Warren Buffett, probably the world’s most successful investor, has said that anything good that happened to him could be traced back to the fact that he was born in the right country, the United States, at the right time (1930). A quarter of a century ago, when The World in 1988 light-heartedly ranked 50 countries according to where would be the best place to be born in 1988, America indeed came top. But which country will be the best for a baby born in 2013?
To answer this, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), a sister company of The Economist, has this time turned deadly serious. It earnestly attempts to measure which country will provide the best opportunities for a healthy, safe and prosperous life in the years ahead.
Its quality-of-life index links the results of subjective life-satisfaction surveysâ€â€how happy people say they areâ€â€to objective determinants of the quality of life across countries. Being rich helps more than anything else, but it is not all that counts; things like crime, trust in public institutions and the health of family life matter too. In all, the index takes 11 statistically significant indicators into account. They are a mixed bunch: some are fixed factors, such as geography; others change only very slowly over time (demography, many social and cultural characteristics); and some factors depend on policies and the state of the world economy.
A forward-looking element comes into play, too. Although many of the drivers of the quality of life are slow-changing, for this ranking some variables, such as income per head, need to be forecast. We use the EIU’s economic forecasts to 2030, which is roughly when children born in 2013 will reach adulthood.
Despite the global economic crisis, times have in certain respects never been so good. Output growth rates have been declining across the world, but income levels are at or near historic highs. Life expectancy continues to increase steadily and political freedoms have spread across the globe, most recently in north Africa and the Middle East. In other ways, however, the crisis has left a deep imprintâ€â€in the euro zone, but also elsewhereâ€â€particularly on unemployment and personal security. In doing so, it has eroded both family and community life.
What does all this, and likely developments in the years to come, mean for where a baby might be luckiest to be born in 2013? After crunching its numbers, the EIU has Switzerland comfortably in the top spot, with Australia second.
Small economies dominate the top ten. Half of these are European, but only one, the Netherlands, is from the euro zone. The Nordic countries shine, whereas the crisis-ridden south of Europe (Greece, Portugal and Spain) lags behind despite the advantage of a favourable climate. The largest European economies (Germany, France and Britain) do not do particularly well.
America, where babies will inherit the large debts of the boomer generation, languishes back in 16th place. Despite their economic dynamism, none of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) scores impressively. Among the 80 countries covered, Nigeria comes last: it is the worst place for a baby to enter the world in 2013.
Boring is best
Quibblers will, of course, find more holes in all this than there are in a chunk of Swiss cheese. America was helped to the top spot back in 1988 by the inclusion in the ranking of a “philistine factor†(for cultural poverty) and a “yawn index†(the degree to which a country might, despite all its virtues, be irredeemably boring). Switzerland scored terribly on both counts. In the film “The Third Manâ€Â, Orson Welles’s character, the rogue Harry Lime, famously says that Italy for 30 years had war, terror and murder under the Borgias but in that time produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance; Switzerland had 500 years of peace and democracyâ€â€and produced the cuckoo clock.
However, there is surely a lot to be said for boring stability in today’s (and no doubt tomorrow’s) uncertain times. A description of the methodology is available here: food for debate all the way from Lucerne to Lagos.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
AS the CAF deadline for the submission of team’s final 23-man list approaches, Super Eagles coach, Stephen Keshi is “growing grey hairs†over picking his squad for the Africa Nations Cup, officials have said.
Eagles spokesman Ben Alaiya disclosed that the performance of the players in a training camp in Faro, Portugal, has made Keshi’s job of selecting the best players for the Nations Cup difficult.
â€ÂThe competition here is very tough. Coach Keshi is growing grey hairs over who to drop because all the players are on top of their game as they all want to be at the Nations Cup,†Alaiya said on a Brila FM sports programme monitored in Lagos yesterday.
