Anyone around Udensi Roundabout-Kpirikpiri road will notice that our streetlights have started blinking more than the Christmas lights. Lol.
I didn't notice it at first and you may not see it clearly from this video, but you need to go see for yourselves, if you're close by. Somebody should tell Ebonyi state government that it is one thing to install streetlights and entirely another thing to maintain them. These lights are not even up to six months, so, they don't have any reason to malfunction.
Desert city in Mali formally receives keys to shrines to Muslim saints after they were rebuilt with Unesco funding following damage in 2012
Sane Chirfi, who represents the family which looks after the mausoleum of Alpha Moya, in front of the mausoleum. Photograph: Sebastien Rieussec/AFP/Getty Images
Timbuktu has celebrated the recovery of its historic mausoleums, destroyed during an Islamist takeover of northern Mali in 2012 and rebuilt thanks to the UN cultural agency, Unesco.
The desert city formally received the keys to the shrines to Muslim saints at a ceremony on Thursday in theDjingareyber mosque. Five head of cattle were ritually sacrificed just after dawn before a reading of the entire Qur’an and the handing of the keys to the families in charge of the shrines’ care.
Al-Qaida-linked insurgents wrecked 14 of the city’s earthen shrines, which were built during Timbuktu’s 15th- and 16th-century golden age as an economic, intellectual and spiritual centre.
Unesco representative Lazare Eloundou told the officials, diplomats and religious and traditional dignitaries attending the ceremony: “This day celebrates the remarkable and courageous work accomplished to recover your dignity.”
Islamist fighters destroyed the centuries-old shrines after seizing the city in April 2012, when they implemented a version of Islamic law that forced women to wear veils, with whipping and stoning as punishment for transgressions.
On Sunday, a Danish woman, Anja Ringgren Loven, a Philanthropist an founder of African Children’s Aid Education and Development Foundation ( ACAEDF) who lives with her partner and son in Uyo rescued a little boy who had been abandoned by his family because they claimed he was a ‘witch’. She took him into her care, fed him, gave him clothes and he is currently receiving some medical attention. This was what she shared on her Facebook page:
‘Ive seen much here in Nigeria over the last 3 years. I have spared you for many experiences when we’ve been on the rescue operations. Thousands of children are being accused of being witches and we’ve both seen torture of children, dead children and frightened children. This footage shows why I fight. Why I sold everything I own. Why I’m moving out in uncharted territory. Why the new documentary is so important for dinnødhjælps work so we can shout world leaders up so we can get focused on superstition in Nigeria! I hope you will all see with when ” Anja Africa ‘ is being shown on TV. Together we can make the biggest difference! I have chosen to call the boy hope for right now, we all hope that he survives. He is in the hospital and you guys want to support hope with medicine and hospital bills as you daily pay for hospitalisation here in Nigeria can make a contribution on dinnødhjælps mobilepay: 27 21 24 34 The details of today’s rescue mission yesterday I can’t go into now. But you will see it all in the new documentary “Anja Africa” being shown on dr2 so remember to watch!
Today she gave an update of the boy she named”Hope” :
“We should be proud to be Danes. We are a loving people and we’re taking good care of each other. We are always together when there is need our help. When natural disasters hit, famine ravaging and civil wars devastate affects us deeply. We Danes are among the world’s most generous. We are the best to donate money to charity, help others and do volunteer work. More than every other of us Danes gives money to charity and help people we don’t know. And we must be proud!
