25042021 - B/Haram bandits almost succeeding in their mission CAN president warns

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PAGE 24—SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 25, 2021 Alternate School Programme and the Humanitarian Imperative By Dapo Bruce n Tuesday January 26, 2021, President OMuhammadu Buhari inaugurated an 18-member Presidential Steering Committee on the Alternate School Programme (ASP). The President charged the committee to coordinate and lead the deployment of a National Plan which will address the issue of out-of-school children in the country. Sadiya Umar Farouq, Honourable Minister of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development, was named co-chair alongside Mallam Adamu Adamu, Honourable Minister of Education. The choice of Farouq as co-chair is instructive when the mandate of the steering committee is taken into consideration. The Alternate School Programme (ASP) has as its mandate to improve access to education for all Nigerian children in alignment with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-4) which aims to “ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. The Terms of Reference for the National Steering Committee include: “Refine and focuse the vision of the initiative; ensure engagement and effective uptake of the ASP initiative across the country; review and approve all work, implementation plans, expected deliverables, feedbacks and reports as proposed & undertake any other task that can enhance the effective delivery of the initiative. In his remark, the President noted that despite the strides made with the Universal Basic Education Commission under the Federal Ministry of Education, it remained an unacceptable aberration to see young children “abandoning formal school to •Sadiya Umar •Adamu Adamu become apprentices in shops, workshops, and markets, whilst many others choose to loiter at markets, become cart pushers and hawkers.” To put the new initiative in context, Unicef notes about Nigeria: “Even though primary education is officially free and compulsory, about 10.5 million of the country’s children aged 5-14 years are not in school. Only 61 percent of 6- 11 year-olds regularly attend primary school and only 35.6 percent of children aged 36-59 months receive early childhood education. In the north of the country, the picture is even bleaker, with a net attendance rate of 53 percent. Getting out-of-school children back into education poses a massive challenge.” That challenge is at the core of the Alternate School Programme which, if viewed from the perspective of the ripple effect an uneducated population can have on the polity, presents a humanitarian imperative. The UN lays the blame for the huge number of out of school children, over 5% of the population, at the feet of poverty, geography and gender imbalance. A lack of economic empowerment, location in conflict impacted states and disinterest in educating the girl child have contributed in exacerbating the problem. The Unicef report contends: “Gender, like geography and poverty, is an important factor in the pattern of educational marginalization. States in the north-east and north-west have female primary net attendance rates of 47.7 percent and 47.3 percent, respectively, meaning that more than half of the girls are not in school. The education deprivation in northern Nigeria is driven by various factors, including economic barriers and sociocultural norms and practices that discourage attendance in formal education, especially for girls.” The ASP hopes to help tip the scales and achieve a balance in this disproportionately lopsided state of affairs by providing an innovative & flexible approach to schooling as well as skills development. By focusing on out of school children, the ASP will ensure a reversal of Nigeria’s abysmal statistics which the UN has captured in very poor terms - “one in every five of the world’s out-of-school children is in Nigeria.” Said Umar Farouq in a January 31 tweet: “That translates to 10.5 million children aged 5-14 years. There is also a high percentage of absenteeism with only 61% of children aged 6 to 11 able to attend primary school regularly. The figures are worse in the North.” An uneducated child will grow up into an illiterate adult who will be unable to access neither gainful employment nor economic empowerment. Such an individual will constitute an unproductive component of the population and remain a burden on the system. Viewed from these perspectives it is easy to see why the ASP constitutes a humanitarian imperative especially as the bulk of the out of school children are already in the grip of a humanitarian emergency after over a decade of insurgency in the North East states of Adamawa, Yobe and Borno where the UN estimates that 2.8 million children are in need of education-in-emergencies support with at least 802 schools shut, 497 classrooms destroyed and another 1,392 damaged but repairable. The Alternate School Programme is not the first of such initiatives to tackle the menace posed by out of school children. In January this year, during an inter-ministerial briefing, the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu had informed his audience that the number of out-of-school children has reduced from 10.1million in 2019 to 6.95 million in 2020. He said the reduction was consequent on gains from the Federal Government’s Better Education Service Delivery for All (BESDA) initiative which was being implemented in 17 states of the federation in conjunction with the National Association of Proprietors and School Owners of Nigeria. The effort, he announced, had led to the enrolment of 1,053,422 children during the period. The coming of the Alternate School Programme with its innovative approach will help accelerate the gains by ensuring that every child gains access to quality education, irrespective of social, cultural, or economic standing. Highlighting the humanitarian approach, the co-chair, Sadiya Umar Farouq noted that the FG through the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs Disaster Management and Social Development and the National Social Investment Programmes (NSIP) is working to improve household incomes for the families of out of school children as it seeks to equip them with literary and numeracy knowledge as well as the requisite skills to engage with and contribute meaningfully to the Nigerian economy. To help achieve the goal, the ministry has begun the collation of data of all out-ofschool children across the country. It was pleasing to read news of the inauguration of a technical Working Group on Tuesday April 13, 2020. This development speaks to the seriousness with which the assignment is being addressed. The TWG will oversee and ensure effective planning and implementation of the ASP which will, in the short term, evolve means of delivering a limited number of subjects with emphasis on numeracy and literacy as well as basic and social sciences from Mathematics to English Language, and Basic Sciences to Social Studies. These would be scaled up in the long term to facilitate the acquisition of relevant technical skills. As work progresses on this very laudable initiative, the hope is that in a year or two, Nigeria would no longer score so abysmally low when it comes to out of school children. How we’re taking Niger Delta youths off crimes governments, corporate organizations and all relevant stakeholders, we have discovered that — Police Chaplain, Kenerekedi the best way to take the youths off the streets and ensure a crime-free society is to involve them in decision making at every level including in politics, business, education and gover- youths who are restive due to the circumstances that surround them. We make them understand the consequential effects of the crisis. devil’s workshop and a hungry man is an annance. You know, an idle mind, they say, is the This we carry out by organizing national and gry man. Therefore, what we are doing is to international peace conferences/summits. actively engage the youths in productive ventures. There is a need for a continuous sensitization programme to equip the youth with relevant information for positive impact. By Nnamdi Ojiego astor Alex Kenerekedi, a Police Chaplain Pof Burutu Area Command in Delta State, is the Founder and President of Youth and Conflict Resolution Initiative, YCRI, a non-governmental organisation founded to tackle incessant communal and ethnic crises in the Niger Delta region, in which lives and properties worth billions of Naira were lost. In this interview, Kenerekedi, who is the Assistant General Overseer of the Voice of Faith Christian Church and the Acting Public Relations Officer, PRO, Vigilante Group of Nigeria, South-South Zone, reveals how he is using YCRI to fight poverty, crimes in the region. Excerpts: Why did you found this organization? The Youth and Conflict Resolution Initiative, YCRI, grew from the intervention by the youth wing of the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, PFN, Effurun in Delta state, during the bloody crises in some parts of the Delta from 1997 to 2004. Hundreds of defenceless civilians were abducted and killed. Therefore, the youth wing of the PFN intervened by holding peace summits, seminars, conferences, and issuing press releases in national media to quicken the conflict resolution between the warring communities. It was the knowledge and lessons gathered from these interventions that led to the establishment of YCRI. These knowledge, lessons and experiences were then applied in the advocacy against child abuse, promotion of human rights, emergency response for vulnerable persons and free vocational training for children and youths in the Delta State. At present, YCRI operates throughout Nigeria. The primary aim of this organization is to take the message of peace to the doorsteps of the youths, communities and all stakeholders in the Niger Delta, Nigeria and the world at large. The organization was first registered with the Delta State Government as Youth and Conflict Resolution •Kenerekedi Movement, YCRM, in the year 2008 and later registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission, CAC, as Youth and Conflict Resolution Initiative, YCRI, in 2010. Sustainable Development YCRI is a non-profit, non-governmental organization to promote peace and equip