“In fact Keshi at the training on Thursday did not know when he voiced out that he is in trouble as he doesn’t know who to drop.â€Â
Eagles goalkeeper trainer Ike Shorunmu is also satisfied with the showing of the goalkeepers from the Nigeria Premier League, Daniel Akpeyi and Chigozie Agbim.
â€ÂIke Shorunmu is happy with the form of Akpeyi and Agbim, who we all saw what he could do against Catalonia.
Ike said any of these goalkeepers could be in goal and he won’t panic if Enyeama and Ejide decided to stay away,†Alaiya said.
Meanwhile, Valenrenga of Norway midfielder Fegor Ogude has admitted that the fight for places in the Eagles midfield will be fierce.
With the emergence of Ogenyi Onazi, Rabiu Ibrahim, Nosa Igiebor, Gabriel Reuben, Henry Uche, Raheem Lawal, Obiora Nwankwo and Mikel Obi, Fegor told MTNFootball.com: “The battle for a shirt in the midfield would be tensed. We have great players who are skilful and can handle the ball very well.
“But I am not afraid because this is my job, it’s what I do every day and as such I am battle ready for the challenge.â€Â
Keshi has said he will make public his final squad on Tuesday, a day before the CAF deadline. The Eagles who are due to fly out to South Africa on January 16 will take on giant killers Cape Verde in another AFCON warm-up game on Wednesday in Faro.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
When on Friday December 7, 2012, I read the headline ‘SENATE KICKS AGAINST EXTRA 9 billion naira for Vice-President’s residence’, in one of our national dailies, I felt very frustrated and disappointed, and I began to doubt if our rulers are really aware of the myriad problems Nigeria faces, and how to combat them. Or perhaps they do know, but don’t know which are of utmost importance to the nation.
With the numerous aides and advisers that our leaders have around them to help them carry out their duties successfully and creditably, one would expect they know precisely the state of the nation at any given time. These advisers are meant to feel the pulse of the masses and advise their bosses correctly, so that these bosses can carry out their duties in ways that would benefit our citizens. I doubt if erecting residences for our leaders at massive costs at a time when government claims it has no money to improve our welfare in meaningful ways, is of great benefit to us at present.
How can this bring relief to a nation where unemployment is very high as more and more industries are folding up; bread winners in families are losing their jobs; young people are wearing out their shoes, pounding the pavements in search of elusive jobs (some commit suicide out of despair while some take to crime and prostitution); pensioners are owed several months of their meagre monthly pensions, and several die every year during the rigorous verification exercise.
Security is of very great concern these days, but we learn that our law enforcement agencies are no match for their opponents because they lack the sophisticated and high-powered equipment the other side has. At any given time, one after the other, or sometimes at the same time, teachers, doctors, nurses, university staff and other government workers are on strike.
Reason? Government has reneged (yet again!) on its promise of paying the agreed salaries and benefits, and improving their lot. We have many efficient and qualified medical personnel, but there’s brain-drain there because of poor pay and lack of adequate hospital equipment, including steady power supply and reliable generators, with which to work. Patients suffer lack of care and some deaths occur.
It is one thing to fight tooth and nail to win at elections, or to be appointed into a position of authority, and it is another to know precisely what to do with the power given, in order to fulfill the purpose for which you were chosen/appointed.
I salute the courage of Senator Smart Adeyemi, a former national president of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, for his remark after paying an oversight visit to the site of the project at Aso Drive. The paper said that he noted that such a huge sum of money was uncalled for especially at a time when most Nigerians cannot afford three square meals a day.
His remark, though sincere and echoing what many Nigerians would say on the matter, is courageous because he belongs to the ruling political party. He easily could have kept quiet ‘in order not to upset those who put us there!’. The nation will now wait to see what the end of the matter will be. Governance and law-making are supposed to put citizens first in their decisions.