Right now we danes hung out in the foreign media. Incorrect or not, media account certainly not the true picture of US DANES. For when it comes to love there are no countries can match us! So let us give the media something new to write about. Something to really show them who we danes are! Just 2 DAYS HAVE DINNØDHJÆLP RECEIVED 1 million dollars to help little hope!!! Let me repeat that: 1 million Danish kroner is donated to dinnødhjælp in just 2 DAYS!!! My feelings are sitting without his clothes! I’m so overwhelmed! I’m so grateful and touched by all the love, care and huge support there just pouring here to Nigeria all the way from Denmark! I want as long as I live thank you all every day! I forget simply never! With all the money we can besides giving hope the very best treatment now also build a doctor clinic on the new land and save many more children out of torture! It’s just so great! The building must be called hope clinic – donated city Denmark!! They say thanks is just a poor words, but for me means thank you life! And to those who says otherwise, then we can today together prove to the whole world that charity indeed still exists in Denmark!heart emoticon Hope’s condition is stable now. He’s taking food for himself, and he responds to the medicine he gets. Today he has had powers to sit up and smiling at us. He’s a strong little boy. To see him sit and play with my own son is without doubt the greatest experience of my life! I just don’t know how to describe it in words. This is what makes life so beautiful and valuable and therefore I will let the pictures speak for themselves: Today we “groundbreaking” ceremony at the construction site. Ground breaking ceremony where we are so lucky to the Danish Ambassador here in Nigeria participates as a guest of honour and the keynote speaker. I can’t believe our ambassador and his sweet wife comes entirely from the capital Abuja to our little village where dinnødhjælp builds a new orphanage and participating in our ceremony. It’s so big and I am very pleased to see the ambassador again. Today during the ceremony I will think of our architect Martin from engineers without borders and his working group as in more than half a year now worked every day for putting together and draw dinnødhjælps orphanage in cooperation with our Nigerian engineers. I very much look forward to show you all the outcome when the construction is finished. About 1 years running little hope around on dinnødhjælps new orphanage and play with all the other children. Where there is love, there is life
The Ebonyi State Police Command has arrested one Igbokwe Chukwuemaka, a Civil Defence officer and 11 others involved in pipeline vandalization at Amaeze Ishiagu in Ivo Local Government Area of the state.
Speaking while parading the vandals at the command headquarters, Abakaliki, the Commissioner of Police, Peace Abdallah said the police received information that there was vandalization of pipeline going on at Amaeze Ishiagu.
"Police raced to the scene and after exchange of gun fire with the hoodlums, arrested one Igbokwe Chukwuemaka, a Civil Defence officer and 10 other suspects while others escaped," she said.
Mrs Abdallah said that the matter was under investigation and that if found guilty, the suspects would face the full wrath of the law as pipeline vandalism was a high economic sabotage.
Several times, I've been left wondering if being a woman is a crime or a mistake. I've heard and seen some people argue that women were not in God's original plan, that we were created because of man's need for companionship. I don't know the arguments that the atheists have in this line.
Women are shamed daily, both for their positive and negative actions. I've been thinking, recently and I've come to realize that we live in a patriarchal world and no matter how hard we try, women will always be at the receiving end, bear all the blames and shame and live with them till death.
If a man grows rich overnight, owning landed properties and cars, throwing money around; he's hailed and celebrated for being a man. But, if a woman lives comfortably, wears nice clothes and drives a car; she must have slept with men to get those, she must have got it from the back door. Even their fellow women say worse things about. Woe betide her if she's still single. You all know what happened to Linda Ikeji.
If a young woman dates an older man (sugar-daddy, aristo), no one asks what the man has to do with a girl young enough to be his daughter. Everyone asks; what is she doing with that man old enough to be her father? If a young boy dates a woman much older than he is, everyone asks why she's wasting the life of a boy young enough to be her son. No one thinks vice versa. She's termed a disgrace to womanhood.
If a man loses his wife, life goes on for him, after her burial. He may even pick a new bride from the burial, that's cool. But if a woman loses her husband, she must mourn him for at least, one year. This depends on the custom of the place, anyway. It may even be longer. She wears sackcloth, or something similar. It is even a taboo for her to seen around men. People even begin to question her innocence in her husband's death. Prospective suitors in cases of young widows, are advised to enquire about the cause of her husband's death. It's really bad.
Have you ever seen a divorced woman being scorned? Nobody wants to know if she divorced or was divorced. It becomes a huge turnoff for men. Who wants to eat crumbs from another man's table? Is it the same case for men? Your guess is as good as mine
If a woman is raped, she's blamed. She bears both the psychological damage from the rape and the stigmatization. Nobody blames the rapist, they were provoked to act.
She's a prostitute! She's a whore! Who patronizes her? You shame the women and leave the men. Who does that?
If a woman gives birth out of wedlock, she not the father of her child is blamed. She should have closed her legs. She should have used preventive drugs. She should have been more careful. But, the same people will be the first to crucify her if they find contraceptives in her possession. They will curse her for having an abortion. I do not support immorality, but I propose that both parties to a moral offense be punished equally. That is equality.
