₦airaland Forum

better pikin

k

God bless you my dear

Vikynas:
your FATHER

.

Six men kidnapped along Nigeria-Cameroon border in Adamawa state have been released after paying millions of Naira in ransom. Family sources confirmed to our reporter that the kidnappers collected a total of N3.8 million to release the men in the early hours of Saturday. The gunmen had earlier demanded N10 million ransom, Daily Trust gathered. The victims were forcefully taken by gunmen on October 5 in the bush about three kilometres away from Gurin town while on a regular visit to inspect their cows being reared there by paid herdsmen.

he spokesman for Adamawa state Police Command, DSP Sulaiman Ngurije, confirmed the development, saying the victims were assisting the Police in the investigation. “We went to the bush early morning to pay the money and returned with all the kidnapped victims”, the source disclosed. “A total amount of N3.8 million was paid by the families of the victims to secure their release,” he said. Kidnapping has been on the increase in the state in recent times, including the recent abduction of a university professor with Moddibo Adama University of Technology and the murder of a Fulani leader which causes fear among residents, Daily Trust reports.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/kidnapped-adamawa-cattle-owners-paid-n3-8m-ransom-sources.html

Freedom at last

good

The MTN Foundation has awarded scholarship worth N200,000 per session to 6,000 students of science and technology in some secondary schools across the country. The Director of MTN Foundation, Mr Denis Okoro, disclosed this at the Regional Nominators’ Appreciation Dinner, tagged: “What Can We Do Together (WCWDT) Initiative Phase 3” held on Thursday night in Abuja.

He explained that since inception to date, 510 Communities across 454 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country have been impacted by the foundation in different social development interventions nationwide. He disclosed that it was a ‘community give-back initiative’ designed to get Nigerians to nominate selected projects in particular communities to be executed by the MTN Foundation.

Okoro said that the projects implemented under this phase included giving out of school learning materials like school bags, exercise books, raincoats, and pencil cases to over 15,000 pupils in 60 Public Primary Schools. He also added that medical equipment and facilities were donated to 40 Primary Healthcare Centres and solar-powered boreholes to 10 communities had been provided.

“Through this the students have formed MTN scholars association and they are proud of it. “We are interested in women and children issues; we have renovated 24 maternity wards of some the communities; by bringing water closer to them, you have denied them that opportunity to visit the river at all times. “For once, let us relate to each community and ask them what they need so that their needs will be satisfied. “When you meet someone at the point of his need, he is a happy person so as long as the project continues, we will continue to do more,” he said.

Mr Musa Ahmed, a beneficiary, said he earned his nomination by introducing the MTN Foundation to a primary school, which benefitted from all the materials given to the less privileged pupils. Ahmed said that the community was fully aware of the donations by MTN and expressed delight, adding that it had gone a long way in aiding the children with their school work. He noted that before the foundation came to their aid, most parents could not afford these materials that their wards needed in school to learn. “The community appreciates what MTN have done in their schools,” he said.

Mrs Blessing Adam, another beneficiary, also expressed joy and thanked MTN for giving her the privilege to be a partaker of this great project. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that ‘What Can We Do Together (WCWDT) Initiative’ was launched in September 2015 and was successfully implemented in 400 communities across 347 Local Government Areas (LGAs) under its first and second phases.(NAN)

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/mtn-foundation-awards-scholarship-to-6000-students-official.html

Vice President Professor Yemi Osinbajo the other day told a conference that the Federal Government is in discussions with the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and some banks to borrow more money from the N9.03 trillion fund, and probably from the banks as well. The purpose of the borrowing according to the Vice President is to fund infrastructure development to accelerate the country’s economic development and improve the wellbeing of the citizens.

It is appropriate at this juncture to remind readers of these pages that any planned or intended borrowing by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) from the money saved by current and future pensioners in the country will not be the first time of doing so. It can be recalled that already the Federal Government has borrowed N6.16 trillion of the total N9. 03 trillion of pensioners money for various purposes, including the provision of critical infrastructure in parts of the country. PenCom said that N6.16 trillion represented 72.5 per cent of the fund as at December 2018. The money was borrowed by the Federal Government in the form of investment in the FGN securities during the period under review.

