₦airaland Forum

In what seem to be a consideration of the suffering it’s proposed nationwide strike scheduled to commence today, September 18, 2021, will cause Nigerians, the National Executive Council of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) says it has stepped down its planned industrial action.

The union went on to say; it has therefore given to the Federal government another 15 days window of opportunity to meet its demands, failure to which it will not be held responsible for its actions.

While it called on the Federal Ministry of Health to ensure speedy circularisation of all establishment and welfare matters as agreed during negotiation meetings, JOHESU also said its decision to toe the path of diplomacy was inconsideration of an appeal by President Muhammadu Buhari on the need for the union to show understanding with his administration and his pledge to pay any debt owed health workers.

Contained in a in communique signed by its Ag. National Secretary, Comrade Mathew O. Ajorutu, for National Chairman, following a unanimous decision reached at its Expanded National Executive Council Emergency meeting held in Abuja, the Union in strongly terms said; “NEC-in- Session urges the Federal Government to reciprocate the patriotic humanitarian gesture of JOHESU in the interest of the larger Nigerian masses to expeditiously resolve all the demands within the fifteen days window.”

In part, the communique reads; “The emergency meeting of the expanded National Executive Council of the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) and Assembly of Healthcare Professional Associations (AHPA), took place today, Friday, 17th September, 2021. The expanded NEC comprising of the Presidents and General Secretaries of affiliate unions and Professional Associations, NEC members of affiliate unions and JOHESU Chairmen and Secretaries at the State and Branch levels.

“NEC-in-Session critically appraised the reports of JOHESU negotiation and conciliation meetings with Federal Government since the declaration of the trade dispute through the fifteen days strike notice issued on 2nd September 2021. NEC also noted the appeal from President Muhammadu Buhari on the need to show understanding with his administration and the President’s pledge to pay any debt owed health workers.

“NEC-in-Session after long hours of exhaustive of deliberations on issues surrounding the planned strike action resolved as follows: The Federal Government should ensurethat the new data for the computation of the adjusted Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) for JOHESU members be completed and submitted to the “High Level Body” (HLB) of the FG not later than Wednesday, 22nd September, 2021 as agreed.

“NEC-in-Session urges the Federal Government to ensure that the “High Level Body” (HLB) complete and submit the computation of the adjusted CONHESS for inclusion in the 2022 budget within the 30th September, 2021 submission window.

“Finally, NEC-in-Session unanimously adopts a resolution to step down the notice of strike action due to expire mid-night 17th September, 2021 and issue a fresh notice of fifteen days.”

The Nigerian government says it will lift the ban on Twitter in a ‘few days.’

The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said this while answering questions from State House journalists at the end of Wednesday’s cabinet meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Mr Mohammed said progress is being made in talks with the social media giant.

“I think even Twitter itself two days ago gave what I will call a progress report on our talks with them, and I think if I want to quote them rightly it has been productive and quite respectful.

“And as to the qualifying word for when or how soon, I want to assure you that the time that Twitter operation has been suspended, between the time it has been suspended, and when it will be restored is by far, much, much shorter.

“That I can assure you that it is by far in other words, if the operation has been suspended for about 100 days now, I can tell that we’re just actually talking about a few, just a few more days now,” he said.

Nigeria suspended the operations of Twitter on June 4, two days after the microblogging site took down a controversial tweet by Mr Buhari.

The government cited “persistent use of the platform for activities that are capable of undermining Nigeria’s corporate existence,” as reason for the ban that took effect almost immediately.

The government also directed broadcasters to suspend “patronage” of the platform. It described its further use by the broadcast stations as “unpatriotic.”

Media and human rights advocates condemned the directive of the broadcast regulator, calling it “illegal” and an attack on press freedom, but major broadcast stations stayed off Twitter to comply with the order.

In August, the Nigerian government said the temporary ban on Twitter may be lifted soon with Mr Mohammed saying talks were still ongoing and many agreements had been reached with Twitter.

The ban on Twitter has been condemned by many Nigerians, civic groups and the international community.

The international community said the government’s ban of Twitter portrays Nigeria in a bad light before its citizens, potential investors and business owners.

More than 100 days after the ban, activists insisted the ban was undemocratic, but authorities said it was to protect the corporate existence of the country.

Opposition leaders and civil society organisations have also criticised the government for the ban and some rights groups have sued the Nigerian government at the ECOWAS Court.