The next time you look at a 35 year old woman and wonder why she's still single, make sure you've thought same of a single 40 year old man.
Before you call my opinion myopic, make sure that you have yours and it is more reasonable than mine.
We are women! We are beautiful, awesome, strong, intelligent, hard working and powerful!
Officer Shaun McKennedy’s first overdose call comes in at 6.39pm. He turns the sirens on and rushes over to 245 Laurel street, a midsize apartment building. There’s an abandoned baby carriage in the front yard. A man wearing a Bride of Chucky shirt peeps out of his doorway as McKennedy, 24, rushes upstairs.
Several men from the local fire department and EMT department are already there, hovering around the seemingly lifeless body of a 31-year-old man on the living room floor in a soaking wet T-shirt and jeans. It’s a situation McKennedy, 24, has been through dozens of times since he joined the force last July.
“Larry! Larry! Stay with us!” yells Justin Chase, a Manchester EMT medic. He injects naloxone, a medication that reverses the effects of opioids, up Larry’s nose.
His body shakes and his eyes pop open. “What’s up?” he asks, without blinking.
Larry agrees to go to the emergency room at Elliot Hospital, but it will be several weeks before test results determine exactly what led to his overdose. It’s the first time he’s done that, he tells McKennedy later that night. Usually he injects between two and three grams of heroin a day; that evening he only took .2 grams, or a “pencil”. He’s not sure if he overdosed because he lost his tolerance – he says he’s been clean for just over two months – or if it was laced with fentanyl.
According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, fentanyl is a synthetic opioid 100 times more powerful than morphine, and 30-50 times more powerful than heroin.
“Fentanyl is what is killing our citizens,” said Manchester chief of police Nick Willard in testimony before Congress last week.
In 2013, the city of Manchester had 14 fatal overdoses, 7% of which involved victims with fentanyl in their system, according to Willard. In 2015, 69 people fatally overdosed, 68% of whom had taken fentanyl.
The state statistics are no more cheery. Officials at the office of the chief medical examiner in New Hampshire say they have yet to receive testing results from 36 suspected overdoses, but they’ve counted 399 fatal overdose victims so far, more than two thirds of whom died with fentanyl in their system.
“It’s not like Mario Batali,” said Willard from his office in Manchester, comparing heroin dealers cutting their supply with the famed chief. “These guys are just throwing it in a mixer. You could get a bag that’s perfect and no one is going to die from it. You could also get a bag [that’s] straight fentanyl and that would kill you.”
Willard said that during a recent raid in Manchester, he found a dealer mixing fentanyl with whey protein. In another sting that led to a seizure in Lawrence, Massachusetts, the dealer was allegedly mixing heroin and fentanyl in a kitchen blender.
For the most part, said Willard, the story of opiate use in Manchester follows the same patterns as the rest of the country. The crisis was ushered in by the rise of prescription painkillers like OxyContin. Addicts looking for a cheaper high frequently turned to the more dangerous, yet significantly cheaper, heroin.
The turning point, he says, happened sometime after 2010, when Purdue Farmer altered the medication to make it more difficult to tamper with and get high. Suppliers in Mexico were quick to keep up with the burgeoning market, and addicts in Manchester, which sits near Interstate 93, Route 3, Route 81, and Route 9, had no problem tapping into the supply.
Fentanyl ‘is what is killing our citizens’, says Manchester’s police chief. Photograph: Alamy
To make matters worse for Manchester, DEA agent Tim Desmond says intelligence indicates that Mexican cartels, specifically El Chapo’s Sinaloa cartel, have increased poppy production 50% since last year and have been targeting the north-east.
Fentanyl was first developed in the 1960s as a general anesthetic, and it is still regularly administered by doctors, usually in the form of lozenges and patches, frequently for cancer patients.
Addicts have found ways to abuse the prescription forms of the drug, by sucking on the patches, for example. But more recently, Mexican cartels have learned how to make their own fentanyl by importing the necessary chemicals from China, then smuggling the product across the border and on to the interstate highway system, said Desmond.
The United States has had fentanyl problems before. Between 2005 and 2007, more than 1,000 people died from the drug, mostly in the midwest. According to a press release from the DEA, all of those deaths could be traced to a single lab in Mexico. Once the DEA shut down the lab, the fentanyl epidemic stopped too.
