Monday, 27 February 2017
Labour Party splits, sacks national chairman, two others
By Henry Umoru
ABUJA— THE political quagmire rocking the Labour Party, LP, yesterday got to its climax as it finally split.
National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Abubakar Abulkadir Salam, was also sacked over allegations of corruption and highhandedness.
At the end of the National Executive Committee, NEC, meeting of the party, yesterday, in Abuja, the party also suspended and removed from office Deputy National Chairman – South, Mr. Calistus Okafor and the Acting National Secretary of the party, M. Julius Abure.
The party said the move became imperative because of the need to strengthen and reposition it to enable it play its constitutional role as a viable, credible and vibrant opposition party in the country.
The meeting resolved that the affected party officials must vacate office for the survival of the party.
In the interim, Comrade Bobo Atare Adou (National Vice Chairman – South South) and Mr Oyelekan Akingbade were appointed as Acting National Chairman and Acting National Secretary of the party respectively.
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Declare state of emergency in pharma sector, FG told
By Chioma Obinna
Worried about the present state of the country’s pharmaceutical sector, community pharmacists have urged the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in the industry even as they called for bailout fund for local pharmaceutical manufacturers to save the sector from imminent collapse.
The pharmacists are also demanding for a substantive Director General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control, NAFDAC, to cushion the effects of recession since the industry is largely import-dependent both for finished goods and raw inputs.
Speaking at the Annual General Meeting of the Lagos State Association of Community Pharmacists, ACPN, the State Chairman, Pharm. Abiola Paul-Ozieh, who lamented the untold effects of the exchange rate on the pharmaceutical industry said: “Many multinationals are leaving, thus the industry and the consuming public were faced with the challenges of availability, accessibility and affordability.”
According to her, unless the Nigerian pharma industry transits towards domestic value creation through investment in Drug Research and Strategic partnership in local manufacturing of raw materials there is no way manufacturing and supply of essential medicines can be achieved on a sustainable basis.
“At a time like this, the government should realize the need to begin to address the essence for self reliance in medicines manufacturing as espoused in the National Drug Policy.
“The need for building of a viable petrochemical industry in Nigeria for the production of raw materials and packaging materials cannot be overemphasized,” she added.
Lamenting the dissolution of the Board of Pharmaceutical Council of Nigeria for over 18 months, Paul-Ozieh said each time Boards of health professionals are dissolved it brings about setbacks to the operations of respective council.
Calling for a bailout fund for the industry, Paul-Ozieh said there should be a kind of soft landing for those bringing in active materials, active ingredients.
“There has been 100 or 200 per cent increase on essential drugs since the inception of the recession. Our government need to wake up and begin to address issues of infrastructure like electricity. They should be able to do a kind of bailout fund for the pharmaceutical sector such that the manufacturers and those importing essential drugs that cannot easily be produced in Nigeria would have easy access to forex and then they can bring in the active materials as well as finished products.
In a chat with Good Health Weekly, Lagos State Chairman, Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria, PSN, Pharm. Gbenga Olubowale said currently many products now find their way to Nigeria without due process.
Olubowale who regretted that the country now import as simple as paracetamol despite the fact that the country has the capacity to produce it said agencies like NAFDAC that have the mandate to safeguard the health of the nation must rise to the occasion.
“It’s unfortunate, that we are becoming dumping ground, somebody somewhere needs to rise up and do the work.”
Olubowale said the situation makes it even difficult for the patients to access healtcare, hence, they begin to patronise herbs which may create more health problems for the country.
“Let players in the sector have easy access to forex so that we can be able to bring in genuine materials. To do this, we need a substantive Director General of NAFDAC that can take some certain decisions.
“If we have a person that is working, then all the departments there, will begin to work, they will sit up, they are not rising up to the occasion, they can do more to safeguard the health of the people of the nation.”
Former Chairman, ACPN Lagos, Pharm. Abdulsalam – Yinka, who noted that currently Nigerians depend on importation to satisfy 70 per cent of drugs need, said government must encourage the industry so more drugs are manufactured locally.
