Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State has directed the management of the Abia State University to immediately scrap the “pandemic prevention fee imposed on students in the school.”
The Governor gave the directive during a Town Hall meeting with students and management of the school on Thursday.
According to him, his administration will henceforth pay N30,000 to each Abia student in the institution as further support to them, their parents and guardians in this very difficult moment of economic downturn caused by the global health crisis.
“Yesterday, I had a Town Hall meeting with students and management of Abia State University where a fee of N25,000 per student was proposed as a medical fee but slashed to N15,000 to help ABSU put in place adequate measures to protect the soon to resume students from COVID-19 pandemic.
“In that same meeting, I approved immediate bursary payment to students of Abia origin in ABSU, to alleviate impact of COVID-19 on them & enable them meet the medical fee obligations with ease.
“However, after a deep review of the agreement & its likely effect on all the students & their parents, I’ve directed the immediate scrapping of the “pandemic prevention fee” by school management.
“Our government will now go ahead to pay N30,000 to each Abia student in the institution as further support to them, their parents and guardians in this very difficult moment of economic downturn caused by the global health crisis.
”Let me also add that we are proud of the progress made by the institution in the past 5 years and will continue to support them,” he said.
Pope Francis has blunted the powers of the Vatican department involved in a controversial London property deal and ordered all ties cut with a suspect investment fund, his spokesman said Thursday.
Francis has ordered that the funds of the Secretariat of State, the nerve centre of the bureaucracy of the 1.3 billion-member Church, be controlled by another department, allowing three months for the changes to take place.
The pontiff created a commission Wednesday to oversee the changes, Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, following a vast financial scandal which has already cost one high-ranking Catholic cardinal his post.
The order was made in a letter to the Secretariat in August which was published in a rare move on Thursday.
Influential Italian cardinal Angelo Becciu, pushed out by the pope in September, was number two in the Secretariat of State, and linked to the purchase of a luxury building in London, which is now subject to an investigation.
Becciu stands accused of giving financier Enrico Crasso, a former Credit Suisse manager, control over millions of euros of Vatican investment funds, including from Peter’s Pence — collection money destined for the poor.
Crasso also manages an investment fund — Centurion Global Fund — with links to Swiss banks that are being investigated for money laundering scandals, according to Italy’s investigative weekly L’Espresso.
The Vatican invested millions of euros into that fund, which lost money, while Crasso and others made millions in fees, the weekly has alleged.
Becciu has denied all wrongdoing.
Management of the Secretariat of State’s funds will be handed to the Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See (APSA), the office that manages real estate holdings in Rome and elsewhere in Italy.
“Particular attention should be paid to the investments made in London and the Centurion fund, from which it is necessary to exit as soon as possible,” Francis said in his letter to the Secretariat.
If that was not possible, the Vatican should at at least deal with them “in such a way as to eliminate all reputational risks”, he insisted.
Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu
The Lagos State Police Command has said that it would resist any fresh protest from holding in the city.
The Police said this in reaction to the planned resumption of #ENDSARS protest in Lagos.
Spokesperson for the police in Lagos, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, in a statement on behalf of the Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, said it would resist any form of planned protest, procession or gathering under any guise or nomenclature in Lagos as the government and people still nurtured wounds of the recent EndSARS violence that wreaked havoc across the state.
He described the protesters as unpatriotic elements, who want to foment violence in the state.
Adejobi said, “The command wishes to inform the general public that based on intelligence gathering from relevant intelligence agencies, some unpatriotic elements or group of people have concluded plans to orchestrate another set of violence in the state in furtherance to the recent EndSARS violence, which has been analysed as dangerous and counterproductive.
“Premised on this, the command, therefore, wishes to warn any individuals, group of students or any groups who might want to stage any form of protest, either “peaceful” or violent, or gathering whatsoever, to desist as the police and other security agencies will collectively and tactically resist any security threats or threats to public peace which might be triggered by protest or protesters in Lagos State.
“The Police command, emphatically, warns parents and guardians to discourage their children or wards from embarking on any protest in the state as the possibility of hijacking it by armed hoodlums to cause grieve and pains like the recent past is evident.”
The Police Service Commission has asked police officers to be professional and civil in the discharge of their duties.
It also admonished them to ignore an inciting social media post asking them to go outside their rules of engagement.
The PSC spokesman, Ikechukwu Ani, said this in a statement on Thursday titled, ‘PSC insists on professional conduct, says police must operate within the law.’
The social media post being referred to by the commission read in part, “Every police (Officer) that dies for civilian again, he is on his own … Do the needful police work and remain alive for your children and families.”