PREMIUM TIMES reported how the ECOWAS court, in an interim order, “restrained the government and its agents from unlawfully imposing sanctions or doing anything whatsoever to harass, intimidate, arrest or prosecute Twitter and/or any other social media service provider(s), media houses, radio and television broadcast stations, the plaintiffs and other Nigerians who are Twitter users, pending the hearing and determination of this suit.”

Nigeria says it’s in talks with Egypt to explore areas where both countries can collaborate and boost power generation in the country.

Minister of Power, Abubakar Aliyu, made this assertion during a visit of Ihab Awad, Egyptian ambassador to Nigeria, on Tuesday.

“You have mentioned how you have succeeded in solving the problem of power in Egypt.

Which is a very interesting development because as an ambassador to Nigeria you have been here for some time, you are aware of how we are facing this issue in this country,” Mr Aliyu said.

He said his ministry would discuss and set up a team that would come up with the key points and areas that the federal government can engage with the government of Egypt.

“You talked about the discussion which President Muhammadu Buhari had with Egypt President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi; this is very important, and that will help us.

“President Muhammadu Buhari is very concerned with the issue of power so will not relent.

We will meet to ensure you get some feedback from us,” the minister said.

Mr Awad told the minister that both parties agreed “there was a need for collaboration between your government and our country in the area of revitalising and renewing the power generation.”

VAT: FG not taking Niger Delta money to the North, Buhari’s aide knocks Wike

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Ajuri Ngelale, on Monday, knocked Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, for being allegedly tribalistic and aggressive in his pursuit for the collection of Value Added Taxes by the South-South state.

Ngelale noted that the Federal Government has not been taking the money made in the oil-rich Niger Delta to Northern Nigeria.

He also said that the Federal Government makes contributions to VAT generated in the country, noting that the 36 states do not generate VAT all by themselves.

The President’s aide stated this when he appeared as a guest on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ breakfast programme monitored by The PUNCH.

VAT is a consumption tax paid when goods are purchased and services are rendered. It is charged at a rate of 7.5 per cent.

‘FIRS’ collection of VAT about harmonized tax policy’

Ngelale, who said that he is from Rivers State, flayed Wike over his alleged ethnic posture, saying that VAT collection by the Federal Inland Revenue Service is about “harmonized tax policy” to make businesses easy for Nigerians.

He warned that VAT collection by states would lead to double taxation which could make survival difficult for business owners in the country.

The PUNCH had earlier reported that the Rivers State Government took the FIRS to court and won the rights to VAT collection within its territory.

Wike subsequently signed the state’s VAT bill into law last month after it was passed by the Rivers State House of Assembly.

Following the path of Rivers, Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, last Friday, signed the State VAT Bill into law a day after it was passed by the Lagos State House of Assembly.

On the same day, Lagos asked to be joined as a respondent alongside Rivers State in the appeal filed by the FIRS challenging the judgment of the Federal High Court, Port Harcourt which ruled that Rivers should commence VAT collection.

Justice Haruna Tsammani of the Appeal Court had adjourned to September 16 to hear the application by Lagos and asked all parties to “maintain status quo”.

Lagos and Rivers generate bulk of the total monthly VAT in the country but get about 20 per cent of the money made through federal allocation.

Wike had lamented the injustice in the distribution of federal revenue, saying that Rivers money is not for Abuja people.

‘FG makes input, states not generating VAT by themselves’

But speaking on the television programme on Monday, the President’s aide said the Federal Government makes contributions to the generation of VAT in the country, noting that Rivers, Lagos and other states do not generate VAT by themselves.

Ngelale said, “I do disagree on the notion that states are by themselves generating VAT en masse and the Federal Government is trying to hijack (it).

“In 2020, the nation generated about N1.5trn in VAT.
We have about 60 per cent of VAT coming from imports at the ports. As we know, ports infrastructure in the country is not controlled by the state governments, so they cannot say that it is their revenue; it is controlled by the Federal Government, it is federal revenue.

“Aside from the fact that we have a book coming from imports, we also have that second to Lagos is Abuja with about N202bn collected and the reason why is because Abuja is the site of federal ministries, departments and agencies and a huge bulk of that collection in the country was coming from VAT collected on contracts.

“So, when we create the impression that states collect these VATs and the Federal Government is hijacking it and trying to share it when in fact, it only (belongs to) Lagos or Rivers, I think it is a gross over-simplification.”

