Saturday, 30 May 2015
God chose me to help Buhari — Osinbajo
The Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo, today said that he was chosen by God to assist President Muhammadu Buhari to entrench justice, equity and accountability in Nigeria.
He spoke during a church service in his honour at the National Christian Centre, Abuja, which was attended by his? wife, Dolapo; mother and father-in-law as well as friends and well-wishers.
Osinbajo said that he was convinced that God was planning to set things right and heal Nigeria through the new administration headed by Buhari and himself.
“So, I thank the great and mighty God who has chosen me at this time by Himself to assist the President of this nation.
“His plan is to make Nigeria a nation that will be admired and respected among the nations of the earth by establishing integrity; by ensuring that corruption is eradicated and resources meant for all are not cornered by a few but are used according to law, justice and equity for the benefit of all.
“The Lord wants a nation ruled only in accordance with law and justice where the guilty are punished and the good rewarded.
“This links to President Muhammadu Buhari’s inaugural speech yesterday. Sure, you will agree that he emphasised these three clear designs of God”, the vice president said.
Delivering the sermon during the service, Bishop Wale Oke pointed out that those who honour God would be honoured by Him; and warned Osinbajo not to allow corrupt people around him in order not to be like Eli in the Holy Bible.
He said that the vice president’s career and reputation built over the years could go up in flames within seconds if he condones corruption or unholiness.
He said: “If you are corrupt, you cannot be a friend of God. We pray that you will enjoy the manifest of God all the days of your life.
“What others don’t have answer to a situation, God will reveal it to you. He will make you the Joseph of this administration.
“God will reveal the secret of the problems of Nigeria to you like Joseph and Daniel in the Holy Bible. Choose the way of Abraham and not that of Eli. With that, I believe generations unborn will celebrate you.
I could not have become president without Alamieyeseigha— Jonathan
Immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan today attributed his successful political career to the efforts of former governor of Bayelsa, Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha.
Jonathan, who was speaking at the thanksgiving service to round-off the civic reception organised in his honour by the Bayelsa Government, said he remained grateful to the former governor.
Jonathan, who equally expressed gratitude to his aides and associates, said Alamieyeseigha discovered, mentored and brought him into politics.
“I am grateful to my aides and all those that worked with me to ensure our success.
“The business community, some of whom are here with us, on behalf of myself and wife, we thank you, we owe you so much.
“I will not forget to thank Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha, without him, I won’t have been here talking about being a former president.
“At a time I was not even thinking about being a commissioner in the state, he invited me to run with him.
“Of course that is why I am here to also thank him, without him, it would not have been possible, nobody would have heard about Jonathan,” he said.
Jonathan said that even as a former president, he remained committed to the development of his community, Bayelsa and the nation at large.
Speaking earlier, Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa noted that the feat attained by former president as a
Jonathan, who was speaking at the thanksgiving service to round-off the civic reception organised in his honour by the Bayelsa Government, said he remained grateful to the former governor.
Jonathan, who equally expressed gratitude to his aides and associates, said Alamieyeseigha discovered, mentored and brought him into politics.
“I am grateful to my aides and all those that worked with me to ensure our success.
“The business community, some of whom are here with us, on behalf of myself and wife, we thank you, we owe you so much.
“I will not forget to thank Chief DSP Alamieyeseigha, without him, I won’t have been here talking about being a former president.
“At a time I was not even thinking about being a commissioner in the state, he invited me to run with him.
“Of course that is why I am here to also thank him, without him, it would not have been possible, nobody would have heard about Jonathan,” he said.
Jonathan said that even as a former president, he remained committed to the development of his community, Bayelsa and the nation at large.
Speaking earlier, Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa noted that the feat attained by former president as a
Boko Haram kill15, injure 19 in Borno
Boko Haram members in a convoy of Toyota Hilux vehicles and motorcycles laden with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), rocket grenades and anti-aircraft guns attacked Malari village of Maiduguri metropolis of Borno state; and killed 15 residents, injuring19 others in Bulunkutu Saleke, Gomari and Ajilari areas in the early hours of Saturday.
The killings, according to Ibrahim Yakubu of Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), were caused by insurgents’
The killings, according to Ibrahim Yakubu of Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF), were caused by insurgents’
Buhari's annual salary, allowances is N14 million
Nigeria’s new president, Muhammadu Buhari, and his deputy, Yemi Osinbajo, will earn annual basic salaries of N3, 514, 705 and N3, 031, 572.50 respectively, according to the information on the website of the Revenue Mobilization Allocation and Fiscal Commission.
The RMAFC is statutorily empowered by Section 32 (d) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the Constitution to determine the remuneration appropriate for political office holders.
Apart from the salaries, the president is entitled to various regular allowances like: Hardship, 50 per cent of the basic salary – N1, 757, 350.50; consistency – 250 per cent, N8, 786, 762.50.
Other regular allowances like motor vehicle fuelling and maintenance, special assistant, personal assistant, domestic staff, entertainment, utilities, security and Newspapers and periodicals are to be provided by the government – not paid for.
Allowances like accommodation, furniture, and duty tour allowance (per night), estacode (per night) and medical allowances are also to be provided as requested.
The allowances are paid periodically, some monthly, a few once in four years. Duty Tour Allowance and Estacode depend on travels.
For instance, furniture allowance to other cadre of officials, like ministers and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, is given once in four years. The President and Vice President are not paid furniture allowance as they are provided for.
When all allowances payable each month are added, President Buhari will take home N1, 171,568.33 each month, and N14, 058, 820.00 yearly.
Vice President Osinbajo will receive N1, 010, 524. 17 monthly, and N12, 126,290.00 per annum.
Details of Allowances
The president’s severance gratuity is N10, 544, 115, that is 300 per cent of basic; he is entitled to a leave allowance of N351, 470. 50, (10 per cent of basic salary) and an optional motor vehicle loan of N14, 058, 820, at 400 per cent to be repaid before the expiration of the president’s tenure.
Mr. Osinbajo will also get allowances such as motor vehicle, feeding and maintenance, special assistant, personal assistant, domestic staff, entertainment utility, security, newspaper and periodicals.
While the number two man’s hardship, consistency, severance gratuity and leave allowance are at N1, 515, 786.25; N7, 578, 931.25; N9, 094, 717.50 and N303, 157.25 respectively.
He will also receive a motor vehicle loan at 400 per cent of his basic salary which is N12, 126, 290; to be repaid at the expiration of his tenure.
The salaries and allowances are drawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The current salary structure and allowances were
The RMAFC is statutorily empowered by Section 32 (d) of Part 1 of the Third Schedule of the Constitution to determine the remuneration appropriate for political office holders.
Apart from the salaries, the president is entitled to various regular allowances like: Hardship, 50 per cent of the basic salary – N1, 757, 350.50; consistency – 250 per cent, N8, 786, 762.50.
Other regular allowances like motor vehicle fuelling and maintenance, special assistant, personal assistant, domestic staff, entertainment, utilities, security and Newspapers and periodicals are to be provided by the government – not paid for.
Allowances like accommodation, furniture, and duty tour allowance (per night), estacode (per night) and medical allowances are also to be provided as requested.
The allowances are paid periodically, some monthly, a few once in four years. Duty Tour Allowance and Estacode depend on travels.
For instance, furniture allowance to other cadre of officials, like ministers and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, is given once in four years. The President and Vice President are not paid furniture allowance as they are provided for.
When all allowances payable each month are added, President Buhari will take home N1, 171,568.33 each month, and N14, 058, 820.00 yearly.
Vice President Osinbajo will receive N1, 010, 524. 17 monthly, and N12, 126,290.00 per annum.
Details of Allowances
The president’s severance gratuity is N10, 544, 115, that is 300 per cent of basic; he is entitled to a leave allowance of N351, 470. 50, (10 per cent of basic salary) and an optional motor vehicle loan of N14, 058, 820, at 400 per cent to be repaid before the expiration of the president’s tenure.
Mr. Osinbajo will also get allowances such as motor vehicle, feeding and maintenance, special assistant, personal assistant, domestic staff, entertainment utility, security, newspaper and periodicals.
While the number two man’s hardship, consistency, severance gratuity and leave allowance are at N1, 515, 786.25; N7, 578, 931.25; N9, 094, 717.50 and N303, 157.25 respectively.
He will also receive a motor vehicle loan at 400 per cent of his basic salary which is N12, 126, 290; to be repaid at the expiration of his tenure.
The salaries and allowances are drawn from the Consolidated Revenue Fund.
The current salary structure and allowances were
I thought Bayelsans would boo me – Jonathan
I thought Bayelsans would boo me – Jonathan
Ex- Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, said he had been worried about the kind of reception he would receive in his home state, Bayelsa.
Speaking at a civic reception in his honour, in Yenagoa, Mr. Jonathan said he would dedicate the remaining part of his life to peace building across the country.
“I thank all of you here and my brothers and sisters outside who cannot come in because of the size of the hall,” Mr. Jonathan told a capacity crowd at the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre.
“Sometimes when you are exposed to some high offices and you finish serving, you are even afraid of going back home. Because in one way or the other you will feel that you did not satisfy the people.
“Sometimes at the late hour it dawns on you that you could have done that, you could have done that, you failed to do this you, failed to do that.
“Sometimes you begin to fear whether the people that came to receive you, will they curse you, will they hoot at you?”
Mr. Jonathan said he had wanted to come back to a private visit but the state governor insisted it must be a celebration.
“I really don’t have anything to say. The only thing I can do is to thank all Bayelsans, all Ijaw people, all people from the South South, and indeed all Nigerians for giving me the privilege,” he said.
“Sometimes when I step back, I used to say that probably if I had stayed back in Bayelsa I’d have been more useful to the people. But vacating the seat here gave the opportunity for others and they have done wonderfully well.
“So this period from 1999 till date, my people Bayelsans and Nigerians have given me rare opportunity to serve. First as governor of the state, vice president and president of the country.”
Mr. Jonathan recalled how his
Ex- Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan, yesterday, said he had been worried about the kind of reception he would receive in his home state, Bayelsa.
Speaking at a civic reception in his honour, in Yenagoa, Mr. Jonathan said he would dedicate the remaining part of his life to peace building across the country.
“I thank all of you here and my brothers and sisters outside who cannot come in because of the size of the hall,” Mr. Jonathan told a capacity crowd at the Gabriel Okara Cultural Centre.
“Sometimes when you are exposed to some high offices and you finish serving, you are even afraid of going back home. Because in one way or the other you will feel that you did not satisfy the people.
“Sometimes at the late hour it dawns on you that you could have done that, you could have done that, you failed to do this you, failed to do that.
“Sometimes you begin to fear whether the people that came to receive you, will they curse you, will they hoot at you?”
Mr. Jonathan said he had wanted to come back to a private visit but the state governor insisted it must be a celebration.
“I really don’t have anything to say. The only thing I can do is to thank all Bayelsans, all Ijaw people, all people from the South South, and indeed all Nigerians for giving me the privilege,” he said.
“Sometimes when I step back, I used to say that probably if I had stayed back in Bayelsa I’d have been more useful to the people. But vacating the seat here gave the opportunity for others and they have done wonderfully well.
“So this period from 1999 till date, my people Bayelsans and Nigerians have given me rare opportunity to serve. First as governor of the state, vice president and president of the country.”