I may be wrong, but to me, our Vice-President seems a humble and down-to-earth person who wouldn’t insist on having an official residence for his position constructed at such huge costs when he’s very aware of the situation of the average Nigerian. Even though the mansion won’t be his personal property, and there’s no guarantee that it would be completed on time for him and his family to occupy during this his term in office; and even if the project may have been on ground before this present administration came into power (?), I don’t think it’s prudent for us to spend billions of naira on such a project at this point in time. Someone told me that it’s because of the security gadgets that need to be installed that the cost is so high.
Fine, but the most effective security is the one that God provides. He will keep safe those whom He will. But let’s make sure that citizens, particularly the masses, have qualitative lives. Maybe we can easily afford this sort of project in future when unemployment is down to almost zero level, and we’re counted among the developped nations of the world, with much improved healthcare, educational system, roads, water supply, and working social services.
I learnt from the news report that the project which is being handled by the Federal Capital Development Agency, who requested for a further nine billion naira, has already gulped seven billion naira! Now, this is a huge sum of money, by any standard, at least to many of us.
To ask for a further nine billion naira, seems outrageous to me when there are so many masses-aimed projects which are begging to be executed. Most roads all over the country are still quite bad and dangerous. The Lagos/Ibadan road, we’re told, is merely being repaired for traffic at Christmas, and has not been awarded for rehabilitation to any construction company, as we believed.
The Lagos/Benin road is still quite testy although repairs are going on still, as on some other roads in the country; thanks to the efforts of the energetic current Minister for Works who seems to be aware of his duties and commitment to making our roads more motorable and safe. We hope lack of funds won’t halt these road works. Fuel scarcity inched back into our lives in September. We’ve been told that de-regulation of pump prices is inevitable, and we shall have to pay more for fuel in this new year.
We all know that bad roads and increase in pump prices mean hefty hikes in food prices, as farm products rot away on the farms because the farmers cannot afford the cost of transportation even to the local markets, and those who are able take their products there at huge costs, just have to increase their prices in order to break even. Market people add their own overheads too, and by the time that yam or plantain gets to your table, you feel the pinch in your pocket.
Right now, doctors are on strike, yet again, in hospitals across the nation. This means that even the poor healthcare services we have in these health institutions, are no longer available to the common man. Even the poor now have to borrow money to send their sick to India for medical attention.
Power supply has worsened in recent times, and on the days power is supposed to be on in your area, it’s low current for half the time, and no power for the other half. Small scale industries and self-employed artisans are left helplessly idle most of the time.
Senator Adeyemi spoke of three square meals. Sorry, Senator, only the very rich can afford to eat three meals a day these days. Many families can afford only the evening meal, and that’s with the contribution of children who have to go hawk on the streets to help financially in the home.
Our rulers should wake up and be alive to their responsibilities towards the masses. They should put the interests of the masses first before their own personal interests. We don’t want a revolution, do we?
HAPPY, HEALTHY, SUCCESSFUL AND SAFE NEW YEAR TO ALL READERS OF THIS PAGE. AMEN. THANKS FOR READING IT.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Unprecedented levels of violence and public insecurity or disorder have marred the Nigerian social space, so much indeed that Nigerians at every level now live with a siege mentality. A significant level of this state of siege is encouraged and maintained by irresponsible political leadership.
Two weeks ago, Mrs. Chris Anyanwu, the senator representing Owerri in the Nigerian senate claimed to have been run-off the road on her way to her home in Mbaise by a convoy of vehicles accompanying the Imo state governor, Mr. Rochas Okorocha.
According to the senator, right about Azara-Egbelu, on the Owerri-Umuahia highway, Mr. Okorocha’s convoy, with its blaring siren and phalanx of heavily armed “security men†stopped her own witless driver who apparently had been too slow in getting off the road for the governor to sail through .
The governor’s armed men dragged out the man and beat him mercilessly. Unable to stand the beating any longer, the senator claimed to have intervened: “I rushed out of my car barefoot and started shouting: “I am Senator Chris Anyanwu, please don’t kill my driver.