The National Pension Commission has always been involved in the infrastructure question in Nigeria and the role it can play in bridging the infrastructure gap. In November 2008, PenCom’s pioneer Director General, M. K. Ahmad, presented a paper on the issue. He said the country needed to pay urgent attention to its inadequate, misused and overused infrastructure in the areas of rail, roads, power and oil and gas. He even put a cost for the improvement of each of them in a scientific way. The total cost based on his estimates 11 years down the line, was $100 billion. He broke it down thus: railway development $8-$17 billion; power $18-$20 billion; roads $14 billion and Oil and Gas, $60 billion.

These sums are not easy to generate or raise by Nigeria at the urgent pace the infrastructure gap needs to be filled. However, recourse to borrowing from liquid pension assets by governments to provide public goods is a common practice all over the world. This is to say that FGN’s borrowing from the pool of money in Retirement Savings Accounts to finance the development of infrastructure is in line with the economic and financial culture in the world. It should not raise any alarm. Indeed, reports indicate that the Federal Government is likely to borrow N1.7 trillion in the next few months to fund part of the 2020 federal budget, the sum of N850 billions of which would be borrowed from local financial institutions, including the pension fund raised by Retirement Savings Accounts holders. There are now about 8.79 million subscribers to the Contributory Pension Scheme.

One other fact about government’s borrowing from the contributed pension fund is that several states in the country have borrowed over N151 billion therefrom to finance various projects for the wellbeing of the citizens. An important point about borrowing money by the Federal Government is that it shows discipline and the avoidance of creating funny money through the mint, an option that could generate hyperinflation, destroy the Naira and cause economic crisis with its inherent negative impact on our collective well-being.

Given the devastating consequences funny money could have on the economy had it been considered as an option, subscribers to the Contributory Pension Scheme should be proud that their savings are saving the country from that path. Their money will now be deployed to national service without the possibility of default. On top of saving the country from borrowing abroad, the retirement savings account holders will have part of the profit from the lending paid into their accounts. They will also, like all other citizens, benefit from the infrastructure that would be provided using the money.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/governments-borrowing-from-pension-fund.html

hmmm

The Gombe State Police Command, on Thursday, said it has arrested a 19-year-old male resident of Gabukka quarters of Gombe metropolis over alleged kidnapping of a 7-year-old boy (name withheld). Addressing newsmen at the headquarters of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), the command’s spokesperson, SP Obed Mary Malum, said the suspect, Mohammed Sani Ahmad, was arrested by the SARS operatives on September 23, three days after parents of the boy declared him missing.

She said the suspect picked the victim on Friday September 20 at a mosque in Kumbiya-Kumbiya area of the metropolis while the boy was performing ablution.

He later called his father, one Malam Abubakar and demanded N3.5 million as ransom before he release the boy. “When he realised that the ransom is not forthcoming, he called uncle of the victim, one Aminu Babayo and informed him that he saw the boy that was kidnapped at Gabukka area.

The uncle asked him to bring the boy so that he will be appreciated by the family. “However, the father of the victim observed that it was the same mobile phone number that was used to demanded for ransom. As such, SARS were notified and subsequently apprehended the suspect when he arrived with the boy,” Malum said.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/just-in-teenager-kidnaps-7-year-old-boy-demands-n3-5m-ransom.html

Op, you want cause another civil war? pls the last one was enough

Op, you want cause another civil war? pls the last one was enough

fear of boko haram is the beginning of wisdom

chai

Toh

Lugard and his boys handed over to us...

gidgiddy:
Really? A British man called Lugard created a country. His wife, Flora Shaw named this country

Today, you have stolen the country Lugard created and the name his wife formed, and claim both to be your own.

How?

.

Yes! it doesn't matter who name it

gidgiddy:
A country created by Lugard and named by his wife?

Our hero! brave soldier! Oh soldiers of those days...they real soldiers that sacrifice their lives for this nation.

The Federal Government has urged the leadership of the Christian Association of Nigeria to seek audience with it privately on national issues rather than go public. The Minister of Special Duties and International Affairs, Senator George Akume, made the call in Abuja when he hosted a delegation of CAN led by its president, Dr Samson Olasupo Ayokunle.

According to Akume, issues innocently discussed in public stand the risk of being misconstrued, distorted and blown out of proportion. “Honestly, it is always good to seek interaction with government, sometimes off camera. It makes a lot of good because if you say sometime innocently, something that is innocently put across could be distorted and magnified for social purpose “The purpose of government is to provide security for people and property. Government is doing whatever it can to tackle insecurity. Your duty is to provide spiritual guidance”, he said.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/fg-to-can-stop-discussing-national-issues-in-public.html

Lecturers are spending many hours and days moving from one university to the other to teach, findings by Daily Trust have revealed. This is because new universities, including those established by states and private entities, survive on visiting lecturers and professors to meet their manpower needs.