This time around, the DEA has not yet targeted a single lab in Mexico responsible for the epidemic in New England, said Desmond. Instead, federal agents and local police are targeting area dealers. “Sometimes we have to start at the bottom of the food chain in order to go up the ladder,” he said.
In Manchester, Willard is working to exterminate the epidemic from the ground up. When he became chief in the summer of last year, he turned over his drug unit, and ordered detectives to arrest dealers quickly to get them off the street, rather than wait to build a more thorough case or work up the supply line.
He’s also worked to build a state and federal task force, called Granite Hammer, which began last September; so far, he says, the unit has made 77 arrests. He has also called for an increase in state support for recovery clinics.
McKennedy responded to two more overdose calls that night. First was a man in his late 20s named Mark, who passed out in a laundromat with one needle in his arm and one full, and ready to go. Mark was less willing to accompany the EMTs to the hospital.
“Do you want to die?” asked Chase.
“Who the fuck would want to live in this life?” Mark’s statement, said Chase, is suicidal ideation, which means that the EMTs are required to take him to the hospital anyways. At the hospital, Mark asked McKennedy for his heroin back.
The next call was for a woman in her early 30s. Dawn Marie overdosed at a friend’s apartment. It took two doses of naloxone to revive her. Her friend has two children. They practiced spelling out the alphabet on a coloring book in a room next door.
Other officers responded to a fourth overdose call while McKennedy helped EMTs attend to an addict who tried to take his own life with a kitchen knife. He recognized McKennedy from a previous overdose. “Another day in paradise,” he said as the officer walked through the door.
In a moment of calm, McKennedy assisted Officer Mark Aquino with a traffic stop. Aquino is a drug recognition expert. It’s getting more difficult to recognize addicts, he said. Heroin is easy to detect, the user’s pupils get small and pin-like. “Fentanyl doesn’t restrict pupils,” he said. “They nod instead,” he explained, dropping his chin to his chest.
At 10.30, McKennedy returned to the department to fill out paperwork accounting for the calls. Another “consistent” shift in Manchester, he concluded. “Nothing out of the ordinary."
The sperm whale which has washed up on a beach in Norfolk. Photograph: Scott Baldry/PA
Another sperm whale has become stranded on the east coat of England, the sixth to wash up on British shores in recent weeks.
The huge mammal, which is still alive, is stranded at Hunstanton beach in Norfolkand is unlikely to survive, said British Divers Marine Life Rescue (BDMLR).
Stephen Marsh, operations manager for BDMLR, said there was nothing the volunteers could do due to the size and weight of the animal.
“It’s a sperm whale, another male. It’s the 29th stranding we’ve had in Europe in the last couple of weeks,” he said.
“We had two in Germany last night, one in France on Tuesday night. It’s a live stranding but it’s unlikely to survive. The tide may well lift it but we don’t think it would survive another stranding if it came back in.
“There’s nothing we can do; it’s likely to be between 25 and 30 tonnes. We can’t lift it, we can’t roll it, the vets can’t put it out of its misery.
“The body will be breaking down and releasing toxins, causing organ failure. It’s a very sad case but we will have to let nature take its course.”
Crowds flocked to see the whales, believed to be from the same pod as one that died on Hunstanton beach in January, despite efforts to help it back into deeper water after it became stranded.
“The question that’s left still hanging is why they came in the North Sea in the first place and whether the French, the German events are all connected in some way,” he said in January.
“I think it’s reasonable to assume that the pods – because there can be more than one pod – came in at the same time, given the spatial and temporal stranding events. I think that’s a reasonable assumption to make.”
Sperm whales are deep sea creatures and can easily become disoriented if they get into shallow water. The whale is said to be 1.5 miles out on the sand and the coastguard is also in attendance.
A Mayor in Uthukela, South Africa is awarding scholarship to students not for their academic performance but for remaining virgins all through their school days. Funny, right?
The news which has gone viral has been received with mixed feelings by people across the globe. This is not the first time that people are sponsoring awards of this nature, a beauty pageantry was held in Nigeria some time last year, for virgins.
