Following the demise of the member of the House of Representatives, Mr Olaide Akinremi, the Governor of Oyo State, Seyi Makinde has described his demise as shocking and a great loss to the state.
New Telegraph had earlier reported that a two-term All Progressives Congress (APC) lawmaker and Chairman, House of Representatives Committee on Science Research Institutes, died in an Abuja hospital after a brief illness.
Mourning his death, Governor Makinde in a statement issued by the Commissioner for Information and Civic Orientation, Mr Dotun Oyelade prayed for the repose of the soul of the deceased.
The first batch of United States-built F-16 fighter jets are being transferred to Ukraine, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken says, as world leaders pledge continued support for Kyiv at a NATO summit in Washington, DC.
Speaking on the sidelines of the summit on Wednesday, Blinken said the F-16s were being transferred from Denmark and the Netherlands.
“And those jets … will be flying in the skies of Ukraine this summer to make sure that Ukraine can continue to effectively defend itself against the Russian aggression,” the top US diplomat said.
Backing for Ukraine during Russia’s invasion of the country is at the top of the agenda at this week’s NATO summit in the US capital, where the leaders of the alliance’s 32 member countries have gathered.
Ukraine has long sought advanced Western aircraft, and US President Joe Biden in August gave the green light to transfer F-16s to the country despite concerns about how long it would take Ukrainian personnel to train to fly the planes.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who also is in Washington, DC, for this week’s summit, had urged his American and European allies to provide Kyiv with more financial and military support to stave off Russian attacks.
In a social media post, Zelenskyy thanked the US, Denmark and the Netherlands for helping “to strengthen the Ukrainian air force with F-16s”.
I am grateful to the United States, Denmark, and the Netherlands for taking practical steps to achieve the goal of all Ukrainians: to strengthen the Ukrainian air force with F-16s.
I am grateful to Belgium and Norway for their commitment to providing us with their F-16 jets.
“This is a clear signal that Russia’s ability to terrorize Ukrainian people, cities, and communities will continue to reduce,” he wrote on social media.
“F-16s will also be used to bolster Ukraine’s air defense. I am confident that they will assist us in better protecting Ukrainians from brutal Russian attacks, such as this week’s strike on the Okhmatdyt children’s hospital in Kyiv.”
NATO members have announced the delivery of five additional Patriot and other strategic air defence systems to help Ukraine, and more aid announcements were expected at this week’s summit.
In a joint statement on the F-16 transfer, the leaders of the US, Netherlands and Denmark said they were “committed to further enhancing Ukraine’s air capabilities, which will include squadrons of modern fourth generation F-16 multi-role aircraft”.
“The coalition intends to support their sustainment and armament, as well as further associated training for pilots to enhance operational effectiveness,” they said.
“We will continue to coordinate jointly in support of Ukraine’s ability to defend itself against Russian aggression.”
The NATO summit falls at a critical time for Biden, who is facing questions about his health and ability to serve another term as US president after he delivered a disastrous 2024 election debate performance late last month.
The Democratic Party leader, who is expected to face off against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump in November’s election, has dismissed calls to drop out of the race.
During an address on Tuesday evening to mark the start of the summit, Biden pledged long-term support for Ukraine and hailed NATO as “stronger than it’s ever been in its history”.
“Ukraine can and will stop Putin,” the US president said, “especially with our full, collective support. And they have our full support.”
If you're thinking about joining the Army, you probably have a lot of questions, and one of the most important ones might be: how much do soldiers get paid?
Overview of Nigerian Army ranks The Nigerian Army is divided into two main categories: Commissioned Officers and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs).
Commissioned officers: These are higher-ranking officials who have undergone extensive training and hold leadership positions. Examples include Captains, Majors, and Generals.
Non-commissioned officers: These soldiers typically start at lower ranks and can rise through the ranks based on their performance and experience. Examples include Sergeants and Corporals. Salary structure
The salary structure in the Nigerian Army varies depending on rank, with commissioned officers generally earning more than non-commissioned officers.
