Blog

Port Harcourt to experience 27 hours power outage

NAN-H-94

Electricity

By Desmond Ejibas

Port Harcourt, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) The Port Harcourt Electricity Distribution Company (PHED), says electricity supply will be disrupted in Port Harcourt between Nov. 17 and 19 for repairs and upgrade of facilities.

Mr John Onyi, the company’s spokesman, disclosed this on Thursday in Port Harcourt in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

He said the planned power outage would commence from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily during the period.

“Electricity customers within Port Harcourt metropolis will witness power outage starting from today, Nov. 17 to Nov. 19, 2016.

“The planned outage is to allow the technical crew from Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) carry out re-conduction of Afam 132kv lines.

“Therefore, power cuts will take place from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on each day,” he said.

Onyi said the repair work, when completed, would enable the company to provide improved electricity supply to users in the city.

He appealed to residents to exercise patience during the period . (NAN)

DES/OU/OU

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Edited by Obike Ukoh

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NAN-H-97

Bail

By Blessing Ibegbu

Mararaba (Nasarawa), Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) A Mararaba Grade 1 Area Court in Nasarawa State on Thursday granted N100,000 bail to a 25-year-old businessman, Samuel Messiah, who allegedly attacked his neighbour, Mrs Joy Orazuluka with his shoe and destroyed her house door.

The Judge, Hon. Albert Maga who gave the ruling, also granted Messiah two sureties as part of the bail conditions.

Maga ordered that the sureties must show evidence of owning a landed property and a valid national identity card.

Maga said: “If the defendant fails to meet the bail terms before the next adjourned date, he will be remanded in Keffi prison.”

The defendant, who resides in Adebo Street, Calvary Road, Aso Pada, Mararaba, is facing a three-count charge of assault, mischief and criminal intimidation.

The prosecuting officer, Cpl. Friday Adaji, had told the court that the defendant committed the offences on Nov. 5, at the same address.

Adaji said that the defendant assaulted and intimidated the complainant by stoning her with his shoes and damaging the net on the door of her house.

“The complainant reported that the trouble started when she asked her daughter, in her native language, where she kept her broom which she did not see in its usual place.

“She said Messiah, without enquiring what she was asking her daughter, suddenly stoned her with his shoes, destroyed her door net and also threatened to kill her,’’ he said

The prosecutor said that the offences contravened sections 327 and 397 of the Penal Code.

The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

The Judge adjourned further hearing in the case until Dec. 8. (NAN)
BLE/HAS/YAZ
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Edited By Hajia Sani/Yusuf Zango

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Orange
By Tinuade Adeshiyan
Lagos, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) A community health expert, Mrs Karounwi Israel, on Thursday in Lagos, advised Nigerians not to discard orange peels, saying “they have many hidden health and household benefits”.

Israel is also the President of KARIS, a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), which is out to empower and teach women many wonders of plants and fruits.

She told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that orange peels had many benefits and advised that they should be kept for use and not thrown away.

“Orange itself is a good source of Vitamin C but its peels are also important to human overall health.

“Most of us who take oranges, normally throw away the peels, we are unaware that these peels are loaded with highly nutritious compounds that are beneficial to our health.

“Orange peels contain more than 60 types of flavonoids and 170 different types of nutrients in addition to being rich in various pectins, vitamins, minerals and fibres.

“People dislike orange peel because of its bitter taste but this peel acts as an excellent weight loss aid, as it contains good amount of fibre and is low in calories.

“It adds bulk to the food and thus, helps in lowering the overall caloric intake, thereby aiding weight loss. It also exerts anti-obesity effects by suppressing weight gain.

“Orange peel provides excellent support against respiratory distress and is also found to be effective for treating asthma and prevents digestive complications,’’ she said.

According to her, it contains a high level of histamine; reducing compounds and antioxidants, which helps in relieving various respiratory complications as bronchitis, cold, flu and lung cancer.

“Orange peel is a rich source of non-soluble dietary fibres such as pectins, tannins and hemi-cellulose, which play an active role in reducing vomiting and heartburn.

“The peel contains compounds which are found to exert positive effect on heart health and it serves as natural skin bleach, as the peel extract is a safe natural scrubber for dark area of the skin.

“It can also be used for natural air fragrance; just boil some peels in your pot and while cooking, the scent is all over the place, giving your house a nice smell.