Inaugural speech by His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari following his swearing-in as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on 29th May, 2015
I am immensely grateful to God Who Has
preserved us to witness this day and this
occasion. Today marks a triumph for Nigeria and
an occasion to celebrate her freedom and cherish
her democracy. Nigerians have shown their
commitment to democracy and are determined to
entrench its culture. Our journey has not been
easy but thanks to the determination of our
people and strong support from friends abroad we
have today a truly democratically elected
government in place.
I would like to thank President Goodluck
Jonathan for his display of statesmanship in
setting a precedent for us that has now made our
people proud to be Nigerians wherever they are.
With the support and cooperation he has given to
the transition process, he has made it possible for
us to show the world that despite the perceived
tension in the land we can be a united people
capable of doing what is right for our nation.
Together we co-operated to surprise the world
that had come to expect only the worst from
Nigeria. I hope this act of graciously accepting
defeat by the outgoing President will become the
standard of political conduct in the country.
I would like to thank the millions of our
supporters who believed in us even when the
cause seemed hopeless. I salute their resolve in
waiting long hours in rain and hot sunshine to
register and cast their votes and stay all night if
necessary to protect and ensure their votes count
and were counted. I thank those who tirelessly
carried the campaign on the social media. At the
same time, I thank our other countrymen and
women who did not vote for us but contributed to
make our democratic culture truly competitive,
strong and definitive.
I thank all of you.
Having just a few minutes ago sworn on the Holy
Book, I intend to keep my oath and serve as
President to all Nigerians.
I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.
A few people have privately voiced fears that on
coming back to office I shall go after them. These
fears are groundless. There will be no paying off
old scores. The past is prologue.
Our neighbours in the Sub-region and our African
brethenen should rest assured that Nigeria under
our administration will be ready to play any
leadership role that Africa expects of it. Here I
would like to thank the governments and people
of Cameroon, Chad and Niger for committing their
armed forces to fight Boko Haram in Nigeria.
I also wish to assure the wider international
community of our readiness to cooperate and
help to combat threats of cross-border terrorism,
sea piracy, refugees and boat people, financial
crime, cyber crime, climate change, the spread of
communicable diseases and other challenges of
the 21st century.
At home we face enormous challenges. Insecurity,
pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and
seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages
are the immediate concerns. We are going to
tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret
that they have entrusted national responsibility to
us. We must not succumb to hopelessness and
defeatism. We can fix our problems.
In recent times Nigerian leaders appear to have
misread our mission. Our founding fathers, Mr
Herbert Macauley, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the
Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa, Malam Aminu Kano, Chief J.S. Tarka, Mr
Eyo Ita, Chief Denis Osadeby, Chief Ladoke
Akintola and their colleagues worked to establish
certain standards of governance. They might have
differed in their methods or tactics or details, but
they were united in establishing a viable and
progressive country. Some of their successors
behaved like spoilt children breaking everything
and bringing disorder to the house.
Furthermore, we as Nigerians must remind
ourselves that we are heirs to great civilizations:
Shehu Othman Dan fodio’s caliphate, the Kanem
Borno Empire, the Oyo Empire, the Benin Empire
and King Jaja’s formidable domain. The blood of
those great ancestors flow in our veins. What is
now required is to build on these legacies, to
modernize and uplift Nigeria.
Daunting as the task may be it is by no means
insurmountable. There is now a national
consensus that our chosen route to national
development is democracy. To achieve our
objectives we must consciously work the
democratic system. The Federal Executive under
my watch will not seek to encroach on the duties
and functions of the Legislative and Judicial arms
of government. The law enforcing authorities will
be charged to operate within the Constitution. We
shall rebuild and reform the public service to
become more effective and more serviceable. We
shall charge them to apply themselves with
integrity to stabilize the system.
For their part the legislative arm must keep to
their brief of making laws, carrying out over-sight
functions and doing so expeditiously. The judicial
system needs reform to cleanse itself from its
immediate past. The country now expects the
judiciary to act with dispatch on all cases
especially on corruption, serious financial crimes
or abuse of office. It is only when the three arms
act constitutionally that government will be
enabled to serve the country optimally and avoid
the confusion all too often bedeviling governance
today.
Elsewhere relations between Abuja and the States
have to be clarified if we are to serve the country
better. Constitutionally there are limits to powers
of each of the three tiers of government but that
should not mean the Federal Government should
fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going
on in the states and local governments. Not least
the operations of the Local Government Joint
Account. While the Federal Government can not
interfere in the details of its operations it will
ensure that the gross corruption at the local level
is checked. As far as the constitution allows me I
will try to ensure that there is responsible and
accountable governance at all levels of
government in the country. For I will not have
kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I
allow others abuse theirs under my watch.
However, no matter how well organized the
governments of the federation are they can not
succeed without the support, understanding and
cooperation of labour unions, organized private
sector, the press and civil society organizations. I
appeal to employers and workers alike to unite in
raising productivity so that everybody will have
the opportunity to share in increased prosperity.
The Nigerian press is the most vibrant in Africa.
My appeal to the media today – and this includes
the social media – is to exercise its considerable
powers with responsibility and patriotism.
My appeal for unity is predicated on the
seriousness of the legacy we are getting into.
With depleted foreign reserves, falling oil prices,
leakages and debts the Nigerian economy is in
deep trouble and will require careful management
to bring it round and to tackle the immediate
challenges confronting us, namely; Boko Haram,
the Niger Delta situation, the power shortages and
unemployment especially among young people.
For the longer term we have to improve the
standards of our education. We have to look at
the whole field of medicare. We have to upgrade
our dilapidated physical infrastructure.
The most immediate is Boko Haram’s insurgency.
Progress has been made in recent weeks by our
security forces but victory can not be achieved by
basing the Command and Control Centre in Abuja.
The command centre will be relocated to
Maiduguri and remain until Boko Haram is
completely subdued. But we can not claim to
have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the
Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held
hostage by insurgents.
This government will do all it can to rescue them
alive. Boko Haram is a typical example of small
fires causing large fires. An eccentric and
unorthodox preacher with a tiny following was
given posthumous fame and following by his
extra judicial murder at the hands of the police.
Since then through official bungling, negligence,
complacency or collusion Boko Haram became a
terrifying force taking tens of thousands of lives
and capturing several towns and villages covering
swathes of Nigerian sovereign territory.
Boko Haram is a mindless, godless group who are
as far away from Islam as one can think of. At
the end of the hostilities when the group is
subdued the Government intends to commission a
sociological study to determine its origins, remote
and immediate causes of the movement, its
sponsors, the international connexions to ensure
that measures are taken to prevent a reccurrence
of this evil. For now the Armed Forces will be
fully charged with prosecuting the fight against
Boko haram. We shall overhaul the rules of
engagement to avoid human rights violations in
operations. We shall improve operational and
legal mechanisms so that disciplinary steps are
taken against proven human right violations by
the Armed Forces.
Boko Haram is not only the security issue
bedeviling our country. The spate of kidnappings,
armed robberies, herdsmen/farmers clashes,
cattle rustlings all help to add to the general air
of insecurity in our land. We are going to erect
and maintain an efficient, disciplined people –
friendly and well – compensated security forces
within an over – all security architecture.
The amnesty programme in the Niger Delta is due
to end in December, but the Government intends
to invest heavily in the projects, and programmes
currently in place. I call on the leadership and
people in these areas to cooperate with the State
and Federal Government in the rehabilitation
programmes which will be streamlined and made
more effective. As ever, I am ready to listen to
grievances of my fellow Nigerians. I extend my
hand of fellowship to them so that we can bring
peace and build prosperity for our people.
No single cause can be identified to explain
Nigerian’s poor economic performance over the
years than the power situation. It is a national
shame that an economy of 180 million generates
only 4,000MW, and distributes even less.
Continuous tinkering with the structures of power
supply and distribution and close on $20b
expanded since 1999 have only brought darkness,
frustration, misery, and resignation among
Nigerians. We will not allow this to go on. Careful
studies are under way during this transition to
identify the quickest, safest and most cost-
effective way to bring light and relief to Nigerians.
Unemployment, notably youth un-employment
features strongly in our Party’s Manifesto. We
intend to attack the problem frontally through
revival of agriculture, solid minerals mining as
well as credits to small and medium size
businesses to kick – start these enterprises. We
shall quickly examine the best way to revive
major industries and accelerate the revival and
development of our railways, roads and general
infrastructure.
Your Excellencies, My fellow Nigerians I can not
recall when Nigeria enjoyed so much goodwill
abroad as now. The messages I received from
East and West, from powerful and small countries
are indicative of international expectations on us.
At home the newly elected government is basking
in a reservoir of goodwill and high expectations.
Nigeria therefore has a window of opportunity to
fulfill our long – standing potential of pulling
ourselves together and realizing our mission as a
great nation.
Our situation somehow reminds one of a passage
in Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar
There is a tide in the affairs of men which,
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life,
Is bound in shallows and miseries.
We have an opportunity. Let us take it.
Thank you
Muhammadu Buhari
President Federal Republic of NIGERIA
and
Commander in-chief-of the Armed forces
preserved us to witness this day and this
occasion. Today marks a triumph for Nigeria and
an occasion to celebrate her freedom and cherish
her democracy. Nigerians have shown their
commitment to democracy and are determined to
entrench its culture. Our journey has not been
easy but thanks to the determination of our
people and strong support from friends abroad we
have today a truly democratically elected
government in place.
I would like to thank President Goodluck
Jonathan for his display of statesmanship in
setting a precedent for us that has now made our
people proud to be Nigerians wherever they are.
With the support and cooperation he has given to
the transition process, he has made it possible for
us to show the world that despite the perceived
tension in the land we can be a united people
capable of doing what is right for our nation.
Together we co-operated to surprise the world
that had come to expect only the worst from
Nigeria. I hope this act of graciously accepting
defeat by the outgoing President will become the
standard of political conduct in the country.
I would like to thank the millions of our
supporters who believed in us even when the
cause seemed hopeless. I salute their resolve in
waiting long hours in rain and hot sunshine to
register and cast their votes and stay all night if
necessary to protect and ensure their votes count
and were counted. I thank those who tirelessly
carried the campaign on the social media. At the
same time, I thank our other countrymen and
women who did not vote for us but contributed to
make our democratic culture truly competitive,
strong and definitive.
I thank all of you.
Having just a few minutes ago sworn on the Holy
Book, I intend to keep my oath and serve as
President to all Nigerians.
I belong to everybody and I belong to nobody.
A few people have privately voiced fears that on
coming back to office I shall go after them. These
fears are groundless. There will be no paying off
old scores. The past is prologue.
Our neighbours in the Sub-region and our African
brethenen should rest assured that Nigeria under
our administration will be ready to play any
leadership role that Africa expects of it. Here I
would like to thank the governments and people
of Cameroon, Chad and Niger for committing their
armed forces to fight Boko Haram in Nigeria.
I also wish to assure the wider international
community of our readiness to cooperate and
help to combat threats of cross-border terrorism,
sea piracy, refugees and boat people, financial
crime, cyber crime, climate change, the spread of
communicable diseases and other challenges of
the 21st century.