‘Collection of VAT by FIRS perfecting Nigeria’s union’

Ngelale inferred that the collection of VAT by the FIRS should be encouraged because it is perfecting the union of Nigeria.

“Anything that will perfect our union should be embraced. Any conversation, any serious-minded discussion around how resources are managed is healthy for the country,” he stated.

The President’s aide, who said the VAT issue has been “heavily politicised”, also complained about “some of the utterances, unfortunately, that have come from my states along ethnic lines etc and political posturing ahead of the next election”.

Continuing, he said, “I really don’t want to repeat some of the stuffs we’ve heard from the Rivers State Governor that we (FG) want to take Niger-Delta money to the north and all this ethnic sabre-rattling.

That is what I am talking about when I say politics.” Ngelale also took a veiled swipe at Wike, who confirmed in January 2021 that the Federal Government had refunded to the state government the N78bn it spent on federal projects.

But the President’s aide said he was not sure the projects were constructed by Wike.

“Ther are those who despite collecting tens of billions of naira from this administration in form of refund for federal roads that they did not even construct in their states and you still have these claims coming out trying to abuse the Federal Government because of political reasons,” Ngelale said.

‘Court system will serve justice’
Furthermore, Ngelale acknowledged that there are grey areas in the collection of VAT in the country but sought better specificity between who should collect taxes between the central and sub-national governments.

According to him, on the one hand, it may not be clearly stated in the constitution but on the other hand, it would be wrong to say that because we have a VAT Act that was enacted by the National Assembly.

He, however, expressed optimism that now that the matter is in court, the judiciary would serve justice on the case.

“Fortunately for us (FG), it is now in a judicial process and we are very much expectant that the outcome of the law will reflect the law that we have which until now, states have no business abiding in… I believe our court system will do justice to the matter,” he stated.

The Sarkin Sudan of Kontagora, Niger State, Alhaji Saidu Umaru Namaska, is dead.

The emir who died at the age of 84, spent 47 years on the throne.

Details of his death are sketchy but Daily Trust gathered that the monarch died at an Abuja Hospital.

No official statement has been issued from the family and palace but a source confirmed the demise of the monarch.

The Emir’s death comes three months after bandits gunned down his son during an attack on the monarch’s farm.

Alhaji Bashar Saidu Namaska, the deceased’s son, was on the farm along Zuru road in Kontagora Local Government Area when the bandits struck.

Some other people working with him were also said to have been shot dead while unspecified number of cows were rustled.

The late Bashar, who was the Sardauna of Kontagora, had been holding forth for his father who has been sick.

folylinklaptop:
Nigeria job seeker want a job and not ready to work.

The Federal Government has received additional 1,233,200 doses of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for COVID-19 vaccination in the country.

Executive Director, National Primary Health Care Development Agency, Faisal Shuaib, told reporters in Abuja that the latest shipments were received late last Saturday through the AVATT platform, coordinated by the African Union Commission, as part of the 39,800,000 doses procured by the government.

“The NAFDAC team has already taken samples for analysis and are currently scanning the codes to ensure proper serialization of the vaccine.”

He said as of Monday, a total of 3,600,858 eligible Nigerians had received their 1st dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

He said of this number 2,551,738 persons were vaccinated with AstraZeneca vaccine and 1,049,120 persons were vaccinated with Moderna vaccine.

Shuaib said there had been questions raised about a few vaccinated individuals where COVID-19 infection occurred in those who had received the vaccination more than 14 days prior called breakthrough infection.

He said: “The observation is that in these individuals, the disease is usually milder than those who were unvaccinated.

Vaccination prevents one from severe disease, hospitalization and death. If our communities continue to remain unvaccinated, we will keep endangering our citizens most especially those who are vulnerable, elderly or immunocompromised.”

THE Presidency and the Peoples Democratic Party on Sunday disagreed as it (Presidency) flaunted policies and projects began and completed in the last six years under the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.).

While the Presidency noted that a giant-sized jinx was broken recently when the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation announced a first net profit of N287bn in its 44-year history, the PDP said such achievements reeled out by the government had no impact on the lives of Nigerians.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, disclosed this in a statement titled, ‘Jinxes broken by the Muhammadu Buhari administration – Presidency’.

“NNPC’s success is by no means the only major jinx broken in the lifetime of the Buhari administration.

They abound. And here are just some of them. The list is by no means exhaustive: “Policies and legislation: Petroleum Industry Bill signed into law in 2021, after almost two decades in the works. It is aimed at reforming a Petroleum Act dating back to 1969, as well as other supplementary laws and regulations.