While people who support the idea may argue from the point of morality, considering the fact that the world has gone sour; I totally disagree with the idea. Here are my reasons:
1. The world has really gone sour. If virginity is the only criterion for awarding scholarship to students, how do you determine that they are still virgins? By running virginity tests on them? What of people who indulge in anal sex? Are they still part of the virgins? In other words, a girl is free to engage in every other sexual acts, provided her hymen is intact. Isn't that unreasonable?
2. The idea is just not cool. So, if Ada has a CGPA of 4.6 on the scale of 5.0 and is she's not a virgin, while Nneka who's a virgin is battling to maintain a CGPA of 2.0, the Mayor goes ahead to support Nneka. It discourages academic performance. And there's no guarantee that this will stop young girls from having sex if they want to.
3. I learnt that one of the reasons behind this idea is to save the girls the distraction brought by sex. Just a couple of questions: what about the boys? Is sex the only source of distraction? One can decide to keep a boyfriend without having sex with him and still be distracted. Another can keep a thousand and one boyfriends, sleep with all of them and still maintain her game. Yes!
Don't get me wrong. I'm not in any way at all encouraging sexual immorality. I'm just saying that it is unreasonable to use it as a criterion for helping people. Being a virgin or not is a question of choice, it shouldn't be imposed on anyone.
The things that women go through in the name of marriage. Read the letter written by this Ireland-based Nigerian woman to her husband before her death.
I bid you farewell…
I am grateful to God that I will rest in His bosom and I am more grateful because I have always wanted this opportunity to speak my mind even unto death. I guess you are surprised that even the dead can air an opinion; in my case I really wanted to because I knew that God was preparing a place for me and that is where I will be.
Do not weep for so long because I found eternal peace in Him. The very peace that has eroded me in about twelve years of my God given years (at the time of this writing I am forty-one years of age and I have been married for twelve years).
This is my story………
I am Yetunde nee Olotu as I am fondly called by my immediate family in Nigeria but here I am being referred to as Omodolapo Jagha as named by the love of my life. Now, I am Dolapo GoodGod , the surname I adopted when I realized that I no longer have a husband who will be there for me. The very man I should expect to be the Master of ceremony at my burial, the man you think would miss my departure the most but unfortunately not. I believe my estranged husband is glad that he is now free from the bondage called marriage.
Noble Jagha, I hope you feel so happy now that your prophesy to Maryam Hassan and other girlfriends of yours that I will soon die so you can marry them is now fulfilled. The truth is that my body may be dead but my hope of glory in heaven is constant as God lives. I may not be here again but I am so sure you will never find anyone to love you the way I did.
You were my first love, the very man who deflowered me but turned his back on me years after that I was not good on bed (not sexy enough for you), I was not good at cooking but I managed to learn and cook your local meal of Starch and Banga. He said, “I was so paranoid” because I complained that you are only comfortable making phone calls in the car and returning home at midnight.
You finally abandoned me and the children in December, 2012 after all the mental and physical abuse I suffered from you. You could not face the wrath of law as I got a safety and protection order against you because I was afraid that you would eventually take my life. While you lived with us, you were of no use, as you were not readily available to do your matrimonial and fatherly duties.
How painful it was to take the twins to school walking all the way from Ongar to Little Pace, sometimes after getting a chemo. Even when I pleaded with you to look after the kids when I have appointments at the hospital you refused. Thank God for the Irish government (HSE) that provided me with home help (Margaret), my cousin, grandma Odelade, Sola and S. Bimbo (my wonderful sisters in church), my friend, confidant (Gbemi) who stuck to me like a sister, she is known in all our kids’ school as their guardian because you were not there.
You found solace in your numerous, “your attraction” as you referred to the choir leader and probably your new sizzling romance Sheila Luxembor whom you kept my kids with without my consent. I hope she told you I rang her and made peace with her when I did no wrong (Yeah, I did this to secure my heaven). Hhhhmmmm..the Lord is my strength.
Oti, how do you feel after physically and mentally tormenting me? You can now be happy that “the living corpse” (as you often referred to me) in your home has finally gone to be with God. You no longer have to hit me or pounce on me anymore.
In death I have forgiving you because I loved you but I hope you are able to forgive yourself…….? I cannot forget in a minute how I felt so let down that I took to my heels and sought refuge in that sister’s place and later on at the women’s refuge. I am sure your defense is that I died as a cancer patient but I believe I could live a day longer if you were there for me…… I went through the pains of Cancer lonely! Rather than supporting, you rejected me.
