NEWS 140321 ROUND-UP

LEADERSHIP: Why Road Projects Take Time – Minister

The year, 2020, witnessed unprecedented crises occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic. How did the ministry of works and housing navigate through these difficult times?

No doubt, the COVID-19 pandemic has immensely affected the plans and programmes of the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing. There was reduction of government activities as a result of the total lockdown, and this has affected execution of projects. But the ministry is still on course, we have adjusted. We are now working tirelessly to complete and deliver most of our projects.

What would you say are the specific projects the government has delivered even in the face of COVID-19 pandemic?

First of all, let me make it clear how we go about doing projects. When you talk about completion of projects, you may likely mean completion of a road project which we might differ in thinking. Let me give you example, if a road starts from point A to point B with a distance of say 500 kilometres, you may find three or more different contracts on that road which we refer to as project sections, being handled by different contractors or a single contractor. Because they are different projects, even if we have completed one or two projects on that stretch out of the different projects we usually wait until we complete the remaining parts before we commission the road. Otherwise, we have many projects that have been completed. A typical example is the Kano-Maiduguri road project where we have five contracts handled by five different contractors. Two out of the five contracts are completed and the remaining three have reached advance stage, but we are delaying the inauguration of the completed section until the remaining three sections are completed so that we deliver a pleasurable travel experience and world class facility to our people travelling along that corridor. However, we have not restricted traffic movement on the completed sections.

LEADERSHIP: Religious Tolerance: Governor Bello Leads The Way

When national, state, or local governments make a concerted effort to solicit input from citizens and provide services to all of their constituents equally, they sow the seeds of stability and growth. When this is done within a framework of political and legal accountability, citizens increasingly trust state institutions to support and to treat all of them in an even-handed manner.

Governance is inclusive when it effectively serves and engages all people, takes into account all facets of personal identity and when institutions, policies, processes and services are accessible, accountable and responsive to all members of society.

Fostering governance that is inclusive is essential to advancing democratic values, including peaceful pluralism and respect for diversity, religion, human rights and equality before the law.

 

LEADERSHIP: Myth And Lie Of Phoning While Driving

Do you know that globally, the use of phone while driving which has been my focus for the last two weeks is under-reported by the relevant authorities? Do you also know the same underreporting applies to road traffic crashes caused by the use of phone while driving distraction? Do you know that there are numerous challenges in collecting and reporting reliable crash data? This challenge is irrespective of the clime although it is more problematic in low and middle income countries such as ours. Do you know that the story is the same in our clime as most motorists including the classy, educated, as well as the very religious will rarely own up to using the phone when arrested or even when involved in a road traffic crash?

I remember a very hilarious incident some years back when I was sector commander in the Federal Capital Territory. As the Sector Commander, the current Corps Marshal Dr Boboye Oyeyemi charged me to creatively address the ugly trend. To checkmate the rising wave of driving and phoning infraction, I embarked on a unique intervention to address the rising scourge. The campaign was in collaboration with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA 2) under the watch of Wole Coker who insisted live feeds from my Command. The novel campaign/enforcement intervention involved using unmarked vehicles with plain clothes materials backed with video and still camera. Whenever we spotted an offender, we ensure the infraction is recorded using the still and video camera and thereafter, we pull over the defaulters and interview as well educate them on the dangers of using the phone while driving. All recordings were then submitted to NTA who would then run the feed as news on network. You can call or tag the campaign ‘’Show of shame’’.

After days of the campaign, we received positive reviews on the novelty and creativity behind the idea. As Sector Commander, I felt tall despite my Julius Agwu look -alike height. However, after series of arrests were made, we ran into a driver who was driving and using his phone. We tailed him from Zone 4 junction in Wuse in Abuja in the Federal Capital Territory up to the Central Business District just after the Nigerian National Petroleum Company. We pulled him aside but noticed as we approached him that he had quickly dropped his phone underneath his car seat. When he stopped and came out, he denied ever using the phone while driving despite witnesses who confirmed that they also saw him. To stop the discourse from dragging and guard against any kind of assault from onlookers, I moved closer to him and gently asked him, ’Sir, between your God and your yourself, were you driving and phoning’’. Like a comic actor, he paused, looked up to the heavens and said,’’ between my God and I’? At that point, the tape was cut because it made for a good cut for broadcast which was, as you can guess, aired on NTA network.