Abdulsalami -Yinka stressed the need for NAFDAC to revisit some alleged registered products because “it is possible to have fake versions of the ones that have been registered”.
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Wednesday, 8 February 2017
Former ‘Invincible’ Lauren Etamé Mayer opens up on Arsenal, African football, Trump…See full details
Lauren and team mates celebrating Cameroun’s gold medal at the 2000 Olympic Games.<br />
Arsenal Invincible, Indomitable Lion, African immigrant: when Lauren Etamé Mayer talks – be it about Arsenal’s chances of ever winning the league again, the future of African football, or even the state of the wider world – it pays to listen.
Spoiler alert: he doesn’t seem particularly optimistic about the latter two topics; although he is positive about Arsenal in a wide-open season when they are starting to show some of the spirit of Lauren’s team from 2004.
“Alexis [Sanchez] would fit perfectly,” he says when he’s asked which of the current team would have got into the Invincibles side. “I say that because of his talent, but also for the mentality that he has. You could compare him to the players from our era.”
Lauren is big on mentality and strength of character. His formative years were marked by his father Valentín Bisan-Etamé fleeing dictator Francisco Macías’ Spanish Guinea and taking his family across the border into Cameroon where Lauren was born in January 1977.
The second youngest of 22 siblings, Lauren then moved briefly to Madrid, and on to Seville in southern Spain. That explains why sat before me in the Madrid hotel where he is currently staying as he covers the African Cup of Nations for television, his accent is far closer to his former Arsenal team-mate Jose Antonio Reyes’ than to any of the Cameroon team-mates he won Olympic gold and two Cup of Nations with between 2000 and 2002.
“They were going to imprison him; execute him. It was a miracle escape. But it’s never been something talked about in the family. Did they climb out through a window? I don’t know they never told me,” he says recalling how his father – who had been head of telecommunications in Guinea – was passed information that there was an order for his capture.
“I have no memories of Cameroon. My first memory really is the Plaza de España in Seville. We lived in two flats, flat B and flat C, and there were a lot of bunk beds for me and the 10 brothers and sisters who moved with us. I started playing for Sevilla aged 11 as a striker.”
A quick, goalscoring, number 10 he made it as far as the club’s B-team in the Spanish second division before moving to Levante and Mallorca where Arsene Wenger saw him; not as a number 10 (he had Denis Bergkamp for that) but as a new number two, a replacement for Lee Dixon.
“To go from attacking midfield to becoming a full-back was crazy. But if you are good, and you can adapt, then you do it because you want to play.” Another one of the reasons he believes this Arsenal team can win the league is the quality of the current right-back. “[Hector] Bellerin is very, very good,” he says. “He is going to be better than all of us. He knows how to play with the ball at his feet. He reads the game. He can get forward and get behind the opposition’s defence. When he arrives he then has the ability to cross well.
He knows how to play between the lines. And he is so young. If he stays injury-free then he is going to out-do me and Lee Dixon and Pat Rice and everyone who has played in that position for the club over the years.
It was Pat Rice who helped Lauren learn his new trade. He recalls of Wenger’s former assistant: “He was the one who would be telling me to watch runs in behind me or pick-up my man. He was the one barking the orders at the defence. Wenger was more about giving you the tools so that you could resolve things. For him the most important thing was that wherever you were on the pitch you knew in a fraction of a second which was the right pass.”
The more Lauren talks about Wenger the more it serves as a reminder that back in 2003 he was already doing many of things now associated with Pep Guardiola.
“Ashley Cole wasn’t a pure defender, he started off in midfield. I started off in midfield. Kolo [Toure] was not a pure centre-back. Wenger was very keen on that and Guardiola is now. He wanted midfielders at full-back – players who had that offensive aspect to their game.”