young and old to bring about sustainable development in the region. The organization is run by highly trained professionals with long term experience in working with organized bodies within and outside the nation. Our mission is to create a world of peace by dealing with the Global Peace We realised that peace and security is everyone’s responsibility. To achieve that, we need to build a conflict-free world, where everyone is empowered to actualize their full potentials. Also, to develop and harness the potentials of young people towards global peace, security, credible leadership and sustainable development, hence the introduction of the Peace Unity and Sustainable Development, PUSD, campaign ongoing across ethnic nationality in Nigeria. We are also partnering with security agencies, community leaders and all relevant stakeholders to promote awareness against cultism (in secondary schools and tertiary institutions), kidnapping, pipeline vandalism, terrorism and all social vices. What is your relationship with the police and other security agencies like? As a conflict resolution body, we have a cordial relationship with the police and other security agencies (especially in Delta State). We collaborate with the Police to sensitize the masses on how to live a crime-free life. Furthermore, YCRI since 2009 has been partnering with security agencies in curbing violence, especially in the Niger Delta region. Off the Street We have a programme called ‘Off the Street’, for youths, women, and persons with disabilities, to train them in skills acquisition and empower them with jobs and scholarship opportunities. This we do in partnership with government, corporate organizations and well-meaning Nigerians. Why we introduced this particular scheme is because, from our years of experience in dealing with the youths, Seafarers YCRI, as a way of youth development and empowerment, has sponsored over twenty (20) youths to International Conferences in the UK, South Africa and other nations of the World. As an NGO that has a passion for those in rural areas especially, those in the creeks, we partnered with Joemarine Institute of Nautical Studies and Research, Warri, Delta State, to give scholarship to over four hundred and fifty (450) Seafarers from the creeks. Aside from that, we are also reaching out to the less privileged. We regularly distribute relief materials to Orphanages and hospitals in the creeks including the Daughter/Son Orphanage, Warri; Leprosarium, Jeddo, Okpe; Central Hospital, Warri; and flood victims in the riverine communities in Delta State, amongst others. Over 200 villages, communities and towns, and more than 50,000 youths reached and engaged in various non-violence and youth development programmes. Our immediate mission is to reach out to 20 million Nigerian youths on skills acquisition, academic growth and curtail violence and bloodshed and transform the political arena from violent rhetoric to developmental discourse. We also use this medium to solicit support from the government, corporate organizations and all stakeholders to support organizations like ours, who are already on the field, with mindchanging and peace-oriented campaign to different parts of the country especially to the creeks and rural areas. We are already in the process of collaborating with international bodies to further our non-violence pursuit among youths and elders
SUNDAY VANGUARD, APRIL 25, 2021, PAGE 25 From left: Chief Micheal Ayogu; Chief Chidi Ogbuefi; Chief Executive Officer of CDV Properties and Development Limited, Chief Charles Mba and the Founder & Group Managing Director Ziloc, Ugochukwu Harvey Igboanugo and Chief Uzoma Anazodo, during the convocation and award ceremony of European American University, yesterday, in Ghana From left: Mr Nurudeen Oke (son), Mr Oropo Rasheed Oke {son}, Mrs Rashidat Famusanmi (Daughter) and Mr Zaccheaus Oluwafemi Fambusanmi {son-in law and Vanguard staff} at the final burial ceremony of Alhaja Bushirat Adunni Oke held at Agbado Ope-Ilu, Ogun State. From left: Chairman, Princeps Holdings (Credit Wallet), Peter Atuma; Event host & CEO, Talknation, Joyce Daniels; Founder, The Green Investment Club, Tomie Balogun; Co-founder, Farmforte, Osazuwa Osayi; and COO at Apel Asset Limited, Oladunni Olawuyi, during the presentation of a 3-year investment report and research by The Green Investment Club, in Lagos. HERDERS, FARMERS CLASHES: Tinubu seeks unity against terrorists, bandits to reap gains of agric The National Leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu yesterday said Nigerians must stop fighting each to be able to present a unified front against the threat of terrorists and bandits, who attempt to frustrate Federal Government’s diversification into agriculture. The APC leader, who spoke after bagging a honorary doctorate degree of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State, lamented:“These people have unleashed terror and violent criminality against us. By attacking agricultural players across the nation, they seek not only to ravage the agricultural community, but to visit misery on the rest of the nation through food scarcity and food costs that poor people can