Experts say the outbreak of COVID-19 nearly three years ago has triggered a greater appreciation of the importance of health security and intelligence capabilities. The pandemic highlighted how devastating an infectious disease can be within a short period of time and its potential impact on the global economy. It also showed how it can dramatically change our daily lives and social interaction. To forestall an impact of a similar magnitude, experts say it is important that developing countries upgrade their health personnel, infrastructure, and institutions. Due to their weak health infrastructure, developing countries such as Nigeria are vulnerable to biological…
Author: TheStories
Niger state governor, Abubakar Sani-Bello has said that strengthening the electoral process at the local government level will boost the country’s democracy. He disclosed this shortly after casting his vote for the local government election at the Alkali Mustapha Polling, Kontagora on Saturday. According to him, “If democracy must be practised, it should be done rightly without depriving the people their right to choose their leaders. “It is very unfair when you deprive people at the local government levels their right to choose their leaders; we must support this to become a democratic country,” he said. The governor added that…
On Sunday, Arise News and the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) organised the first of a series of townhall meetings for candidates contesting the 2023 elections. The first outing was set for the top four presidential candidates. They were selected based on the performance of their parties in an online survey conducted by CDD. The leading parties were LP, APC, PDP and NNPP. The APC presidential candidate, Bola Ahmed Tinubu however opted not to participate. This was not surprising as he had declined all other previous invitations to participate in public debates. Apparently, he only participates in forums he…
I do not know what foundation former Vice President and People’s Democratic Party, PDP, presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubarkar has in mathematics but whatever it amounts to, it is extremely perplexing how he, himself, much less the baffling rabble currently aligned with him, sees any viable path to electoral victory this election cycle. From the six states of the South-south, all Atiku has left are four Governors, two of whom might not even fully be entirely sold on his ultra-controversial ambition. Cross River is All Progressives Congress, APC, with a governor determined to humiliate the PDP and the APC’s highly…
This is the season of manifesto, expectedly so, as the 2023 elections draw nearer. I have read a couple of manifestos of the front line candidates promising what they will do and how they intend to do them to advance the cause of Nigeria’s over 200m people. Morning, afternoon and evening, it is all talk about manifesto. But I do not bother about manifesto. The manifesto that I cherish so much is the manifesto of honesty, transparency and accountability. The manifesto that speaks to honesty of purpose and experience. The manifesto that speaks to previous experience and fulfilled promises. We…
A week ago, President Muhammadu Buhari travelled out of the country on a two-week medical vacation. He is expected back in the country next week. As has been the pattern since he assumed office in 2015, and he travelled on medical vacation eight months later, Nigerians again this time around raised the same concerns about why our leaders are always travelling abroad for medical reasons – they have failed to develop the medical infrastructure at home. In a country that used to be a medical tourism destination for persons as far away as the Middle East in the 70s, it…
When I joined the academic turf over two decades ago, I was accosted by a hawk on a recruitment mission, a kind of membership drive. The first lesson of hawkish agenda in a game is “win by any means, hook or crook” as the end justifies the means. The game must be manipulated to bring out the desired result, which is more or less a selfish end before the game even commences. Hawks fight to always win and hardly believe in “gives and takes”. Peaceful or diplomatic ways of winning a game are alien to them. “Leave the ball and…
Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court Abuja has ordered an interim forfeiture of 40 landed properties belonging to a former Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, who is currently in custody in the United Kingdom. Justice Ekwo made the order following an ex-parte motion by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). In a short ruling on the motion, the Judge ordered the anti-graft agency to publish the interim forfeiture order of the properties in a national daily within seven days from the date the order was given. Justice Ekwo specifically asked anybody interested in the properties covered…
Nigeria has seen it all: the good, the bad and the ugly, more in the education sector. A time there was when our graduates from the university were ranked high, mostly above those of our peers and comparable to those from universities ranked top in the world. Students came from countries across the African Continent and beyond to receive education here. Then it was so good and sweet. We were then a proud nation. Then things began to go bad. Lecturers began to abandon classrooms for banks and companies, during financial booms, and government offices, during oil boom. Corruption became…
The Usmanu Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital Sokoto chapter of the Medical and Dental Consultants’ Association of Nigeria (UDUTH-MDCAN), has told the Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto branch of the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that members of the union were not favoured by the minister of Labour, Chris Ngige in anyway. ASUU had issued a press statement titled: “Attempt To Further Polarise and Sectionalise ASUU, through Selective and Bias Payment of Salary to Selected Professional Medical Members of ASUU UDUS by the Honourable Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige”, claimed that Ngige was biased in paying selected professional…