At home we face enormous challenges. Insecurity,
pervasive corruption, the hitherto unending and
seemingly impossible fuel and power shortages
are the immediate concerns. We are going to
tackle them head on. Nigerians will not regret
that they have entrusted national responsibility to
us. We must not succumb to hopelessness and
defeatism. We can fix our problems.
In recent times Nigerian leaders appear to have
misread our mission. Our founding fathers, Mr
Herbert Macauley, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chief
Obafemi Awolowo, Alhaji Ahmadu Bello, the
Sardauna of Sokoto, Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa
Balewa, Malam Aminu Kano, Chief J.S. Tarka, Mr
Eyo Ita, Chief Denis Osadeby, Chief Ladoke
Akintola and their colleagues worked to establish
certain standards of governance. They might have
differed in their methods or tactics or details, but
they were united in establishing a viable and
progressive country. Some of their successors
behaved like spoilt children breaking everything
and bringing disorder to the house.
Furthermore, we as Nigerians must remind
ourselves that we are heirs to great civilizations:
Shehu Othman Dan fodio’s caliphate, the Kanem
Borno Empire, the Oyo Empire, the Benin Empire
and King Jaja’s formidable domain. The blood of
those great ancestors flow in our veins. What is
now required is to build on these legacies, to
modernize and uplift Nigeria.
Daunting as the task may be it is by no means
insurmountable. There is now a national
consensus that our chosen route to national
development is democracy. To achieve our
objectives we must consciously work the
democratic system. The Federal Executive under
my watch will not seek to encroach on the duties
and functions of the Legislative and Judicial arms
of government. The law enforcing authorities will
be charged to operate within the Constitution. We
shall rebuild and reform the public service to
become more effective and more serviceable. We
shall charge them to apply themselves with
integrity to stabilize the system.
For their part the legislative arm must keep to
their brief of making laws, carrying out over-sight
functions and doing so expeditiously. The judicial
system needs reform to cleanse itself from its
immediate past. The country now expects the
judiciary to act with dispatch on all cases
especially on corruption, serious financial crimes
or abuse of office. It is only when the three arms
act constitutionally that government will be
enabled to serve the country optimally and avoid
the confusion all too often bedeviling governance
today.
Elsewhere relations between Abuja and the States
have to be clarified if we are to serve the country
better. Constitutionally there are limits to powers
of each of the three tiers of government but that
should not mean the Federal Government should
fold its arms and close its eyes to what is going
on in the states and local governments. Not least
the operations of the Local Government Joint
Account. While the Federal Government can not
interfere in the details of its operations it will
ensure that the gross corruption at the local level
is checked. As far as the constitution allows me I
will try to ensure that there is responsible and
accountable governance at all levels of
government in the country. For I will not have
kept my own trust with the Nigerian people if I
allow others abuse theirs under my watch.
However, no matter how well organized the
governments of the federation are they can not
succeed without the support, understanding and
cooperation of labour unions, organized private
sector, the press and civil society organizations. I
appeal to employers and workers alike to unite in
raising productivity so that everybody will have
the opportunity to share in increased prosperity.
The Nigerian press is the most vibrant in Africa.
My appeal to the media today – and this includes
the social media – is to exercise its considerable
powers with responsibility and patriotism.
My appeal for unity is predicated on the
seriousness of the legacy we are getting into.
With depleted foreign reserves, falling oil prices,
leakages and debts the Nigerian economy is in
deep trouble and will require careful management
to bring it round and to tackle the immediate
challenges confronting us, namely; Boko Haram,
the Niger Delta situation, the power shortages and
unemployment especially among young people.
For the longer term we have to improve the
standards of our education. We have to look at
the whole field of medicare. We have to upgrade
our dilapidated physical infrastructure.
The most immediate is Boko Haram’s insurgency.
Progress has been made in recent weeks by our
security forces but victory can not be achieved by
basing the Command and Control Centre in Abuja.
The command centre will be relocated to
Maiduguri and remain until Boko Haram is
completely subdued. But we can not claim to
have defeated Boko Haram without rescuing the
Chibok girls and all other innocent persons held
hostage by insurgents.
This government will do all it can to rescue them
alive. Boko Haram is a typical example of small
fires causing large fires. An eccentric and
unorthodox preacher with a tiny following was
given posthumous fame and following by his
extra judicial murder at the hands of the police.
Since then through official bungling, negligence,
complacency or collusion Boko Haram became a
terrifying force taking tens of thousands of lives
and capturing several towns and villages covering
swathes of Nigerian sovereign territory.
Boko Haram is a mindless, godless group who are
as far away from Islam as one can think of. At
the end of the hostilities when the group is
subdued the Government intends to commission a
sociological study to determine its origins, remote
and immediate causes of the movement, its
sponsors, the international connexions to ensure
that measures are taken to prevent a reccurrence
of this evil. For now the Armed Forces will be
fully charged with prosecuting the fight against
Boko haram. We shall overhaul the rules of
engagement to avoid human rights violations in
operations. We shall improve operational and
legal mechanisms so that disciplinary steps are
taken against proven human right violations by
the Armed Forces.
Boko Haram is not only the security issue
bedeviling our country. The spate of kidnappings,
armed robberies, herdsmen/farmers clashes,
cattle rustlings all help to add to the general air
of insecurity in our land. We are going to erect
and maintain an efficient, disciplined people –
friendly and well – compensated security forces
within an over – all security architecture.
The amnesty programme in the Niger Delta is due
to end in December, but the Government intends
to invest heavily in the projects, and programmes
currently in place. I call on the leadership and
people in these areas to cooperate with the State
and Federal Government in the rehabilitation
programmes which will be streamlined and made
more effective. As ever, I am ready to listen to
grievances of my fellow Nigerians. I extend my
hand of fellowship to them so that we can bring
peace and build prosperity for our people.
No single cause can be identified to explain
Nigerian’s poor economic performance over the
years than the power situation. It is a national
shame that an economy of 180 million generates
only 4,000MW, and distributes even less.
Continuous tinkering with the structures of power
supply and distribution and close on $20b
expanded since 1999 have only brought darkness,
frustration, misery, and resignation among
Nigerians. We will not allow this to go on. Careful
studies are under way during this transition to
identify the quickest, safest and most cost-
effective way to bring light and relief to Nigerians.
Unemployment, notably youth un-employment
features strongly in our Party’s Manifesto. We
intend to attack the problem frontally through
revival of agriculture, solid minerals mining as
well as credits to small and medium size
businesses to kick – start these enterprises. We
shall quickly examine the best way to revive
major industries and accelerate the revival and
development of our railways, roads and general
infrastructure.
Your Excellencies, My fellow Nigerians I can not
recall when Nigeria enjoyed so much goodwill
abroad as now. The messages I received from
East and West, from powerful and small countries
are indicative of international expectations on us.
At home the newly elected government is basking
in a reservoir of goodwill and high expectations.
Nigeria therefore has a window of opportunity to
fulfill our long – standing potential of pulling
ourselves together and realizing our mission as a
great nation.
Our situation somehow reminds one of a passage
in Shakespeare’s Julius Ceasar
There is a tide in the affairs of men which,
taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life,
Is bound in shallows and miseries.
We have an opportunity. Let us take it.
Thank you
Muhammadu Buhari
President Federal Republic of NIGERIA
and
Commander in-chief-of the Armed forces
Monday, 25 May 2015
Medinat Kanabe on: When doctors’ errors become fatal
In saner climes, the natural thing to do when a patient dies or suffers greater bodily harm due to a doctor’s negligence is to seek redress in a court of Law. But the compassionate and sometimes passive attitude of Nigerian families to always resign to fate and leave everything in God’s hands, have ensured that this ugly situation persists. Medinat Kanabe, who spoke to victims and families of such unfortunate neglect and misconduct, explores the situation.
Precious Itua (not real name) was a very strong woman, easy going and much liked by her neighbours. She was 38 and had been married for 7 years without a child. This worried her and her husband so much so, that they decided to visit a clinic to see what the problem was.
It was discovered that she had fibroid and with the doctor’s assurance that she would be fine once she went through a surgery to remove the unwanted growth, she decided to go for it.
As a way of preparing for the operation, she cleaned her home and filled her kitchen with foodstuff she presumed would serve her husband during the time she figured she would not be available or fit to do the usual market rounds. And then she went for the surgery.
“It was a success,” the doctor announced to her husband, “and she would be discharged soon.”
True to the doctor’s words, she was discharged after some days and was able to go home to be with her husband. But exactly two weeks after, she developed some complications. Suddenly, she could not move around, and neither could she sit in one place. She was going through excruciating pains and had to place an urgent call to the doctor.
Since it was a Thursday, the doctor told her to come to the hospital on Monday, but by Sunday, she felt like the world was coming to an end and somehow found her way to the clinic. Yet she wasn’t given much attention until the next day, Monday.
By this time, her stomach was swollen but the doctor told her husband it was just gas. Even as a layman, her husband wondered how she was defecating and urinating easily, if it was indeed “just gas;” but kept quiet, since the doctor was supposed to know best.
The doctor who is a gynaecologist, had invited a surgeon from another hospital to help carry out the surgery, and so called on the surgeon once again. Somehow, it took him till the next day to arrive, leaving the patient without any proper medical care.
The surgeon examined the patient and called a senior consultant, who also took another day to arrive. The senior consultant examined the patient and began asking the doctors questions. According to an eye witness, they answered in the negative to all the questions, an indication that they didn’t do the necessary things they should have done.
By this time, it was already three days since the patient came to the hospital and she had become really weak, since the doctor made sure she wasn’t fed anything through the mouth.
The senior consultant then suggested a second surgery, since, according to him, there were complications with the first. He said there was a leakage, a consequence of the first operation, leading to a situation where the operated part refuses to heal.
There and then, our source – who is sister to the patient, revealed that she “didn’t have any choice but to go in for another operation.”
“After the operation, the surgeon, who carried out the first surgery came to me and said ‘it seems your sister had diabetes.’ I was furious at him. Why would a doctor say that after carrying out a surgery?
A while later, the doctor who owns the hospital also came to tell us that they had detected a cancer. Again I wondered why they had to be saying all these after a second surgery.”
By this time the family suspected strongly they weren’t quite telling the truth. They were trying to push blames in case she doesn’t survive.
By 3.00am that third night, she woke up, called the name ‘Jesus’ three times and gave up the ghost.
That was the end, as no further investigation was pursued to know the exact reason for which she died. Like the average Nigerian family, they concluded without much ado that no further action, not even pursuing justice, in case she had died out of the doctors’ negligence, could bring their beloved back.
Fatima Kannike was travelling with a friend when they got involved in an accident on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway. They were quickly taken to a nearby private hospital where the doctor on ground attended to them.
After some checks, the doctor diagnosed her of ulcer without carrying out an X-ray. He said the ulcer was very serious, which was why she was going through so much pains. He said if the pains continued, she would have to be operated upon. He ruled out any form of fracture because she was able to walk around little by little by herself.
Her family took her out of the hospital to Unity Hospital, Ikeja, where an X-ray was immediately carried out. But the result was not clear enough, so another X-ray was carried out. As they waited for the X-ray results, the doctor on duty told Kannike to wait for the orthopaedic doctor to come around, but because of the assurance she had gotten from the first doctor, she decided to go home and come back the next day to see the doctor.