simply not afford. In effect, these mean forces seek to impose a food production and distribution crisis on us by disrupting strategically important agricultural areas and activities.” According to Tinubu, “All of this has underscored the importance of the agricultural sector to our collective condition. The Federal Government has, thus, devoted itself to improving our nation’s agricultural sector. Important strides have been made. Yet, we have not yet reached the Promised Land. Government, and we, must continue to do more.” The former governor offered a few thoughts regarding the agricultural sector and its role in developing the nation, insisting that agricultural players cannot feed the nation and fight evil actors at Soyinka to Buhari: Nigeria is at war, seek help the same time. “We must decide whether our farmland and grazing areas are to be battlegrounds, or they are to return to their role of feeding the nation.” “Those who need peace in order to ply their trade must recognize the bigger threat that now confronts them. We can work the differences between farmer and herder. However, there is no way to reconcile either with terror or banditry without forfeiting their livelihoods, if not their very lives,” he said. He maintained that in the war against terror and criminality, the nation must protect its ability to feed its people,” and advised the military 17 killed in Benue attack as Ortom cries over 1m IDPs By Peter Duru No fewer that 17 persons have been reportedly killed by suspected armed herdsmen and militia men in a co-ordinated attack on Tse Ukor, Tse Gborigyo and Tse Uhembe communities, all in Mbayer-Yandev Council Ward of Guma Local Government Area, LGA, of Benue State. The attack on the said communities, which occurred late Friday and the early hours of By Olasunkanmi Akoni Following series of kill ings, especially the youth, and high level of insecurity, Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka, has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to seek help and stop playing with human lives in the country Ṡoyinka stated this in a statement released yesterday, titled:”The endless Martyrdom of youth. The statement read in part: “Abukakar Atiku has summed up the nation’s feeling – this most recent savagery against our youth is heartbreaking. More than the heart is broken however, more than millions of individual hearts that still lay claim to bonds in a common humanity. “The already over-stretched sinews of moral restraint have been snapped off the casing of nation being, and nothing is left but the collective wails of impotence. “Not for the first time, what many hoped was a Natural Law of Limitations has been contemptuously, defiantly breached. We need to remind ourselves of hideous precedents. We must remember Chibok. And Dapchi. And numerous antecedents and after, unpublicized, or soon relegated to the sump of collective amnesia. The wages of impunity never diminish, on the contrary, they distend. “One’s greatest fear, with this latest feat of cowardly savagery is that the nation must brace itself for a Beslan scenario, yet strive to avoid Nigeria become Africa’s Cherchnya. Those who have been proven weak and incapable must learn to swallow their vain pride and seek help”. “Again, this is no new counseling, but of course the dog that will get lost no longer heeds the hunter’s whistle. I envy no one the task ahead, terminating the toxic harvest of past derelictions. Blame laying is for later. Right now is the question of – what needs to be done, and done urgently. “We keep avoiding the inevitable, but that very unthinkable now hammers brutishly on our gates, the blood ransom arrogantly insatiable. This nation is at war, yet we continue to pretend that these are mere birthpangs of a glorious entity. yesterday, left many injured and hospitalized. Giving his account, a former Speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly, Mr. Dave Iorhemba, who is an indigene of Yogbo, Mbayer- Yandev Council Ward, told newsmen yesterday at Tse Uikpam, Guma LGA that the attacks on the communities were unprovoked. According to him, “The number of bodies we have counted that were killed between Friday and today (yesterday) are up to 17 and some are badly injured and are receiving treatment in the hospital. We want to thank Governor Ortom who has assisted in the payment of the medical bills of those who were injured.” Lamenting the looming food scarcity and overbearing humanitarian crisis in the state, the former Speaker said, “there is a huge, huge humanitarian crisis and food security challenge in the state as I can see because “They are death throes. Vultures and undertakers hover patiently but with full confidence. “The dogs of war stopped merely baying years ago. Again and again they have sunk their fangs into the jugular of this nation. “The plague called COV- ID has met its match on the earth of some nation space once known as Nigeria. I grieve with the bereaved, but mourn even more for our youth so routinely sacrificed, burdened with uncertainty and traumatized beyond youth’s capacity to cope. “To this government we repeat the public cry: Seek Help. Stop Improvising with human