Nigeria News
Cadets Sleep Under Trees, Hostels Get Facelift
It is obvious that Nigeria Police College, Ikeja, Lagos is currently wearing a new look as a result of its renovation which was at the directive of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Unfortunately, some police cadets are still facing hard times despite the fact that the dilapidated buildings and infrastructures are almost completed at the college.
On 13 January, 2013, Jonathan paid an unscheduled visit to the college to ascertain the level of the unspeakable rot in the college as reported by Channels Television and he quickly issued a four-month ultimatum to the Nigerian Army Corps Engineers to carry out total renovation of the dilapidated buildings and infrastructures in the college.
When P.MNEWS visited the college recently, many of the hostel blocks were being renovated. The old roofs, windows and doors of all the buildings have been dismantled and were being replaced with aluminum roofing sheets and sliding windows.
The old police college structure
A cadet, who pleaded anonymity, told P.M.NEWS Metro that since the renovation works began in the college, life has become difficult for him and his colleagues as many of them have been rendered homeless and are squatting with friends or sleeping under trees.
“I want to tell you that some of us are still sleeping under trees. None of us is staying in the renovated building for now because the engineers who are working on the building are yet to complete the work. We heard that the engineers will hand over the renovated building to the Nigeria Police very soon before it can be used,” he said.
Another cadet, who spoke to our reporters, said that life is still unbearable for some cadets at the college. He disclosed that despite the visit of President Goodluck in January to the college, their condition of living has not really changed for good.
“I am one of the cadet officers who came to Lagos for recruitment but unfortunately we were not allowed to stay in the hostel because of the renovations. It is sad that some of us are still squatting with friends while some of us who don’t have family in Lagos sleep under trees, ‘he said.
Some of the officers who spoke to our reporters said they want the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar, to urge the engineers to finish the work on time so that the cadets can return to the hostel as soon as possible.
“I think they are almost through with this project and we are expecting the day the hostel will be opened for use. We are happy that government came to renovate the buildings for us but we want to return to our base so that life will be better for us,” said one of the junior officers.
It is not only the cadet officers that are facing difficult time at the college, some market women also complained about poor patronage of customers since the renovation of the college.
A wife of a police officer, who refused to mention her name, told P.M.NEWS Metro there is slight drop in sales in the area since the renovation began.
She said there is poor patronage because many of their customers are cadets, who have not returned to their hostel because of the ongoing renovation in the college.
She added that what contributed to the poor sales is the directive given by the wife of Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mrs Umar Manko that the market should close as early as 7pm instead of 10pm that it used to close. This, she said, has adverse effect on their sales.
“Of course we are not selling the way we used to sell before. We normally closed around 10 pm in the past but now things have changed and it really had adverse effect on sales. We are using this opportunity to appeal to Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar and Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Umar Manko, to look into our plight,” said one of the officers’ wives.
The newly renovated hostel inside the Police College which was commissioned by Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Dairu Abubakar. Photo: Ayodeji Dedeigbo
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Professor Sylvester Monye, the Inspector-General of Police, Abubakar and the Commander, Army Corps Of Engineer, Major General Funso Owonibi, disclosed that the renovation work was 95% completed, revealing that work would be completed and handed over to the police very soon.
Owonibi clarified that only one building was pulled down while renovation work was carried out on others.
Areas renovated, according to him, included the toilets, bathrooms, residential units, cafeteria, and dormitories among others. The hostels, according to him, were fitted with fans, louvers were changed to slide windows and roofs replaced.
“There was a building that has structural defect and a new one was built. Furniture items like beds and wardrobes were built for trainees. We fixed 2000 beds. But we exceeded the initial specification where we felt it was appropriate. We sank five boreholes and rehabilitated three,” Owonibi said.
In his own comment, Prof. Monye explained that the purpose of his visit was to inspect the level of work done so far.
“The president visited here on 13 January, when it was in a terrible state and he committed to fixing it. What is interesting is not just that he has fixed it but with the speed with which he has fixed it. What we have done is to explore our internal resources using the expertise of the Nigerian Army Corps Of Engineers and they have demonstrated their capacity without any doubt. So, we are very excited about that.
“I feel good because if you go right inside the hall, you will see the pictures before and the pictures after. And if you are a Nigerian, you can’t but feel good. Something very fundamental has happened, as this is the first time in over 30years that this place is getting a face lift. This shows that the president’s transformation agenda is working,” Prof Monye stated.
Lamenting the poor maintenance culture of Nigerians, he however assured that funds would be made available annually for the maintenance of the college, with a view to preventing it from returning to its former state.
Although he admitted that the college might not be like those in the western world, he expressed optimism that with the current measure taken by the president, it would reach the standard.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: PM News
DisNaija.Com publishes regular posts on Nigeria News, Nigerian Newspapers, Online Nigeria Gist.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Nigeria News
Follow @Dis_Naija
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Please Like, Share or Tweet. Your Support Is Appreciated.
The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
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Nigeria News
Cadets Sleep Under Trees, Hostels Get Facelift
It is obvious that Nigeria Police College, Ikeja, Lagos is currently wearing a new look as a result of its renovation which was at the directive of President Goodluck Jonathan.