When she got home, Kannike began to experience even more excruciating pains and was rushed back to Unity Hospital early the next morning, where she was told that the second X-ray result revealed a pelvic fracture.
Shocked, the Orthopaedic doctor wondered why she had been moving around with such a fracture. Didn’t she visit any hospital after the accident? Of course, she narrated to him her experience with the first doctor.
The doctor expressed his disappointment and told her family not to allow her to move for the next six weeks because of the fracture, but he didn’t assure them of her getting better soon enough, having moved around too much after the accident.
It is now over six weeks, and Kannike has gone back to the doctor for an examination, but the sad news is that they discovered that the fracture is still there.
At the moment, her family is confused. They are hoping that the mistake of the first doctor will be corrected by the new doctor. The patient, Mrs Kannike is wishing that the first doctor had made her do an X-ray immediately after the accident and told her not to move around; they are all wishing she had been made to stay in a position from the onset, as this would have prevented an aggravation and aided quicker recovery.
Again it’s all wishes and regrets on the part of the patient and family. The negligent doctor is not being called to question; neither is any action or redress being taken. They are living everything in the hands God and hoping that God aids her quick and total recovery.
As for Mr and Mrs George Bolatito, the way their six months-old child died could have been prevented, if only the doctor on duty hadn’t removed him from the oxygen that kept him alive.
Baby Bolatito had developed a fever at home and was rushed to Alimosho General Hospital in Lagos by his parents. As they arrived the hospital, the baby began to jerk.
The Nation journalist who was at the hospital at the time of this incident said the doctors and nurses who were handing over duty hinted those taking over that a patient had died in the night, leading to them being queried, and as such all cases should be referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja, Lagos.
“When the couple arrived with their baby, the doctor took a look at the baby and said he needed oxygen. The parents hurriedly ran around to get everything needed for the oxygen and the baby was soon put on oxygen. After a while, the same doctor came to tell them that he needed to refer the case to LASUTH because there was no space for the baby. He wrote the referral letter, removed the baby from the oxygen and handed him over to his parents.
“The confused parents dashed out of the hospital, leaving everything they had bought in preparation for the oxygen behind. But lo and behold, the baby gave up before they even got to the gate of the hospital.” The eye witness said.
The parents ran back into the hospital and told the doctor that their baby wasn’t moving anymore. The doctor carried the baby immediately, called other doctors and tried to resuscitate the child, but it was a bit too late, as the child had died.
The visibly angry journalist said, even while all these was unfolding, a nurse who works in the hospital came in with her child, whom she said had acute malaria and needed to be admitted, and immediately a space was found and the child was admitted.
She said: “When I took my child upstairs for injection, I heard a doctor shouting and berating them, and literally wondering why a child with malaria would be admitted, when there were several other children with severe sicknesses who could not be admitted. Had that child not been removed from oxygen, he probably would have survived,” she lamented.
Again, Mr and Mrs Bolatito went home mourning their loss. No subsequent action was taken, other than to bury their six month old baby.
Yomi, Dega and Folarin also had their shares of doctors’ negligence. While Yomi is alive today, Dega is crippled, while Folarin is dead. The three boys were taken by their mothers to a private clinic at different times to treat them for malaria. The three women and children met at the hospital for the first time. The boys were between the ages of 5 and 6.
A nurse injected them on the instruction of the doctor, who knew very well that the nurse was new and still learning. She injected the three boys wrongly, and it affected them negatively. Yomi could not walk well for more than 3 weeks, but fortunately for him, he recovered. But for Dega and Folarin, theirs are sorry cases.
Another sad story of doctors’ negligence would be that of a young lady, Funmi, as told by her family friend. He said “Funmi graduated in 2007 from Babcock University, where she studied Nursing as Best Graduating Student. She went ahead to do her Masters’ Degree programme with an intention to go for her PhD in the United States.
“She got married in 2010 and had a child. She was pregnant for her second child when she applied for PhD in a university in the US. She had not seen the letter when she went into labour last month and was rushed to the hospital for delivery. Nevertheless, she was very happy about the news and couldn’t wait to get over the childbirth. But alas, she never saw the letter, as she died in the course of giving birth.”
According to the family friend, the anaesthetist gave her an overdose of epidural injection on the wrong vein.
Another victim, Rita Biose narrates to The Nation: “I was in labour and needed urgent attention, but there was only one doctor on duty attending to ante-natal patients. I had to wait for him to finish with them before attending to me. He realised the baby was distressed out of the long wait and so I needed to be operated upon. The anaesthetist wasn’t around. It took him over 30 minutes to come before I was operated upon. I was in labour from about 8pm till the following morning into the evening; everywhere had become dark and the only form of light for us was a local lantern in the hospital.
I suffered serious mosquito bites and heat, which added to my suffering. After all this, I still had to pay a whooping N220, 000 as delivery fee because I had a caesarean session which could have been avoided. This is a private hospital that has been in existence for over 30 years. I also ended up with a weak child that needed urgent medical attention,” she said.
A Doctors’ defense
Defending the doctors, Dr Femi Adedugbe, a General Medical Practitioner and Managing Director Lives Fountain Medicare, Ilasa, Lagos said doctors are humans too and can make mistakes. Apart from that, he said there are many other challenges facing today’s doctors.
One of the major challenges according to him is the content. “It is so much; that is why we have a lot of specialisations today, so that doctors are able to focus on one aspect of medicine, unlike before when a doctor was supposed to know everything because there wasn’t too much content. The information on malaria alone today is two times what it used to be. Here in Nigeria, we still do the general practise, unlike in the developed countries where they specialise.
“I am not holding brief for anybody, but doctors are humans and can make mistakes. For those who don’t do what they are supposed to do and at the end there is a mistake, or you don’t have the capability or necessary equipment and then it leads to death, that doctor should face the law.”
He pointed out that another problem the doctors now have to deal with, is the strike actions that characterise the teaching hospitals. He said the students who are supposed to spend 6 years are spending 8 years and they still let them go.
“Some patients can’t afford even the government hospitals, so they stay at home rather than go to the hospitals. Because of this, some of these students don’t get to encounter some of these cases until they leave school, and there is a big difference between what happens in a teaching hospital and private hospital. In a teaching hospital there are serious cases, cases that are beyond us here (in private hospitals).
“So when these young doctors come out, and they have to work in rural areas or in the private sector, you find out that the things they see in the teaching hospital, they are not seeing there.
“The common sicknesses are malaria, respiratory tracks infection, which they don’t see in teaching hospital, because nobody will admit a child with malaria or those common sicknesses in a teaching hospital, except the difficult cases like the cancers, difficult labour, perforation and other serious cases. But you as a doctor should know when something is beyond you, you can call in someone.” He said.
Dr Adedugbe who has been practising for 33 years, added that doctors are in fact more careful nowadays because of the possibility of litigation, but noted that the above challenges are there, including a short fall in the specialist doctors.
“We have a short fall in the medical institutions that are available, that so many times, they are overwhelmed. Take for example the government hospitals. Because of the free health, the doctor comes in the morning and sees over 40 patients waiting for him, and you expect that doctor to be thorough whilst seeing all the patients!
“Or if a doctor working in a teaching hospital has six working hours in his shift and he resumes to find four patients waiting for CS, and one CS takes about 1hour 30 minutes. How do you think he will manage the four of them without making a mistake at some point?”
He therefore reiterated that the honest fact is that doctors are humans, and sometimes that extra care is not taken because there is just so much to do.
He further explained that limited training is another cause of negligence as he added that in his own days when he left school in 1982, they were less than 50 students that graduated. “As a medical student, I had about three beds that were my patients, if I was going through medical rotation, the three beds were my own; patients on admission on those beds were my patients. I will be the first to clack them and do the necessary things and make presentations. But as it is now, we have about 250 students coming out in a set, so it is difficult for one student to have one patient to himself. So now, we have about three students sharing one patient. For example, there is a woman on admission, I come to her to clack her, my colleague too comes to clack her and another colleague comes again; the woman will become angry. So what will happen is that the three of us will make arrangement to meet and go together to see the patient. When we go, one of us may be more intelligent and do most of the talking; it doesn’t really mean that the other two are good. Tomorrow, when we are going to do the presentation, three of us will also come out for presentation, you could just be lucky again that the same person will talk and the three of you will take the glory… until examination day when you present alone.
“So in my own days, you have no other person but you and you must make your presentation yourself without the help of anybody. All these factors come in. Even the residence that are undergoing training, for quite a number of months in a year, there is one strike or the other, and these don’t make them undergo the right training. Although they try to make it up, but is it really possible to make up for the strike? Maybe they will also say, let them do a crash programme; but it doesn’t help. The training and exposure is not enough for the students. Doctors undergoing post graduate studies are also not excluded.
“Let me tell you something: In the olden days, when you are doing your masters works, you do research works; now they allow literature review, where you don’t really have to do any research. You just review some other works that have been done before. In those days, you must work from the scratch.”
He defended the doctors again, saying he is sure that no doctor will use an unaccepted method to treat a patient. Using himself as example, he said he has been in practise for 33 years, but there are some things he still doesn’t know, because they are not in his area of specialization; and so he must refer such cases. “An ophthalmologist who started five years ago is an authority in his area, so whatever he says, I must listen. And whenever I see a case that is for him, I must refer to him.”
He also said there are some things that are not allowed, which some people are doing and getting away with.
“An example is the gynaecologists who run away from doing hysterectomy for a woman that has fibroid during delivery, because they believe that the woman will bleed and might die as a result. It does make sense for a doctor to do a CS for a woman and decide to remove the fibroid, instead of opening her again in future. But they won’t because they say, ‘she will bleed and nearly die.’
“But I know a consultant in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH who does it and says ‘Don’t mind them, they don’t know what to do.’ Yet 80 percent will not do it, but this doctor does it and succeeds.
“Now, if a doctor tries to do it too and something goes wrong after many successes, he will be punished because that is against the norm.”
He said it is very much impossible to do many things that are done in the US in Nigeria because the gadgets and equipments are not available. “If I want to do a procedure, I send my specimen to the lab, and probably will not get the result until tomorrow; while I am waiting, the patient may die. But in the US, the result will be ready within 30 minutes to 1 hour in an average health care centre.
“So over there, the doctors have become lazy because they have everything, but here we have learnt to develop our sixth sense because we can’t afford to wait every time for those tests results. So we tend to learn over the years.
“I don’t even know whether they have enough cadavers (dead bodies) now to learn with. In my set, we had 12 people to one cadaver. But now in a class of two hundred, you have about 30 people crowding a body. How will they be able to learn the anatomy? So all these factors together, come into play.”
The doctor also said that experience in medicine is very important; as he pointed out that the probability that an experienced doctor will make a mistake is far less than that of a new doctor. “There is a tendency that over the years you have come across more cases than the doctor that started practise five years ago.”
Asked if it is possible for a medical student to pay his way through school, he said no, because according to him, the examinations are not only written. “Every student will be given a patient during examination to clack; a presentation is also made and there is always an external examiner. So it is very impossible for one to pay their way through school.
“There is written, oral, essay and Multiple Choice Questions, and this MCQ covers all aspects of what you are studying. You will be asked to choose options A, B, or C or say true or false, but is covers a large area of medicine.”
Another thing, he said, is that the profession is not such that yields so much income, but many doctors want to make quick money because their mates in school who studied other courses are now very rich.