Analysts, however say the frequent shuttling by lecturers is endangering their lives and affecting their primary responsibilities. With the establishment of new universities by the federal and state governments, as well as corporate bodies and private individuals, surge in student population and high student-to-faculty ratio, most universities are left with no option but to employ the services of visiting lecturers/professors on short-term basis to fill the gaps in teaching and research.

However, experts told Daily Trust that shuttling lecturers that have taken more temporary contracts than they can comfortably handle, are to some extent not effective and punctual; and are to a greater extent skipping classes due to fatigue caused by excessive workload. A former Vice Chancellor of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University (ATBU), Bauchi, Prof. Saminu Abdulrahman Ibrahim, said established universities had sufficient lecturers and professors who had enough time for their students; but that new universities face the challenge of shortage of professors and qualified lecturers and more often than not, engaged visiting lecturers.

On the other hand, he said visiting lecturers had maximum acceptable work time that allowed them to teach in only two additional higher institutions and a ceiling put on heavy workload. Prof. Ibrahim said university authorities were expected to crosscheck the records of any visiting lecturer and ensure that apart from his main university, he was not teaching in more than two additional universities before offering him a part-time contract. He further said, sadly, most new universities took desperate steps to look for visiting lecturers and hardly authenticated their records.

The risks involved

The VC of Bayero University Kano (BUK), Prof. Muhammad Yahuza Bello, said apart from the safety of staff members, his university was concerned about the personal development of students, thus, while a lecturer was allowed to take additional short-term work in another higher institution, the distance should not be more than 200km from his main place of work. He said, “lecturers are human and the services they provide require their time and effort, and it is not possible for one to be teaching in many universities and still give his best. “The policy in the university is that if the institutions are not more than 200km from Kano, one can visit up to two, and if the distance is more than 200km, a lecturer can only visit one.

“Again, one should not spend more than four days in serving the visiting lectureship to ensure quality of service and health of lecturers, because when people are busy travelling from one place to another, there could be risk of accident. “Actually, the National Universities Commission (NUC) is coming out with a more comprehensive policy, and if it is stricter than our own, we shall enforce it,” the V-C said.

He added that shortage of lecturers in new universities was as a result of lack of proper planning, noting that Malaysia embarked on massive academic staff development in the 1980s before establishing new universities. Reports indicate that nearly all the new universities utilise the services of shuttling lecturers to close the gap of staff shortage. However, established universities have adequate personnel. For instance,

Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, has about 600 professors; which is the highest. It is followed by the University of Ibadan (UI) which has about 450 professors.

Situation in states

In contrast, Sokoto State University, which was established in 2009, has only six locally bred professors and about 20 PhD holders. A cross-section of students interviewed, however, said they have many lecturers in their respective departments, many of who were graduate assistants.

The university is offering 23 courses and 18 of them are fully approved while the remaining five have interim accreditation from NUC. Similarly, apart from the six locally bred professors, there are 14 visiting professors in the institution. A 200-level student of Political Science told our reporter that the department had only three PhD holders, but no professor. However, some students of biological science said their department had become a reference point for students of other departments being the one with the highest number of professors.

“We have about eight professors majority of who are visiting lecturers from the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto (UDUS),” one student said. Speaking on the development, the VC of UDUS, Prof. Sani Dangoggo, said there was hardly a university that has the required number of lecturers it needed in the country. Prof. Dangoggo said, “they may be adequate in some areas, but not in all areas.” On what they are doing to remedy the situation, he said the university was still recruiting more lecturers, training those already employed and getting senior lecturers from other universities to teach on sabbatical arrangement, while some were visiting lecturers.

“Many of our lecturers are on study leave, but six of them are back after completing their PhD programmes. “As I am talking to you, we have six locally bred professors and 14 visiting professors and over 20 PhD holders. And all our courses are approved by the NUC,” he said. Kola Daisi University, Ibadan, Oyo State,

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/how-lecturers-shuttle-to-teach-in-new-universities.html

I love Nigeria my country

"Jobs for all" vision 2090

nn

congratulation