The MoU, signed by Comrade Ayuba Wabba, President of the NLC, Comrade Quadri Olaleye, President of the Trade Union Congress of Nigeria (TUC), and Dr Timothy Olawale, Director-General of NECA at the Paschal Bafyau Labour House headquarters of the NLC in the Central Business District of Abuja, is a collaborative effort intended by the parties to cushion the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the world of work. The MoU was witnessed by Mr Denis Zulu, Director, Abuja Office of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Author: National Record
If you want to practice democracy, you have to go wholly and in all ramifications. Every democracy world over started from somewhere. Nigeria too started from somewhere and we must get to where other advanced democracies are today. But it’s going to be step-by-step.
The continued attacks, looting, kidnapping, raping and killing of the people in Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto states have cast fear in the minds of many people in the states and forced a significant number of residents to abandon their communities. Even before the lockdown, many of the villages in the states have become no-go areas. Some villages have been deserted for long and many people are being forced into IDP camps in their own states which is posing great humanitarian crisis in the region. The most baffling part of the attacks is how the bandits are finding their ways to these villages despite the restrictions of people’s movements including inter-states travels. One might be tempted to ask: “is the lockdown only for the peaceful citizens?”
The implication of this is that the poisoning of Rivers Okoolo and Umabe by Dangote Group’s mining exploration poses dangerous health challenges for far greater population beyond the about 30 rural communities who for generations have directly depended on them as their only sources of potable water.
We are worried over continuous delay in introduction of appropriate legislative framework to improve coordination and result-oriented approach in the anti-corruption fight through full domestication and activation of pending Global and Regional Anti-Corruption Instruments to improve coordination and ensure a result-oriented approach in the anti-corruption fight; review of Petroleum Industry and Governance Bill (PIGB) to promote transparency, accountability, and governance, as well as curtail monumental financial losses in our nation’s oil and gas sector; back disclosure of beneficial owners of licenses in the oil sector and the publicizing of oil and mining contracts, as recommended by the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) and the Open Government Partnership Commitments.
There are no better quotable quotes on racism than Mandela’s who lived, confronted and defeated apartheid. On 15 October 1962 Mandela in a statement he said: “I detest racism, because I regard it as a barbaric thing, whether it comes from a black man or a white man”. A relook at the viral tape of George Floyd begging for breath (“I can’t breathe”; “They’re Going to Kill Me) confirms how truly barbaric racism and xenophobia could be.
Prior to the coming into force of the Pension Reform Act 2004, pension schemes in Nigeria were categorised into public and private sectors. The public sector had the Pay As You Go (PAYG) Defined Benefits Scheme, which was bedevilled with many problems. Against the backdrop of an estimated N2 trillion deficit, budgeted appropriations for pension benefits had over the years fallen far short of promised benefits. This was further compounded by late release and sometimes, non-release of funds. Pension arrears owed to military, police, customs, immigration and prisons including civilian pension departments alone were estimated at N56 billion as at the end of June 2004. The pension crisis in the more than 300 federal government parastatals was alarming as most of these schemes remained under-funded.
“We have fixed a timeline for ourselves that before the end of this week, the health workers captured in that particular COVID-19 net; frontline workers should get all their hazard and inducement allowances for the month of April and May before the close of the week,” the press release stated, adding that the decision on the commencement of the implementation of the allowances was reached along with the Accountant-General of the Federation and the Minister of Health.
For all incidences of rape, society is the loser. Depending on the nature of rape, women are not only the losers, but both women and men. In the case of rape committed against a wife, daughter, sister or relatives, there are multiple losers but women become the most affected, the most traumatised and the most depressed for ever. Rape must be elevated as a crime against humanity and the severest punishment must be imposed to serve as deterrent to those men or boys who cannot control the animalistic instinct in them.
More pointedly, I am openly using this auspicious medium, to invite all our compatriots to kindly devote more than a passing interest in the much lauded and vociferously marketed Power Contract that was recently signed between Nigeria and Siemens, Germany, ostensibly to rescue the battered sector from imminent collapse.