Wenger has kept on producing teams with the same attacking panache but the mentality has been more difficult to find again.“We had good footballers but they had tremendous character all of them and that is why we achieved what we achieved. I don’t want to say that the current players don’t have a winning mentality but evidently it’s not comparable.
“If I had to pick one player to come back as it would be Patrick Vieira. He was an example both on and off the pitch. He was exactly what the captain of a team should be – he always fronted-up but with what you call “good manners”. He was aggressive but there was an elegance to it.”
Lauren says he has no immediate interest in taking the coaching path but has no doubts that Vieira will follow his vocation right to the top.“He has been very intelligent in the way he has gone about doing it. They have offered him various opportunities to manage in the Premier League but he felt that he was not ready. One thing is to coach kids and another to have the responsibility of a first team. We have seen how Clarence Seedorf failed at Milan and [Gary] Neville at Valencia. He is a great pundit but then [as coach] … When you don’t have experience you can’t just, from one day to the next, take over a big team.
“Vieira has seen that and he has decided to go slowly, first with the B-team, now with New York, and it is going well and he is getting experience and I think one day he will be the manager of a big club.”
So the future is bright for Vieira, and for Arsenal too. He urges them to renew Sanchez’s contract, saying: “I think the club have reached a moment when they should be holding on to their best players,” and he is enthusiastic about the current crop.
“I don’t remember a squad as strong as this one in a long time and I am seeing good things this season. The resistance shown against Bournemouth in the 3-3 away from home – it was not the best result but in seasons gone by at 3-0 down we don’t get back into that game if we play for three days.
“Now I look at Arsenal and it’s not just the 11 there are various players who can come in and make an impact. When [Alex] Iwobi and Lucas Perez have come in they have done very well.”
That analysis was certainly borne out by Saturday’s FA Cup demolition of Southampton. Where the optimism runs a little dry is on the future of African football. He says Fifa’s move to extend the World Cup to 48 teams will only benefit Africa if the continent ends up receiving its share of the increased revenue. And if it is then responsibly invested by national football associations.
“I don’t believe it will be that way,” he says. “Football for the poor is a very nice slogan but behind the slogan unhappily I don’t think it will be like that. The media has to monitor [the revenue distribution] and the African football associations then have to use the money efficiently to improve football at grassroots.
“If the national associations are not on top of this then Africa will always be two or three steps behind the rest of the world.”
Lauren’s story as an African immigrant to Europe is atypical because his father arrived in Spain with the means to support his family. But he can relate to the plight of those that flee because they have nothing left.
It would be remiss not to ask him what he thinks of wider world developments as it seems every day more borders are locked and visas denied.
“If you suffocate a country the people have to get out somehow. It’s terrible what we are seeing: women and children dying in the oceans.“It’s the politics of fear – they are going to come and take your job, but the reason why there is this movement of people is never discussed.
“It seems globalisation is fine when it suits and not fine when it doesn’t. If globalisation means that it’s no longer just a couple of countries sharing the pie then suddenly those countries are not interested and they want borders and barriers and you get the demagogue politics of Donald Trump.
“No one has benefitted more from globalisation than the United States but now that it is no longer solely in their interest they are going to build barriers and talk to Nigel Farage in England and it’s the politics of demagogues.”
He’s exhausted by the deviation into world affairs. “But let’s talk about the football,” he says.We close by combining the two. Lauren is now an overseas ambassador for Arsenal. “The club is doing some fantastic work in Africa. It is taking football to certain countries where the kids have the fewest opportunities to experience it and develop,” he says.
“I had the chance to go with the club to Kenya recently with a ‘coaching clinic’ developing players and also coaches, teaching the ‘Arsenal way’.
“They really are doing a phenomenal job and you can really see how the young players are developing. I was in Rwanda a couple of years ago too. And they are doing great work there as well. The clinics last for two or three weeks but periodically they send representatives to monitor progress and the work has a big impact socially and economically beyond football.”