“They go ahead to admit patients that should ordinarily be referred and call in experts to attend to them so that they can get a share from whatever the patients pays. Sometimes they even try to attend to the patients themselves because they have seen someone treat the same sickness before, but what if something goes wrong?
“A doctor can slump in the middle of an operation; the patient may also die because the doctor may be the only expert around. But when it is a bigger hospital, there are other doctors who can take over.”
He said, “Doctors even work in two or more places now to make extra cash.”
While saying he cannot rule out the possibility of some doctors being drunk sometimes, said the profession is such that after spending so many years in school, a doctor does not want to rubbish himself. “It is just that a doctor can be off duty, go to a party and take a bottle of alcohol, in the course of which he is called for an emergency; under that circumstances, he might get there drunk.”
As a word of admonition, Dr Adedugbe advised fellow doctors to constantly update their knowledge and skills, and above all, know their limits.
The legal perspective- Can victims’ families seek redress?
Renowned lawyer and activist, Dr Fred Agbaje, said doctors like every other professional, holds the duty of care to their patient or client.
He said they must exercise extreme caution, which translates to applying best practises in ensuring that the life of the patient is secured.
“If there is a breach of this duty of care, and the patients suffer any consequences, the patient will have a cause of action against such a doctor. A patient has every right against a negligent medical doctor; because there are cases where a doctor has forgotten scissors and other equipment in the tummy or body of patients. Such a doctor ought to be stripped of his license because he is careless about the patient’s life and I am very happy that that the Medical and Dental Disciplinary Council, does not joke with such act of great negligence.”
Precious Itua (not real name) was a very strong woman, easy going and much liked by her neighbours. She was 38 and had been married for 7 years without a child. This worried her and her husband so much so, that they decided to visit a clinic to see what the problem was.
It was discovered that she had fibroid and with the doctor’s assurance that she would be fine once she went through a surgery to remove the unwanted growth, she decided to go for it.
As a way of preparing for the operation, she cleaned her home and filled her kitchen with foodstuff she presumed would serve her husband during the time she figured she would not be available or fit to do the usual market rounds. And then she went for the surgery.
“It was a success,” the doctor announced to her husband, “and she would be discharged soon.”
True to the doctor’s words, she was discharged after some days and was able to go home to be with her husband. But exactly two weeks after, she developed some complications. Suddenly, she could not move around, and neither could she sit in one place. She was going through excruciating pains and had to place an urgent call to the doctor.
Since it was a Thursday, the doctor told her to come to the hospital on Monday, but by Sunday, she felt like the world was coming to an end and somehow found her way to the clinic. Yet she wasn’t given much attention until the next day, Monday.
By this time, her stomach was swollen but the doctor told her husband it was just gas. Even as a layman, her husband wondered how she was defecating and urinating easily, if it was indeed “just gas;” but kept quiet, since the doctor was supposed to know best.
The doctor who is a gynaecologist, had invited a surgeon from another hospital to help carry out the surgery, and so called on the surgeon once again. Somehow, it took him till the next day to arrive, leaving the patient without any proper medical care.
The surgeon examined the patient and called a senior consultant, who also took another day to arrive. The senior consultant examined the patient and began asking the doctors questions. According to an eye witness, they answered in the negative to all the questions, an indication that they didn’t do the necessary things they should have done.
By this time, it was already three days since the patient came to the hospital and she had become really weak, since the doctor made sure she wasn’t fed anything through the mouth.
The senior consultant then suggested a second surgery, since, according to him, there were complications with the first. He said there was a leakage, a consequence of the first operation, leading to a situation where the operated part refuses to heal.
There and then, our source – who is sister to the patient, revealed that she “didn’t have any choice but to go in for another operation.”
“After the operation, the surgeon, who carried out the first surgery came to me and said ‘it seems your sister had diabetes.’ I was furious at him. Why would a doctor say that after carrying out a surgery?
A while later, the doctor who owns the hospital also came to tell us that they had detected a cancer. Again I wondered why they had to be saying all these after a second surgery.”
By this time the family suspected strongly they weren’t quite telling the truth. They were trying to push blames in case she doesn’t survive.
By 3.00am that third night, she woke up, called the name ‘Jesus’ three times and gave up the ghost.
That was the end, as no further investigation was pursued to know the exact reason for which she died. Like the average Nigerian family, they concluded without much ado that no further action, not even pursuing justice, in case she had died out of the doctors’ negligence, could bring their beloved back.
Fatima Kannike was travelling with a friend when they got involved in an accident on the Lagos Ibadan Expressway. They were quickly taken to a nearby private hospital where the doctor on ground attended to them.
After some checks, the doctor diagnosed her of ulcer without carrying out an X-ray. He said the ulcer was very serious, which was why she was going through so much pains. He said if the pains continued, she would have to be operated upon. He ruled out any form of fracture because she was able to walk around little by little by herself.
Her family took her out of the hospital to Unity Hospital, Ikeja, where an X-ray was immediately carried out. But the result was not clear enough, so another X-ray was carried out. As they waited for the X-ray results, the doctor on duty told Kannike to wait for the orthopaedic doctor to come around, but because of the assurance she had gotten from the first doctor, she decided to go home and come back the next day to see the doctor.
When she got home, Kannike began to experience even more excruciating pains and was rushed back to Unity Hospital early the next morning, where she was told that the second X-ray result revealed a pelvic fracture.
Shocked, the Orthopaedic doctor wondered why she had been moving around with such a fracture. Didn’t she visit any hospital after the accident? Of course, she narrated to him her experience with the first doctor.
The doctor expressed his disappointment and told her family not to allow her to move for the next six weeks because of the fracture, but he didn’t assure them of her getting better soon enough, having moved around too much after the accident.
It is now over six weeks, and Kannike has gone back to the doctor for an examination, but the sad news is that they discovered that the fracture is still there.
At the moment, her family is confused. They are hoping that the mistake of the first doctor will be corrected by the new doctor. The patient, Mrs Kannike is wishing that the first doctor had made her do an X-ray immediately after the accident and told her not to move around; they are all wishing she had been made to stay in a position from the onset, as this would have prevented an aggravation and aided quicker recovery.
Again it’s all wishes and regrets on the part of the patient and family. The negligent doctor is not being called to question; neither is any action or redress being taken. They are living everything in the hands God and hoping that God aids her quick and total recovery.
As for Mr and Mrs George Bolatito, the way their six months-old child died could have been prevented, if only the doctor on duty hadn’t removed him from the oxygen that kept him alive.
Baby Bolatito had developed a fever at home and was rushed to Alimosho General Hospital in Lagos by his parents. As they arrived the hospital, the baby began to jerk.
The Nation journalist who was at the hospital at the time of this incident said the doctors and nurses who were handing over duty hinted those taking over that a patient had died in the night, leading to them being queried, and as such all cases should be referred to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, LASUTH, Ikeja, Lagos.
“When the couple arrived with their baby, the doctor took a look at the baby and said he needed oxygen. The parents hurriedly ran around to get everything needed for the oxygen and the baby was soon put on oxygen. After a while, the same doctor came to tell them that he needed to refer the case to LASUTH because there was no space for the baby. He wrote the referral letter, removed the baby from the oxygen and handed him over to his parents.
“The confused parents dashed out of the hospital, leaving everything they had bought in preparation for the oxygen behind. But lo and behold, the baby gave up before they even got to the gate of the hospital.” The eye witness said.
The parents ran back into the hospital and told the doctor that their baby wasn’t moving anymore. The doctor carried the baby immediately, called other doctors and tried to resuscitate the child, but it was a bit too late, as the child had died.
The visibly angry journalist said, even while all these was unfolding, a nurse who works in the hospital came in with her child, whom she said had acute malaria and needed to be admitted, and immediately a space was found and the child was admitted.
She said: “When I took my child upstairs for injection, I heard a doctor shouting and berating them, and literally wondering why a child with malaria would be admitted, when there were several other children with severe sicknesses who could not be admitted. Had that child not been removed from oxygen, he probably would have survived,” she lamented.
Again, Mr and Mrs Bolatito went home mourning their loss. No subsequent action was taken, other than to bury their six month old baby.
Yomi, Dega and Folarin also had their shares of doctors’ negligence. While Yomi is alive today, Dega is crippled, while Folarin is dead. The three boys were taken by their mothers to a private clinic at different times to treat them for malaria. The three women and children met at the hospital for the first time. The boys were between the ages of 5 and 6.
A nurse injected them on the instruction of the doctor, who knew very well that the nurse was new and still learning. She injected the three boys wrongly, and it affected them negatively. Yomi could not walk well for more than 3 weeks, but fortunately for him, he recovered. But for Dega and Folarin, theirs are sorry cases.
Another sad story of doctors’ negligence would be that of a young lady, Funmi, as told by her family friend. He said “Funmi graduated in 2007 from Babcock University, where she studied Nursing as Best Graduating Student. She went ahead to do her Masters’ Degree programme with an intention to go for her PhD in the United States.
“She got married in 2010 and had a child. She was pregnant for her second child when she applied for PhD in a university in the US. She had not seen the letter when she went into labour last month and was rushed to the hospital for delivery. Nevertheless, she was very happy about the news and couldn’t wait to get over the childbirth. But alas, she never saw the letter, as she died in the course of giving birth.”
According to the family friend, the anaesthetist gave her an overdose of epidural injection on the wrong vein.
Another victim, Rita Biose narrates to The Nation: “I was in labour and needed urgent attention, but there was only one doctor on duty attending to ante-natal patients. I had to wait for him to finish with them before attending to me. He realised the baby was distressed out of the long wait and so I needed to be operated upon. The anaesthetist wasn’t around. It took him over 30 minutes to come before I was operated upon. I was in labour from about 8pm till the following morning into the evening; everywhere had become dark and the only form of light for us was a local lantern in the hospital.
I suffered serious mosquito bites and heat, which added to my suffering. After all this, I still had to pay a whooping N220, 000 as delivery fee because I had a caesarean session which could have been avoided. This is a private hospital that has been in existence for over 30 years. I also ended up with a weak child that needed urgent medical attention,” she said.
A Doctors’ defense
Defending the doctors, Dr Femi Adedugbe, a General Medical Practitioner and Managing Director Lives Fountain Medicare, Ilasa, Lagos said doctors are humans too and can make mistakes. Apart from that, he said there are many other challenges facing today’s doctors.
One of the major challenges according to him is the content. “It is so much; that is why we have a lot of specialisations today, so that doctors are able to focus on one aspect of medicine, unlike before when a doctor was supposed to know everything because there wasn’t too much content. The information on malaria alone today is two times what it used to be. Here in Nigeria, we still do the general practise, unlike in the developed countries where they specialise.
“I am not holding brief for anybody, but doctors are humans and can make mistakes. For those who don’t do what they are supposed to do and at the end there is a mistake, or you don’t have the capability or necessary equipment and then it leads to death, that doctor should face the law.”
He pointed out that another problem the doctors now have to deal with, is the strike actions that characterise the teaching hospitals. He said the students who are supposed to spend 6 years are spending 8 years and they still let them go.
