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China condemns US sanctions on Chinese officials over Hong Kong crackdown

Oluwasola Akintonde
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China’s Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office condemned U.S. sanctions on Chinese officials over their role in a national security law for Hong Kong as “purely double standards”, reports said on Tuesday.

The office expressed “strong indignation and condemnation” at the U.S. State Department decision to sanction the 14 Vice-Chairpersons of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature.

The United States on Monday imposed financial sanctions and a travel ban on the officials over their alleged role in Beijing’s disqualification last month of elected opposition legislators in Hong Kong.

A spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry’s office of the commissioner to Hong Kong also condemned the U.S. move.

“This bullying by the United States once again reveals its evil intention to create chaos in Hong Kong and harm China’s sovereignty and security,” the spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday.

Reuters

Protest demonstration in Armenia calls for PM to step down

Oluwasola Akintonde
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0

Opposition demonstrators blocked streets in Armenia’s capital on Tuesday to mark the start of a protest campaign after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ignored their call to step down over a ceasefire deal struck with Azerbaijan.

Hundreds chanted “Nikol, traitor” and “Armenia without Nikol” in the streets of Yerevan, answering an opposition call to protest after a deadline of midday Tuesday set by the opposition for Pashinyan to quit passed with him still in power.

Pashinyan, who swept to power in a peaceful revolution in May 2018, accepted a Russian-brokered ceasefire deal last month to end a bloody conflict between Azerbaijan and ethnic Armenian forces over the Nagorno-Karabkh enclave and surrounding areas.

Pashinyan’s opponents want him out over what they say was his disastrous handling of the six-week conflict that handed Azerbaijan territorial gains.

Pashinyan has accepted responsibility for the conflict’s outcome, but said he is now responsible for ensuring national security and stabilising the ex-Soviet republic of around three million.

Ishkhan Saghatelyan, an opposition politician for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation party, announced the start of coordinated civil disobedience on Tuesday after the deadline passed.

“Nikol, you will go anyway. Leave peacefully,” he said.

“…from now until 17:00 Armenia’s citizens have the legitimate right to use their right to peaceful actions of disobedience to express their demand and to make it heard,” he said.

The opposition has said it plans to block streets nationwide and to paralyse the national transport network if needed.

Armenian spiritual leader Karekin II said in a statement that he had met Pashinyan and urged him to resign.

Pashinyan did not comment on the protests publicly on Tuesday.

Reuters

”We must sustain discipline in our party”-President Buhari

Mercy Chukwudiebere
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President Muhammadu Buhari has advised leaders of the governing All Progressives Congress (APC) to sustain discipline within the party at all levels, to maintain the achievements already gained by the National Caretaker Committee of the party.

President Buhari made the call in his opening remarks at Tuesday’s National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting of the APC, held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Her said: “I am convinced that in the last five months, since the appointment of the National Caretaker Committee, the initiatives taken have brought a remarkable new atmosphere of hope in the party. Healthy debates are now taking place and the potential for organs of the party to affirm majority positions as the decision of the party is now possible.

“What is required now is for all of us as leaders of the party to maintain discipline and ensure that this new momentum is protected, sustained and that decisions of the party organs are respected by every member.

“Despite the challenge to restore peace in the party and the series of elections at hand, the fact that we have gained more members and that we are not losing members to the opposition under the present interim leadership, indicates improvement for the party.

“In fact, we have begun to win back our members who left us and other notable political leaders are being attracted to our party, particularly, David Umahi, the Governor of Ebonyi State.”

Appeal
President Buhari therefore, appealed to the teeming members of the APC to make the required sacrifices for the party, to enhance development in Nigeria.

“I want to appeal to all our party members and leaders at all levels, to try and make the required sacrifices so that we are able to collectively restore our progressive and democratic political party, which can nurture and give expression to our collective dream of building a strong united and developed Nigeria,” he said.

The Nigerian leader, who doubles as the leader of the APC, urged the party to retrace its steps and explore the kind of consultations that gave birth to the governing party.

“May I use this opportunity to remind all of us of the need to recreate our negotiation spirit of 2012-2013 under our legacy parties; what guided our success to achieve the merger that produced the APC with the respect we were able to have for each other.

“In those times, decisions reached at both formal and informal meetings, every one of us ensured that those decisions were respected because they were required to produce the needed political platform that could guarantee electoral victory.

“I have, through consultations with the Chairman of the Caretaker Committee and other leaders of the party agreed that our challenges in the party require that we take steps to rebuild the party from ward to national levels. The initiative to carry out membership registration revalidation, is therefore, a necessary step,” he said.

The President urged all attendees at NEC to dispassionately consider all the recommendations of the caretaker committee.

He said: “The responsibility of our party’s NEC at this meeting is to adopt and dispassionately consider all the proposals submitted by the caretaker committee and grant all the necessary approvals requested to rebuild the party.

“I believe that as leaders, our shared vision is to ensure that we are able to produce leaders that will not inherit any of the problems that led to the decision to dissolve our last National Working Committee. There should be no debate about the fact that we all want to have a united leadership for our party the APC at all levels.”