“Deep Offshore and Inland Basin (Production Sharing Contracts) Act, 2019, amended for the first time since 1993.”

It also listed the over $6bn of inherited Cash Call Arrears now being cleared by the regime since 2016; adding that more than $3bn of the arrears (due to International Oil Companies) had since been paid.

The Presidency also added that it undertook the first overhaul of the Company and Allied Matters Act in 30 years as well as the Discrimination against Persons with Disabilities (Prohibition) Act, 2018.

It listed the Itakpe-Warri Rail Line which started in 1987 but was abandoned and later completed in 2020.

The statement read, “Completion of four standard gauge railway projects between 2016 and 2021: Abuja-Kaduna Rail Line, Abuja Metro Line, Itakpe-Warri Rail Line and Lagos-Ibadan Rail Line.”

Speaking of the Lagos-Ibadan Rail, it said, “President Buhari is the first President to start and complete a rail project in Nigeria’s history.

“Bodo-Bonny bridges and road: Construction finally kicked off in 2017, after several decades of planning, and three false starts. The long-awaited Ogoni clean-up kicked off under the Buhari administration.

Buhari should be ashamed that Nigeria is worse today- PDP

Reacting, the Peoples Democratic Party said the President ought to be ashamed that Nigerians were worse off than they were in 2015 when Buhari took office, instead of celebrating “phantom achievements.”

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Kola Ologbondiyan, said this in a telephone interview with The PUNCH in Abuja, on Sunday.

Ologbondiyan further said, “Let us even assume that the claims by the regime are true, how has these impacted on the lives of Nigerians? What is the value of a Nigerian life today?

“The exchange rate of the naira to the dollar is the worst in our history. The President has failed this nation; Nigerians can’t wait to vote out this rudderless regime and all it represents.”

The Lagos State government says it is considering other ways to source COVID-19 vaccines in order to achieve herd immunity against the pandemic for its population.

The state’s Commissioner for Health, Prof. Akin Abayomi, said this in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria on Sunday in Abuja.

Abayomi said, “While the first national target of vaccination is 60 per cent, we in Lagos are looking for vaccines to create full coverage that will be safe.

“And even for children, as well as other immuno compromised individuals that do not fall into the normal criteria, as the pace at which we are going is extremely slow.

“We’re looking for avenues and activities to speed this up; donor partners, private sector, through advocacy because it appears that this virus is not going anytime soon.”

He said so far, the state government had been able to vaccinate just about one per cent of its population, against a target of 60 per cent.

“If you vaccinate only 60 per cent of your population, the remaining 40 per cent remains vulnerable, and the virus can circulate within that 40 per cent and create new strains, which can then affect those that have been vaccinated.

“Countries are now talking about booster shots, whereas in Lagos, we haven’t been able to deliver more than one per cent of the population. we know that the vaccine campaign is critical, and to mitigate subsequent waves,” said the commissioner.

According to him, the Lagos state government does not want to slow down the economy of the state, “We want to create a situation where the economy is relatively opened so that people can move around and commercial activities go on.

“And it seems as if the way to go, apart from the standard Non-pharmaceutical interventions, is to have a very robust vaccination strategy.”

The health commissioner, speaking further, said Lagos was committed to achieving the target of 60 per cent as soon as possible.

“Under the guidance and regulation of the federal government regulatory agencies. And by whichever ways we can do that, we hope that we can speed things up.

“We’ve missed several opportunities in between the waves. Our third wave appears to be going down now, so we’re looking for this window of opportunity again to ramp up our vaccination strategy such that we use vaccination as mitigation of subsequent waves.

“This is the new frontier, knowing what this virus is doing, and you need to know how this virus is changing. If you want to be ahead of the game,” he said.

According to Abayomi, it is no longer all about Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing on positivity, but trying to understand the mutations as the virus moves from person to person.

“We know that we can’t easily ramp up because of human resource deficits, infrastructure deficits, financial deficits.

“And so it’s important that we understand what the next challenges will be with respect to how this virus is changing itself,” he stressed.

The commissioner stated that the government had acquired sequencing equipment, because it understood that Lagos state, being the most used port of entry into Nigeria, would always be very busy.

He noted that it was from Lagos state that the virus spread to other parts of the country.

“We are not only interested in the importation of variants, we’re also interested in the mutations that are happening in our community because we too can export variants to other states.