“Some patients can’t afford even the government hospitals, so they stay at home rather than go to the hospitals. Because of this, some of these students don’t get to encounter some of these cases until they leave school, and there is a big difference between what happens in a teaching hospital and private hospital. In a teaching hospital there are serious cases, cases that are beyond us here (in private hospitals).
“So when these young doctors come out, and they have to work in rural areas or in the private sector, you find out that the things they see in the teaching hospital, they are not seeing there.
“The common sicknesses are malaria, respiratory tracks infection, which they don’t see in teaching hospital, because nobody will admit a child with malaria or those common sicknesses in a teaching hospital, except the difficult cases like the cancers, difficult labour, perforation and other serious cases. But you as a doctor should know when something is beyond you, you can call in someone.” He said.
Dr Adedugbe who has been practising for 33 years, added that doctors are in fact more careful nowadays because of the possibility of litigation, but noted that the above challenges are there, including a short fall in the specialist doctors.
“We have a short fall in the medical institutions that are available, that so many times, they are overwhelmed. Take for example the government hospitals. Because of the free health, the doctor comes in the morning and sees over 40 patients waiting for him, and you expect that doctor to be thorough whilst seeing all the patients!
“Or if a doctor working in a teaching hospital has six working hours in his shift and he resumes to find four patients waiting for CS, and one CS takes about 1hour 30 minutes. How do you think he will manage the four of them without making a mistake at some point?”
He therefore reiterated that the honest fact is that doctors are humans, and sometimes that extra care is not taken because there is just so much to do.
He further explained that limited training is another cause of negligence as he added that in his own days when he left school in 1982, they were less than 50 students that graduated. “As a medical student, I had about three beds that were my patients, if I was going through medical rotation, the three beds were my own; patients on admission on those beds were my patients. I will be the first to clack them and do the necessary things and make presentations. But as it is now, we have about 250 students coming out in a set, so it is difficult for one student to have one patient to himself. So now, we have about three students sharing one patient. For example, there is a woman on admission, I come to her to clack her, my colleague too comes to clack her and another colleague comes again; the woman will become angry. So what will happen is that the three of us will make arrangement to meet and go together to see the patient. When we go, one of us may be more intelligent and do most of the talking; it doesn’t really mean that the other two are good. Tomorrow, when we are going to do the presentation, three of us will also come out for presentation, you could just be lucky again that the same person will talk and the three of you will take the glory… until examination day when you present alone.
“So in my own days, you have no other person but you and you must make your presentation yourself without the help of anybody. All these factors come in. Even the residence that are undergoing training, for quite a number of months in a year, there is one strike or the other, and these don’t make them undergo the right training. Although they try to make it up, but is it really possible to make up for the strike? Maybe they will also say, let them do a crash programme; but it doesn’t help. The training and exposure is not enough for the students. Doctors undergoing post graduate studies are also not excluded.
“Let me tell you something: In the olden days, when you are doing your masters works, you do research works; now they allow literature review, where you don’t really have to do any research. You just review some other works that have been done before. In those days, you must work from the scratch.”
He defended the doctors again, saying he is sure that no doctor will use an unaccepted method to treat a patient. Using himself as example, he said he has been in practise for 33 years, but there are some things he still doesn’t know, because they are not in his area of specialization; and so he must refer such cases. “An ophthalmologist who started five years ago is an authority in his area, so whatever he says, I must listen. And whenever I see a case that is for him, I must refer to him.”
He also said there are some things that are not allowed, which some people are doing and getting away with.
“An example is the gynaecologists who run away from doing hysterectomy for a woman that has fibroid during delivery, because they believe that the woman will bleed and might die as a result. It does make sense for a doctor to do a CS for a woman and decide to remove the fibroid, instead of opening her again in future. But they won’t because they say, ‘she will bleed and nearly die.’
“But I know a consultant in the University of Benin Teaching Hospital, UBTH who does it and says ‘Don’t mind them, they don’t know what to do.’ Yet 80 percent will not do it, but this doctor does it and succeeds.
“Now, if a doctor tries to do it too and something goes wrong after many successes, he will be punished because that is against the norm.”
He said it is very much impossible to do many things that are done in the US in Nigeria because the gadgets and equipments are not available. “If I want to do a procedure, I send my specimen to the lab, and probably will not get the result until tomorrow; while I am waiting, the patient may die. But in the US, the result will be ready within 30 minutes to 1 hour in an average health care centre.
“So over there, the doctors have become lazy because they have everything, but here we have learnt to develop our sixth sense because we can’t afford to wait every time for those tests results. So we tend to learn over the years.
“I don’t even know whether they have enough cadavers (dead bodies) now to learn with. In my set, we had 12 people to one cadaver. But now in a class of two hundred, you have about 30 people crowding a body. How will they be able to learn the anatomy? So all these factors together, come into play.”
The doctor also said that experience in medicine is very important; as he pointed out that the probability that an experienced doctor will make a mistake is far less than that of a new doctor. “There is a tendency that over the years you have come across more cases than the doctor that started practise five years ago.”
Asked if it is possible for a medical student to pay his way through school, he said no, because according to him, the examinations are not only written. “Every student will be given a patient during examination to clack; a presentation is also made and there is always an external examiner. So it is very impossible for one to pay their way through school.
“There is written, oral, essay and Multiple Choice Questions, and this MCQ covers all aspects of what you are studying. You will be asked to choose options A, B, or C or say true or false, but is covers a large area of medicine.”
Another thing, he said, is that the profession is not such that yields so much income, but many doctors want to make quick money because their mates in school who studied other courses are now very rich.
“They go ahead to admit patients that should ordinarily be referred and call in experts to attend to them so that they can get a share from whatever the patients pays. Sometimes they even try to attend to the patients themselves because they have seen someone treat the same sickness before, but what if something goes wrong?
“A doctor can slump in the middle of an operation; the patient may also die because the doctor may be the only expert around. But when it is a bigger hospital, there are other doctors who can take over.”
He said, “Doctors even work in two or more places now to make extra cash.”
While saying he cannot rule out the possibility of some doctors being drunk sometimes, said the profession is such that after spending so many years in school, a doctor does not want to rubbish himself. “It is just that a doctor can be off duty, go to a party and take a bottle of alcohol, in the course of which he is called for an emergency; under that circumstances, he might get there drunk.”
As a word of admonition, Dr Adedugbe advised fellow doctors to constantly update their knowledge and skills, and above all, know their limits.
The legal perspective- Can victims’ families seek redress?
Renowned lawyer and activist, Dr Fred Agbaje, said doctors like every other professional, holds the duty of care to their patient or client.
He said they must exercise extreme caution, which translates to applying best practises in ensuring that the life of the patient is secured.
“If there is a breach of this duty of care, and the patients suffer any consequences, the patient will have a cause of action against such a doctor. A patient has every right against a negligent medical doctor; because there are cases where a doctor has forgotten scissors and other equipment in the tummy or body of patients. Such a doctor ought to be stripped of his license because he is careless about the patient’s life and I am very happy that that the Medical and Dental Disciplinary Council, does not joke with such act of great negligence.”
Friday, 22 May 2015
Muslim cleric runs mad, dies after drinking herbal mixture
An Islamic cleric, Taiye Bamidele, fondly called Alfa, has died after consuming herbal mixture in the FESTAC area of Lagos State.
The 24-year-old was said to have first acted strangely and behaved violently before dying on Saturday.
PUNCH Metro learnt that a day to the incident, he had complained to his friend, Akintunde Akinwunmi, that he was ill.Akinwunmi was said to have gone to a herb vendor around the area, who sold the herbal mixture to him.
It was learnt that shortly after taking the concoction, he started laughing hysterically.He reportedly died soon after.
Our correspondent learnt that the police had arrested Akinwunmi and the herb seller.
A police source said Taiye was resident in Ondo State and had come to Lagos on a visit when tragedy struck.
He said: “There are three friends involved in this case. The deceased lived in Ondo State, while the other two are living in Lagos.The two in Lagos travelled to Ondo to join Taiye for the naming ceremony of another friend, who was living in Idi-Iroko.All the three friends returned to Lagos on Thursday, last week.The following day, which was Friday, Taiye said he had a stomach upset and they went to get him some herbs to treat the ailment.”
It was learnt that he was served a mixture of jedi-jedi and ‘small leaf’ which were soaked in alcohol.
Our correspondent learnt that after the victim took the drink, he started acting strangely.
A relative said his friends stated that he was laughing hysterically and talking out of senses.
“He started by laughing at everything they were saying and they didn’t understand what was happening.Later, he touched the private parts of one of them. When they tried to hold him, he ran out of the house.”
In the process of running, it was gathered that Taiye fell and injured himself in the head.
He was said to have continued his flight, but was later found with the security men at the entrance into the estate. The men explained to his friends that Alfa had lost his mind.The security guards reportedly chained Alfa and handed him over to his friends.
Our correspondent was told that he gave up the ghost early Saturday morning.A source said
“Around 3am on Saturday, he died. People called his name, shook him, but he did not respond.”
Oldest secondary schools in Nigeria
1) CMS Grammar School, Lagos: 1859
(2) Methodist Boys High School, Lagos : 1878
(3) Methodist Girls High School, Lagos : 1879
(4) Baptist Academy, Lagos : 1885
(5) Hope Waddell Training Institute, Cal
(2) Methodist Boys High School, Lagos : 1878
(3) Methodist Girls High School, Lagos : 1879
(4) Baptist Academy, Lagos : 1885
(5) Hope Waddell Training Institute, Cal
List of states not owing workers
According to research, the Nigerian states listed below are not owing their workers.
Adamawa
Anambra
Bayelsa
Adamawa
Anambra
Bayelsa
24 year-old American Pilot steals plane, disappears over pacific ocean
A California flight instructor’s puzzling disappearance continues to baffle investigators 11 days after he stole a plane and vanished over the Pacific Ocean.
“It’s a mystery, and it will continue to be until something pops,” Palo Alto police Sgt. Brian Philip told the Daily News.
Pilot William McAdams was last seen on May 8 at an airport in Palo Alto. Surveillance video showed the 24-year-old between 1 and 2 a.m. before he slipped off with his employer’s Cessna G1000 Skyhawk.
“It’s a mystery, and it will continue to be until something pops,” Palo Alto police Sgt. Brian Philip told the Daily News.
Pilot William McAdams was last seen on May 8 at an airport in Palo Alto. Surveillance video showed the 24-year-old between 1 and 2 a.m. before he slipped off with his employer’s Cessna G1000 Skyhawk.
Jonathan's trekkers arrive Otuoke
Jonathan trekkers arrive Otuoke
Three young Nigerians, a male and two females, who embarked on a walking expedition to Otuoke, Bayelsa State, the home town of President Goodluck Jonathan, have finally arrived the Bayelsa community, after nineteen days on the road.
Kogi born-John Oladele Nihi, had embarked on the journey from Abuja on the 4th of May, with the aim of honouring President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, whom he described as the hero of democracy, apparently because of the way and manner the outgoing president conceded defeat to President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.
Rated as the first Twitter Reality Show, Nihi made great use of the social media platform, providing
Three young Nigerians, a male and two females, who embarked on a walking expedition to Otuoke, Bayelsa State, the home town of President Goodluck Jonathan, have finally arrived the Bayelsa community, after nineteen days on the road.