Commissioned officers' salaries General: ₦1,500,000 per month Lieutenant General: ₦1,000,000 per month Major General: ₦950,000 per month Brigadier General: ₦750,000 per month Colonel: ₦550,000 per month Lieutenant Colonel: ₦350,000 per month Major: ₦300,000 per month Captain: ₦220,000 per month Lieutenant: ₦180,000 per month Second Lieutenant: ₦120,000 per month
Non-commissioned officers' salaries Master Warrant Officer: ₦90,000 per month Warrant Officer: ₦80,000 per month Staff Sergeant: ₦68,000 per month Sergeant: ₦63,000 per month Corporal: ₦60,000 per month Lance Corporal: ₦57,000 per month Private: ₦48,000 - ₦50,000 per month N.B: These salaries are subject to change based on government policies and economic conditions.
The Nigerian Army offers a structured salary system that rewards personnel based on their rank and experience. Higher-ranking officers, especially commissioned officers, receive significantly higher pay compared to non-commissioned officers. However, both categories benefit from additional allowances and support that contribute to their overall compensation.
Other benefits and allowances In addition to their salaries, Nigerian Army personnel receive various benefits and allowances, which can include:
•Housing allowance: Support for accommodation costs. •Medical care: Access to medical services for soldiers and their families. •Uniform allowance: Provision for purchasing and maintaining uniforms. •Travel Allowance: Compensation for official travel. These allowances help ensure that soldiers can meet their basic needs and maintain a good standard of living while serving their country.
For those interested in a career in the Nigerian Army, it's important to understand these financial aspects as well as the responsibilities that come with each rank. The Army not only provides a career path but also the opportunity to serve and protect the nation with pride and honour.
What are they doing to address the challenges facing the school, the federal government generates a lot of money from NOUN more than any other university and yet they ignore issues raised by the students
The House of Representatives Committee on University Education has visited National Open University of Nigeria, NOUN and warned against spending money not appropriated by the National Assembly.
Chairman, House Committee on University Education, Hon. Abubakar Hassan Fulata, who made this known during the visit, said the lawmakers will not shy away from oversight which is one of the major responsibilities of the legislators with the view of ensuring transparency and accountability in the system.
Fulata said though university management like some of the government organizations can generate revenue internally and get grants from donor agencies but spending the money without regard to appropriation laws is an infraction.
According to him, a budget is an estimate of revenue (allocation from government, internally generated revenue, grants etc) and expenditure within a specified period of time. Adding that this budget proposal by the Federal Government Universities must be approved by the National Assembly and doing anything otherwise is illegal and unconditional.
Fulata also called for proper utilisation of fund in the university for the seek of sustainable growth and development of the country.
Responding to questions on why the committee embarks on oversight visit to universities, Fulata said it is not about witch-hunting but routine exercise in line with constitutional provisions.
He said a report of their observations will be written and action will be taken on it.
The House Committee on University Education under the leadership of Fulata had recently visited University of Abuja and University of Ilorin, Kwara State.
Responding to the visit, Vice Chancellor, National Open University of Nigeria, Professor Olufemi Peters thanked the committee for the visit and promised to provide relevant pieces of information and documents requested by the legislators.
He noted that the visit of the lawmakers has opened their eyes to certain areas they need to improve on their services in NOUN.
The National Open University of Nigeria (NOUN) has addressed the intricacies surrounding the student loans for its students.
Vice Chancellor of the Institution, Prof. Olufemi Peters expressed concerns over some misleading statements and comments indicating that students of NOUN are not eligible to participate in student loan scheme.
It will be recalled that the management of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) had earlier said NOUN students are ineligible to apply for the newly launched student loan. However, Peters said that the information is not correct, and should be disregarded.
According to him, the initial challenges that, perhaps, led to the misinformation, was because of misrepresentation from the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) which has been corrected.
“There was a misrepresentation by JAMB on that matter, but they have since corrected it. Director of Admissions or even JAMB Registrar can attest to that.
“We always register our students with JAMB every semester, and they all possess JAMB registration number. In addition to that, we strictly follow the same admission processes with other conventional institutions.
“So, I can say for sure that our students are captor in JAMB database which is major criteria for accessing the loan. NOUN are eligible to enjoy the student loan scheme because the initial challenges that was caused by JAMB has been corrected.”
NELFund, few weeks ago stated that NOUN students are not eligible to register for the students loan scheme because of their inability to posses JAMB registration number which is a major criteria for accessing the fund.
The development created some anxiety and concerns among NOUN students who had wanted to leverage on the opportunity of the students loan to acquire university education.
Halogen Group, Nigeria’s security risk management and safety solution organisation, has been voted as Nigeria’s Most Outstanding Security Company for 2024.