He is back in positive mode now. He feels that working with his old club he is making a difference. “It’s good sustainable development that is needed,” he says. “It needs to start at the bottom because at the top end Africa has given football some great players over the decades. George Weah, Abedi Pele, Roger Milla, Tommy N’Kono, Kanu, Didier Drogba, Samuel Eto’o… me.”
The last name is added with a modest smile. The modesty is not necessary, there is no question that he deserves to be on the list.
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Ex-Olympic champion Harper-Nelson banned…See full details
Harper-Nelson Dawn
Former Olympic champion Dawn Harper-Nelson has been banned for three months after testing positive for a banned diuretic.The American, 32, said she was given hydrochlorothiazide for high blood pressure but failed “to fully understand how its administration was governed by current doping protocols”.
Harper-Nelson won 100m hurdles gold at Beijing 2008 and silver at London 2012.Diuretics increase urine production, but are not performance enhancing.
However they can be used to mask the presence of other illegal substances or promote weight loss.
“I have learned a valuable lesson and hope my mistake will serve as a reminder to all athletes to be diligent in thoroughly checking any and all prescribed medications,” Harper-Nelson added.Her ban has been in place since 1 December.
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Monday, 30 January 2017
Robbers kill policeman, steal N30m from bank customer
By Jimitota Onoyume & By Davies Iheamnachor
PORT HARCOURT—A mobile policeman allegedly lost his life, yesterday morning, when robbers stormed a new generation bank around Rumubekwe/Shell area junction of Port Harcourt, carting away about N30 million from a customer.
Eyewitnesses said the gunmen, numbering about four, stormed the bank in a Toyota Corolla car, shooting sporadically to ward off any resistance.
According to eyewitnesses, the robbers apparently trailed a customer who came with the money in a vehicle to the bank.
Meanwhile, the Public Relations Officer of Rivers State Police Command, DSP Nnamdi Omoni, said the police foiled a bank robbery attempt.
Omoni noted that there was a gun battle between policemen and the gang of criminals and that the policeman died in the incident.
While noting that the gunmen escaped with bullet wounds, Omoni stressed that normalcy was quickly restored in the area.
He pleaded with members of the public to give prompt information to the police or any other security outfit for swift response.
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Rivers APC expels Minority Leader
By Jimitota Onoyume & Gbenga Oke
PORT HARCOURT— All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, yesterday expelled its Minority Leader in the state House of Assembly, Mr Benibo Anambrabra, over alleged anti-party activities, disobedience and negligence.
The development has further deepened the crisis rocking the party as some members of the party recently protested to the state secretariat of the party demanding the sack of the state Chairman, Dr Davies Ikanya, a move the party dismissed as perpetrated by non-members allegedly sponsored by an opposition political party.
Meantime, the state Chairman of the party, Dr Ikanya, said Benibo, allegedly snubbed three invitations from the party to explain allegations against him, stressing that the party had to invoke portions of its constitution as amended in 2014 to expel him.
According to him, “The state working committee of the party, SWC, having invited you Benibo Anambraba, three times to its meeting, to discuss the allegations of your anti-party activities, disobedience and negligence in carrying out careful directives of the party and your refusal to attend any of the invitations the SWC in her meeting 27/1/17 has resolved that you are guilty of anti party activities, disobedience and negligence.”
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Adewole tasks health professionals on succession plan
The Minister of Health, Professor Isaac Adewole has tasked Senior Consultants in the Nigerian health sector to initiate a viable succession plan that would eliminate gaps that often occur whenever senior consultants exit the sector.
Adewole, made the call while meeting with staff and management of Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Umuahia, Abia State on the implementation of the Rapid Result Initiative (RRI) in the Hospital.
He recognised Dr. Ezeonwumelu Chukwuemeka, a Consultant General Surgeon that operated on most of the free surgery beneficiaries in the facility, and called for training, sharing experiences, information and ideas with the younger generation to increase their level of knowledge in the field.
