TUESDAY, MAY 24, 2011
Oyo nurses' strike
FG to ban rice, sugar, fertiliser importation by 2015
N
URSES in the employment of Oyo State Governm ent , under the aegis of the state council of the National Association of Nigeria Nurses and Midwives, will on Tuesday (today) begin an indefinite strike . During the period of the strike, the nurses would emba"rk on only conventional
duties between Bam and 4pm and shun night duties and emergencies.
The state chairman of the association, Alhaji Teslim Olawuwo, disclosed this to journalists in Ibadan, the state capital, on Monday. Olawuwo said the strike action was called to press home
The President said, adding, "My belief is that discouraged, and henceforth , "Before the first three by 2015, Nigeria has no "special consideration and months, we shall be able to business importing rice or concessions will be granted HE Federal Government tell the people this is where fertiliser, and we also need on ly to businesses delivering has indicated its intention we are and this is where to encourage the local value chains and creating to stop the importation of production of sugar such jobs." we are going. If we need to some staple items, including amend the laws, we will do that its importation will be a Jonathan assured the rice, fertilisers and sugar by so. thing of the past. business community that the 2015. "By the end of four years, "To create jobs," he Federal Government would President Goodluck I believe that Nigeria has continued, "government come up with an appropriate Jonathan ma de this declaration at an interactive no business importing rice. will st",ngly discourage the tariff structure that would not Nobody will come to me with importation of goods being be tinkered with until 2015 in session with the Nigerian business communi ty in a brief case a nd say to me locally produced or capable order to a llow for long-term he wants to import fertiliser. of being locally produced in planning by the organised Lagos on Monday. We have vast land, and yet, the country. private sector. He also promised that we import all these essential He added that subsidies He informed the august before the first three months following his inauguration, goods." and waivers, wh ich he audience made up of there should have been He said the country believed had had much captains of industry cutting considerable progress on the needed to stimulate local detrimental effect on across the manufacturing, new economic agenda . ::--,p_ro_ d_u_c_t_io_n"""""o,--f_ th_e_se__ ite_m _ s,__t_h_e_ e_c_o_n__o_m_y_,_w_ o u_ l_d_b_e_ _s_er_v_ic_es, and
layi Adeloye
T
sundry sectors that from May 29 onwards, he would personally chair the National Economic Team , a thinktank consisting of eggheads from the both the public and private sectors.
The President said he had decided to usher in and
inaugurate
his
new
administration with a meeting and brainstorming session with the private sedor, instead of dancing and merry-making because "this is what the times call for." He said the new dispensation would lead to a new era of economic
trans/ormation that would
various
repositionNigeria 'seconomy
demands currently pending before the state government. He recalled that the union
in the next decade The President asked the business community to make a break with the "lamentations" 0/ the past on the problems of the nation , inSisting that a
in
the nurses'
~
conjunction
with
other
health workers engaged the state government in negotiation of the payment of the Consolidated Health Salary Scale . The negotiations, he added, started in August 2010.
transformation
Jigawa gov
"revelations."
weeps igawa State Governor, Alhaji Sule Lamido, wept publicly at a special reception
J
organised to mark his victory
for a second tenTI on Sunday, the News Agency of Nigeria reports. The occasion, which was organised in Dutse, the state capital, by the Directorate of Religious, Chieftancy and Sharia Implementation, drew Islamic clerics from all over the country. highlight of The the -.., ceremony
was
of some inmates who were
jailed because of minor offences which could be pardoned. Daura cited a case where a prisoner was jailed because
of a debt of N200 after he was taken to court by his creditor. He called on the governor to grant amnesty to such people anytime he visited the prison .
The cleric reminded Lamido that leadership was just li ke oath-taking and that everybody knew what happened during the election.
He appealed to Lamido to embrace everybody political irrespective of differences because "you are
already a leader." Also speaking, the state .__ ~eDP Chairman, Alhaji Duniya-ba-nutu, said the was
aimed
• L-R: Executiue Director, African Network for Enuironment and Economic Justice, African Centre for Leadership, Strategy and Deuelopment Centre, Dr. Otiue Igbuzor; and Programme Associate, African Centre for Leadership Strategy and Deuelopment Centre, Miss Omolara Shonubi, at a press briefing on Petroleum Industry Bill in Abuja '" on Monday. Photo: Sam Adeko
Ondo: Police disrupt inauguration of PDP exco Sunday Aborisade, Akure
the
presentation and preaching by various Islamic scholars who charged La,mido to do good things for the people. Islamic A prominent scholar, Sheikh Rabiu Daura, tasked Lamido to visit':.the prisons a nd see the condition
ceremony
programme
to be worked out betwee n the Economic Team and the private sector leaders, would usher in an era of
at
celebrating the victory of Lamido.