Kogi born-John Oladele Nihi, had embarked on the journey from Abuja on the 4th of May, with the aim of honouring President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, whom he described as the hero of democracy, apparently because of the way and manner the outgoing president conceded defeat to President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari.
Biggest market in Ekiti razed
The bloody clash between the drivers union and Hausa traders in Ado Ekiti on Friday escalated, with the popular Erekesan Market being razed by unknown arsonists.
The imposition of the dusk-to-dawn curfew on Ado Ekiti metropolis by Governor Ayodele Fayose notwithstanding, the arsonists gained entry into the market about 2am and set the Lagos line, where children's wares are sold, and other shops within the area ablaze.
The adjoining residential buildings at Odo Otu Area of Ado Ekiti , were also torched.
No fewer than 50 shops as well as two residential buildings were consumed along with goods worth several millions of Naira by the midnight fire.
It was learnt that men of the state fire services, who got wind of the arson made spirited efforts to put off the fire, but to no avail.
As a result of the development, both official and commercial activities that were gradually picking up before Friday’s incident went down again as virtually all major streets were deserted
Meanwhile, governor Fayose has called on the State Police Commissioner, Mr Etop John James to deploy more policemen to
Post-Office-Oja Oba-Old garage area and the popular Atikankan spot, to prevent further havoc from being wreaked on property.
He has also taken a proactive measure by evacuating the Hausa traders from Sabo and Atikankan areas to Shasha, a market location dominated by Hausas along Ado-Ikere road.
Though the identities of those responsible for the act were yet to be made public as at press time, a good number of residents are
suspicious that enraged Hausa settlers whose shops and wares were either burnt or looted on Wednesday carried out the reprisal attack,
to avenge their losses.
But the Chief Press Secretary to the state governor, Mr. Idowu Adelusi told journalists that the ongoing crisis might have assumed political
The imposition of the dusk-to-dawn curfew on Ado Ekiti metropolis by Governor Ayodele Fayose notwithstanding, the arsonists gained entry into the market about 2am and set the Lagos line, where children's wares are sold, and other shops within the area ablaze.
The adjoining residential buildings at Odo Otu Area of Ado Ekiti , were also torched.
No fewer than 50 shops as well as two residential buildings were consumed along with goods worth several millions of Naira by the midnight fire.
It was learnt that men of the state fire services, who got wind of the arson made spirited efforts to put off the fire, but to no avail.
As a result of the development, both official and commercial activities that were gradually picking up before Friday’s incident went down again as virtually all major streets were deserted
Meanwhile, governor Fayose has called on the State Police Commissioner, Mr Etop John James to deploy more policemen to
Post-Office-Oja Oba-Old garage area and the popular Atikankan spot, to prevent further havoc from being wreaked on property.
He has also taken a proactive measure by evacuating the Hausa traders from Sabo and Atikankan areas to Shasha, a market location dominated by Hausas along Ado-Ikere road.
Though the identities of those responsible for the act were yet to be made public as at press time, a good number of residents are
suspicious that enraged Hausa settlers whose shops and wares were either burnt or looted on Wednesday carried out the reprisal attack,
to avenge their losses.
But the Chief Press Secretary to the state governor, Mr. Idowu Adelusi told journalists that the ongoing crisis might have assumed political
Over 50 world leaders to attend Buhari’s inauguration
Over 50 world leaders are expected to attend the inauguration of the President-elect, Muhammadu Buhari, on Friday next week.
The Chairman of the Media and Publicity Sub-Committee of the Presidential Inauguration Planning Committee and Minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke, stated this at a news conference in Abuja on Friday.
Activities for the inauguration began on Friday with a Jumaat prayer at the National Central Mosque, Abuja.
Duke said invitation cards had been sent to all the 54 countries in the Africa and other countries of the world.
He stated, “As we speak, the 54 countries of the continent of Africa have been invited. Very many of the heads of state will be coming. There has been a huge interest, especially from heads of countries in Europe to attend this inauguration.
“At the last count, I think we must have in excess of about 50 Heads of State and delegation expected at this inauguration.”
According to him, a high security strategy is being put in place for a hitch-free exercise.
Duke stated that all invitees for the various segments of the inauguration would be thoroughly screened to avoid what happened during the 50th independence anniversary of Nigeria in 2010, when there was a bomb blast near Eagle Square.
The minister said some roads in the Federal Capital Territory would be blocked on the inauguration day to ensure smooth movement to and from the Eagle Square, venue of the inauguration.
Duke said, “The security agencies are working in close concert to ensure that there is absolutely no threat to the security of this inauguration. Arrangements are being made to screen all the invitees long before they access the perimeters of the location.”
He also stated that television screens would be placed in strategic places in the Federal Capital Territory for uninvited people to watch the inauguration.
The Chairman of the Media and Publicity Sub-Committee of the Presidential Inauguration Planning Committee and Minister of Culture and Tourism, Chief Edem Duke, stated this at a news conference in Abuja on Friday.
Activities for the inauguration began on Friday with a Jumaat prayer at the National Central Mosque, Abuja.
Duke said invitation cards had been sent to all the 54 countries in the Africa and other countries of the world.
He stated, “As we speak, the 54 countries of the continent of Africa have been invited. Very many of the heads of state will be coming. There has been a huge interest, especially from heads of countries in Europe to attend this inauguration.
“At the last count, I think we must have in excess of about 50 Heads of State and delegation expected at this inauguration.”
According to him, a high security strategy is being put in place for a hitch-free exercise.
Duke stated that all invitees for the various segments of the inauguration would be thoroughly screened to avoid what happened during the 50th independence anniversary of Nigeria in 2010, when there was a bomb blast near Eagle Square.
The minister said some roads in the Federal Capital Territory would be blocked on the inauguration day to ensure smooth movement to and from the Eagle Square, venue of the inauguration.
Duke said, “The security agencies are working in close concert to ensure that there is absolutely no threat to the security of this inauguration. Arrangements are being made to screen all the invitees long before they access the perimeters of the location.”
He also stated that television screens would be placed in strategic places in the Federal Capital Territory for uninvited people to watch the inauguration.
Patience Jonathan vows to support Aishat Buhari
First lady Patience Jonathan has vowed to give her support to the incoming First Lady, Aisha Buhari. Patience Jonathan made the promise at the inauguration of the Defence and Police Officers Wives Association Skills Acquisition Centre, in Abuja, today May 21st
Four priests battered as Enugu government battles Anglican Church
More than six persons, including four Anglican priests, were today allegedly beaten to stupor by some members of task-force working with the Enugu State Housing Corporation.
The victims were Reverends Collins Odoabuchi, Mbaka Peter, Eugene, and Maxwell Onyia.
Others members of the church affected were Ekpecha Okechukwu and Naomi Ibekwe.
I will be an example of peace after leaving office, Jonathan
Outgoing president Goodluck Jonathan today said after leaving office, he would be talking to faithful of all religions - Christians, Muslims and others - on the need for Nigerians to live in peace.PDP BoT to meet Monday for Anenih's replacement
The Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP) will meet on Monday to discuss the modalities for replacement of Chief
Tony Anenih who resigned as chairman of the board two days ago.
Thursday, 21 May 2015
Bamidele, A’Ibom rep announce defection to APC
Candidate of the Labour Party in the last governorship election in Ekiti State, Mr. Opeyemi Bamidele, today defected to the All Progressives Congress on the floor of the House of Representatives.
He wrote a formal letter to the House, which was read to members by the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, soon after the session started.
The outgoing Chairman, House Committee on Legislative Budget and Research, represents Ado Ekiti/Irepodun-Ifelodun Federal Constituency of Ekiti State.
He said he was joining the APC to contribute “more meaningfully” to the governance of the country.
Part of the letter reads, “I am writing to formally inform you and the entire House that I have formally decamped to the All Progressives Congress, APC, along with many of my constituents and supporters beyond the immediate constituency I represent in the parliament.
He wrote a formal letter to the House, which was read to members by the Speaker, Mr. Aminu Tambuwal, soon after the session started.
The outgoing Chairman, House Committee on Legislative Budget and Research, represents Ado Ekiti/Irepodun-Ifelodun Federal Constituency of Ekiti State.
He said he was joining the APC to contribute “more meaningfully” to the governance of the country.
Part of the letter reads, “I am writing to formally inform you and the entire House that I have formally decamped to the All Progressives Congress, APC, along with many of my constituents and supporters beyond the immediate constituency I represent in the parliament.
Jonathan mourns Robinson
He was 75.
Jonathan equally commiserated with all members of the creative and broadcast industry in Nigeria on the death of the popular actor.
Ogun teenager, minor arrested for kidnapping nine-month-old baby
A teenager, Rachael John, and a nine-year-old girl, Joy Atunramu, have been arrested by men of Ogun State Police Command for allegedly kidnapping their neighbour’s nine-month-old baby.
The suspects were arrested on Wednesday by detectives attached to Ilese Police Division, Ijebu Ode.
The baby was said to have been lured away from the mother’s shop at Old Toll gate area of the town by Atunramu, allegedly acting on the instruction of Rachael.
The suspects were arrested on Wednesday by detectives attached to Ilese Police Division, Ijebu Ode.
The baby was said to have been lured away from the mother’s shop at Old Toll gate area of the town by Atunramu, allegedly acting on the instruction of Rachael.
Over 2,000 Nigerians sign Petition asking Varsity to withdraw Okonji-Iweala’s Doctorate
As at press time on today, about 2,047 persons had signed a petition asking Yale University to withdraw the honorary doctorate degree awarded to Nigeria's Coordinating Minister of the Economy and Finance Minister, Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.
Okonjo-Iweala had been awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters on Monday, May 18, 2015 during Yale's Commencement ceremony in New Haven, Connecticut, alongside eight others.
The petition, which is being hosted on Change.org, the world's largest petition platform, was started by a Nigerian resident in the United States, one Sunday Iwalaiye.
Okonjo-Iweala had been awarded a Doctorate of Humane Letters on Monday, May 18, 2015 during Yale's Commencement ceremony in New Haven, Connecticut, alongside eight others.
The petition, which is being hosted on Change.org, the world's largest petition platform, was started by a Nigerian resident in the United States, one Sunday Iwalaiye.
Edwin Clark’s grandson dies in United States
Obaro Okorodudu, a grandson of the Ijaw Leader, Chief Edwin Clark, is dead.
27- year-old Okorodudu until his death was a final year medical student in the United States.
The deceased is the son of Chief Clark’s eldest daughter, Rebecca Okorodudu.
27- year-old Okorodudu until his death was a final year medical student in the United States.
The deceased is the son of Chief Clark’s eldest daughter, Rebecca Okorodudu.
Governor declares dusk to dawn curfew in Ekiti
Governor declares dusk-to-dawn curfew in Ekiti
Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Ado Ekiti to prevent the raging fight between transport workers and Hausa traders from spreading to other parts of the state.
The governor, while addressing the Hausa Community in the Atikankan area of Ado Ekiti, said the curfew, starting from 6pm and ending at 6am, would begin on Thursday, directing security agencies to arrest whoever failed to comply with the order.
The governor, who appealed to the Hausa community to be patient, promised that they would get justice.
He said, “You said you love me, this is the time you have to show this love. I want to plead with you to submit whatever lethal weapon you have in your possession to the police. And if you refuse to do this, whether you are Yoruba or Hausa, the police will arrest you.