Isn’t marriage meant to be for better or for worse.….? I hope when I remember how childish you were for taking the boot you bought for me and returning the wrist watch I bought for you I can peacefully sigh a relief for leaving this cruel world.
You were so mean to me! Oti, you were really mean to Emmanuella too. How could you ill-treat your own children because they are girls? I have all the horrible text messages you sent to me documented; psychologically you killed me before my death.
Pastor Jagha, a man of God! The church has failed in their duty to help you from fallen, they have pampered you for doing wrong in order to save their face and invariably they have failed me. Church is meant for sinners irrespective of their position and as such no one should be above chastising.
I hope after my demise our father in the Lord would have enough evidence to correct the wrong of my beloved husband. No wonder my so-called husband was able to trick the church who also lured me to take off the safety and protection order and stop me from getting a separation that I so long for.
On my dying bed I made copies of telephone bills showing his immoral communication with a worker in the church at Athlone but there was still no sufficient evidence.
The church that should be a place of refuge became a place of torment for me. I hope you can also enjoy your new relationship with Sheila, I learnt you told some of your church members that I asked her to look after my kids because I was sick in the hospital whereas she keeps malice with me just because of your sex romp with her. Oti, you left my children at home for two days and went to sleep with your girl friend in Athlone. You also asked my under-aged children to travel on bus to Athlone by themselves while I was on the hospital bed. I loved you but you failed me and you know it.
The bitter pill that I have to swallow is the fact that I can no longer be there for my lovely girls .Their beloved father despised them so because I could not make a male child (you claimed that I was unable to have a boy child because I did not drink from the anointing oil which you asked me to drink and that makes you detest me too). I am deeply sorry that I did not drink it; maybe that would have spared me of some lashes.
Our lovely first daughter at age twelve said, “Mummy I don’t think I will get married” This is as a result of the abuse that my child suffered from our marriage. If you are a loved one and you know my daughter, please help me say to her that marriage is to be enjoyed and not endured. I want her to be married and make me proud!
Oti, why do you always run away from your problems rather than resolving them? You left Nigeria because of your involvement in fraud at the bank which you never resolved. As I speak you owe my mother a sum of one million, two hundred thousand naira which you have no plan to repay. How come you had issues even with your own sibling in the U.K to such an extent that you poisoned her? That is the more reason why I was so scared for my life.
You are such a difficult person, the community welfare officer , our GP, Olive at Hartstown , the Child protection unit at Finglas and our father in the Lord tried their best to advise you to no avail. You were not ready to make me happy.
Noble Jagha, you wanted me dead as soon as possible. I still wonder why you refused to come with me for separation times and again when I asked that we should part ways. I know your intent may be to make gains from my years of labour at Anpost. I worked so hard to pay the rent, to feed us and even paid some of your fees to pursue your MBA.
Despite all my effort you were never satisfied, even on my sick bed you demanded for money. I hope you are happy that you have them all and you can feed your numerous girlfriends with them.
I plead with you and I besiege all that reads this to appeal to you that you do the following after my demise which is of utmost importance (I hope you will heed advice for once).
1. That you may put in trust/fixed deposit for my daughters all monies raised from my burial and benefits from my workplace having paid all expenses incurred and other personal loan taking from my friends during my period of illness. My daughters need to know I care for them even in my grave.
2. That, I have a will in which I have named the executors to my will and joint custodians of our children. The lawyer will keep you posted in due course, please adhere!
3. Oti you can also pay any money that you owe from the monies before the account is opened.
4. Kindly pay my mother the money you owe her too before the account is fixed.
5. I want my mother to be a part of my children’s life, please don’t deprive her.
6. Oti make peace with my family and friends (stop making enemies out of the people that helps me).
Oti, it may surprise you but I have to let you know that I have the password to your facebook account and email accounts! How come I am not on your friend list? Why did you also refuse to tell me the cause of your mother’s death? I know she died of cancer! Hmmmm
Oti does not love me; he could not stay with me in sickness despite the fact that I loved him more than my children. Hhmmmm
I hope my mother can forgive me for not heeding her advice in respect of my choice of marriage and I pray that God gives her and my father the fortitude to bear this irreparable lost.
