Headlines News Today Sunday 21st Of June 2020

News: 661 New COVID-19 Cases Reported As Nigeria’s Total Nears 20,000






Nigeria’s COVD-19 cases continued its rise as new updates show 661 new cases that have pushed the country’s total closer to 20,000 mark (19,808 to be exact), according to Saturday night’s update from the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC).

The NCDC, providing the latest update from across the country via its Twitter handle, gave the breakdown as follows: Lagos-230, Rivers-127, Delta-83, FCT-60, Oyo-51, Edo-31 and Bayelsa-27.

News: Yadudu’s reforms in FAAN






The reckless onslaught of COVID-19 in our land and its cataclysmic impact on virtually everything almost made us forget many other great blessings that have accrued over time. One of such earth-shaking impact is the reform in the Aviation Sector of the economy, a highly sensitive and dynamic segment of our polity.

As stakeholders and public affairs commentators, it would be a disservice to keep quiet on the development going on in the sector in recent times, since head or tail, we are all involved.

Jigawa State has opened its borders with other states.


According to report this morning, Jigawa State Governor, Mohammed Badaru Abubakar, has announced the open of the state and other states, which have been closed since March 24 due to covid19 outbreaks, according to the NAN report.




The governor, who spoke at a press conference in Dutse on Saturday, said that traffic between the state and the rest of the state would be opened in strict measures to prevent the disease.




The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the reopening comes a week after the weekly open market in the state.




Already 307 out of 317 infected people have been discharged after being cured, while nine have died. "We are praying not to go back to such an uncertain time," the governor said.




"Currently only one person is being treated [with the virus], while the others at the condominium center have recovered and been discharged. "We are also thankful to God, that in the last four days no one has been infected.




With the prayers and help of the Jigawa people, we will end it," Badaru said. NAN said the governor said the federal government has given the state a billion naira subsidy, plus 150 trucks full of grain to distribute to the poor. But the governor said the schools would remain closed until issues finally hit the ground.

. Nigeria intercepts 2 Indians for illegal entry during Covid-19 pandemic.

It was reported that, Two Indian nationals have been intercepted by the Lagos Airport Command of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS), for illegally entering into Nigeria without proper documentation.

Lagos Airport NIS Comptroller, Abdullahi Usman who confirmed this, stated that the 2 Indians were intercepted during the screening of Indian nationals that were been evacuated from Nigeria, through the Murtala Mohammed International Airport Lagos.

Usman explained that while profiling the men, it was discovered that they entered Nigeria through the land borders and had visa on arrival application approval which they failed to present to Immigration at the Seme border.




Usman further disclosed that the men had been In Cotonou, Benin Republic for a month as they had the stamp of that country dated 9th March 2020, when they left and entered Nigeria illegally as they did not present themselves for Immigration checks at the border.



. The Nigerian Embassy staff quarters in Ghana has been demolished.




According to reports, Some portion of the staff quarters of the Nigerian Embassy in Ghana has been demolished.




The demolition exercise was said to have been carried out late Friday, although the Nigerian government has yet to react to the incident.




A source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, revealed that a businessman had claimed that the Nigerian High Commission’s staff quarters was being built on his land.




The man reportedly showed up last week with some pieces of evidence, to support his claim and began to knock down the fence surrounding the building.




According to the source, the action of the man was not opposed while the Nigerian High Commission petitioned the Ghanaian Government about it, but there was no response.




After some days later, the man was said to have returned to the premises of the staff quarters and this time, with a bulldozer and began to pull down the building.




In a bid to stop the demolition, officials contacted the police who reportedly showed up at the site when the building was almost pulled down.




It is reported that while the police allegedly allowed the man to leave the scene without reprimand or questioning, the Ghanaian authorities have yet to respond to the Nigerian High Commission about what happened.



. ROAD FAILURE: Stereotypical design to blame — Onuesoke.




Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain in Delta State and former governorship candidate, Chief Sunny Onuesoke, has traced the causes of Nigerian road failure to stereotypical engineering design.




Onuesoke, who made the statement when Officials of Project Implementation and Evaluation, Project Monitoring, Governor’s Office, headed by Hon Raymond Edijana visited Sector A of Ughelli-Asaba Road Dualisation Project recently, said not until Nigeria engineers deviate from using one particular designs in the construction of roads in different parts of Nigeria, the country will continue to experience the problem of road failure.




He explained that the construction of a road starts from conception, planning, and design, stressing that without a good design of the road the functionality of the road may not be achieved.




Onuesoke argued that even when the construction and supervision is adequate without the design process well done, the end product in the form of a road project will not be functional.




The PDP chieftain, who is the Special Project Director of Sector A of Ughelli-Asaba Road Project observed that most of the roads in the country are designed by consultants, some of who are not within the environment of the road work, adding that this has led to a situation where preliminary studies of the environment that will help the design and construction decisions are not done.




“Consequently, they constrain their design to a particular style, which leads to poor understanding of the road environment and which subsequently leads to poor road design and construction.




“Designs that are meant for dry land areas like in the Northern part of the country for instance are equally applied to riverine areas of the Niger Delta region. Thus, if such design lasts ten years in the North, it will not last up to five years in the Nigeria Delta region because of the different environmental terrain,” Onuesoke explained.




He disclosed that for the road network to last longer and save it from early collapse, it requires good and efficient pragmatic engineering design frameworks that takes the different environmental terrain in the country into consideration.




Onuesoke advised that foreign road construction expatriates should be made to work side by side with local professional bodies that have more knowledge of the local environment, stressing that the professional bodies can even act as checks and monitors to the construction firm on road work in the country.