“Please train and impact knowledge to others not only because you love them but because that is how you can protect yourself and your generation, if you refuseto train the upcoming generation, time would come that nobody would train your own” the Minister said.
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Oil prices turn higher
By Sebasine Obasi with Agency report
OIL prices went up yesterday amidst speculation that the move may be stunted by United States production outlook.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures traded at $53.33 a barrel, up 17 cents, or 0.3 percent, in the Globex electronic session. They earlier traded down to $52.84. Benchmark Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose 3 cents, or less than 0.1 percent, to $55.54 a barrel. It earlier traded down to $55.10 a barrel.
“The rise in U.S. output should not be unexpected, however, we expect the reductions being made by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, will far exceed any rise in the U.S. and quickly reduce the global inventory that has been built up over the past two years,” ANZ Bank said in a report.
Leading contracts had started the electronic trading session lower, extending a slide from the end of last week.
“Crude oil is stuck in a range. Even the triggers for moving crude prices are benign,” says Gnanasekar Thiagarajan, director of Commtrendz Risk Management. Crude oil prices have been see-sawing between gains and losses in recent weeks.
Oil-market action has largely been driven by OPEC and its recent decision with its allies to cut a collective 2 percent of global crude supply, a move aimed at balancing the market following more than two years of low prices and excess inventories.
“The rebalancing in the market will certainly happen, but with supplies increasing in the U.S., prices will move in a tight range,” said Thiagarajan, adding that prices may move with a “bullish bias” through 2017 because of the OPEC pact on trimming output.
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Inflation, forex threatening our operation- Ikeja Electric
By Ediri Ejoh
IKEJA Electric Plc, yesterday said inflation, foreign exchange scarcity among other challenges have continued to threaten its operations.
This was contained in its sustainability report titled, “Building A Customer-Centric Business-Our Journey to Sustainability”.
Speaking on the report, the chief executive officer, Mr. Anthony Youdeowei said “conditions such as inflation and Foreign Exchange (forex ) fluctuations still pose a liquidity risk to the organisation. Only when all of these scenarios are considered will a robust framework be in place that will benefit the end user – our customers.
“Another challenge confronting our operations involves, energy theft and meter bypass. The network is plagued with free riders and illegal connections. We also acknowledge that enforcing disconnection order was less than adequate, often being subverted by illegal reconnections.
Illegal reconnections
“To deal with these issues, we empowered the Vigilance, Strategy and Loss Reduction Unit of the Commercial department to monitor, apprehend and prosecute cases of energy theft and illegal connections and reconnections.”
He noted that, “as a company, we have heard the clamour regarding excessive and inaccurate estimated billing. As a responsible company, we have listened, developed and will start the implementation of the new estimated billing methodology that should provide for a more accurate customer bill in line with statutory regulations.
“The new methodology factors in new information provided by the customer enumeration and mapping initiative and also introduce the component of metered trade points (transformers and feeders etc.) to provide for a more scientific solution.”
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Saturday, 28 January 2017
Buhari’s food for school pupils in Anambra, Osun not going round – Cooks
By Vincent Ujumadu, Awka & Gbenga Olarinoye, Oshogbo
As FG votes N375 million to feed 700,000 for 10 days in five states
As the Buhari administration proceeds with the implementation of its Social Investment Programmes, the Federal Government, last week, released over N375 million to feed almost 700,000 primary school pupils in five states.
Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the President, Office of the Vice President, Laolu Akande, said the Muhammadu Buhari Social Investment Programmes, SIP, are proceeding at different stages of implementation.
The states to which the money for the Homegrown School Feeding Programme was released are Anambra, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ebonyi to cover the feeding for 10 school days.
Akande explained that N375,434,870 was paid to 7,909 cooks in those states.
Ogun, according to him, got a total of N119,648,900 paid to 1.381 cooks to feed 170,927 pupils.
Ebonyi got N115,218,600 paid to 1.466 cooks to feed 164, 598 pupils.
Anambra got N67.5 million paid to 937 cooks to feed 96,489 pupils.