It is too late to cry when the head is off.
Thank you for not leaving me alone in my time of troubles and needs my sisters, thank you sister for going to Olive’s school, please follow up with Emmanuel as planned, I don’t want my children to suffer. I am so worried. I am tired. I don’t want you people to go, don’t leave me alone. I want someone to sleep here with me tonight.
THE Senate Committee on Education, yesterday, uncovered N9,982,258,479 hidden in the budget of parastatals by the Federal Ministry of Education. PIC.23. SENATE CHAMBER DURING THE INAUGURATION OF THE 8TH NATIONAL ASSEMBLY IN ABUJA ON TUESDAY (9/6/15). 3023/9/6/2015/CH/BJO/NAN SENATE CHAMBER
The committee, which discovered the amount at the commencement of its 2016 budget defence, said the amount was hidden in the ministry’s parastatals.
The parastatals allocation for the year, according to the Senate Committee, increased at geometric progression by almost N10 billion while the entire personnel cost for the ministry and all its subsidiaries including schools and colleges declined drastically when compared to that of last year.
To this end, the committee chairman, Senator Aliyu Wamakko, ruled that the permanent secretary and the ministry should go back to the drawing board and come up with a more sensible overhead cost, saying its discovery was that the huge sum was deliberately hidden under parastatals’ personnel cost.
As seen, the ministry’s parastatals’ personnel cost rose from N88.1 billion in 2015 to as high as N98.1 billion in 2016 estimate proposals while the personnel budget of universities reduced by as much as N16.245 billion, declining from N227.2 billion in 2015 to N211.0 billion in 2016.
Similarly, colleges of educationbudgetdecreased from N40.2 billion in 2015 to N37.6 billion, while polytechnics’ personnel cost which previously stood at N61.44 billion in 2015 was trimmed to N58.23 billion just as unity colleges’budget had been cut from N288.7billion to N7.588 billion.
While the ministry itself reduced its budget by only N244.9 million from N3.768 billion in 2015 to N3.523 billion in 2016, UNESCO Paris was the worst hit with the drastic reduction of itsbudget from N288.3 billion in 2015 to N7.588 billion in 2016.
Minister of State for Education, Professor Anthony Anwuka,who appeared before theSenate Committee on Secondary SchoolEducation for budget defence, in company of the ministry’s Permanent Secretary, Mrs. Folasade Yemi-Esan, gave account of theeducationbudget performance in 2015.
He said N483.183 billion budget was earmarked for education in 2015, with only N13.279 billion released.
Anwuka added that only 50 per cent of N23.5 billion, amounting to N11.9 billion was released for capital education.
However, after his submission, a member of the committee and Senate Chief Whip, Senator Olusola Adeyeye, queried the rationale behind the increase in only the budget of parastatals by only about N10 billion while the budget of universities reduced by as much N16 billion.
Adeyeye wondered while parastatals which were meant to support the institutions should have their personnel budget increased by such a huge volume. He, therefore, demanded for an explanation.
“If you look at personnel cost on page 28, almost every sub-sector of the ministry lost some money except parastatals that got increase. What is special about the parastatals that they gained more than universities, colleges, polytechnics and unity schools? Why should the parastatals that are meant to serve them keep growing in personnel cost?” Adeyeye queried.
The minister pushed the question to the permanent secretary who for want of expression said they would go back to look into it.
She said: “We will go back and find the aggregate of the parastatals put together so that we can look into the details and find out those that are increasing and the difference between them.”
Dissatisfied by that response, Adeyeye insisted that the ministry must explain how a whopping sum of about N10 billion was added to the parastatals’ personnel budget at the expense of institutions which actually need budgetincrease.
He said: “The budget of the parastatals have N9 billion extra while others lose money. We can’t have a situation where schools are losing money and parastatals are gaining. How did parastatals have such a quantum leap?”
Responding again, Yemi-Esan said the reduction in personnel budgets of schools and colleges was not imposed on them. Rather, she said it was what they submitted that the ministry collated and submitted as their personnel costs.
The things we see and hear in this world, these days really makes one shake his head. So, this man took to Facebook to accuse a senator of infecting his late wife with HI V/AIDS. The late woman died of kidney complications. Read the update below...