“It is equally useful as insect repellent; just burn it and the scent will get rid of mosquitoes and insects,’’ Israel added. (NAN)

TAL/FF/YEMI

Edited by Fela Fashoro/Yemi Idris-Aduloju

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Reforms
By Kate Obande
Abuja, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) The Joint Education Stakeholders Action Coalition (JESAC), an NGO, says it will mobilise its members to vote for only education friendly political leaders in elections, to ensure reform in the sector.

Mr Ike Onyechere, the National Coordinator of the Coalition, made this known in a statement made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Abuja.

He said that the coalition comprising over 20 million members, was endorsed by the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) to unify and elect leaders who are ready to restructure the education sector at all levels.

Onyechere explained that the endorsement letter, signed by Dr Peter Ozo-Eson, the NLC General Secretary, described the initiative of the coalition as worthwhile in the quest to improve education in Nigeria.

He added that the mobilisation efforts included the organising a consultative conference scheduled to hold from Nov. 28 to Dec. 2 in Abuja.

“The JESAC initiative is committed to the mobilisation of 20 million members of the coalition to bond, campaign and speak with one voice with their votes in support of education-friendly political leaders.”

He said that the coalition would reject education unfriendly candidates at national, state, municipal and ward elections.

Onyechere stressed the urgent need for the sensitisation and mobilisation of education stakeholders in this period of recession and scarcity of resources.

He said that commitment to education reforms and welfare of academic and non-academic staff was being relegated to the background of priorities of political leaders.

“This period of recession should be a period of out-of-the-box thinking and more committed efforts to resolve the leadership, governance, policy, infrastructure, motivation, welfare, funding and corruption issues.

“These are the factors that have hampered that capacity of education to fulfill its mandate of raising leaders and workers with character to shun corruption and skills to deliver transformation.

“Instead, the current reality is lack of commitment and even diversion of bailout funds meant for payment of long overdue salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff.’’

The coordinator emphasised that the 20 million members were ready and waiting at the ballot box with their collective votes for the next election.

He said that the coalition’s choice of candidates to support or reject depended on their relative scale of compliance with its charter of education reforms.

Onyechere explained that the charter was a set of 100 minimum education reforms that qualify candidates for JESAC support at all levels of election. (NAN)
KTE/JPE/NKO

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Edited by Joseph Edeh/Nkechi Okoronkwo
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NAN-H-93
Policy
By ConstanceAthekame
Abuja, Nov 17, 2016 (NAN) The Minister of Communications, Mr Adebayo Shittu on Thursday said the National ICT policy should be articulated, executed and promoted to protect confidentiality and allay fears of stakeholders.

Shittu, represented by Mrs Monisola Udoh, the Director of ICT in the Ministry of Communication said this in Abuja while delivering a keynote address at the 3^rd African Heads of ICT Professionals Development Summit.

The summit with the theme: “ICT Proficiency and Corporate Management: A Panacea to Nation Building, organised by Association of Telecommunications Professionals of Nigeria (ATPN).

He said that by articulating the ICT policy, it would allay the fears of stakeholders that “it is porous to information hacking by internet fraudsters’’.

“That effort should be made by various stakeholders to ensure that the enabling environment is in place to starve off possible obstacles to the usage of ICT in management communication in ICT.

“From our perspective, we have put in place plans to drive demand for infrastructure that will boost economic growth.

“Nigeria has the potential to develop technologically, despite its many challenges, and we are of the view that by strengthening Public Private Partnership on ICT, we will drive infrastructure development across the nation,’’ he said.

The minister said that he was elated that the summit featured a unique blend of stakeholders from across the industry, government, academia and civil society.

He said that his participation in the summit further attested to the strong commitment to demonstrate the importance of ICT as a central pillar for Nigerian socio-economic development in the 21^st century.

“It also supports, especially our view of the dire economic challenging strategies in ICT investment for a sustainable growth in Nigeria,’’ he said.

Dr Jimson Olufuye, the Chairman of African Information and Communications Technologies Alliance (AFICTA) said that for Africa to have ICT proficiency there was need for digital literacy across all boards even among the workforce.

Olufuye, who was the co-chairman at the summit, commended the resolutions of the Nigerian Council of Communication Technology to improve digital literacy programme for Nigeria.