lives. Youth-that is, the the future – should not serve as Ritual Offering on the altar of a failing State.” once the farmers cannot go back and do their farming activities and they cannot go back to their ancestral homes, food crisis is imminent. “There is no food anywhere apart from the food stuff that government stockpiled and is distributing to the IDPs. There is no other food anywhere. If government is distributing food stuff, does it end there? The people must participate in farming activities to produce food massively which we used to do in Benue state until herdsmen starting sacking our people from the ancestral homes,” he said. Meanwhile Governor Samuel Ortom has appealed to the Federal Government, local and international donors, NGOs, and spirited individuals to assist the state government to provide support to the close to one million Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in the state. The governor, who made the appeal yesterday at the Tse Uikpam IDPs camp Guma LGA where he celebrated his 60th birthday with over 27,000 IDPs, lamented that the state had been overwhelmed by IDPs and the state government lacked the resources to cater for their needs. UMAHI’S WIFE: PDP spreading fake news, says Ebonyi govt By Nnamdi Ojiego The Ebonyi State government has described as mendacious, report making rounds the social media that wife of the state governor, Rachel Umahi, said she would not vote for her husband in All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 general elections. A statement by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Uchenna Orji, said the trending news was a handiwork of political jobbers deployed by the main opposition party in the state to elicit public sympathy. The statement read: “The attention of Ebonyi State Ministry of Information and State Orientation has been drawn to a vicious, mendacious and faceless post captioned ‘I will not vote my husband in APC’ falsely credited to Her Excellency, wife of the Governor of Ebonyi State, and made to trend in social media by political jobbers deployed by the drowned People’s Democratic Party, PDP in the State and who have also resorted to writing helplessly and derogatorily about Mrs Rachel Umahi. “While we take exception to this cheap and disrespectful blackmail, we make bold to state that Mrs Umahi is a proud card-carrying member of APC with registration number, EB/BZR/11/04202. She joined APC with her husband as a response to the clarion call for South-East to reintegrate into a party of national spread”. 2023: Lagos must work again, Jandor to begin to revise their strategies so that agricultural communities are better protected. “This will enable higher food production, thereby reducing hunger and poverty.” He added: “During this moment of food scarcity, we must launch a programme to expand production of food staples. The concept of ‘agricultural sustainability’ advocates food production in a way that makes the optimal use of existing technical capacities by focusing on the most appropriate genotypes of seeds and livestock for our environment. Here, both state and federal governments must subsidize the restart of agricultural activity interrupted by terror and criminality. These actions will serve to tame food scarcity and price inflation in the short run. The Jagaban Borgu stated that we must improve farmto-market delivery, advising that government must invest in improving farm to market transportation networks, which will reduce the amount of wastage and reduce costs by ensuring more food reaches the marketplace and the dinner table. “Toward this objective of reducing waste, constructing storage facilities for perishable items in important marketplaces across the country would be prudent.” According to Tinubu, government “Must do more to secure the basic hopes and aspirations of the local farmer that he can live more than a life or toil in penury. Let us return to the commodity boards or similar arrangements that guarantee minimum prices, and thus incomes for farmers of strategic crops.” promises By Olasunkanmi Akoni Dr. Olajide Adediran, Lead Visioner of Lagos4Lagos, a political group, has inaugurated 51 member state executives across the five divisions of the state with the task to ensure the realisation of the team’s set goals in Lagos gubernatorial poll in 2023. Adediran, popularly called “Jandor” at the formal launch, said: “Lagos of our dream must work again for residents. “Hence, the inauguration of the executives as part of efforts to boost the group’s operational structures across all the 20 Local Government Areas and 37 Local Council Development Areas, LCDAs, in the state.” After taking the oath of office for members, Adediran, urged them to live up to the bidding of the task ahead, saying, “We have started the movement for the past six years and it’s time to make it a reality.” He said the membership of the state executives is based on six months probation after which performance of each member would be assessed and any underperforming member would be replaced accordingly. According to him, the grassroots base is very key in deciding the Lagos of their dreams.
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