But one of the armed men charged at me and threatened to shoot me for running into the governor’s convoy. All these while, the Governor was seated in his car with the glass wound down and I heard him shout at his security men to disarm my orderliesâ€Â.
A cardinal ground for the establishment of government, particularly a government of the people by the people has been violated. I speak here of the social contract – the basic principle that legitimate authority is established on the consent of the individual.
People basically come together to organize their society under the rule of law. The principle of the contract recognizes that in consenting to cede their individual freedom to an established government, the individual expects in exchange of his absolute freedom the protection of his rights and liberties by the organized government. A contract exists only when these guarantees are met by either party in the relationship between the state and the individual.
A rational individual consents to give up his or her natural freedom in exchange or in the hopes of obtaining the benefits of political order. In other words, government is the largest mutual benefits society ever created by man as a means of taming the wild and insurgent capacities of the individual.
Without consent to submit to the established and legitimate authority of the state the individual becomes an outlier; he is governed by the natural instincts to survive; he is untamed by law; and societies slip back to natural states of chaos and disorder, or what Thomas Hobbes called “the state of nature.†Nigeria has inched closer and closer to this situation because the legitimacy of the Nigerian state is increasingly questioned by the people.
There is incoherence in the organization of government. There is in fact rapid discontent. The political leadership seems fundamentally disconnected or dissociated from the common reality of those by whom they derive their legitimate authority. The state fails because it can no longer guarantee the safety of Nigerians and their fundamental right to life, property, and the pursuit of individual happiness. The mindless overreach of authority bespeaks a fundamental lack of awareness of the nature of the contract between Nigerians and their political representatives.
Let me draw this example: a governor of a state who uses an armed convoy and drives rough-shod through the streets, driving citizens out of the road to make way for him sets a very bad example. Governor Okorocha and all such state officials are still hung up on a terrible habit established under military rule in which military administrators saw government as an emergency and citizens as “ordinary civilians.â€Â
The soldiers appropriated all kinds of power, including the power to ride in a sirened convoy of armed men to demonstrate the force of military rule. Such images have no place in a civil and elected government. An elected governor should have no more than a police orderly and an official driver and car for his use and only for official business.
Riding about in an armed convoy is mindless overreach; and uncivilized. Sirens were traditionally reserved for emergency vehicles: police in the pursuit of criminals; ambulances in conveying the sick to the casualty ward, the fire services on emergency runs, and used only on ceremonial occasions for conveying public officials.
There is no protocol under the rule of law that grants the governor of the state any more rights on the road than any other citizen. Governor Okorocha therefore breaks a fundamental law that needs to be addressed very urgently because it goes right up to the very soul of the rule of law. Does an elected governor have the right to drive other citizens of the state off the road by the use of armed force?
There is no place in the civilized world for such conduct and such primitive show of power. Did the governor break a law in ordering his so-called “security men†to beat up a citizen and thus taking the laws under his own hand as if Imo State is a jungle without courts or magistrates?
Before the law, the governor is equal to the least citizen in Imo State. His legitimacy is guaranteed by their consent. Mr. Okorocha ought to be brought to heel on these facts.
A governor who oversees the brutal molestation of a citizen of a state, simply on some infraction of a presumed privilege, is not fit for public office. It is incumbent therefore on the Imo State House of Assembly to do their duty as the elected guardians of the state, by opening up an investigation into this incident.
Complicity in the brutal, physical molestation of a citizen of the state, the senator’s driver, by the governor is an impeachable offence because it reduces not only the dignity of the office, but violates the oath of the governor’s office. It is about time we stopped tolerating the extreme and primitive behavior of people elected into public office to serve us who end up playing gods over us. As citizens, our greatest security is the rule of law.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
On Friday December 28, 2012, the Kogi State Governor, Captain Idris Wada was seriously injured in an auto crash. The accident reportedly occurred at Emi Woro village in Ajaokuta Local Government Area of the state when one of the tyres of the governor’s official car, unexpectedly burst in motion. Wada’s aide-de-camp (ADC), Idris Muhammed, an Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP), lost his life in the crash.
