Female Footballers and their Coaches recognized

Female Footballers and their Coaches recognized by Peps-Pean Productions

Pepsie Adiukwu, CEO of Peps-Pean Productions and a leading figure within female football in Nigeria has confirmed that she has arranged a female football match on Sunday 6th April 2014 to honour female footballers and their coaches.

Sunday 6th April is the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace.

Launched by the UN at the initiative of the International Olympic Committee, the first ever ‘International Day of Sport for Development and Peace’ will take place on Sunday 6th April 2014.

The event represents a unique opportunity to mobilize, join forces, encourage and bring to light projects for peace and development through sport.

Peps-Pean Productions is joining this major celebration of sport for peace by organizing a football match onSunday 6th April 2014 at the National Stadium Surulere practice pitch.

The goal of this event is to celebrate sport as a tool for development and peace and encourage members of the public to raise awareness and rally support for initiatives in their local communities. 

Joël Bouzou, President and Founder of Peace and Sport stressed the importance of the event: “By establishing 6 April as the International Day of Sport for Development and Peace, the UN and IOC are paying tribute to the unique role of sport in our society and honouring its constructive and positive values,” he said.

Director of FCT Water Board Redeployed

Director of FCT Water Board Redeployed

The Hon. Minister of FCT, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, CON, has approved the redeployment of the Acting Director of FCT Water Board, Engr. Jiniya B. Anto.  He was relieved of his position over incompetence, insubordination and a vote of no confidence passed on him by members of the Governing Board of the FCT Water Board led by their Chairman, Alhaji Alhassan Gwagwa.

The Board members accused the Acting Director of “failure to seek and refusal to seek and provide vital and necessary information to enable the Board perform the statutory functions it was appointed for”. They also accused him of “disobliging attitude, disdain and disregard for Board members, their decisions, requests and directives”.

Following his redeployment, the Deputy Director, Quality Control of the FCT Water Board, Mr. Michael O. Adebayo has been directed to oversee the affairs of the Agency on acting capacity pending the appointment of a substantive Director. The Hon. Minister has also directed that an interview should be conducted as soon as possible for qualified senior officers for the appointment of a new Director.

TROOPS CLEAR 3 BENUE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS OF ARMED GANGS

TROOPS CLEAR 3 BENUE LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREAS OF ARMED GANGS, RECOVERED ARMS

Formation commanders of the Nigerian Army have moved to the various states in their area of responsibility to conduct the operations aimed at addressing deteriorating security situation in parts of the North Central.  Troops deployed in Benue state have already cleared camps of all armed gangs in three Local Governments of the State.  Normalcy have been restored in Guma, Gwer West and Agatu Local Government Areas.  Some arrests and recoveries have been made in the process.

Tagged ‘Operation Restore Peace’, the mission has also resulted in the destruction of militant camps, arrests as well as recovery of arms in Shendam area of Plateau State.  2 AK 47 rifles were recovered after an encounter with troops of Special Task Force and the armed gangs in their enclaves in Shimanker in Plateau State.   In Kaduna State, militants camps in Ladduga near Kachia were destroyed while arms were equally recovered in Maigungume Hills in Niger State.

General Officers Commanding (GOCs) are directly supervising these operations in their Area of Responsibility in Benue, Plateau, Nasarawa, Kaduna and Niger States as troops comb forests in the mission to apprehend members of armed gangs and destroy their enclaves.

ECOWAS ANTI-MALARIA MEETING ENDS

CALL FOR MASSIVE SENSITIZATION, MOBILIZATION BEHIND ECOWAS MALARIA ELIMINATION CAMPAIGN

The first in a series of region-wide national sensitization meetings preparatory to the application of biolarvicides under the ECOWAS Malaria Elimination Campaign has ended in Abidjan, Cote d'Ivoire with a number of recommendations including the call for the organization of national conferences to harmonize and deepen public knowledge before the commencement of the application.

The meeting which was attended by ECOWAS and Member States' officials, financial, health and environment experts, armed forces of Member States, parliamentarians, religious and community leaders, as well as development partners among other stakeholders, also called for a roadmap for the mobilization of national armed forces and the establishment of a network of regional parliamentarians behind the campaign.

In their six-point resolution, the participants also recommended effective sensitization campaign for attitudinal change and the collaboration of religious and traditional leaders, the media and the private sector in support of the anti-malaria campaign.

MILITARY RETIREES SUPPORT ANTI- TERRORISM FIGHT

MILITARY RETIREES  SUPPORT ANTI- TERRORISM FIGHT  

Retired military officers of the Nigerian Armed Forces have offered to lend their support to the fight against terrorism and other similar threats to national security. This was conveyed by a delegation of retired senior military officers led by Air Commodore Michael Ekwere (Rtd) during a courtesy visit to the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh in his office.

The retired officers used the opportunity to congratulate the CDS on his appointment and subsequent elevation to the rank of a 4 Star General in the Nigerian Armed Forces and also gave a pat on the back to the security forces for the successes recorded in the fight against terror.

Air Commodore Ekwere emphasised that Nigeria had a rich repository of human resources waiting to be tapped.  He likened his group to PAE America, a private outfit of mostly retired military personnel who are appointed to head logistics and administration departments while the military was allowed to concentrate on its core functions of fire and manoeuvre.

OMALE’S GROWING FIXATION WITH ODUAH by Yakubu Dati

OMALE’S GROWING FIXATION WITH ODUAH

Yakubu Dati

There is a sense in which people like Capt Dan Omale, a self-appointed gadfly of Nigerian Aviation do not give up, even when it is apparent they are on a wrong trajectory. Sadly, if only Omale had applied such doggedness to his business, he would have been more successful.

Omale recently wrote a barrage of wild and unfounded allegations against the leadership of the Ministry of Aviation and in particular, the ex-minister, Princess Stella Oduah. In it, Omale, an unlicensed charter aircraft operator insinuated that the latter was still ‘manipulating’ things,even after her exit. I took the trouble to write a reaction which debunked all his wild allegations in that article published in Leadership Newspaper titled ’Oduah’s Invisible Hands Still at Work in Aviation ?’.

But rather than accept the glaring facts and reality canvassed in my rejoinder, Omale has written a rejoinder to my rejoinder, in which he simply resorted to attacking my person, instead of tackling my points.

For someone who claims to be passionate about aviation, Omale spent the first three paragraphs of his so-called rejoinder attacking my person, rather than address the issues at stake, which I raised in my earlier response. He wrote:

“After his failure to pursue a meaningful political career in his home state of Plateau, he gained respite with a job in FAAN.”

This is very interesting. I am not the issue here. But suffice it to say that, by the grace of God, between 1999 and  2007, I served as elected Local Government Chairman,  Special Assistant to the Governor, Commissioner for Youths and Sports, Commissioner for Information all of Plateau State. I was also Special Adviser to the Hon Minister of State for Commerce and Industry... I can go on and on. So, the failure here is only in the befuddled mind of Omale.

Another allegation which shows the confused mind of Omale is his claim that” In just three years as the Minister of Aviation, Oduah, in search of a puppet, changed three different director-generals of the agency — unprecedented anywhere else in the world. With such a high turnover of the heads of the NCAA, instabi.

Yakubu Dati, Coordinating spokesperson, aviation parastatals writes from Lagos.