IPC condemns the attack on a media organization and its editor, and demands immediate action.

 
The International Press Centre (IPC) has demanded that the recent attack on a media organization, Thunder Blowers, and Mansur Rabiu, a news medium editor in Gusau, Zamfara State, be thoroughly investigated.

Eight individuals are suspected of being involved in the incident in Gusau, the capital of Zamfara State, earlier this month.


According to information obtained by our sources, the aforementioned incident resulted in varied degrees of injury to the editor, who narrowly evaded being murdered. 

In a press statement made available to us on Tuesday, IPC Executive Director Lanre Arogundade said the event was "unfortunate," adding that attacks on journalists would not be "usable even as we begin a new year."


"Those who were involved in this attack should be discovered and brought to justice," he said.


"A full investigation of this attack, as well as numerous other unresolved attacks on journalists," he requested.


In addition to calling for a thorough inquiry, he stated that the affected journalists should be reimbursed and their damaged equipment replaced.

AnambraDecides: APGA is becoming like a secret cult, according to Bianca Ojukwu

 “APGA is now like a secret cult, and this has reduced our once vibrant party to a shadow of its former self,” she lamented.

 Dim's widow Odumegwu Chukwuemeka Bianca Ojukwu, a member of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has labeled the party as a secret cult, expressing concern about the party's declining political fortunes. 

“APGA is now like a secret cult, and this has reduced our once vibrant party to a shadow of its former self,” she lamented.

Ms Ojukwu made the statements in a statement to commemorate the late Biafran warlord's posthumous birthday on November 4.


She expressed grave concern that members of the APGA were defecting in large numbers to other political parties, particularly the All Progressives Congress (APC).


“Bad leadership has left a deeply wounded and visibly divided party, with members decamping from the party almost on a daily basis with the alacrity of rats deserting a sinking ship,” said Mr Ojukwu’s widow. “Curiously, they are almost all defecting to APC. Our party has lost almost half of our state and national legislators, several principal members of our board of trustees, including the secretary of the board.”

She added, “The serving deputy governor of the state, Dr Nkem Okeke, who joined the APC recently, party local government leaders, countless party executive members, including Governor Obiano’s own ward chairman all joining APC is very worrisome.”

Ms Ojukwu blamed the demise of the APGA on its current leader, Governor Willie Obiano, and his minions.


According to her, the state is experiencing the highest level of insecurity under his leadership, with numerous citizens, including a traditional ruler in his town, being shot in broad daylight recently.


"To the governor's credit, the Anambra airport is nearing completion, but the intercity roads and roads going to the towns are in a bad situation, resulting in constant traffic in the state," she stated.


Despite the evident flaws, the former beauty queen voiced confidence in APGA's ability to do well at the Saturday's election.

 

 

Police Rescued UNIABUJA Professors And Others Who Had Been Kidnapped.

 The six University of Abuja staff members who were kidnapped by gunmen on Tuesday have allegedly been recovered by police and reunited with their families.


The rescue operation's details were vague, but Josephine Adeh, a spokesperson for the Federal Capital Police Command, verified the news in a statement this morning.


Two professors, a non-academic staff member, and three others were kidnapped from their official quarters, according to the PUNCH.


Over a dozen hoodlums are claimed to have fired their way into the compound and abducted their victims.


Twenty-four hours later, they demanded N300 million ransom.

It was unclear whether a ransom was paid before the victims were allegedly rescued by the police.


However, Adeh in her statement said “The FCT Police Command wishes to inform members of the public that all abducted victims of the University of Abuja were rescued and reunited with their families through a joint operation with other security agencies. More details coming soon.”

JAMB grants Institutions waver to fix admission cut-off mark, sets the minimum cut-off at 120, 100

 Tertiary Institutions have been a nod by Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) to set their cut off marks for 2021 admission and has currently been adopted by the tertiary institutions which stated what the cut off mark will not be below. 

This directive however shows that there will be uniform cut off marks for the year 2021 admission. A source stated that the Registrar of JAMB, Prof Is-haq Oloyede showed the minimum cut off marks that has been accepted by the tertiary institutions at a meeting that was held on Tuesday at Abuja which was a 2021 Policy meeting.

From new arrangement, it is expected that Universities should not go lower than 120 while Polytechnics and College of Education shouldn't go below 100 for admission. It was at this meeting that it was agreed that Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) shouldn't go beyond #2000 which Oloyede out-rightly warned the institutions not to go above the agreed fee during the meeting.