The governor who was initially rushed to the Kogi State Specialist Hospital in Lokoja after the accident, later had surgery at Cedar Crest Hospital, Garki Abuja. The surgery, which lasted two hours, was rated as successful by the doctors at the hospital who also allegedly revealed that Wada rejected the option of flying him abroad for further treatment.
On the basis of this rather uncommon taste, the governor has been applauded all over the country as a lover of made in Nigeria goods. The Nigerian Medical Association was among the first to commend the governor. While thanking God for the life of Governor Wada, we are not similarly enthused by what is being seen by some people as patriotism.
To start with, it is obvious that the Governor made the decision because his stable condition at the end of the initial treatment positioned him to be so disposed. According to the Medical Director of the hospital, Dr Felix Ogedengbe, “there was no immediate need to fly him abroad.†Wada would probably have had no option if he had a complication similar to what his Taraba State counterpart; Danbaba Suntai experienced some 3months earlier. We agree that some of our leaders take delight in oversea treatment.
Indeed, some go there to treat headache while some others go to find out if they might be sick someday in the future which is called ‘medical check-up’. However, many people who have no faith in our health delivery system are not necessarily unpatriotic. They are only being realistic and Governor Wada is inadvertently one of them.
It is inaccurate to say he did not opt to be flown abroad for treatment because the definition of ‘Oversea treatment’ cannot be narrowed down to one outside a country; it should be inclusive of treatment outside one’s domain. To elicit the applause of this columnist, Wada should have insisted on being treated in Kogi State whose medical facilities are in the poor state in which his government inherited them.
Instead, the governor whose accident took place some 12 kilometres form Lokoja, his seat of government went hundreds of kilometres ‘abroad’ to Abuja for treatment. In addition, he went to a private rather than a government hospital giving room to the Kogi State Chapter of the Conference of Nigeria Political Parties (CNPP), to wonder “why a man who loved to patronise local hospitals, evaded the state-owned specialist hospital in Lokoja.â€Â
The Nation newspaper put it better in its comment of January 3rd, 2013 titled ‘Wada goes back to work’, that “while the Abuja treatment is commendable, it also brings out the disturbing fact that there is no single hospital in Kogi good enough for gubernatorial care! That is an indictment on his tour of duty as governor. Now that he has survived the accident therefore, it is time for him to put in place better medical facilities in his state. That way, he would have domesticated, in his own state, his campaign for VIP confidence in our local medical personnel and hospital facilitiesâ€Â
The fact that the governor’s driver who was also involved in the same accident was left in hospital in Lokoja suggests that many Kogi citizens who were made to vote for the governor, in our type of free and fair elections, cannot afford the Abuja option. They are sentenced to treatment in the State’s poorly equipped hospitals.
Anyway we hear the governor is back to base and has allegedly resolved that “2013 would see the visible implementation of his transformation agenda to move Kogi State to where it ought to beâ€Â. If so, here are a few reminders. First, the Nigerian Navy during its 56th anniversary some 6 months back chose Karara-Otube in Kogi State as one of the villages to benefit from its medical assistance.
According to Navy Commodore Innocent Kofi Yinfaowei, the choice was predicated on the dearth of medical facilities in the village health centre, with a target of no fewer than 2,500 persons suffering from various ailments to benefit from the week-long programme.
Second, it took the Australian government to rebuild and restock with drugs a rundown clinic serving the people of Agojeju-Odo community in Omala Local Government Area. Otherwise the people would have continued to travel far to receive treatment for even common ailments.