In his welcome address, the National Caretaker Committee Chairman and Governor of Yobe State, Mai-Mala Buni thanked President Buhari for his total support to the interim leadership of the party.

Buni commiserated with his Borno State counterpart, Professor Babgana Zulum, over the Zabalumari incident, where over 40 rice farmers were gruesomely murdered by terrorists.

Giving the caretaker committee’s abridged report, the Chairman noted that a lot of aggrieved members of the party have been reconciled.

“Before the emergence of the caretaker committee, our party was a theatre of infighting both at national level and in many states. There was a need to start the process of replacing our party leadership and to achieve that, we set up a reconciliation committee across the country.

“Tempers within our party have substantially come down although the works of our respective reconciliation committees are yet to be concluded. The NEC may therefore wish to review developments and direct accordingly,” he said.

Buni emphasised on President Buhari’s earlier call that all litigations involving members of the party be discontinued.

 

Mercy Chukwudiebere

EU Barnier says Brexit talks need patience

Oluwasola Akintonde
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0

EU chief negotiator Michel Barnier said that he had met his British counterpart to prepare the next steps and what the Brexit talks needed was “a school of patience, even a university of patience”.

“I just met David Frost this morning to prepare the next steps,” Barnier said on Tuesday.

Reuters

Governor Zulum reaches out to vulnerable citizens

Lateefat Ibrahim
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Governor Babagana Umara Zulum of Borno State has been on a humanitarian visit to Gwoza towns of Ngoshe, Warabe and Pulka, all in Gwoza Local Government Area of Southern Borno.

While in Ngoshe, Governor Zulum supervised the distribution of food items and 24 million naira in cash to 1, 200 vulnerable citizens of the town, who returned from Pulka and Maiduguri.

Each household received a 50 kilograms bag of maize, 1 bag of 50 kilograms of sorghum, a 25 kilograms bag of beans, a 12.5 kilograms bag of rice, 5 litres of cooking oil, other condiments and 20,000 naira cash.

Resettled communities

During the distribution, Governor Zulum said the intervention was aimed at continually supporting resettled communities before the rainy season, during which they would be expected to undertake agricultural activities in safety in farmlands as part of livelihoods.

It will be recalled that the returnees to Ngoshe went back on October 15, 2020, after due clearance from the military.

The Borno State Governor also assessedsome basic amenities in the town and immediately ordered the State Universal Basic Education Board to urgently provide furniture and ensure the reopening of the Ngoshe Central Primary School within the next two weeks.

The school project is currently at 95 percent completion level.

Governor Zulum also visited an ongoing Ngoshe Primary Healthcare Centre, where he charged the contractor to accelerate efforts and ensure its completion, to enable health workers provide services to the community.

After leaving Ngoshe, Governor Zulum traveled to Warabe, where he also inspected 350 houses being built for residents whose homes were destroyed by insurgents.

The Borno State Governor also visited Pulka and inspected the construction of a mega secondary school.

Lateefah Ibrahim

Resident Doctors Association urges IPPIS to improve payment service

Lateefat Ibrahim
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0

The Association of Resident Doctors FCTA (ARD  FCTA) has advised the Integrated Payroll and Personnel Information System to be more thorough in discharging their duties.

This is to prevent none payment of the Doctors salaries.

The President of the Association, Dr. Roland Aigbovo, gave the advice at a press briefing on the associations’ 2020 Annual Health Week in Abuja.

He said that “one of the challenges facing the association is irregularities associated in the payment of promotion allowances of its member by the IPPIS.”

Untold hardship
Dr. Aigbovo said that the none performance of the IPPIS has caused untold hardship to workers all over Nigeria.

He urged the government to put mechanisms in place to ensure that people do their work or get punished for not doing it.

“IPPIS has become a hydra headed monster. It is the failure of the system. People have been employed to do something and they are not doing it, those systems do not update themselves. People do. So, if they are not doing what they are paid to do, they should be sjown the way out and allow those who want to work to do so,” Dr. Aigbovo said.

He also appealed to the minister of the FCT to look into the issues affecting the NMA FCT.

“There are still a lot of issues yet to be resolved. We hope that they’ll be resolved soon. Like promotion and skipping areas,” Dr. Aigbovo said.

On the 2020 Annual Medical Week, the President noted that a lot of activities have been mapped out, including a medical outreach to Egbu community in the FCT that is ravaged by Schistosomiasis, a disease caused by infectios from water.

He added that papers would be presented by eminent personalities.

The theme of the FCT NMA 2020 Health Week is ” Disease Outbreak in Nigeria. Are We ever ready”.

 

Lateefah Ibrahim

Nigeria denies allegation of violating religious freedom

Lateefat Ibrahim
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0

 

The Nigerian Government has denied the allegation, by the United States, of engaging in systematic religious freedom violations.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday, the country’s Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, described the allegation as a case of honest disagreement between the two nations on the causes of violence in Nigeria.

”Nigeria does not engage in religious freedom violation, neither does
it have a policy of religious persecution. Victims of insecurity and
terrorism in the country are adherents of both Christianity, Islam and
other religions,” the Minister said.