 

LEADERSHIP: ‘Night To His Day: The Social Construction Of Gender’: A Review

The phrase doing gender refers to the connotation that gender is a social construct. This is where Judith Lorber’s article, “Night to His Day: The Social Construction of Gender,” written in the mid-90s comes into play. It highlights ways in which people do gender every day. From the jobs people work at to the colours people wear, to what colour is revealed at a gender reveal party, my belief is that people have been brainwashed by society to believe that from the day you were born you have been put into a box – a box of believing that wearing a certain piece of clothing or applying for a certain job may make you seem more masculine than feminine and vice versa.

In different parts of the globe, doing gender may be demonstrated in different ways. In Saudi Arabia women were only recently allowed to drive. That was a crime that was punishable with years in prison. It wasn’t till 2018 that women were finally allowed the same privilege as men to operate a vehicle. This is a more extreme example of doing gender.

To the Saudi Arabian government driving was seen as a more masculine activity and because the people in power were doing gender the rest of the country were forced to do the same. People don’t know how much doing gender can really impact society. “Gender boundaries are breachable and individual and socially organised shifts from one gender to another call attention to ‘cultural, social, or aesthetic dissonances. These odd or deviant or third genders show us what we ordinarily take for granted that people have to learn to be women and men”, Lorber states.

 

PUNCH: Buhari sued over FG’s plan to borrow N895bn from dormant accounts

The Federal High Court in Abuja has been asked to restrain and stop President Muhammadu Buhari and the Federal Government from borrowing an estimated N895bn of Nigerians’ money in the form of their unclaimed dividends and balances in dormant accounts.

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project filed the lawsuit after the recent move by the Federal Government to take over and borrow unclaimed dividends and dormant account balances owned by Nigerians in any bank in the country. But the same legislation explicitly excludes dormant official bank accounts by all branches of government and their agencies.

In the suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/31/2021 filed by its lawyers Kolawole Oluwadare and Ms Adelanke Aremo, last Friday, SERAP is seeking “an order of perpetual injunction restraining and stopping President Buhari from demanding, taking over, borrowing, and collecting Nigerians’ money in the form of their unclaimed dividends and funds in dormant accounts or transferring and moving the money into a trust fund known as ‘Unclaimed Funds Trust Fund”.

 

THE NATION: How I was raped five times, by Iyabo Ojo

 

Popular Nollywood actress, Iyabo Ojo, has shared how she was raped five times.

She recalled the first incident was when she was just 14.

She spoke during a recent episode of her YouTube series titled ‘Bare it all with I.Y‘monitored by THE NATION.

The actress explained she decided to share her story to encourage others who have had a similar experience to speak up with a view to tackling rape and sexual violence in society.

 

THE NATION: IPODO…where drug dealers harvest pleasure, profit from little girls’ bodies

This is the dream of a Lagos crack dealer: to see the sun rise daily in its silvery splendour while the city stirs to hustle and thrill seekers pursue a new kind of “jonzing.”

His name is Kola but “customers” call him O’ngbana. At 49, O’ngbana swaggers through Ipodo like a cocky prince of the barrio. Amid the shanty in Ikeja, Lagos, he made a killing everyday until COVID-19 struck, dwindling patronage to a trickle.

Business is at a scary low. A dribble here, a trickle there, makes O’ngbana very worried. “People don’t have money to eat let alone smoke crack (adulterated cocaine). But I have my loyal customers. Come rain or shine, they will always show up,” he said, and forlornly recalled the glory days of his hustle, when he made as much as N10, 000 in a day and about N50, 000 in a week, dealing crack and Indian Hemp.

 

THE NATION: FG launches cash grant for rural women

The Federal Government Rural Women Cash Grant Programme was flagged off yesterday in Borno and Yobe States. A total of 5,840 women are expected to receive cash grant of N20, 000 each in Borno, while 3,400 women of the same category will benefit from Yobe state. At the flag off on Friday at the Multi-Purpose Hall, Government House Maiduguri, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Sadiya Umar Farouq, explained the importance of the programme to President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.