EGULAR and riot policeme n on Monday disrupted the inauguration of the new interim 'committee appointed by a faction of the Ondo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party at Solton Hotel in the Ijapo a rea
R
of Akure, the state capital. Leaders of the PDp, their supporters and members of the interim exco, however relocated to a new venue to perform the inauguration. The Police Public Relations Officer in the state command, Al haji Aremu Adeniran, could not be reached to confirm the
alleged distruption by the police at the venue originally billed for the exercise. The PDP faction, led by Chief Segun Adegoke, last week, announced the suspension of former Governor Olusegun Agagu from the party and the dissolution of the party. The Publicity Secretary
'Why Jonathan is giving out free computers' Mike Odiegwu, Yenagoa HE Minister of State for Education , Chief Kenneth Gbagi, on Monday explained that President Goodluck Jonathan approved the donation of laptop computers to girls in selected junior secondary schools in order to
T
ensure gender equality.
Gbagi said this while presenting 360 laptop computers to female students of eight selected secondary schools in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State capital. He said the Information and Communication Tech nology initiative of Jonathan administration also involved training of teachers in all the benefitting schools on the use of modern technologies. The minister said the was being the Millennium
Development Goals Debt Relief Fund and that it was an MDG-assisted ICT initiative. He said the president
the importance of women in nation building. He said girls were integral to poverty reduction,
placed
on
sustenance of development
the attainment 0/ qualitative education by all Nigerians,
high
premium
and good governance. The benefiting students
irrespective of age, gender,
were drawn from secondary
geographical and cultural settings. Gbagi insisted that qualitative education required
schools in the three senatorial districts in the state, consisting of the Federal Government College, Immiringi; the
improvement on
Government
teaching,
learning and educational administration. He said Jonathan had directed that ICT should be taken seriously in the coun try's educational system owing to its vital role in improving quality in education. In his address, the MDGICT Project Coordinator at the Federal Ministry of Education, Mr. Uwem Asomugha, said the choice of the girl-child as the initial benefiCiary of the programme was
Secondary
School, Okpoama; the Community Girls Secondary School, Odi; the St. Jude Girls Secondary School, Amarata and the Community Girls Secondary School, Nembe . Girls from the Government Secondary School, Otuoke; the River Nun Grammar School, Agbere, and the Agudama Comprehensive High School, Agudama. also benefitted from the
of the
interim
committee
of the party, Prince Mike Omogbehin , said the police disallowed the inauguration at the Solton Hotel venue because they claimed that the convener did not obtain permit from the state police command.
Adegoke inauguration
said
the
of the new
executive had ushered in a new dawn wh ich he said wou ld chart a new way forward for the party in the state. Adegoke described the
former
execu tive
as
"bunch of leaders without direction ."
"They are colourless,less ineffective, leaders with no direction ," he said. The chairman of the newty inaugurated
committee,
Prof. Olu Agbi , said the inauguration
marked
a
turning point in the affairs of the party which he said was being destroyed by the proscribed executive of the party. Agbi said he was not in interested in politics of appointment but on ways to rebuild the party and bring it back to its right position in On do state.
He said, "I will not want you to read the book of Lamentations to me; but we want to open the book of Revelation. " Jonathan told the business leaders that whatever deliberation they came up with during the meeting would form the basis of a three-day retreat by the NET immediately after his inauguration. Although the constitution of the NET was postponed 'to a later date, the President said he would be the chairman of the team Speaking earlier, the Special Economic Adviser to the United Nation's Secretary General; Prof. Jeffre9 Sachs, said that Nigeria should be hopeful of a great future of development. "To double gross output like in Japan and Korea , Nigeria needs to attain about seven per cent growth rate, which it has attained , and to double per capita income (income per head) , it needs to grow at about nine per cent, which I believe it will attain soon ," Sachs said . According to him, there are five things working for th e
country
in
terms
of
development, including the facts that reforms are being consolidated on; democracy is being consolidated on and the beginning of the President's term offers immeasurable opportunities .
The other two factors. according to Ihe UN economist, are that world markets are on Nigeria's sid~ and technology is also on the side of the country's further development.