The announcement came from the UK head office of the Outstanding Security Performance Awards (OSPAs), a prestigious global body that annually celebrates excellence in security management.
The OSPAs, highly sought after for their affirmation of superior service delivery, recognize top security companies across Europe, Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Canada. Halogen Group not only won the Outstanding Contract Security Company of the Year but also secured the highest number of OSPAs trophies for 2024. This includes the Outstanding Security Training Initiative award for the national impact of its training and capacity development hub, Academy Halogen.
The OSPAs, highly sought after for their affirmation of superior service delivery, recognize top security companies across Europe, Africa, America, Asia, Australia, and Canada. Halogen Group not only won the Outstanding Contract Security Company of the Year but also secured the highest number of OSPAs trophies for 2024. This includes the Outstanding Security Training Initiative award for the national impact of its training and capacity development hub, Academy Halogen.
Additionally, Halogen Group’s CEO, Wale Olaoye, who is widely sought as a distinguished security risk management expert and thought leader, received the highly coveted OSPAs Lifetime Achievement Award, making him Africa’s first inductee into the newly instituted Global Hall of Fame for security leaders. This year’s outstanding performance marks the fifth consecutive time Halogen has outshone its peers with multiple category wins in the fiercely contested OSPAs.
Reacting to the accolades, Halogen’s Founder and Chairman, Dr. Biodun Shobanjo, expressed gratitude to the company’s clients for their continued trust and praised the management and staff for driving the company’s vision.
He stated: “This is a reward for excellent leadership, clear thoughts, and a flawless vision. This is the result when a team of brilliant minds pulls together, as evidenced by what the management team and a nimble workforce can accomplish when committed to a common cause and pulling in the same direction.” Halogen’s Group Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Lanre Showunmi, thanked the OSPAs organisers and the eminent jurors, emphasizing that the awards are a call to even higher levels of service excellence.
Showunmi pledged that Halogen Group, in line with its DNA and culture, will continue to drive innovation leadership by leveraging new thinking to enable sustainable security in a post-digital and AI-driven world.
The National Open University (NOUN) Law students have called out for help over the scrapping of the law programme by the University management, leaving students who are nearing completion of their projects in dilemma.
Documents seen by SaharaReporters show that on 25th of January, 2023, the University’s Senate ratified the scrapping of the law degree programme of the University, at the end of the 2023 second semester .
Concerned by the development, students under the aegis of “concerned law students” wrote the House of Representatives seeking intervention.
In the letter dated on 27th of October, 2023, the House of Representatives acknowledged the call for intervention while promising to convene a meeting between student representatives and the management of the Open University.
Other correspondences received show that between November 2023 and January, 2024, the National Assembly held a meeting between the students and the university management however, this has not led to a meaningful development.
SaharaReporters understands that over 1500 final year students of the university are affected by the decision to make the law department “cease to exist”.
These students are at the risk of not graduating despite spending millions to study the law degree in the institution.
It was gathered that it cost about N3 million for a law student to graduate up to 500 level in the institution.
SaharaReporters earlier reported how students of the institution lamented their inability to be issued graduation certificates and failure of the university to convoke them, putting them in a dilemma of lacking evidence to show for their academic sojourn in the institution.
Although the University denied, NOUN, which operates a distance-learning and study Centre model, has been at the fore of controversies around issues of accreditation and management.
Students lament that the institution does not usually communicate developments to it and fails to attend to their queries on these developments that affect their academic wellbeing.
A student who does not want to be named noted that the development of the law students for instance was first seen on social media with no official communication to them.
“We were not notified, we only saw a statement on social media suggesting that the law programme would be stopped after we spent how many years on it and no one has offered any form of apology or genuine concern”.
It was also gathered that the university intends not to take in new law students in order to seek fresh accreditation for the law programme; however the legal dreams of the current 500-level law students and their investments for five years is threatened by the development of the institution’s law programme.
The Public Relations Officer of NOUN, Ibrahim Sheme, refused to comment on the development when contacted, asking SaharaReporters to instead visit him at the office.
Hezbollah's rockets and drones sparked a number of fires in northern Israel The Lebanese armed group Hezbollah has launched more than 200 rockets and attack drones into northern Israel, in response to the killing of one of its senior commanders. Israel's military said one of its officers was killed in the barrage, which started a number of fires.
