BY IVO TAKOR AFTER decades of public service, workers should not have to struggle through administrative procedures to establish pension benefits they have already earned. Yet Nigeria’s ongoing pension verification exercise raises an important concern: whether the systems designed to protect retirement entitlements are sufficiently accessible and efficient to serve the workers who depend on them. The challenge is no longer simply about encouraging participation. It is about ensuring that administrative delays, missing employment records and difficulties accessing verification services do not prevent eligible workers from securing their retirement benefits. Missing employment records, inconsistent personal information, incomplete data recapture and…
Author: National Record
Oxford Retains Global Number-One Position AFRICAN universities have increased their representation in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, with 69 institutions from 16 countries in sub-Saharan Africa featuring in the 2027 edition. The University of Cape Town (UCT) led the region, returning to the global top 150 with a joint 147th position – its strongest showing in seven years. UCT’s latest ranking marks a rise from joint 164th in the 2026 edition. South Africa remained the only country in sub-Saharan Africa with universities placed within the global top 200 and top 500. Five South African universities were…
By IDUH ONAH WHEN I first read Stupid White Men… and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation! (2001) in mid-2002, I was fascinated not just by Michael Moore’s deliberate deployment of humour, sarcasm, hyperbole, statistics, anecdotes and provocative language to excoriate America’s political and corporate power elites, racism, and inequality, but even more by his courageous outspokenness and clarity against an oppressive system in a state many people outside the United States of America (USA) may imagine impossible. I was also thrilled by the relative similarities in the elite manipulation of ordinary citizens in the US vis-à-vis…
DANGOTE Petroleum Refinery has achieved a significant operational milestone, recording an average capacity utilization of 105.21 percent in August 2026, according to data released by the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). The 700,000 barrels-per-day refinery processed an average of 736,470 barrels of crude oil per day in August, a substantial increase from 497,000 barrels per day in July, when utilization stood at 71 percent. The strong performance was supported by a rebound in domestic crude oil supply, with deliveries rising by 16.75 percent to 683,000 barrels per day during the month. The refinery’s improved throughput translated into…
Demand ₦300,000 Minimum Wage, COLA, Full Wage Implementation Opposes Concession Of Unity Colleges THE FEDERAL Workers Forum (FWF) has thrown its weight behind organised labour’s demand for an immediate reduction in the pump price of petrol to ₦500 per litre, alongside renewed calls for a living wage and urgent measures to cushion the impact of the country’s worsening cost-of-living crisis. The position is contained in a communiqué issued on Tuesday, September 29, 2026, following an online general meeting of federal workers held on Sunday, September 27. The communiqué is signed by Comrade Andrew Emelieze, National Coordinator of the Federal Workers…
AS NIGERIA marks its 66th Independence Anniversary, the Conscience for Human Rights and Conflict Resolution (CHRCR) has called for sober reflection on the country’s journey since independence, urging governments at all levels to address insecurity, poverty, unemployment, corruption and other challenges confronting citizens. In a statement signed by its Executive Director, Idris Miliki Abdul, the Lokoja-based civil society organisation said the anniversary provided an opportunity for Nigerians to celebrate the country’s survival as one nation while also reflecting on the gaps between the aspirations of independence and the realities confronting the country today. The organisation said 66 years represent a…
…Receives ITU Senior Digital Skills Officer THE PRESIDENT and Chief Executive Officer of the Digital Bridge Institute (DBI), Mr. David Daser, has reaffirmed the Institute’s commitment to positioning Nigeria as a strong player in the global digital future. A press release by Mr Soji Fagbemi, DBI’s Head of Public Affairs & Media Relations quoted Mr Daser to have stated this on Tuesday when he received the Senior Digital Skills Officer at the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Ms. Robyn Fysh, at the DBI Headquarters in Abuja. Fysh’s visit was part of the ITU’s efforts to strengthen the Digital Transformation Centre (DTC)…
Comrade, salaam alaikum and good morning. YOUR article on “Causalisation and Informalisation of Labour” is a serious and well-structured intervention on an increasingly important Nigerian labour question which is the widening gap between the legal and institutional architecture of worker protection, and the actual structure of employment in the country. Its central argument is that casualisation and informalisation are no longer peripheral labour-market phenomena. They are changing the composition of the working population itself. Temporary, irregular and weakly regulated employment increasingly shifts economic risk from employers to workers through insecurity of tenure, weaker bargaining power, inadequate benefits and reduced access…
PRESIDENT of the General Assembly, Khalilur Rahman, says Africa’s exclusion from permanent membership of the Security Council is a continuing injustice, demanding justice for the continent. Rahman said this at the closing of the General Debate of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly in New York. The Assembly President said world leaders spoke clearly about reforming the United Nations during the debate. He, however, said that while the UN80 initiative would continue, “administrative reform cannot substitute for deeper political reform. “Reform is not an exercise in rearranging structures or reducing budgets, or rearranging budget lines. It is a…
THE NATIONAL Assembly will soon deepen the digitisation of parliamentary records by translating Nigerian laws into Igbo Hausa, Yoruba and other local languages to expand public access to legislative information. Mr Henry Nwawuba, the Executive Secretary, National Assembly Library Trust Fund disclosed this while declaring open the 2026 National Assembly Library Week on Monday in Abuja. The event was themed, “Parliamentary Memory: Connecting Records, Legislation and the People.” Nwawuba said the three-day programme was designed as an annual platform to promote legislative research, access to information and effective utilisation of the resources of the National Assembly Library. He described the…