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The Federal Government has announced that palliative road projects in the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, would commence before December.

The Federal Minister of Works, Dave Umahi, made this known on Monday in a statement he personally signed.

The former Ebonyi State governor was responding to the growing public concerns about the deplorable situation of some federal roads across the country.

The minister assured Nigerians that the current administration of President Bola Tinubu was committed to alleviating the pains of some motorists who ply the terrible roads.

He claimed that Tinubu inherited lots of deplorable sections of roads across the country, such as the Makurdi-Nsukka 9th Mile Road, East-West Road, Lagos-Abeokuta Expressway, Benin bypass road, collapsed bridges of Enugu- Port Harcourt road, collapsed bridges of Shandam-Plateau State, Abuja-Kaduna- Zaria-Kano road and Gombe- Bauchi.

Umahi further disclosed that Tinubu had approved N100 billion out of the N300 billion allocated to the Ministry of Works, for immediate palliative works in the 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

Mr. President has directed that works in those palliative projects must commence before December 1st 2023, while observing all due process.

“On the sections being frequently complained of by the public in all regions of the North and South of the country, Mr. President has equally isolated them and directed immediate actions on them and indeed work has started on all such roads.

“The public can crosscheck our claims and report back to us,” Umahi added.

The Federal Executive Council, on Monday, approved the 2024 appropriation bill of N27.5 trillion to be presented by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

The Council is the highest policy-forming body for the federal government and comprises ministers, the governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the national security adviser, and some top government officials, including permanent secretaries.

Details to come…

President Bola Tinubu on Monday swore in the eight new Permanent Secretaries, whose appointments he approved last Friday after they successfully scaled the Federal Civil Service’s selection process.

Tinubu swore in the newly elevated officers just before the commencement of this week’s Federal Executive Council meeting, over which he is currently presiding.

The new Permanent Secretaries include: Ndakayo-Aishetu Gogo; Adeoye Ayodeji; Rimi Abba; Bako Odoh; Omachi Omenka; Ahmed Umar; Watti Tinuke; and Ella Agbo.

Meanwhile, President Tinubu is currently presiding over the FEC meeting, which is being attended by Vice President Kashim Shettima.

Also present are the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, George Akume; the Head of the Civil Service of the Federation, Dr Folashade Yemi-Esan; the Chief of Staff to the President, Hon Femi Gbajabiamila.

Monday’s FEC gathering is also being attended by all ministers and some other senior presidential aides who were earlier allowed by Tinubu to appear in FEC meetings.

Abuja: A civil society organisation (CSO), Sustainable Gender Action Initiative (SGAI), has trained no fewer than 50 youths on checking cyber-facilitated sexual and gender based violence (CFSGBV).

The Executive Director of SGAI, Mufuliat Fijabi, in her welcome address, said the participants were selected across the country through their call for application online.

She said the importance of the training was to educate the youths more on issues of CFSGBV.
She said SGAI, in conjunction with Voice of Women Empowerment Foundation, collaborated to increase an advocacy about the occurrence of the menace in the society.

“Before now there has been a lot of concerns about Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV) but not so much attention has been given to those acts of SGBV committed within the cyber space.

“It is important to speak about it in line with the ongoing 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence which is an annual celebration from 25th of November to 10th of December,” she said.

Fiji, while sharing a personal experience, said on Jan. 4, she had similar encounter.

(A cross section of participants at a capacity building on cyber-facilitated sexual and gender based violence organised on Monday in Abuja.)

“I experienced a cyber attack. I was intimidated.
“People started calling me from different parts of the world because somebody; a woman, managed to entre my Whatsup account,” she said

Fijabi, who said she was able to block and retrieve the account through the police intervention, said the capacity building was imperative because many Nigerians were not ICT-compliant.

The Chief Executive Officer of Voice of Women Empowerment Foundation, Toun Okewale-Sonaiya, said the aim of the training was to make the youths the vanguard and advocate against CFSGBV.
She said different stakeholders were also invited to continue to be the lead organisations to ensure the menace was well managed, ensure access to justice for survivals and ensure adequate punishment for perpetrators.
Isah Abdulkarim, the Chief Intelligent Officer, National Agency For The Prohibition Of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP), described CFSGBV as “any act that is commited or amplified using digital tools or technologies which cause physical, sexual, psychological, social, political or economic harm to people.”
Abdulkarim, therefore, gave some tips on how to maintain cyber hygiene, which include “the use of complex passwords, change of passwords for one’s accounts periodically and ensure never to use same password for different accounts, keeping your system updated.
“Scrutinise emails properly before clicking to open them, use social media with caution, avoid using public WiFi networks as much as possible, keep visitors away from your main network, use corporate email account (i.e email with a .gov.ng domain) for official purpose and protect your systems with anti-virus.”
The officer, who said sextortion was a form of CFSGBV, said where one’s “nude picture is online, the picture should be sent to https://takeitdown.ncmec.org/, and it will be taken down.”

He said his office recently set up NAPTIP Cyber Security Response Team to work in conjunction with the Federal Ministry of Justice with a view to arrest and prosecute culprits of CFSGBV cases reported to the agency.

Yewande Gbola-Awope, Head of SGBV Response Unit, Federal.Minustry of Justice, said the unit, which was created in 2021 and began its full operations in 2022, had been facilitating sub-national and national issues on access to justice for gender-based violence in the country.

She said the ministry does capacity building for judicial officers, investigators, prosecutors, directors of public prosecution, commissioners of justice and commissioners of police across the 36 states, including FCT on gender-based violence.

Mr Henry Uche, Commissioner of Police and Director National Cybercrime Centre, said the police had put in place strategies and measures to help in the fight against the menace and many arrest had been made while culprits were facing prosecution.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng) / Flowerbudnews)

Barring any last-minute changes, President Bola Tinubu will, on Wednesday, present the 2024 budget to a joint session of the National Assembly.

Details later

By Aminu Garko
Kano:  Protests erupted in Kano city and its environs on Monday afternoon with the demonstrators denouncing the recent judgment of the Court Appeal that sacked the state Governor, Abba Yusuf.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that uneasy calm pervaded the state capital following a contradictory Certified True Copy of Appeal Court that affirmed the prayers of both the appellant and the respondent in the contentious Kano governorship, though the judiciary had since cleared the air.

In what appeared like a coordinated action on Monday, huge crowd of protesters had stormed strategic positions in the city as it visited temporary hiccups on commercial activities.

Kano- Zaria road, Maiduguri road by Muhammadu Buhari’s interchange, and Kantin Kwari (Kano textile market) were taken over by hundreds of youths who called for justice for Abba Yusuf.

The placard reads “Kano my city my state”, “Justice for Kano”, ” Justice for Abba”, “Abba’s mandate was stolen in 2019, we will not allow it happen in 2023”.

The protest came on the heels of discovery by the Police that “some faceless group are bent on unleashing violence in Kano”, stressing that the police were on top of the situation.

Cp Hussaini Gumel told newsmen in Kano on Monday that already 7 suspects had been arrested and would be arraigned soon.

CP Gumel revealed that “we have the understanding with the leadership of the contending political parties, and they have signed a peace pact, in view of that therefore, any one found outside this arrangement will be treated as common criminal”.

However, normalcy had since returned to the ancient city following the peaceful protest that lasted several hours. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)/ Flowerbudnews
Edited by Idris Abdulrahman