The post was made against the backdrop of the killing of policemen by hoodlums in the aftermath of the #EndSARS protests across the country.
But the commission said police operatives were expected to conduct themselves with the highest degree of patriotism and in obedience with the rules of engagement.
It stated, “The Commission feels that this moment does not call for incitement but a complete renewal of faith in the Nigerian project. The Police are expected to conduct themselves with the highest degree of patriotism and in obedience with its rules of engagement.
“The Commission is doing it’s best to see that the welfare of the officers and men are enhanced and worthy of their sacrifice to the Nigerian nation. The Commission is also seeking a complete and comprehensive overhaul of its logistics so that it will be equipped to discharge its constitutional responsibilities.”
Ani said police officers were required to play a leading role in the search for peace and progress in the country.
The Commission once again commiserated with the families of officers who lost their lives and wished those who were injured during the crisis a quick recovery.
Yusuf Bichi, Director General of the Department of State Services
For demanding better conditions of service and regularisation of their appointment, the Department of State Services has sacked 140 teachers and other staff members of its Community Staff School, Asokoro, Abuja.
The service also shut down the institution and directed the 1,800 pupils in the nursery/primary and secondary classes to stay at home for two weeks.
One of our correspondents, who visited the school on Wednesday, was informed by a private security guard at the gate that all the pupils had been sent away pending the engagement of new teachers by the authorities.
Findings indicate that the primary school commenced pupil enrolment in 1992/93, while the secondary classes took off in 1998.
Trouble began when the teachers demanded the regularisation of their appointment and an increase in their salaries and other emoluments following increase in the school tuition.
In response, the authorities issued a letter of disengagement to the workers, including the principal and other administrative officials.
Before the face-off, the fee for the nursery and primary classes was increased from N25,000 to N35,000 for children and wards of the rank and file, while children of senior DSS officers were required to pay N45,000 up from N35,000 per term.
For children of civilians, the tuition was increased from N45,000 to N60,000.
The tuition for secondary school classes was increased from 35,000 to 45,000 for children and wards of the rank and file, while officers’ children were asked to pay N60,000 up from 40,000. Students who did not fall in either of the categories will pay N90,000 from N70,000. Other sundry charges were also said to have been increased.
However, in the letter of disengagement dated November 2, 2020, signed by the Executive Secretary, CSSA, M. Onyilo, the DSS hinged its decision to sack the school staff on poor financial situation brought about by the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the nation’s economy.
The letter titled, ‘Disengagement from the service of Community Staff Schools, Asokoro,’ reads partly, “Due to the effect of COVID-19 on the Nigerian economy vis-a-vis the crippling financial situation of the school, I am directed to convey the Director-General, State Services/Proprietor’s approval to disengage you from the services of the school with effect from 3rd November 2020.”
A worker in the school, who pleaded not to be named, accused the management of denying the staff their due benefits, adding that the workers were being paid half salary despite the hike in school fees.
He explained that the workers had in 2018 dragged the school management to the National Industrial Court to regularise the appointment of the teaching and non-teaching staff, adding that the DSS failed to obey the court judgment.
He said, “When we got tired of their stories, we went to the National Industrial Court and won but they challenged the ruling at the Appeal Court and the court upheld the judgment of the industrial court in our favour in 2018. Our demand is that they should regularise our appointment so that our jobs can be secured.”
It was gathered that the management to obey the order, and the aggrieved workers then embarked on a peaceful demonstration on the school premises. They were, however, forcefully dispersed by armed DSS operatives.
Another worker said, “During the COVID-19 (lockdown), they paid us half salaries. The school was not in session and parents were not paying but now that we have resumed, they still told us it is either we accept half salary or wait for them to gather school fees so they can pay our full salary.
“They are also saying that even if they paid us the full salary, they would not settle the balance of the half salaries and we would not be paid leave grant. They also reviewed the condition of service and still reduced our October salary despite increasing school fees.”
The DSS spokesman, Peter Afunanya, has yet to respond to inquiries on the sacking of the workers.
Democratic Presidential candidate, Joe Biden took significant strides towards winning the presidency on Wednesday.
But the Trump campaign team vowed to reverse them at the vote count and in the courts, ushering in a potentially prolonged endgame to the election and sparking tension across the United States.
Biden was called the winner in the critical battleground of Wisconsin, and was ahead in Arizona, Michigan and Nevada, while Republican President Donald Trump held leads in Pennsylvania, Georgia and North Carolina.
According to The Guardian, if the current standings are sustained, it would take Biden over the 270 votes in the electoral college needed to clinch victory, even without the deadlocked state of Pennsylvania, where a million ballots were yet to be counted by Wednesday afternoon.