Oyo got N72. 2 million paid to 1437 cooks to feed 103, 269 pupils.
Osun got N867,370 paid to 2688 to feed 142,193 pupils.
The money was paid directly to the cooks and cover 10 days of school.
Akande disclosed that those figures would go up when Zamfara and Enugu states are paid N188.7 million and N67.2 million respectively.
In Zamfara, the sum would be paid to 2,738 cooks to feed 269,665 pupils. And in Enugu, the sum would be paid to 1128 cooks to feed 96, 064 pupils.
By then, he noted that over N631 million would have been released so far in 2017 for the school feeding programme in seven states, paid to 11,775 cooks and meant to feed over one million primary school pupils-exact number of pupils by then would be 1, 043, 205
‘Managing to feed pupils’
DESPITE initial hiccups, the school feeding programme took off last week in Anambra State. Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige, had said during a press briefing in Awka that Anambra was among the five states in the country where the programme took off.
Although the programme was expected to start at the beginning of the 2016/2017 academic session, it was delayed till the beginning of this year in the state due to what officials of the state ministry of education described as contractual problems.
For instance, the plan was for the Federal Government to provide funds for the feeding of pupils of all public schools from Primary 1 -3, but some of the contractors hired for the programme were unable to provide their bank details, including Bank Verification Numbers, BVN, for transferring money into their accounts and so, could not be assigned schools to feed.
The expectation was also that the state government would provide funds for the feeding of pupils in primaries 4 -6 to ensure that every pupil in public schools benefitted from the programme, but that has not begun in any school in the state and it was not clear when it would begin.
Sunday Vanguard investigations showed that less than half of the public schools in Anambra had keyed into the programme, while arrangements were being made for others to join. In fact, most of the schools where the programme had started were mostly in the urban and semi-urban centers, while rural schools said they were not aware of the programme yet.
In the schools where the feeding programme had begun, there was so much excitement among the pupils as they had never witnessed such a thing. The feeding is usually done during break time and the contractors provide the plates used, in addition to the food. The menu also differ from day to day and from school to school.
In one of the schools located in Awka, the menu for Mondays is local beans, Tuesdays, jollof rice, Wednesdays, beans and yam, Thursdays, white rice and stew and Fridays, yam and sauce.
At Igwedinmma Primary School, Amawbia, in Awka South local government area, the assistant headmistress, Mrs. Bernadette Okpara, said the management ensured that pupils are fed a meal every school day. The pupils were also seen relishing their meals during recess, although many of them complained that the food was small. A pupil in the school, who gave her name as Chinasa, said the food was tasty, explaining that she was always looking forward to it. She was however unhappy that her elder sister, Ngozi, in Primary 5 was not benefitting from the feeding.
The two caterers assigned to the school attributed the small size of the food to poor funding. According to them, the amount approved for them was short of the number of pupils in the schools, adding that they still devised a means of ensuring that the food went round.
One of them said: “For this school, Igwedinma Primary School, we provided them names of 230 pupils, but they approved the feeding of 185 pupils only. However, we are managing to feed the whole 230 pupils because it will be unfair to deny some of them the food”.
Another problem facing the programme was the claim by some of the contractors that they were given money for only 10 days’ feeding and they were not sure they would receive additional payments before the expiration of the 10 days. “We have fed the pupils for five days, remaining five more days, which will end next week, after which we will stop, unless they bring more money”, one of the caterers said.
The Executive Chairman of Anambra State Universal Basic Education Board, ASUBEB, Chief Nzemeka Olisa, admitted that there were hiccups facing the programme, adding that it was for that reason that some schools had not keyed in.
He, however, said that the pupils were happy in the schools where the programme had taken off in the state, promising that, with time, every school would participate in the feeding programme.
.He said: “The programme is progressing well in the state. Some schools have not keyed in because some caterers have not been paid because of some banking issues like BVN, but the programme is a welcome development.” He was, however, very optimistic that everything would normalize when the problems were solved and all school covered.
