenced the training of 100 youths on sustainable agricultural development skills in Imo.

Director-General of the NDE, Mallam Abubakar Nuhu-Fikpo flagged off the training in Owerri, on Thursday.

Represented by NDE’s Director of Planning, Research and Statistics, Mr Edmund Onwuliri, Nuhu-Fikpo said the training was part of the directorate’s Sustainable Agriculture Development Training Scheme (SADTS).

He said the training ,holding in 12 states of the federation, aimed at creating jobs for people in rural communities.

The director-general added that the training with focus on modern innovative technology in agriculture would last for three months.

The DG also said that each trainee would receive the sum of N5,000 per month as transport allowance.

According to him, the 100 beneficiaries would be trained on vegetable farming, snail, poultry and pig farming, with their value chains.

“This training will surely create more jobs for people in rural communities and reduce rural to urban migration.

“The NDE attaches a high premium to the empowerment of people and is therefore fully prepared to work with the state government to achieve this,” he said.

Mrs Chisara Egwim-Chima, NDE Coordinator in Imo, said the time had come for rural dwellers to overcome poverty, unemployment, economic backwardness and hunger through better agricultural practices and improved food production.

She advised the beneficiaries to be punctual and committed to the training so as to justify the resources expended on the scheme.

A representative of the Association of Micro Credit Institutions of Nigeria, Mrs Comfort Nweke, commended the NDE for the initiative.

She promised that micro start-up loans would be made available to the beneficiaries upon completion of the training.

Mr Onyedikachi Chikaodi,Special Adviser to Gov. Hope Uzodinma on Religious Mobilization, restated the state government’s readiness to support NDE to create more jobs and fight unemployment in the state. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)

Source: News Agency of Nigeria