Trump has demanded a recount in Wisconsin and called for the count in Michigan to be halted, on the grounds that its representatives did not have “meaningful access.”
Starting with a television statement after 2am, Trump repeatedly claimed that the routine counting of ballots after election day was somehow fraudulent.
Trump campaign officials were reportedly supporting continued vote counts where the president was behind and vigorously opposing them where he was ahead.
Trump also staged a rally of his supporters outside a convention centre in Philadelphia where votes were being counted, echoing Republican tactics to ‘stop the recount in Florida 2000,’ which helped win the election for George W Bush.
The 2000 election was finally decided by the US Supreme Court, and on Wednesday afternoon, the Trump campaign also asked the Supreme Court to rule on its objections to an extended vote count in Pennsylvania.
The Biden camp assembled its own legal teams at the chief electoral flashpoints, and launched a “fight fund” to finance the effort.
As of 10.48pm Nigerian time, Biden had inched closer to the 270 points needed to win the presidency scoring 253 points, while Trump is lagging behind with 213 points in the electoral college system.
Two Nigerians Win
Meanwhile, a Nigerian-American, Esther Agbaje, has won the Minnesota House of Representatives seat in the 2020 United States election.
Agbaje defeated her closest rival, Alan Shilepsky, by a landslide.
She scored a total of 17,396 votes, which represents 74.6 per cent of the total votes cast.
Shilepsky, a nominee for the Republican Party, scored 4,128 votes, representing 17.7 per cent of the total votes cast.
Thirty-five-year-old Agbaje confirmed that she would be representing District 59B in the Minnesota House of Representatives on the platform of the Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party (DFLP), an affiliate of the U.S. Democratic Party, on her website.
Defeated longtime state Representative Raymond Dehn in the party’s primary in August.
Earlier, another Nigerian-American, Oye Owolewa, was elected as a shadow member of the United States House of Representatives from the District of Columbia.
According to election results on the website of the District of Columbia Board of Elections on Wednesday morning, Owolewa polled 81.59 per cent of the votes, which represents 164,026 votes against Joyce Robinson-Paul, who scored 18,600 votes, and Sohaer Syed with 15,372 votes.
More voices, yesterday, lashed out at the leaders of the northern region for the decision to restrict the social media, in addition to other controversial resolutions taken at its Monday Kaduna meeting.
The meeting was attended by governors, lawmakers, traditional rulers, and other prominent citizens of the region.
The meeting condemned the EndSARS protest, saying it was meant to topple the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
Also in attendance were the Sultan of Sokoto, Alhaji Sa’ad Abubakar, who led traditional rulers to the meeting; the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari; the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Senate President, Ministers of Information and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
However, the Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) joined the long list of voices from the North condemning the position of their leaders.
Addressing a press conference in Kaduna yesterday, the CNG spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, expressed disappointment with the positions the leaders took, saying they failed to live up to the expectation of the North by not addressing the core issues of development of the region and other security concerns, instead they are focusing on how to restrict social media, which is capable of hindering development.
Suleiman said: “Essentially, the agenda for the NGF meeting was grossly misplaced in the sense that it accorded more relevance to the #EndSARS and the social media failings which should by far not be the major focus of concern for the North at the moment.
“The CNG and indeed the vast majority of the cultured northerners are disappointed that such a meeting of northern governors and traditional leaders, elected representatives and top Federal Government officials from the North should find it more important to dwell on #EndSARS and social media and neglecting the more serious issues of security, youth restiveness, unemployment, poverty, dwindling fortunes of agriculture and general economic decline.”
He accused the leaders of lacking the requisite statesmanship to define the northern position with regards to the falsified reports around the fictitious attacks on Lekki protesters causing the nation international worries.
He accused the leaders of failing to discuss compensation for northerners attacked, assaulted, killed, displaced, and deprived in parts of the country, saying, “while hoping the northern governors and other leaders would rethink the apparent weak position adopted at the meeting and redeem their failure to articulate a more favourable northern position, the CNG wishes to express reservations regarding the two committees set up.”
MEANWHILE, the Southern and Middle Belt Leaders Forum (SMBLF) yesterday accused northern leaders of sectionalising the country and subverting the unity of the country.
They called for the restructuring of the country before the 2023 General Elections.
SMBLF, in a statement signed by Chief E.K. Clark (South-South), Chief Ayo Adebanjo (South West), Chief John Nwodo (South East), and Dr. Pogu Bitrus (Middle Belt), said it was either all sections in the country lived together as equals under the same rules of engagement or explore other options as dignified human beings.