“Nigeria belongs to all of us and for the sake of our country, I plead with you to allow peace to reign.”
The state Secretary of National Union of Road Transport Workers, Mr. Akinsola Osundiya, at a briefing with journalists in Ado Ekiti, distanced members of the union from the crisis.
“Our members do not load vehicles in that area, so we were not in anyway involved in the clash with the Hausa traders,” he said.
Governor of Ekiti State, Ayodele Fayose, has declared a dusk-to-dawn curfew in Ado Ekiti to prevent the raging fight between transport workers and Hausa traders from spreading to other parts of the state.
The governor, while addressing the Hausa Community in the Atikankan area of Ado Ekiti, said the curfew, starting from 6pm and ending at 6am, would begin on Thursday, directing security agencies to arrest whoever failed to comply with the order.
The governor, who appealed to the Hausa community to be patient, promised that they would get justice.
He said, “You said you love me, this is the time you have to show this love. I want to plead with you to submit whatever lethal weapon you have in your possession to the police. And if you refuse to do this, whether you are Yoruba or Hausa, the police will arrest you.
“Nigeria belongs to all of us and for the sake of our country, I plead with you to allow peace to reign.”
The state Secretary of National Union of Road Transport Workers, Mr. Akinsola Osundiya, at a briefing with journalists in Ado Ekiti, distanced members of the union from the crisis.
“Our members do not load vehicles in that area, so we were not in anyway involved in the clash with the Hausa traders,” he said.
Boko Haram survivors relocated
They said they were taken from a camp in the north-eastern
city of Yola and flown to an unknown destination.
Camp officials said there were suspicions some of the women
had been communicating with militants.
Nigeria's military, which has not yet commented, has put
increasing pressure on Boko Haram in recent months.
Backed by soldiers from Chad, Cameroon and Niger, the
Nigerian army has managed to liberate a number of towns from the militants
since they launched a military operation in February.
Wednesday, 20 May 2015
Traders, drivers clash in Ekiti
The crisis took place a day after the resumption of a new Commissioner of Police, Etop John James,in the state.
The violence later spread from Erekesan Market –Old Garage –Mugbagba axis to Atikankan area, a converging point for many Hausa traders in the state.
According to the state Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Alberto Adeyemi, four persons were wounded in the crisis and are currently receiving treatment at an undisclosed hospital.
Four colleges of education upgraded to varsities
The Federal Executive Council today approved the upgrade of four Federal Colleges of Education to universities.
This decision was taken during a meeting of the council, presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan.
Shekarau listed the affected colleges of education as Adeyemi College of Education, Ondo (now Adeyemi University of Education, Ondo); Federal College of Education, Zaria (now Federal University of Education, Zaria); Federal College of Education, Kano (now Federal University of Education, Kano); and Alvan Ikoku College of Education, Owerri (now Alvan Ikoku University of Education, Owerri).
President Jonathan's cousins abducted by gunmen in Bayelsa
Armed gunmen have again struck in the creek of Bayelsa State kidnapping two maternal cousins of President Goodluck Jonathan at Akipelai in Ogbia local government area of the state.The victims, both female, identified as Patience Egbeni aged 35 and Kate Eni, were reportedly seized Tuesday at gunpoint and whisked away from the sleepy riverine settlement, hometown of the president mother.
Barber arraigned for peeping at female neighbour in bathroom
A 36-year-old barber, Azeez Adewale, was on Wednesday arraigned before an Oshodi Magistrates court sitting in Lagos for allegedly peeping at his female neighbour while she was having her bath.
Adewale, who resides at No. 23, Arowojobe Street, Lagos is standing trial for breach of peace and assault.
The prosecutor, Cpl Kehinde Olatunde, while testifying in court said, Adewale committed the offences on May 17 at his residence, adding that he was caught peeping at his neighbour, one Miss Victoria Emmanuel, while taking her bath in the bathroom.
Adewale, who resides at No. 23, Arowojobe Street, Lagos is standing trial for breach of peace and assault.
The prosecutor, Cpl Kehinde Olatunde, while testifying in court said, Adewale committed the offences on May 17 at his residence, adding that he was caught peeping at his neighbour, one Miss Victoria Emmanuel, while taking her bath in the bathroom.
Jonathan approves 2015 budget
President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the 4.5 trillion naira ($22.6 billion) budget for 2015, which was passed by parliament in late April, the president's spokesman said on Wednesday.
The budget is 3.2 percent smaller than last year's as Africa's biggest oil producer is facing a cash crunch following the halving of global crude prices in the past year.
It was passed later than usual in part due to the presidential election on March 28.
"I can confirm to you that Mr. President had signed the 2015 budget into law some days back without the usual fanfare," spokesman Reuben Abati said.
The budget is 3.2 percent smaller than last year's as Africa's biggest oil producer is facing a cash crunch following the halving of global crude prices in the past year.
It was passed later than usual in part due to the presidential election on March 28.
"I can confirm to you that Mr. President had signed the 2015 budget into law some days back without the usual fanfare," spokesman Reuben Abati said.
Boko Haram activities may increase child marriages - activists
They said parents who had once seen boarding schools as a safe place for their daughters were now fearful of sending them away. Many local schools have also closed down because of the insurgency by the Islamist militants.
Transfer police officers, Falana tells IGP
In his letter dated May 19, 2015, and addressed to Arase, Falana commended the IGP for dispatching crack team to the state in response to the call for intervention by the state governor, Mr. Ayo Fayose.
Falana, however, said the current atmosphere of impunity in the state was aiding the rampant cases of kidnap in the state.
Boko Haram may be holding girls in underground bunkers - gov Shettima
"We are suspecting that Chibok girls are living with the insurgents inside bunkers, I think the military must carry out their operations [beneath] the earth's surface," Shettima said during a lecture in Abuja on Tuesday, the daily Nigeria’s Leadership reported. The governor believes that militants have dug a system of tunnels which gives them an opportunity to move from house to house.
Power generation has dropped to 2000mw, says Ministry of Power
Igali, who made the disclosure at a NAPTIN programme for training on meter installation and maintenance to trainees under NAPSAS in Abuja, said that a lot of the problems the nation was facing with regard to electricity was as a result of pipeline vandalism.
PDP set to sanction Fani-Kayode
Abductors of Sri Lankan Expatriate give family chilling phone call
A Sri Lankan national was abducted during a brazen kidnapping operation at the boundary of Ondo and Kogi States. The man, identified by Sri Lankan embassy staff as Mr. Karuna Ratna, worked for an Italian-owned construction company and has lived in Nigeria for more than 10 years.
SaharaReporters correspondent gathered that Mr. Ratna was on his way to a "construction deal" at the Kogi and Ondo boundary when he was abducted.
Sunday, 17 May 2015
BANKS: No longer job seekers’ dream
Not too long ago, clinching a bank job was big deal in Nigeria. It was like a key to success or literally speaking, an escape route from poverty. And the joy of such lucky person or persons knew no bounds. Naturally, bankers were therefore respected in the society. They were happy doing their jobs, in anticipation of their sumptuous monthly salaries, up-front payment, 13th month salaries, profit-sharing and other bonuses and goodies.
Children across board also dreamt of becoming bankers, and the mere thought of it got them studying assiduously for the right grades.
Friday, 8 May 2015
PHOTO: One killed, nurse abducted in Ekiti state
A theater nurse identified as Mrs Margaret Aladenika who
works at the Federal Teaching Hospital in Ido/Osi LGA of Ekiti state was
kidnapped by some hoodlums while she was driving with her husband along the
Ido-Ipere road on Sunday May 3rd.
According to The Nation, the Chief Medical Doctor of the hospital
where she works, Dr. Majekodunmi Ayodele, at a press conference in the hospital
premises today May 7th, said no word has been heard from her abductors.
We edited Fayose’s ‘death’ advert on Buhari – The Sun
On January 19, Nigerians woke up to a shocking newspaper
advert. Splashed across the front pages of two national dailies, The Sun and
The Punch, were texts and images suggesting that Muhammadu Buhari, then
presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress will die in office if
elected president.
Although Mr. Buhari,
72, went ahead to win the election, the advert, sponsored by Ayo Fayose, the
controversial governor of Ekiti State, is widely regarded as one of the lowest
moments in the run-up to the recently concluded general election.
Hate speeches and
campaigns were a major feature of the 2015 election, but the morbid advert
sparked outrage across Nigeria with many individuals and groups condemning the
governor’s action.
Even the Peoples’ Democratic Party, PDP, Presidential
Campaign Organisation distanced itself from the governor stating that the
advert did not represent the campaign or Mr. Jonathan’s position.
On Thursday, Adamu Mu’azu, PDP’s National Chairman,
attributed the party’s dismal performance at the polls partly to the hate
campaigns by its members.
Eight-year-old smuggled to Spain in suitcase – police
Police found an eight-year-old Ivorian boy hidden in a
suitcase that was smuggled across the border into Spanish territory in North
Africa, an official said on Friday.
A picture provided by Spanish Guardia Civil, on May 8, 2015,
shows x-ray of image showing an 8-yr-old sub-Saharan boy hidden in a bag.
A 19-year-old woman took the case through a pedestrian
crossing from Morocco into the small Spanish-governed territory of Ceuta on
Thursday, a spokesman for the Civil Guard police force said.
“When they put the suitcase through the scanner, the
operator noticed something strange, which seemed to be a person inside the
case,” he told AFP.
“When it was opened they found a minor, in a terrible
state.”
I joined cult to feel big, have sense of belonging- arrested policeman's son
Son of a police officer, Sunday Omosuyi who was arrested
alongside one Qudus Mustapha, a painter, by the Lagos State Police Command over
their alleged involvement in cult activities and the killing of one Taiye
Iyanda has said he became a cultist because he wanted to feel big and have a
sense of belonging.
Omosuyi, a member of the Oodua People’s Congress, OPC, was
said to be the son of a police officer attached to A police division in the
Ajegunle area of the State.
It was gathered that Iyanda was clubbed to death over an
alleged money squabble between the Eiye cult group and OPC members.
Policemen arrested over killing of businessmen at illegal checkpoint
The deceased was said to have been crushed during the
illegal stop and search exercise conducted by the officers.
Gunman injures 12 in Yobe school
A gunman opened fire today outside a school in Potiskum, seriously wounding 12 students in an area
repeatedly targeted by Boko Haram, a police officer and witnesses said.
“We have evacuated 12 people with serious gunshot wounds to
hospital from the scene of the shooting attack,” said the officer, who
requested anonymity.
Multiple students at the College of Administrative and
Business Studies in Potiskum, Yobe state, said the attacker with explosives
strapped to his body blew himself up when he ran out of ammunition, but the
blast caused no other casualties.
Following a wave of attacks in the city, including on
schools and colleges, students at CABS must pass through security screening
before entering the campus.
Dubai banks begin closure of accounts of Nigerian politicians
The UAE Central bank this week enacted a new policy
prohibiting Nigerians who do not work in their country from operating accounts
in any of their local or foreign banks. They say this is to prevent money
laundering by Nigerian politicians which they claim has become rampant.
Now, they have reportedly closed accounts of all Nigerians
not working in the UAE and issued them cheques equivalent to the amount they
have in their accounts. All account holders reportedly have 5-working days to
cash their money.
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