Stakeholders Seek Demand- Driven Agriculture To Develop Sector




A call has gone to the federal government, and the Federal Ministry of Agriculture to promote demand- driven agriculture in order to develop the sector rather than the supply-driv­en, which is prevalent now.




Kaduna concerned group protests against security, economic hardship in Kaduna state








Again, several aggrieved youths, yesterday, embarked on a protest in Kaduna, as they decried the insecurity, economic hardship and poor handling of the country’s woes by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.


It would be recalled that some groups, under the Northern Coalition Group (CNG), carried out similar protest in Katsina State against security challenges in the country.

The protesters, under the auspices of Kaduna Concerned Group (KCG), stormed the State Secretariat of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), along Muhammadu Buhari Way with placards, chanting anti-government songs.

It took the deployment of armed policemen, led by the Commissioner of Police and the intervention of the Commissioner of Internal Security and Home Affairs, Samuel Aruwan, to de-escalate the protest.

In a protest letter addressed to the State Governor, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai and made available to journalists, KCG members said: “The coalition is compelled by events of the past few months to take the bold and necessary step of leading this delegation of civil society and other umbrella of northern organisations to register solidarity with Kaduna people, especially the estranged communities, over the current desperate security situation and hardships that have been building up since the resurgence of violent criminal banditry and kidnapping in the state.”

In the letter, KCG Chairman, Yusuf Amoke and four other leaders, said “the general and pervasive insecurity that is being witnessed, with the continuous bandit attacks, rampaging insurgency, kidnapping and communal clashes that have left untold numbers of dead and displaced persons are symptoms of the disquiet in the whole of the north, which has been exacerbated by political opportunism and bankruptcy.”

They condemned government over the handling of current insecurity across the country, saying “the administration’s various attempts to reassert public confidence with repeated rhetoric of being on top of the situation, seems increasingly discordant, as the violent attacks, killings and kidnaps become more regular and calls for protests becoming overwhelmingly loud and widespread.”

Amoke said failures of Buhari’s government to address fundamental problem of national security and economic hardship facing Nigerians has made the Coalition “to pass a vote of no confidence on the current leadership in terms of any capacity to generate confidence in achieving credible national goals.”

. Coronavirus: UNTH introduces telemedicine response services






To address health needs of its patients and the general public while combating other challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic, the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku-Ozalla has partnered the Health –in-a-box initiative of the Federal Ministry of Health to introduce Telemedicine hospital response services.

Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Dr. Obinna Onudugo, told reporters yesterday, that the technology-driven support system enables regular patients to dial-in to access critical health information and consultations with medical practitioners.

“This architecture and service allows medical doctors to be available for remote service to patients, with the provision of hospital services spanning from consultation, drug prescription, laboratory, radiology, appointment scheduling; the teleconsultation is provided to the patients at no cost in the course of the pandemic.

“This will be managed and administered by qualified healthcare practitioners across various medical fields to provide online real-time responses to medical issues from a service desk located at the hospital,” he said.

Explaining that the support system would directly address some medical challenges, he said it would ensure that patients receive adequate medical attention while still observing social distancing practices against the spread of Covid-19.

“It is also important to note that this technology-driven approach is one of the most adopted public health management strategies around the world today in response to the COVID-19 pandemic; thereby members of the public, regardless of their locations within Nigeria are advised to maximize the use of this service by dialing 018885014 from their phone to access professional health information on the management of symptoms, interpretation of clinical results, guide on drug usage and prescriptions, maternity care, routine health checks amongst others,” he noted.

 Coronavirus: Cross River deceased lawmaker tested negative






The people of Cross River State have once again heaved a sigh of relief, as the test result of the late former member of the State House of Assembly, Mr Godwin Akwaji came out negative.

The lawmaker, representing Obudu State Constituency, in the Cross River State House of Assembly, was suspected to have died of COVID-19 at the University of Calabar Teaching Hospital (UCTH) on Thursday afternoon.

But the Commissioner for Health and Chairman of the State COVID-19 Response Team, Dr. Betta Edu, in a phone chat Friday night, said Akwaji’s result was negative.This confirmation by the state government has further calmed rising anxiety over the state’s Coronavirus status, which remains the only state in Nigeria free of COVID-19.

Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN) suspends Adamawa Secretary over alleged mismanagement of N1.350m






The Adamawa Secretary of Christians Association of Nigeria (CAN), Mr Anthony Elishama, has been suspended for three months over alleged mismanagement of N1.350 million.

The association also directed the suspended scribe to refund the amount within the period of his suspension.

Elishama was further asked to return all official properties, including vehicle and documents, to the secretatiat.

This is contained in a statement issued by Bishop Stephen Dami Mamza, the state Chairman of the association, a copy of which was made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Yola.

Mamza said that Elishama’s suspension followed the unanimous decision adopted during the state executive meeting of the association held on Thursday.

“Mr Anthony Elishama suspension is as a result of mismanaging of funds belonging to the Nigerian Inter-Religious Council (NIREC) to the tune of N1.350 million (one million three hundred and fifty thousand naira).

“The state executive of Christians Association of Nigeria expressed disappointment by the secretary’s action,” Mamza explained.

The Bishop noted that the present leadership of CAN in the state had zero tolerance to any type of financial indiscipline.

He said that the secretary’s suspension would take effect from June 20, 2020, pending the state executive committee final decision on the issue.

“The suspended Secretary must refund the money to CAN within the period of his suspension.

“He should also immediately summit all the Association’s documents and properties, including the official car at his possession, to CAN Secretariat administration,” the statement read in part