Grant
Kaduna governor: Bandits have challenged the sovereignty of Nigeria
Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has declared that bandits have challenged the sovereignty of Nigeria, and must therefore be wiped out. He reiterated that the state government would never negotiate with the criminals. According to the governor, the activities of the criminals have driven farmers from their land and shaken the confidence of the people. The governor, who stated this yesterday at the Government House in Kaduna while receiving the 2020 Security Report from the state Commissioner for Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, warned that food security of Nigerians is seriously at risk in view of activities of criminal elements across the country. Kaduna is one of the states in the North-west region that is worst hit by activities of bandits and kidnappers, ...
APC states reiterate commitment to six months maternity leave
State governments controlled by the All Progressives Congress, have reiterated commitment to implementing a recommendation to grant nursing mothers 180 days (6 months) leave. This was contained in a communique issued after a virtual meeting with the theme: ‘Developing Common Policy Initiatives on Maternal & Child Nutrition Promotion in APC States,’ held by Secretaries to Governments of APC controlled states on Thursday. The communique, which was signed by Alhaji Adamu Fanini and Prof Danladi Atu, the SSGs of Jigawa and Plateau States, respectively, was made available to newsmen in Abuja, on Monday. It read in part, “Because of the significant role parental support plays in the lives of children and the need to enhance the health of nursing mothers, APC States are committed to implement...
AfDB approves $1.3 million grant for female financial inclusion research in Africa
The African Development Bank (AfDB) has approved two grants worth $1.3 million for research aimed at increasing women’s access to a range of digital financial services on the continent. In a statement on Monday, AfDB said the grants will be disbursed by Africa digital financial inclusion facility (ADFI), a blended finance vehicle supported by the bank. The grants will be disbursed to two fintech firms, Pula Advisors Kenya and M-KOPA Kenya. AfDB said Pula Advisors will use the $1 million for research of social and economic factors that impact women farmers’ access to microinsurance in Kenya, Nigeria and Zambia while M-KOPA will use the $300,000 funding for research involving 500 women and men in Kenya’s Kisumu, Eldoret and Machakos counties. It said findings from the research will inform th...
ASUSS lauds Nigerian government over recognition as legal trade union
The Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS) has commended the Federal Ministry of Labour and Productivity for granting recognition to the trade union in spite of an alleged deregistration plot against it by a rival union. ASUSS also saluted the Supreme Court of Nigeria for proving the judiciary as the last hope of the common man by upholding its appeal in a judgment delivered on January 15, where it held that ASUSS’ registration did not contravene the trade union statutes. This was contained in a statement entitled “A Woeful Cry; Agony Of A Loser” signed by ASUSS National Secretary Sola Adigun and made available to reporters in Ado-Ekiti on Saturday . Adigun, who doubles as the ASUSS Chairman in Ekiti, upbraided the national leadership of the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) for m...
AfDB provides $400,000 grant for SEC
African Development Bank Group (AfDB) on Friday signed a $400,000 grant agreement with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to strengthen securities market regulation and broaden market instruments. The funds, according to a statement from AfDB, will go towards strengthening the risk-based supervision framework, regulation of derivatives and green bonds, and build capacity for green finance. The grant will be sourced from the Capital Markets Development Trust Fund, a multi-donor fund administered by the Bank. “This collaboration further underscores our mutual goal to grow our markets and create viable avenues for sustainable economic development for Nigeria and the region,” said Lamido Yuguda, Director General of the Securities and Exchange Commission at the virtual signing ceremon...
2,700 Akwa Ibom women benefit from federal government’s special grant
The minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar Farouq, has advised Nigerian women not to regard the N20, 000 special grant given to the rural woman by the federal government as the fabled national cake. She has rather charged the beneficiaries to judiciously use the grant to improve their living standard by utilizing it as seed capital do boost their trades and businesses for greater income. Speaking through Bashir Nura Alkali, the permanent secretary of the ministry, at the flag off of the Grant for Rural Women Project and the symbolic disbursement of the grant to 2700 women of Akwa Ibom state, in Uyo, on Thursday, Farouq explained that the Grant for Rural Women Programme was introduced in 2020 to sustain the social inclusion agenda of Presid...