Third, only last month, Wada himself admitted that maternal death and infant mortality rate in the State was not only alarming but was on the increase. Speaking at the kick-off of Maternal Newborn and Child Health week, in Lokoja, the governor said, “it is difficult to ascertain the exact number of new born babies that died in and around birth, and women who died during childbirthâ€Â. He then promised to evolve a mechanism to reduce the cost of medical treatment for pregnant women and children under five years across public health institutions in the state.
In a country where pronouncements are hardly backed by action, the time to act for Wada is now. He should listen to the World Bank, the London Tropical School of Medicine and the Bill gate Institute of Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, which have testified to the efficacy of “the ABIYE safe motherhood Programme’’ in neighbouring Ondo State, which Governor Olusegun Mimiko has used “to drastically reduce infant and maternal mortality.
He should also redress the findings of a recent study, that Kogi East which has produced the Governor of the state since its creation in 1991 has the lion share of 66.3% of health facilities in the State while Kogi West and Central have 19.6% and 14.1% respectively. If Wada provides better health facilities and evolves a more equitable distribution of such facilities in the state, so as to engender equity and social justice we too, will join those who genuinely see him as a patriot.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Our culture as Africans demands that family members care for their elderly, and most families do this to the best of their ability. However, total commitment to this is declining due to pressures of everyday living and limited time and funds. Besides, our healthcare is yet to include special services for the elderly.
Ten years ago, Dr (Mrs) Iyabode Khadijat Cole, a 1982 graduate in Medicine, of the University of Ife, decided to render such services by establishing Khadijat Home Care for the elderly, after serving in Lagos State hospitals for some time as a general medical practitioner. Vista Woman had a chat recently at a Rotary Club event with this lady who’s clearly enjoying her job. Excerpts:
What got you to specialize in Geriatric Medicine which is a rare field in our own part of the world?
I was inspired by the need to take care of old people. I’ve been in this in the last ten years in my own quiet way. A lot of aged people are suffering, especially in the Old People’s Homes, and that was one of the things I observed during my years as a general practitioner. I observed they were not getting adequate attention, and I therefore developed a soft spot towards them! A friend actually contacted me from England and suggested that I help take care of her mother, and that was how it all started.
Looking back to the last ten years, how boring or interesting would you say working with aged people could be?
Working with aged people is fantastic and I’m happy when I’m with them. They tell you their problems and you listen carefully because for many of them, their children might not be around them most of the time. I actually go to their houses to care for them one after the other, and in areas where I experience serious challenges, I call in specialists. Some of them have different challenges, and they practically need all the love they can get for the short time. I however feel much fulfilled to be able to show them love and care because they are just like babies. You need to really spend time with them With some, I may spend hours because they are reluctant for me to leave. Some want special people they can confide in.
Most western countries make provisions for their aged citizens, but we do not have such here; would you say it’s because we don’t consider special services for them necessary?
It’s quite unfortunate that we do not have such here in Nigeria. However, some children are doing their best to cater for their aged parents. Some pay the bills from their parents’ estate while some children contribute individually to pay their bills.
Having worked with aged people and perhaps witnessed their children’s attitude towards them sometimes, what do you think of our attitude towards our aged parents?
Many children take care of their parents while some don’t. Also, some children are very loving! The society, especially the non-governmental organisations, is really trying. Every now and then, they pay visits to old people’s homes to show love and care. I’m a member of the Rotary Club and we also do that often.
Our healthcare centres are known for long queues; from your experience, are these people given preferential attention so that they won’t have to queue for long?
I cannot answer that question because the answer would be very bitter to some ears!
Another thing that is gradually creeping into our lives here is the transfer of aged parents to old people’s homes by their children even when they too are living in the same cities…
Frankly, to me, it’s an abomination in our culture. Why can’t your parents stay with you? I know some daughters who take in their parents, and their husbands are very accommodating about it, and they treat these aged parents-in-law nicely. I don’t see any reason why you cannot bring your mother or father into your house. It all depends on understanding, anyway.
Isn’t putting the elderly in Old People’s Homes depriving young children of the opportunity to learn traditional values and culture from their grandparents?