“We’re already looking at the fourth wave, because we’ve studied the first three waves. We’ve understood very clearly what triggers the waves and we know what they are.

“We know that within reason, we can expect a fourth wave, based on the characteristics of first, second and third,” said Abayomi. (NAN)

For years, the museum has stood firm in its refusal to hand back artwork looted from the ancient kingdom of Benin, in what is now southern Nigeria. In doing so, it has defied the trend set by regional institutions in Britain, such as the university of Aberdeen.

Earlier this year, the university confirmed that it would repatriate a bust of an Oba, or king of Benin, which it has had since the 1950s. As a result of refusing to take a similar stance, the British Museum has been heavily criticised – but there is a strong case to be made that its approach is the correct one.

Nobody knows for sure how many artefacts were taken by the 1,500 invading soldiers armed with the latest Maxim guns during their punitive raid in 1897. But six months on, the Bronzes were first put on display in London.

They caused a sensation. From the start, their artistic value was obvious; several thousand were quickly snapped up, mostly by European museums, but as many as 6,000 ended up in private hands. One of these, an Oba’s head, recently sold for £10 million in 2016, double the price of another one just nine years earlier.

Given the circumstances under which they were acquired, there has naturally been great interest in getting them back. Until recently, this has met with little success. In 1977, when the Nigerian government asked the British Museum for the loan of an ivory mask depicting Queen Idia, mother to the legendary Oba Esigie (1504-50), they were rebuffed on the grounds that it would be subject to different climatic conditions and much greater humidity.

This, it was claimed, might cause the ivory to shift and crack.

The Rhodes Must Fall movement, which started at the University of Cape Town in 2015 – and quickly travelled to the University of Oxford – has increased the clamour to return the Bronzes.

Germany, which has the second-largest collection in the world of Bronzes, recently promised to return 1,200 objects.

France's president Emmanuel Macron has been similarly receptive to the idea that France should return all ‘objects taken by force or presumed to be acquired through inequitable conditions’ as soon as possible.

Yet the British Museum, with the largest collection of all (about 900 objects, of which some 100 are on permanent display), is holding out, even if the museum suggests it is amenable to the prospect of returning the items. But there is a good case to be made for leaving the bronzes where they are. The most obvious reason relates to their safety. Thefts from Nigerian museums are legendary, leading one minister of culture and information to bemoan in 1996 that ‘we are losing our cultural heritage at such an alarming rate that unless the trend is arrested soon, we may have no cultural artefacts to bequeath to our progeny.’

Even if the British Museum did agree to return the Bronzes, there is another dilemma: who exactly owns them? The current Oba claims that they belong to the people of a kingdom which doesn’t exist.

This is at least partly why he is at loggerheads with Godwin Obaseki, the governor of Edo state, of which Benin City is the capital. The latter initially backed a new royal museum, but then appeared to change his mind in favour of another museum scheduled to open in 2025. The Oba has since appealed to the federal government to step in and take possession of the expected German consignment, a farcical notion given its track record in this regard, but a sign of the Oba’s desperation.

If there is a solution to be found in this messy and fractious debate, the argument made by Moyo Okediji, the Benin-based artist and academic, seems plausible. He said that the bronzes ‘caged, displayed on blocks and pedestals, or auctioned from hand to hand like the human cargoes which they followed across the Atlantic Ocean’ have been robbed of their spiritual essence, serving as they did a living deity. Okediji also thinks that returning them ‘is to pretend that such a reparation fully atones’ for an act of colonial outrage.

But if giving them back can't undo the damage, it seems reasonable to make the case that the Bronzes – whether put on display in London or closer to where they were made – should be viewed as a vanished African kingdom’s gift to the world.

Richy4:
In as much as I believed he said this on social media to shut her up forever...
Exposing that innocent kid is not the best idea..

In near future, he will understand what his statement/ utterances,the impact of it on that child amongst his peers in playground...

DaudaTheSexyGuy:
Some guys are just careless.

When banging a married woman you need to take extra care so you don't get her pregnant especially if she's still within the child bearing age

Phiheywhy1:
Slavia Prague don kill my ticket again, last time, I for win 13k which wud had been my big win ,na so dey go draw, today same story, Prague, wetin I do you

AfroKnight:




This world is a wicked world.

So you people allowed my baby girl JMK to be evicted? Fine girl like that.

Who will I support like this now? Not really following the show.

Who again carry load for that house? Don’t say Jackie please.
Still team JMK though.