Expressing joy at the smooth takeoff of the programme, Ngige advised Anambra State government to fulfill its part of the obligation by commencing the feeding of pupils from primaries four to six to complement the Federal Government’s efforts.
He urged the people of Anambra to be grateful to President Muhammadu Buhari for choosing Anambra as one of the pilot states for the programme.
N100 meal
In Osun, the take-off of the Home Grown School Feeding Programme did not experience much hiccups even with the non-payment of money to food vendors/cooks recruited for the scheme.
The programme, which started in the state 2005 under Prince Olagunsoye Oyinlola administration, was later adopted, repackaged and expanded to cover about 254, 000 pupils in classes 1 to 4 in public primary schools by the incumbent governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola.
The cooks working under the programme were recruited in 2011 through the Local Education Board offices in all the local government areas of the state and after various stages of tests, 3007 cooks/ food vendors were recruited and the same number was retained under the new programme involving the Federal Government.
With the take-off of the Federal Government-sponsored school feeding in the state, our correspondent learnt that the cost of each pupil’s meal hitherto put at N70 has been raised to N100 with the Federal Government paying N70 and the state paying 30.
Before the take-off of the Federal Government assisted school feeding programme in Osun last week, the state government was paying vendors bi-weekly to prepare the mid day meal for pupils.
It was further established that before the take-off of the new scheme, the Osun government was paying N16, 450 for the feeding of 45 to 47 pupils per vendor as allowance per week.
However, the first challenge that greeted the take-off of the scheme was the non-payment of the food vendors working in schools across the state.
A food vendor captured under the scheme in Orolu local government area of the state, who preferred anonymity, told our correspondent that the last payment to them was made on January 16, a week before the official take-off of the programme in the state.
She added that since then, no payment had been made, though she claimed to be aware that with the Federal Government taking over the programme, the vendors’ weekly pay would rise to N23, 500, reflecting the new standard for the scheme.
Findings by Sunday Vanguard further revealed that despite the take-off of the programme last week, the quality of the food served pupils remain the same, the situation that can be traced to the delay in releasing funds to the cooks.
Meanwhile, findings by our correspondent across Osun indicated that there was no much difference in the operation of the school feeding programme from the previous one embarked by the Aregbesola administration and now that it has been taken taken over by the Federal Government.
The deputy governor of the state, Mrs Grace Titilayo Tomori, who supervises the ministry of education, says she will ensure that the quality and quantity of food served to the pupils are of the standard approved by nutritionists.
Some of the food vendors, who spoke with the Sunday Vanguard, said that apart from providing employment opportunity for them, the programme also provided their families of atleast one quality food on daily basis on week days.
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Man with 90 wives, Bello Masaba, dies at 93
By Wole Mosadomi
Minna – THE controversial super-polygamist and Islamic preacher with over 90 wives, Alhaji Mohammed Bello Masaba, is dead.
He died, yesterday afternoon, after a brief illness in his Bida, Niger State residence.
He was 93 years.
There had been anxiety over his health in the past three days after he disappeared from public view.
Personal assistant to the nonagerian, Alhaji Mutairu Salawudeen Bello, confirmed the death in a telephone interview with our correspondent.
“With gratitude to Allah (SWT), we announce the death of Alhaji Mohammed Abubakar Bello this afternoon. He was aged 93 years. He died after a brief illness.
“The Janiza prayer and interment are slated for tomorrow (Sunday) by 10am.”
Bello said that the late Islamic preacher fore-told his death and was prepared for it.
“Baba had told us that his time was up. He told me personally during his last moment that he has completed his divine assignment and was ready to meet his creator.
“He told us to remain dedicated to the cause of Islam and urged us all not to deviate from all his teachings on righteousness, piety and total submission to the will of Allah. He warned us to shun adultery but that we are free to marry as many women as possible instead of piling up cuncubines because it is ‘Hallal’ before Allah.”
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