Okomu Oil Palm wants central bank to review anchor borrowers programme
Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc. wants a review of CBN’s Anchor Borrowers Programme (ABP) to accommodate more farmers and to shore up the nation’s foreign earnings from agriculture. The ABP is targeted at smallholder farmers engaged in the production of rice, maize, wheat and cash crops like oil palm, cocoa and rubber, among others. Speaking with newsmen on Monday in Benin, Okomu Oil’s Managing Director, Dr Graham Hefer, noted that cash crop farmers were yet to fully benefit from the programme. He said food crop farmers had an edge because they could cultivate, harvest, sell and repay their loans within the specified one year period. “It is easy for farmers engaged in annual crops to meet their targets. “This doesn’t happen with cash crops because in the first three years of oil palm production...
Court orders Ekiti university to reinstate sacked workers
File Photo The National Industrial Court in Akure has ordered the Ekiti State University (EKSU), Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, to reinstate 85 non-teaching staff members sacked by the institution in December 2019. The judge, Kiyersohot Damulak, also gave the university a 30-day ultimatum to pay the reinstated workers their salaries, emoluments, and allowances from the date of their unlawful disengagement till date. In the judgement delivered on January 28, a copy of which was seen by newsmen on Wednesday, the court also directed the university to pay the workers the three months salary they were being owed before they unlawfully disengaged. Damulak also ordered the university to pay each of the sacked workers N50,000 as the cost of prosecuting the case. The award totaled N4,250,000 for the 85 wo...
Court remands ‘student cultists’ for assaulting teachers
An Osogbo Chief Magistrates’ Court, on Wednesday, ordered the remand of three students of Ifeoluwa Co-Educational Grammar School in Ilesa Correctional Centre for allegedly assaulting teachers and students of the school. The defendants are: Adeniyi Timileyin, 18; Tajudeen Akinlolu, 20 and Waheed Abbas, 19, according to newsmen. The students, however, pleaded not guilty to the seven-count charge of conspiracy, assault, malicious damage, breach of peace, unlawful possession and threat to life. The Magistrate, Isola Omisade, ordered the remand of the defendants in the correctional centre due to the magnitude of the offences preferred against them. He, thereafter, adjourned the case till March, for judgment. The State Counsel, Moses Faremi, had told the court that the defendants committed the o...
PDP: Ex-service chiefs’ ambassadorial portfolio insufficient to stop ICC investigation
The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has taken a swipe at the All Progressives Congress, APC, leadership in the Senate for “betraying Nigerians” by clearing former services chiefs for ambassadorial portfolios despite allegation of crime against humanity committed under their command. The party however insisted that the clearance will not stop the investigation and possible prosecution of the accused commanders by the International Criminal Court, ICC, for crime against humanity, with preliminary steps to have been initiated. In a statement issued by Kola Ologbondiyan, national public secretary of the party, the PDP described as horrendous the fact that the APC leadership in the Senate “could choose to betray Nigerians by rushing to clear the accused ex-service chiefs in a desperate attempt t...
Man handed 15-year prison sentence for murder of Maltese journalist
Vince Muscat, one of three men accused of murdering Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday after changing his plea to guilty. The judge accepted the plea bargain presented by Muscat’s lawyers and prosecutors after he had told the Valletta courtroom that he was admitting to all charges, in a shock development that could prove crucial in the high-profile murder case. Muscat must also pay 43,000 euros (52,240 dollars) in court fees. Muscat is one of three men accused of planting and detonating the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia in her car in October 2017. A fourth man, business tycoon Yorgen Fenech, stands accused of having paid the three men to carry out the assassination. He denies the charges. In a statement read ou...
Nigerian government distributes N20,000 each to 8,000 women in Lagos
Mrs Rhoda Iliya, the Deputy Director of Information, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, said this in a statement on Friday in Abuja. Iliya explained that Hajiya Sadiya Umar-Farouq, Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, at the ceremony on Friday in Lagos reiterated the Federal Government’s commitment to alleviate poverty in the country. Farouq, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Alhaji Bashir Alkali, said that Federal Government’s target in Lagos was over 8000 beneficiaries across all the local government councils of the state. “The grant is expected to increase income and productive assets of target beneficiaries. “It is our hope that the beneficiaries of this programme will make...