Unfortunately, some police cadets are still facing hard times despite the fact that the dilapidated buildings and infrastructures are almost completed at the college.
On 13 January, 2013, Jonathan paid an unscheduled visit to the college to ascertain the level of the unspeakable rot in the college as reported by Channels Television and he quickly issued a four-month ultimatum to the Nigerian Army Corps Engineers to carry out total renovation of the dilapidated buildings and infrastructures in the college.
When P.MNEWS visited the college recently, many of the hostel blocks were being renovated. The old roofs, windows and doors of all the buildings have been dismantled and were being replaced with aluminum roofing sheets and sliding windows.
The old police college structure
A cadet, who pleaded anonymity, told P.M.NEWS Metro that since the renovation works began in the college, life has become difficult for him and his colleagues as many of them have been rendered homeless and are squatting with friends or sleeping under trees.
“I want to tell you that some of us are still sleeping under trees. None of us is staying in the renovated building for now because the engineers who are working on the building are yet to complete the work. We heard that the engineers will hand over the renovated building to the Nigeria Police very soon before it can be used,” he said.
Another cadet, who spoke to our reporters, said that life is still unbearable for some cadets at the college. He disclosed that despite the visit of President Goodluck in January to the college, their condition of living has not really changed for good.
“I am one of the cadet officers who came to Lagos for recruitment but unfortunately we were not allowed to stay in the hostel because of the renovations. It is sad that some of us are still squatting with friends while some of us who don’t have family in Lagos sleep under trees, ‘he said.
Some of the officers who spoke to our reporters said they want the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar, to urge the engineers to finish the work on time so that the cadets can return to the hostel as soon as possible.
“I think they are almost through with this project and we are expecting the day the hostel will be opened for use. We are happy that government came to renovate the buildings for us but we want to return to our base so that life will be better for us,” said one of the junior officers.
It is not only the cadet officers that are facing difficult time at the college, some market women also complained about poor patronage of customers since the renovation of the college.
A wife of a police officer, who refused to mention her name, told P.M.NEWS Metro there is slight drop in sales in the area since the renovation began.
She said there is poor patronage because many of their customers are cadets, who have not returned to their hostel because of the ongoing renovation in the college.
She added that what contributed to the poor sales is the directive given by the wife of Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mrs Umar Manko that the market should close as early as 7pm instead of 10pm that it used to close. This, she said, has adverse effect on their sales.
“Of course we are not selling the way we used to sell before. We normally closed around 10 pm in the past but now things have changed and it really had adverse effect on sales. We are using this opportunity to appeal to Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Abubakar and Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Mr Umar Manko, to look into our plight,” said one of the officers’ wives.
The newly renovated hostel inside the Police College which was commissioned by Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mohammed Dairu Abubakar. Photo: Ayodeji Dedeigbo
Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the President on Performance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Professor Sylvester Monye, the Inspector-General of Police, Abubakar and the Commander, Army Corps Of Engineer, Major General Funso Owonibi, disclosed that the renovation work was 95% completed, revealing that work would be completed and handed over to the police very soon.
Owonibi clarified that only one building was pulled down while renovation work was carried out on others.
Areas renovated, according to him, included the toilets, bathrooms, residential units, cafeteria, and dormitories among others. The hostels, according to him, were fitted with fans, louvers were changed to slide windows and roofs replaced.
“There was a building that has structural defect and a new one was built. Furniture items like beds and wardrobes were built for trainees. We fixed 2000 beds. But we exceeded the initial specification where we felt it was appropriate. We sank five boreholes and rehabilitated three,” Owonibi said.
In his own comment, Prof. Monye explained that the purpose of his visit was to inspect the level of work done so far.
“The president visited here on 13 January, when it was in a terrible state and he committed to fixing it. What is interesting is not just that he has fixed it but with the speed with which he has fixed it. What we have done is to explore our internal resources using the expertise of the Nigerian Army Corps Of Engineers and they have demonstrated their capacity without any doubt. So, we are very excited about that.
“I feel good because if you go right inside the hall, you will see the pictures before and the pictures after. And if you are a Nigerian, you can’t but feel good. Something very fundamental has happened, as this is the first time in over 30years that this place is getting a face lift. This shows that the president’s transformation agenda is working,” Prof Monye stated.
Lamenting the poor maintenance culture of Nigerians, he however assured that funds would be made available annually for the maintenance of the college, with a view to preventing it from returning to its former state.
Although he admitted that the college might not be like those in the western world, he expressed optimism that with the current measure taken by the president, it would reach the standard.
——————————————————————————————————————————————-
Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.
Source: PM News
DisNaija.Com publishes regular posts on Nigeria News, Nigerian Newspapers, Online Nigeria Gist.
Follow us on Twitter and Facebook.
Nigeria News
Follow @Dis_Naija
Your Opinion Counts. Be sure To Leave A Comment, If You Have Any.
Please Like, Share or Tweet. Your Support Is Appreciated.
The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
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