Living with grandchildren helps aged people a lot. Both parties are able to learn from each other and that way, the IQ of these aged remain strong. They learn new things from the young ones while the young ones also learn history and values from their chest of knowledge. I just wish we could change our attitude towards our old parents.
So, what’s your advice to children who still have aged parents to look after? We just have to learn to take care of our old parents. It’s not about killing cows and inviting VIPs and renowned musicians to their burial ceremonies. We have to give them the best while they are alive because they took care of us when we were young. Otherwise, how else do we pay them back?
Madam, in your old age, would you consent to being taken to old people’s home? Me? God forbid! My children won’t do that! They can see what I’m doing for aged people, and besides, my first daughter and my baby girl are also medical doctors. They might eventually decide to toe my path.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
At the moment when security challenges appear to have gone a step beyond the police and is currently facing the armed forces shoulder-to-shoulder, the Nigerian Army is not resting on its oars. It devises tactics and means, from time to time, to get at the route of the challenges bone-to-bone, intelligence-to-intelligence and logistics-to-logistics. That precisely is what the Nigerian Army College of Logistics, under the leadership of Major General A. A. Martins, who is the commandant, has braced up to do.
Just as year 2012 was riding to the end, the college turned out 18 students who had successfully undergone the year’s Logistics Management Course 10/2012. They were in the ranks of lieutenant colonel and its equivalent in the navy, the police and civil service. At the event, it was emphasized that what the college had done was to add to the logistics required by the armed forces in the country to nip all sorts of internal and external terrorism in the bud. This was to first upgrade the training impact in the officers and staff of the forces regarding Logistics Management Course 10/2012 and Logistics Staff Course 9/2012, which have so far been achieved.
The graduation ceremony was graced by eminent people from among the armed forces and the civil society including the Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babatunde Raji Fashola (SAN) represented by his Senior Special Assistant on Security Matters, Major Tunde Panox (rtd); Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika represented by the Director, Nigerian Army Electrical & Mechanical Engineers, Major General Charles Maduegbunam; Oba of Lagos, His Majesty Oba Rilwan Akiolu I ably represented; Rear Admiral Joe Aikhomu, Head, Naval Standards and Evaluation Branch and many top military chiefs.
At the event, the Chief of Army Staff, Ihejirika, announced incentives with which the Army under his leadership was planning to uplift the standard and boost the morale of officers and staff of the force. He enumerated the many achievements of NACOL since its inception in 2002.
“The numerous achievements the college has garnered for herself with respect to trainings, seminars and various research inputs to Nigerian policy is highly commendable. I am personally very happy and satisfied with the progress being made in this college. I have been well briefed about the numerous problems confronting the college, and I assure you that your problems will be adequately addressed.
“It is my pleasure to,†therefore, “inform you that the African Study Tour recently approved for the college will commence with the next Logistics Staff Course in 2013,†Ihejirika said.
Commandant of the college, Martins, said in his welcome address, that continuous training of officers was an integral part of the force’s professional life geared towards better understanding of roles of the officers and staff.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
You educate a man; you educate a man. You educate a woman; you educate a generation.â€Â- Brigham Young
Some say having a girl is like tending a neighbours’ garden. This is narrow minded and condescending perspective of low sense of value placed on females in our society. This is borne out of the way people react to the arrival of the birth of a baby boy: that of jubilation and in contrast,the arrival of a baby girl is often greeted with muted commiserations from friends and family. If the truth be told, the mother is often made to feel a failure if she does not provide the family with a male and a heir.jonathan-women
It seems to me, a girl is disadvantaged right from the onset. So when I read that the Principal of Ajuwon High School, in Ifo local government area of Ogun State, Mrs. Olufunke Aladeojebi, forcefully examined female students without the consent of the students’ parents. I was revolted and enraged. I felt compelled to register my abhorrence and contempt for a system that allows such flagrant abuse of power.