The statement read: “We are perplexed at the quality of humanity of any group meeting at this period of mourning not to have a word of compassion for those that were recklessly murdered by state forces and hired thugs during the protests. We reject the indecent approach to paint the peaceful protesters in dark colours. They made their demands clear and were orderly before the violent Nigerian State deployed armed soldiers and thugs in 911 lorries against them.”
They said it was wickedness to place “our power” above every other national interest by playing the “regime change” label on the peaceful protesters who were not armed like Boko Haram that the regime is chasing about with negotiations in the same spirit it has been cuddling and pampering killer herdsmen.”
SIMILARLY, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) declared on Wednesday that it rejected alleged moves by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its administration to regulate and strangulate social media in Nigeria.
It described the alleged move as unconstitutional, anti-people, and a suppressive design to disorganise Nigerians.
“The renewed frenzy to censor the social media is ostensibly targeted at muzzling outspoken Nigerians, particularly youths, media, and civil society organisations, from demanding for accountability and competence, as well as exposing the widespread corruption, unbridled treasury looting, barefaced injustice, human right abuses, constitutional violations and divisive actions of the APC administration”
The party in a statement by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiya, rejected claims that the regulation bill is targeted at checking fake news.
“This is because our nation already has enough implementable laws to counter the dissemination of fake news and punish offenders. It is clear that the APC administration is rather xenophobic of criticisms from citizens against its manifest atrocities that it seeks to surreptitiously reenact the obnoxious military decree 4 to suppress Nigerians,” the PDP said.
The party urged the APC administration to take steps to reassure Nigerians by ending corruption, treasury looting, abuse of human rights, nepotism, and lack of accountability.
As vote count gets underway in battleground states across America, observers around the world who are unacquainted with the US system of choosing the president are searching for answers.
When Americans vote for a new president, in reality, they are voting for a representative of that candidate’s party, known as an elector.
There are 538 electors who in turn vote for the president on behalf of the people in their states.
Each state is assigned a certain number of these electoral votes, based on population, the number of congressional districts they have, plus two additional votes representing the state’s Senate seats.
Washington DC is also assigned three electoral votes, despite having no voting representation in Congress.
A candidate needs at least 270 of the electoral votes to win the presidential election.
The process of nominating electors varies by state and by party, but it is generally done one of two ways.
Ahead of the election, political parties either choose electors at their national conventions, or they are voted for by the party’s central committee.
The electoral college nearly always operates with a winner-takes-all system, in which the candidate with the highest number of votes in a state claims all of that state’s electoral votes.
In 2016, Trump beat Clinton in Florida by a margin of just 2.2%, but that meant he claimed all 29 of Florida’s crucial electoral votes.
Such small margins in a handful of crucial swing states meant that regardless of Clinton’s national vote lead, Trump was able to clinch victory in several swing states and therefore won more electoral college votes.
Joe Biden is currently leading the tally of electoral college votes with 248 according to the Associated Press and 264. Trump is limping behind at 214 votes.
With controversy still trailing the alleged shooting of EndSARS protesters in Lekki, Lagos state, the International Criminal Court (ICC) said it has commenced an investigation into the tragic incident.
This disclosure was made on Tuesday, November 3, by the senior prosecutor of ICC who acknowledged that information on the alleged crimes has been received.
It would be recalled that the Nigerian youths protesting against police brutality of the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit took to the streets in a show of displeasure.
Although the federal government, in a prompt response, entertained their demands, the youths were adamant on pressing their request further.
On the night of October 20, at about 6:50 p.m, members of the Nigerian armed forces allegedly opened fire on peaceful protesters at the Lekki toll gate with some casualties recorded.
The Nigerian Army has, however, denied shooting and killing the protesters, with a face-off ensuing which led to the setting up of a judicial panel to look into the tragic development.
ICC, which seats in Hague, Netherlands, said it would examine the incident and “assess whether the legal criteria for opening an investigation under the Rome statute are met.”
The international court also announced that it will make its findings on the tragic incident public.
Tuface and Annie Idibia’s second daughter, Olivia, has undergone surgery. In a video post on Annie’s Instagram story, Olivia was seen watching a program on a tab with a cast on her leg.
Annie, a popular actress, stated that she has not slept for two days but the surgery was successful.
She said, “It is definitely not easy being a mom! But with a brave, strong kid like Olivia, it becomes the most enjoyable duty in the entire world! I haven’t slept for almost48 hours, but looking at how brave she is, how she manages to take all the pain with a smile, I don’t even care! ‘My entire world in a tiny smart six-year-old’ @officialoliviaidibia #surgerywasasuccess.”