“This is highly commendable because if we do not have a prepared workforce, there is no way we can sustain our position in Africa and be reckoned with globally.

“A lot of people have said we have too many workshops, seminars and summits but the truth is that we have not had enough at all, so I commend the organisers of this event.

“I want to use this opportunity to encourage fellow stake holders to promote and support initiatives like this because we need to remind ourselves daily of our responsibility.

Mr Adede Williams, the National President of ATPN said that the meeting was conveyed by the association’s collective desire to be part of the solution to Africa’s ICT growth and development agenda.

“As a professional body, we made it known that we wanted to play both active and supportive role where necessary in setting the African ICT management, development and growth over these years.

“This initiative, therefore, places higher responsibility on us to contribute to this growth and in implementing agreed insights solutions and recommendation that would emerge from our deliberations today,’’ he said.

He said that the gathering would provide a platform for African ICT professionals to originate additional input toward the re-engineering and effective strategies.

According to him, “this will further deepen country’s ICT growth profile that is being praised globally. ‘’ (NAN)
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Commission to support UMTH radiotherapy centre

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Radiotherapy
Maiduguri, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) The Fiscal Responsibility Commission (FRC) has pledged to assist the University of Maiduguri Teaching Hospital (UMTH) in mobilising resources towards completing its Radiotherapy Centre abandoned since 2012 due to paucity of fund.

The FRC North East Team Leader, Mr Ibrahim Dauda, disclosed this after an assessment visit in Maiduguri.

Dauda lamented that the centre had been abandoned for several years in spite of its importance for the treatment of cancer patients in the North East.

“We are here to inspect projects as part of our mandate to ensure prudent management of national resources. We want government to have value for money in all appropriation for capital projects.

“We have inspected three projects at UMTH – the construction site for the radiotherapy centre, power supply generators and the amenity ward,” he said.

Dauda added: “We saw that work at the radiotherapy centre was just at 22 per cent completion due to lack of fund.

“We will write our report highlighting the importance of the project which is very important to the entire North East.

“We feel that it is an important project which should be counted as priority project having started in 2012,” he said.

Dauda said that the commission would also try to lobby members of the National Assembly representing the North East towards mobilising fund for the completion of the centre.

“We want to highlight the importance of this project and to also urge members of the National Assembly representing the zone towards appropriating fund for the project because the project will serve the entire zone,” he said.

Dauda lamented that the North East had suffered enough due to the Boko Haram terrorism.

“The zone has suffered a lot due to Boko Haram terrorism, so we need to provide succour to the people by making sure that cancer patients do not have to travel thousand miles for treatment.

“We learned that the patients now have to travel to Sokoto or Ibadan for treatment which is bad,” he said.

Dr Muhammad Tahir, the UMTH Chairman of Medical Advisory Committee, told the visitors that the centre was originally conceived in 2008 as a remedy for rising cancer cases in Nigeria.

“The project was originally conceived along with the nuclear medicine in collaboration with the IAEA in 2008 in view of the rising cancer cases in the country.

“The project started in February 2012, but was halted at about 22 per cent completion due to paucity of fund,” Tahir said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the FRC team also visited the Federal Neuro Psychiatric Centre, Maiduguri, as part of the inspection visit. (NAN)
ABI/MST/MST

Edited by Muhammad Suleiman Tola

WHO donates Polio Modular Laboratory to UCH

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Donation

By Akeem Abas
Ibadan, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) The World Health Organisation (WHO) would on Friday hand over a new Modular Polio Laboratory to the premier polio laboratory in the Department of Virology, University of Ibadan, Oyo State.

This is contained in a statement issued by the agency’s country office in Abuja and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday in Ibadan.

The agency stated that the laboratory was purchased with a grant from the United States Agency for International Aid (USAID) to support polio eradication activities in Nigeria.

It said that the new modular laboratory, a standard BSL2 laboratory, would support diagnosis of many viral infections like measles, rubella, rotavirus, yellow fever and dengue fever, among others.

“The Department of Virology, UI, is important in the fight against polio. It has single-handedly processed all Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) samples from states in the country.

“This is before the Maiduguri laboratory was accredited to support polio activities by WHO in 2001,” it stated.

It said that the new laboratory would expectedly increase the workspace and pave way for expansion of environmental surveillance in Nigeria.