According to sources,the principal is a tough woman who ruled her charges with an iron rod. They say she is a tough disciplinarian, no, I disagree what she is, a perpetual abuser of vulnerable young people. She had the temerity to threaten the students with suspension unless they submitted to this forced internal examination.
Apparently, she took this decision unilaterally because of what she felt was the high level of immorality amongst young people. As always, the young women are to be blamed!
What makes a change was that the children reported their ordeal to their parents, who in turn reported her to the police and led to her suspension.
The state commissioner for education, Segun Odubela, said the ministry had interrogated the principal to give her fair hearing, adding that a five-man panel consisting of officials of both the ministry and teaching service commission (TESCOM) has been set up to further investigate the case and make appropriate recommendations. Call me a cynic, but I don’t think anything will come of it, until we change our mindset on how we treat women. Anything short of this is a mockery and travesty of what is a violation of female human rights.
In 1999 in Turkey, when a similar incident occurred and young girls were given forced gynaecological examinations in schools. The country was forced to rescind the controversial law authorising schools to conduct a virginity test on high school female students, when five girls attempted suicide rather than submit to the test.We sureley do not want to subject our children to such desperation and trauma.
If there are any issues regarding the degradation of our society we need not look further than the older generations. We are the role models and the young look up to us for direction. So, the issue at hand should be why is it that our young people becoming alarmingly promiscuous? Is pre- marital sexual activity an indication of societal ills? How do we address this and what are the provisions in place for the young girls to have a meaningful and healthy future?
These are the salient issues that need to be addressed instead of physically and emotionally abusing young and vulnerable children. Unless we look at the way we treat females in our society,we will continue to look for scapegoats, that is the case, where the men,women and the system continue to mistreat our womenfolk and further regress our society. We cannot afford not to educate our girls, and there has to be a conscious effort in order to remove the obstacles that may hinder their education. Otherwise, the barriers to progress and wealth will continue to elude us.
The World Bank stated, that in Nigeria, if, young Nigerian women had the same employment rates as young Nigerian men, they would add 13.9 billion Naira in annual GDP.We need to encourage our young women to live up to their full potential.
The sad fact is one-quarter to one-half of girls in developing counties become mothers before age 18 according to the United Nations Population Fund. The focus should therefore be on health and human rights of girls and women,not this wholesale condemnations and casting spurious aspersions on the young girls’ immoralities.
The government should at least channel means and resources into providing formal or vocational education, preventive and treatment programme for adequate family planning, and antenatal services, classes on reproductive and sexual health, STD prevention, contraception, AIDS awareness, and how to seek health care. Women are agent of change and they can effectively make a difference if given the opportunity to reach their potential.
A girl’s success is everyone’s success so it is a win – win situation. We all will be better off by educating our girls and acting decisively on human right violation crimes against women, only then,can we begin to reduce the cycle of poverty.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
A few months back when the thespian, Tonto Dikeh came out with her maiden musical effort, quite a lot of her fans frowned at that effort.
When I was asked to review Tonto’s debut singles, I did not join people to abuse it, I only criticized the producer who was supposed to have corrected her and apply some touches of aesthetic and professionalism into the songs.
Today, despite all the rumbles, vibes and jives the song generated, Tonto, musically, is in hot romance with Terry G as she has just been featured in his new single entitled ‘Crazically Fit’ produced by Terry G himself.
No doubt, Tonto’s delivery in this song will definitely keep her critics at bay.
This is another wonder for the street that you need to listen to.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Tonto Dike is once again showing off the controversial tattoo she got in October 2011 while she was in the US.
Tonto has often spoken about her love for tattoos.
In an 2012 interview with Golden Icons‘ Emma Emerson, she admitted that she has so many tattoos, she’s lost count. ‘Okay, before now I had 57 stars on my body plus 57 letters but the new one consists of 570 curves and lines plus I just added 16 stars to my body so I can’t even count.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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