Here are his exact words:

"Nobody should charge more than #2000. The total gross is #2000. It is not allowed by institutions to allow candidates to procure administrative charges. No institution is allowed to capture or demand any result upload. It is the one that we upload on caps that we will send to all of you. The biometrics supplied by jamb should be used for the exercise".

Osun: Court Restraints A Woman In Prison For Biting Neighbour’s Scrotum

An assault made by Ajayi has been charged by the police. An Ile-Ife Magistrates’ Court in Osun State has commanded that a woman, Nifemi Ajayi, who bit her neighbour on the scrotum, be restrained. 

 

The prosecution counsel, Sunday Osanyintuyi, told the court that the defendant committed the offence on  Tuesday,  24th August 2021, around 8:00 p.m. at No 21, Oke-Soda, Ile-Ife.

According to him, the defendant bit the victim, Olayera Boluwaji on his scrotum and his stomach.

He added that the offence contravened the provisions of Section 355 of the Criminal Code, Laws of Osun, 2002.

The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty.  The defence counsel, Philip Fasanmoye, made an oral bail application. He prayed the court to admit his client in the most liberal terms.

Magistrate Olusola Aluko ordered the defence counsel to file a written application for bail while ordering that Ajayi be remanded in Ilesa correctional centre.

The magistrate adjourned the matter until November 15, for bail consideration.

FG Lifts Ban On Sim Registration, Issuance of the New Is on this Date

 

Federal Government has approved the activation of new SIM card registration with mandatory National Identity Number linking, starting from April 19, 2021.

This was contained in a statement signed on Thursday by the Technical Assistant (Information Technology) to the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Femi Adeluyi.

According to him, in line with the Nigerian Communications Act 2003, Section 23(a), the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, coordinated and led the development of a revised National Digital Identity Policy for SIM card registration in collaboration with all other stakeholders.

 

 

He said that the key aspects of the draft policy were presented to the stakeholders at the 4th review meeting of the Ministerial Task Force on the NIN-SIM registration which held in February.

Dr Pantami also presented the revised policy to President Muhammadu Buhari, on March 26, and the final amendments were completed Wednesday with further improvements and endorsed by the President.

The policy includes guidelines on new SIM acquisition and activation, SIM replacement, New SIM activation for corporates and Internet-of-Things/Machine-to-Machine, amongst others.

For the corporate registration, institutions would be required to appoint a Telecoms Master (at the minimum of an Executive Management level) to provide the operational Primary NIN representation.

The Telecoms Master would also be responsible to ensuring that the users provide their NINs to serve as a secondary NIN, according to the statement.

The statement said, “For IoT/M2M activations, SIM security protocols would be implemented on the SIM profile to ensure that SIMs can only be used for point to point data services specific to the URL they are working with. All other services will be barred.

“In the event that a data only service is particular to individual use (eg home car tracking, WiFi, MiFi services, etc), the standard NIN registration process will be followed. A Telecoms Master will also be required for Corporates requiring IoT/M2M activations,” he said.

Speaking on the NIN registration progress, Adeluyi said the biometric verification process had been slower than anticipated, owing largely to the non-adherence of many previous SIM biometric capture processes to the National Identity Management Commission standards.

He added that the revised policy would ensure that operators conform to the required standards for biometric capture.

He stated, “The implementation of the policy will commence on Monday, 19th of April 2021. The issuance of new SIMs and other suspended activities will resume on the same date, as long as verification is done and the guidelines are fully adhered to.

“The minister has also directed Nigerian Communications Commission and NIMC to ensure that the provisions of the policy are strictly followed by all operators and subscribers.”

Citizens and legal residents were encouraged to bear with the government as the process had been developed in the best interest of the country.

 

 

Gov. Ugwuanyi’s Imprints in the Healthcare Sector of Enugu State

 The ongoing massive construction works at the permanent site of Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT) Teaching Hospital and College of Medicine, Igbo-Eno, are among the landmark projects of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi’s administration that are receiving serious attention in spite of the state’s limited resources and other unanticipated challenges.

The infrastructural projects going on simultaneously at the permanent site include the ESUT Teaching Hospital complex; 2 nos. 12-classroom faculty buildings; 2 nos. 10-classroom faculty buildings and 2 nos. 8-classroom faculty buildings, for the ESUT College of Medicine, which has been duly relocated to Nsukka, and industrial water borehole projects.

The Type-3 Primary Healthcare Centres in 7 Local Government Areas of Enugu State, have been delivered to standard by the Ugwuanyi administration while the construction of modern Cottage hospitals with Isolation wings in Awgu, Oji River, Udenu and Igbo Eze North LGAs are nearing completion, in line with its vision to provide quality, accessible and affordable healthcare services especially in the rural communities.