She said the Conditional Cash Transfer has been catering for Internally Displaced Persons in Gonikachallari, Bakasi and NYSC Camps due to the peculiarity of security situation in Borno State. “We currently have 12,190 Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) that have been enrolled in 13 Local Government Areas. They are Konduga, Gubio, Magumeri, Hawul, Shani, Mafa, MMC, Chibok, Mobbar, Kaga, Jere, Akira-Uba and Dikwa LGA’s and disbursement is set to commence as soon as the security situation improves.

“A total number of 5,840 women are to benefit from the cash grant of 20,000 each to uplift the socio-economic status of the rural women in Borno State. It is President Muhammadu Buhari’s social inclusion and poverty reduction agenda, with the realization of the national aspiration of lifting 100 million Nigerians out of poverty in 10 years,” the minister explained.

 

NAIJA NEWS.COM: Benue Will Not Negotiate, Grant Amnesty To Criminals Again – Ortom Vows At Suswam’s Funeral

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has promised that his administration will no longer negotiate or grant amnesty to criminals again.

Naija News recall that Terkura, the elder brother to Gabriel Suswam, former Benue governor, was killed alongside his aide on March 2.

They were both attacked at Terkura’s hometown in Anyiin LGA of the state.

Speaking at his funeral on Saturday, Ortom said the state will no longer offer amnesty to criminals, except they repent and beg for forgiveness.

 

NAIJA NEWS.COM: Kaduna Abduction: Shehu Sani, Aisha Yesufu React To Bandits Flogging Of Students

 

Human rights activist, Aisha Yesufu, and the former lawmaker representing Kaduna Central senatorial district, Shehu Sani, have reacted to the video released by bandits showing them flogging the missing 39 students abducted from the Federal College of Forestry Mechanisation in Afaka, Igabi Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

The bandits on Saturday released a video requesting for the sum of N500m as ransom to release the students.

Parents of the students have also confirmed that the abductors have reached out and are demanding the sum of N500 million.

NAIJA NEWS.COM: FG Not Ready To Protect Nigerians- Gani Adams

 

Aare Ona Kakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Adams has said the federal government and security agents are not ready to protect Nigerians.

Speaking in an interview with The Sun, he also accused the Muhammadu Buhari administration of playing the ethnic card on issues of security.

While describing the current state of security in the country as unfortunate, Adams said the poor handling of criminal activities may lead to war.

 

NAIJA NEWS.COM: Ndume: It Started Like A Joke… Nigeria On The Brink Of Collapse

Senator Ali Ndume (APC-Borno South) has expressed worry over the increase in criminal activities, adding that security and welfare are threatened in Nigeria.

Speaking at a press briefing on Saturday, Ndume said Nigerians and government are still not taking the security situation seriously.

He called on citizens and government to match faith with action on ensuring an urgent improvement in the security situation.

 

NBC NEWS: How Biden, Republicans and public health leaders are trying to convince GOP skeptics to get their Covid vaccinations

 

WASHINGTON — Vaccine holdouts could end up being the last obstacle to defeating the pandemic, and a growing effort is aimed at convincing one substantial group of skeptics: Republicans.

While efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy and access have so far been mostly focused on African Americans and Latinos, recent polls suggest the largest group of Americans either hesitant about the Covid-19 vaccine or outright opposed to it are Republicans, and efforts to reach them are only in their infancy.

Success convincing skeptical conservatives could be the difference between the United States reaching herd immunity or not. That's why a group of Republican pollsters and politicians, plus the White House, are all already working on getting the skeptics on board.

 

NBC NEWS: House Democrats draw the line: No bipartisan cooperation with Republicans who questioned the election

WASHINGTON – Freshman Rep. Jake Auchincloss, a Democrat, has begun turning to an unusual source when trying to decide whether he wants to work with a Republican he thinks makes a good point during committee hearings: Google.

The Massachusetts lawmaker says he knows his constituents want him to work across the aisle, but he's drawing “a sharp red line” at working with Republicans who voted not to certify the Electoral College results as part of then-President Donald Trump's failed bid to overturn his election defeat.

If a quick search produces evidence that one of his Republican colleagues refused to acknowledge President Joe Biden's win, he said, “I kind of throw cold water on the whole thing,” adding that while he doesn't like political litmus tests, "insurrection against the United States government qualifies.”.