It stated that Prof. Isaac Adewole, the Minister of Health, who accented the donation of the modular laboratory as the Vice Chancellor of the university, was expected as special guest of honour.

Also expected are Dr Rex Mpazanje, Acting WHO Country Representative and the US Consul General to Nigeria, among others. (NAN)

TAA/AK/MST

Edited by Akin Makanjuola/Muhammad Suleiman Tola

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Court

By Lydia Ngwakwe

Lagos, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) Mrs Jumoke Anifowoshe, a former Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice in Ondo state, on Thursday urged the Federal Government to establish a special court to prosecute corrupt persons.

Anifowoshe told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that the court was necessary if ongoing fight against corruption would be properly prosecuted in line with the philosophy of President Muhammadu Buhari.

“I want to suggest that in order for APC to get it right, a special court has to be established for those who have been indicted and arrested by the Department of State Service (DSS) to face the wrath of the law.

“The APC of which I am a member has something going for it, the angle of corruption, which the president is fighting tooth and nail.

“That aspect of APC stands it out from other political parties in the country and if that aspect can be well managed by the leadership, I think Nigeria will go a long way in development,’’ she said.

The politician said that any political party that was not ideologically based, its whole process and being would be affected and would be meaningless to the populace.

She said that all the political parties talk and preach same thing, but that a political party should be identified with one ideology.

Anifowoshe, however, said that the country’s democracy was still tottering, and that until it stabilized, Nigeria would not get a party that was truly ideologically-based.

On forthcoming governorship election in Ondo state, the former commissioner charged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ensure that card readers were used.

“I want to say for the first time in the history of Nigeria, INEC used the card reader to conduct election, and I think it helped a lot.

“If INEC can make it function well, I think the problem of rigging and ballot box-snatching will be a thing of the past.

“It will also help political parties in the election because due process will follow and the election will not be abused by anybody or group of persons,’’ she said. (NAN)

LED/OPI/OPI

Edited by Olisa Ifeajika

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Aregbesola describes Rasheed Gbadamosi’s death as `passage of a good man’

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Passage

By Victor Adeoti

Osogbo, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) Gov. Rauf Aregbesola of Osun on Thursday in Osogbo described the demise of art patron, Chief Rasheed Gbadamosi,  as the “passage of a good man.’’

He also described Gbadamosi, who died on Wednesday at the age of 72, as a leading industrialist, humanist, art and culture promoter and writer.

The condolence message was signed by Mr Semiu Okanlawon, the media aide to the governor.

“A good man who built reputation as a credible businessman and industrialist.

“His love for philanthropy was remarkable.

“He loved culture and spent his resources to promote arts.

“It is painful to lose this good man, but one clear lesson is the transient nature of life itself.

“On behalf of the good people of Osun, it is our fervent prayer that Allah will grant him ‘Aljanah Firdaus’ and give the people of Lagos State the fortitude to bear the loss,” Aregbesola said.

Aregbesola also urged Gov. Akinwumi Ambode of Lagos State as well as people of the business and art communities to take heart since death was an inevitable end.‎NAN)

VE/TO/OU

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Edited by Tola Okinbaloye/Obike Ukoh

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New Kaduna CP urges media to be professional, help build peace

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Briefing

By Mohammad Tijjani

Kaduna, Nov. 17, 2016 (NAN) The new Commissioner of Police in Kaduna State, Mr Agyole Abeh on Thursday urged media practitioners in the state to be professional in their reportage.

The commissioner, who made the appeal at his maiden news briefing in Kaduna, said the media must contribute to peace building efforts and in exposing criminals.

Abeh also rolled out his agenda for the command, saying he would adopt aggressive and well structured visibility patrol systems, to enhance intellegence gathering for effective crime control.

He said that the system would involve “periodic unscheduled but adequately organised raiding strategy that is procative, preventive and offensive against crime in its description and execution.”

The police commissioner also pledged to involve communities in securing the state, in order to ensure a crime free society.

“Under our pledge, we intend to curb the surge in crime while at the same time respecting the fundamental rights of individuals.

“We also intend to embark on running the fundamental principle of zero tolerance to corruption, impunity and discipline for successful democratic governance.”

Abeh, therefore, warned criminals to either repent or move out of the state, as the command would pursue them aggresively.[NAN]

TJ/MZA

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Edited by Maharazu Ahmed