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SUNDAY TRUST February 20, 2011 Diamond Jubilee:Mrs Sambo unveils school's monument
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AJlYA Amina Sambo, the wife of the Vice President, on Friday unveiled the Saint Louis crest monument to mark the diamond jubilee of St Louis Secondary School, Bompai, Kano. Amina Sambo, an old student of the school, performed the rite in the company ofHajiya Amina Shekarau, the wife of the state governor. Other dignitaries who accompanied her to unveil the monument were the Provincial Leader of St Louis, Rev. Sister Patricia Ojo, and the Principal ofthe school, Rev. Sister Bunmi Ologunagba. One of the teachers in the school, who spoke on the occasion, Mrs Comfort Pius, said that in every St Louis School all over the world, ,. the same emblem called the 'St Louis Crest' is displayed in a Significant area': Pius said that the St Louis Crest was displayed with the motto "Dieu Le Veult'; meaning "God wills it" and ' 'Un Sint Unum" boldly written on it, meaning "may them be one~ "Many times we would have even passed through the school without paying much attention to the emblem. "Yet, it was these words that fired the St Lo';is ancestors with a vision and mission of education for the youth, which would train them to build a 'world healed, transformed and unified: "The word 'Un Sint Unum' symbolises the 'Turkenstein: made by the ancestors of St Louis, Louis Humann and Therese Breck in 1797;' she said.(NAN)
NIMASA rents power plant for NISO,OOOperday- Transport minister By 5ule Lazarus HE Minister of Transport, Alhaji YusufSuleiman, at the weekend, regretted that the Nigerian M....itime Administration and Safety Agency (NISAMA) meant to provide maritime security and administration for the country has not understood its real mandate. He also expressed shock that NIMASA does not have a generating plant but has been renting it at the cost of N 1SO, 000 per day in the last three years, just as it has no single boat to patrol the waters even as marine police. The minister who spoke in
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an interview, stated that. "I was
in NIMASA this week with the new chairman and when we got there, we had to climb to the ninth floor because there was no light and the generator was not working, they said minister "don't come" but I said no I will come, I climbed to the ninth floor and we had a meeting and the Director General told me the problem." He recalled that, "during a meeting with stakeholders about a month ago, I told them
that I was saddened by the fact that NIMASA as an agency of government that is supposed to police and provide maritime security for our waters do not have a single boat to patrol our waters; this is an agency thatspends hundreds of millions of dollars annually and the core area of responsibility is to keep our waters safe." The minister maintained that ,"when I went back last week, I was even surprised when the DG told me that they didn't even have a generator in NIMASA. When I asked him why, he said that NIMASA has been renting generator at the cost ofN150, 000 per day in the last three years, so when you see the callous manner those people play with government funds, you begin to wonder." On the lower Niger River dredging, he said ,"the major part of the capital dredging has been completed. I took a boat ride from Lokoja-Onitsha to confirm to Nigerians that we have actually finished capital dredging and these companies have been directed to mobilise for maintenance dredging because we have a three-year contract with them for the
maintenance dredging:' According to him, the capital dredging has been completed from Onitsha to Lokoja, adding that his ministry was reviewing the cost for the increased volume that it has to do from lematta-Baro. He decried that the consultant told them to award a contract for the dredging of about 900,000 cubic metres of sand from lamatta-Baro but later realised that they needed to dredge about six milion cubic metres of sand. "Now we are faced with the threat that the amount of money we paid for the contract is less than a quarter of what is actually required for the job but we are discussing with the contractors. But from all intent and purposes, capital dredging from Onitsha-Lokoja is almost completed;' he noted. On why the Cabotage Act has not been fully implemented almost seven years after it was signed into law, he said the Coastal and Inland Shipping (Cabotage) Act was enacted without taking into cognisance what they really wanted to do. "I called a meeting of stakeholders on Cabotage Admin-
istration in Nigeria and one of the conclusion of that meeting was that we should remove the requirement that only vessels built and manufactured in Nigeria will operate in the Cabotage regime, we are not ship building nation, if you put that as a requirement, obViously there will be no ship that would operate in Nigeria because the Cabotage regime stipulates that the ship must be built by Nigerians and registered in Nigeria" He said, "It is good to keep the requirement for registration in Nigeria but I believe for now, until we have developed enough competences to have adequate ship bUilding facilities and capabilities in Nigeria, we should remove that requirement in our Cabotage regime otherwise, we will have no option but to continue to provide waivers for foreign vessels
to operate in Nigeria. "That is a problem and I think it has to be addressed, we don't build or manufacture ships in Nigeria and the law says only ships built in Nigeria, if you are going to fully implement the Cabotage law in Nigeria today, no ship will operate in the country:'
PDP senatorial aspirant decries exclusion from consensus terms PDP senatorial aspirant, Mr Albert Essien, on Saturday decried his exclusion from the implementation of the consensus terms by the party's leadership in Akwa Ibom. Essien who contested the party primaries for Ikot Ekjlene Senatorial District, told newsmen in Lagos that of the nine aspirants that picked nomination form, he was the only one left out. "I am not averred to the consensus initiative and do not begrudge the incumbent/flag-bearer. "The entire process which denied me of my legitimate right as a bonafide aspirant was flawed because it was anchored on exclusion instead of allurement. "I refuse to accept this as my fate and therefore, seek redress within the ambit of the PDP's internal mechanism of set!lement of dispute. "Though the pressure from my teeming supporters, who felt I was cheated, is overwhelming, nevertheless, I refused to take legal option as an aggrieved aspirant," Essien said. He, however, appealed to Gov. Godswill Akpabio to intervene and ensure that the gestures extended to other aspirants is extended to him. The aspirant also urged the state executives of the PDP to look into the matter and carry him on board for the sake of justice and equity. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Sen. Aloysius Akpan won . party ticket at the just concluded ty primaries.(NAN)
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FG to support IFAD's poverty programme with $15m HE Federal Government has pledged 15 million dollars as support to International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) in its questtofight poverty and ensure adequate food security. Prof. Sheikh Abdullah , the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development made the pledge on Saturday in Rome at the opening of the 34th Session of the Governing
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Council ofIFAD. Abdullah said that the pledge and subsequent payment of the eighth replenishment were strong and dear demonstration ofNigeria's commitment to the ideal and ideas ofIFAD. , . IFAD, since its establishment, has consistently demonstrated its strength and capacity to contribute to global efforts to reduce poverty and promote fdod security which
is in line with the federal government's policy," he said. He said there was need to expand resources so that more
people could be reached byensuring that project development and programme work include ways and means of accommodating components that would mitigate the effect of climate change. He ad'- cd that programmes must lay emphasis on valiIe change
approach of production, storage, processing and marketing to generate the much needed employment for the youths who form over 20 per cent of the population. The Minister said that to ensure effective drawdown of resources and programme performance in line with IFAD programme deSign, there must be higher percentage or in some components, 100 per cent financing plan by IFAD. (NAN).