The military also said it had targeted Hezbollah “military structures” and other targets in southern Lebanon in response. Lebanese media reported that one person was killed in an Israeli drone strike in the town of Houla.
The latest barrage, which followed one comprising 100 rockets on Wednesday afternoon, was one of the biggest so far in the nine months of cross-border violence which have raised fears of an all-out war. The Hezbollah commander killed in an Israeli air strike near the southern Lebanese city of Tyre, Mohammed Nimah Nasser, was one of the most senior figures in the group to have been killed in the conflict.
The Israeli military said Nasser commanded Hezbollah’s Aziz Unit, which is responsible for launching rockets from south-western Lebanon, and accused him of directing a “large number of terror attacks”
It also described him as “the counterpart” of Taleb Sami Abdullah, the commander of another unit whose killing last month prompted Hezbollah to launch more than 200 rockets and missiles into northern Israel in a single day.
A senior Hezbollah official said it would "target new sites" in Israel in response to the killing of Mohammed Nasser There have been almost daily exchanges of fire across the Israel-Lebanon border since the day after the start of the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza on 7 October. Hezbollah has said it is acting in support of the Palestinian group that is also backed by Iran. Both groups are proscribed as terrorist organisations by Israel, the UK and other countries.
So far, more than 400 people have been reported killed in Lebanon, the vast majority of them Hezbollah fighters, and 25 people in Israel, mostly soldiers. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to restore security in northern Israel.
"In the tough campaign against Lebanon we have set a principle - whoever harms us is a dead man. We are making that a reality in practice," he said on Thursday. The hostilities have also displaced tens of thousands of people from border communities in northern Israel and southern Lebanon.
“The response to the assassination of the dear leader Hajj Abu Nimah [Nasser]... started last night and quickly," senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine warned at Nasser’s funeral in Beirut on Thursday.
“This series will continue to target new sites that the enemy did not imagine would be hit.” A spokeswoman for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, Unifil, said the exchanges were now extending deeper into both sides of the border, and called on both Israel and Hezbollah to show restraint.
“We're very concerned... because any exchange, any incident, can escalate into something greater if there is a misunderstanding,” Kandice Ardiel told the BBC.
There has been a flurry of diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions in recent weeks, with the UN and US warning of the potentially catastrophic consequences of a war that could also draw in Iran and other allied groups. Israeli officials have repeatedly warned that they are ready for a war if diplomacy fails. Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on Wednesday that the military would soon be ready to “take any action required in Lebanon, or to reach an arrangement from a position of strength”.
Hezbollah, which is seen as a significantly superior foe to Hamas, has said it does not want a full-out war with Israel and that it will observe in Lebanon any ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. But it has also warned Israel that it would fight “without rules” if there was a war.
Nonsense, he's a threat to our sovereignty and National security, evil British government that is aiding and abetting the genocide in Gaza is talking about the wellbeing of anarchist.
Finidi: NFF axe dangles on Osimhen, opens disciplinary proceedings
The Nigeria Football Federation (NFF) will in the coming days charge the first choice striker of Super Eagles, Victor Osimhen for improper conduct over his verbal attack on the former coach of the senior national team of Nigeria, Finidi George.
Finidi who was the coach of the team until Friday when he tendered his resignation letter following the announcement by the NFF that they will be appointing an expatriate coach, was called out by the Napoli forward who was angry over reports that the coach questioned his commitment to the team.
Osimhen went all out on the coach on the reason why he missed the team’s world cup qualifiers games against south Africa and Benin Republic, which they drew 1-1 and lost 1-2 respectively to drop to 5th in their group, four points behind leader Rwanda.
“Already the president of the NFF Ibrahim Muse Guseu has spoken with Osimhon over his outburst and Finidi also reached out to him. The report he reacted to is fake and misleading, sadly he didn’t confirm bofore reacting”, a board member of the NFF told Owngoal Nigeria.com.
“Osim ben is a role model and the only way we can help the incoming coach stamp his authority is by using him to set example. He crossed the line with his outburst even when Finidi called him to explain he still didn’t deem it fit to retract his statements. We won’t condone that and after the Salah break, we will sit on the issue. I can tell you he won’t be in the team until he says sorry for his actions”, he concluded.
Politics › Re: Olaide Akinremi: Makinde Mourns Oyo Reps, Orders Flags Flown At Half-Mast by Fineman2(op): 7:50pm On Jul 10, 2024