He said Nigeria jealously protects religious freedom as enshrined in
the country’s constitution and takes seriously, any infringements in
this regard.

Lateefah Ibrahim

COVID-19: Private University, Al- Hikmah solicits for government grants

Lateefat Ibrahim
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0

The Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Ilorin Kwara State, North Central Nigeria, Professor Noah Yusuf has appealed to the Federal Government to provide grants for private Universities in order to enhance the quality of their infrastructure and services.

Professor Yusuf made the appeal on Saturday during the 10th Convocation ceremony of the University, where he underscored the need for such grants, explaining that the current Covid-19 pandemic has shown the desirability of government grants to private Universities in Nigeria.

Critical partners
According to him, Private Universities are critical partners with governments at all levels in the training of Nigerian youths and the production of manpower for the employment market.

“Private Universities are governed by the same government regulations and rules that govern the operations of public Universities. Their academic programmes and mode of operation are subject to the regulations of the National Universities Commission, a body that employs the same rules in accrediting and supervising the academic programmes and curricular of both Private and Public Universities.

” If Private Universities are under the same regulatory agency as the Public Universities, why can they not enjoy the same benefits that are given to public Universities?”

Professor Yusuf who became the Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University in July 2020, also called for a total overhaul of University education in Nigeria to make Nigerian graduates become job creators rather than job seekers.

“...So that our universities will stop training graduates for non-existent civil service jobs,” he said.

The Al-Hikmah University boss said University education these days should incorporate entrepreneurial skills beyond the level currently provided by the General Studies programme in the University curriculum.

The Vice Chancellor, however stated that the University was graduating 751 students at the undergraduate level, 18 of the figure were in First Class Honours, 240 in Second Class Upper Division, and 402 in Second Class Lower Division, while 91 came out with Third Class.

He said that 60 students graduated with Postgraduate (Masters) and 82 students in Postgraduate Diploma in Education (PGDE) category.

However, the Vice Chancellor of the Kwara State University (KWASU), Professor Muhammed Mustapaha Akanbi SAN, who was represented at the occasion by the Deputy Vice Chancellor Administration, Professor Omololu Oladele Fapojuwo, congratulated the management of Al-Hikmah University on the 10th year Convocation ceremony.

He particularly commended the leadership role of the institution for it’s initiative in organising the virtual Convocation ceremony and wished the new graduands the very best in life as they were about entering labour market.

Also present at the event were the pioneer Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Professor Sulyman Age Abdulkareem who is the current Vice Chancellor of the University of Ilorin, another former Vice Chancellor of Al-Hikmah University, Professor Musbau Akanji, traditional rulers across kwara state, government functionaries among others.

Lateefah Ibrahim

APC National Executive Committee meets at Presidential Villa

Dominica Ijeoma Nwabufo
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The National Executive Committee meeting of Nigeria’s governing party, All Progressives congress APC is in session at the Council Chambers of the State House.

President Muhammadu Buhari, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha and Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari as well as President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan and Speaker, Femi Gbajabiamila are among those attending.

Similarly, some Governors of APC controlled states are also physically I attendance while others are participating virtually.

Members of the National Caretaker Committee of the APC are also attending the crucial meeting.

It is expected that the Executive Committee of the party will extend the six months tenure of the interim leadership of the party, which was appointed in June.

Details later  

Nasarawa Assembly backs plan to project Governor’s programmes

Dominica Ijeoma Nwabufo
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0

The Nasarawa State House of Assembly Committee on Information has assured the management of the State Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism and the State Broadcasting Service (NBS) respectively of its support to enable them effectively project Gov. Abdullahi Sule’s policies and programs to the outside world.

The Chairman of the Committee, Mohammed Omadefu gave the assurance when the management of the Ministry and NBS appeared before the committee to defend their 2021 budget proposals at the Assembly Complex in Lafia.

Amadeus said that giving the management of the ministry and NBS support would not only publicizing government activities but would also enable the people of the state to get informed about government developmental strides.

The Chairman appreciated the management of the Ministry for being up and doing in publishing the State government policies and programs.

“I want to commend you for positively projecting the state government programs as well as the cultural heritage of the state.

“I urge you to sustain the tempo for the overall development of the state,” he said.

Amadeus also assured of his committee’s readiness to continue its synergy with the Ministry and the NBS to take the state to a greater height.

Meanwhile, the State Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Dogo Shammah while defending the ministry’s budget proposal appreciated the committee for supporting its activities.

“We will continue to remain grateful to you for your support.

“I want to assure you that we will also continue to educate, entertain, and inform the people of the state on government policies and programs. 

“We will continue to ensure that the state government policies and programs get the much-needed publicity it deserves,” Shammah noted.

The commissioner also assured of the ministry’s continued commitment towards promoting cultural and tourism potentials to boost revenue and for the overall development of the state.

The General Manager NBS, Yusuf Musa while defending the station’s 2021 budget proposal commended Gov. Abdullahi Sule for given attention to the station and called for its sustenance.

Musa equally appreciated the committee for its support and called for its sustenance.

 

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