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COVID-19 : “Kano Witnessing Decline In Spread,” Ganduje says, As He Insists on Remodeling Almajiri System

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4 years ago

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Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of Kano state has revealed that the state is witnessing a decline in the spread of COVID-19 cases in the state, thanking Almighty Allah for the decline, Whom he said, made it possible through the unrelenting commitment of the frontline health workers, media men, traditional and religious leaders among other stakeholders.
He made the revelation at the State Task Force Media Briefing, held at Africa House, Government House, Kano, Wednesday, in the presence of the Deputy Governor, who is the Chairman of the state Task force, Dr Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, Secretary to the State Government Commissioners, Co-Chairman of the state Task Force, Prof. Abdurrazak Garba Habib, Special Envoy of the Minister of Health on COVID-19 to Kano, Prof Abdussalam Nasidi among others.
In a statement signed by Governor Ganduje’s Chief press secretary Abba Anwar the governor appreciated the  round-the-clock commitment of the frontline health workers and journalists, he observed that, “Though we are aware that there is no definite time for the pandemic to leave us completely, but the success story for all of us here is, we are witnessing a decline in the spread of the disease in Kano state.”
Adding that, “While we should learn to always optimise our compliance with the protocols, we also understand that there are areas that we must strengthen our strategies towards them. Areas like community engagement, is absolutely necessary.”

Governor GANDUJE third from left 

He urged that cooperation is direly needed from the public. Through which ways to curtail the disease would be strengthened and enhanced. Reminding that, the cooperation health workers are getting from the public, in many instances helps much in bringing up the success story. 
“Our health workers are doing their best and we promise to protect them all the time. So that all the necessary items/equipments needed must be provided as you are all witnessing. Things like Personal Protective Equipments (PPEs) among others,” he says. 
Explaining further that, “So also journalists. That was why we organised a special training programme for them to have the know how on how to protect themselves while engaging in their daily news gathering, production and dissemination.”
While enforcement of Face Mask wearing, would go to all nooks and crannies, he emphasises that, “We understand that face mask wearing has not gone down to grassroots. So we are producing more Masks through our local tailors, that will help in getting them to grassroots.”
On the Almajiri governor Ganduje insisted that the system must be remodelled to comply with the state free and compulsory primary and secondary schools education policy.
Lamenting that, some of those Almajiri were even crying, to be taken to their parents. Adding that, “Those of them that were Kano indigenes and brought from other states, are being quarantined. Those that are found negative for COVID-19 we take them to their parents. While those that are positive we take them to Isolation Centre.”
He vowed that all children either Almajiri or non-Almajiri must be in school. “We also said whoever insists to run Almajiris school he must follow the guidelines we put in place for running an Almajiri school. Parts of the guidelines include, that, school must have a curriculum which must integrate conventional fields of study, like English, Mathematics and Craft training.”
Other guidelines, he listed are “…teachers must provide pupils with decent accommodation, good feeding system, they must have qualified teachers, there must be a system of evaluation and control, like quality assurance and there must be system of examination among other guidelines.”
Governor clarified that, the process was not meant to strip Almajiri teachers off their tutorship, but to further incorporate them into the mainstream teaching program of their pupils with new set of mentoring system, as teachers.
“Some of those Alarammas (Almajiri Teachers) are being employed and we are going to use them in the schools we are commissioning specifically for Almajiris. We are therefore calling on others to come forward and be recruited to teach in those schools,” governor reveals.
Giving details on the Almajiri relocation to their states of indigene, at the media briefing, the Chairman of the Committee saddled with that responsibility, the state Commissioner for Local Governments, Murtala Garo, reveals the distribution of Almajiri in terms of those taken to their states of origin and those received by the state from other states.
Garo said “Your Excellency we took 419 Almajiris to Katsina state, 524 to Jigawa state, 155 to Kaduna state, 38 to Bauchi state and 36 to Gombe state. While we received 179 Almajiris from Adamawa state, 220 from Nassarawa state, 96 from Gombe state, 18 from Katsina, 92 from Kaduna state.”
Adding that, “Out of the 1,146 Almajiris who were tested for COVID-19, 28 of them were tested positive. While 311 were identified with other illnesses like fever, malaria, stomach pain among others. And also over 1,000 Almajiris were arrested roaming about the streets in the metropolis.”
Garo further discloses that, 723 Almajiris, who are indigenes of Kano state, that were brought to the state, have been taken to their parents, “… and they would be the automatic students/pupils of our new schools designed to for them,” he said.
In his remarks the Chairman of the Task Force, Deputy Governor Dr Gawuna, disclosed the new organogram of the Task Force, detailing that, “Your Excellency the Co-Chair Prof Abdulrazaq Garba Habib, is now the Deputy Chairman Technical, Commissioner of Health, Dr Aminu Ibrahim Tsanyawa, is now the Deputy Chairman, Operations and Dr Tijjani Hussaini is the Technical Team Coordinator.”
He commended the frontline health workers and journalists, whom he described as “…another set of frontline professionals. We are grateful that journalists are giving their best in disseminating accurate information in the fight against the pandemic. We also commend our traditional rulers, other community leaders, civil society groups among others.”

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News

Muslim-Muslim Ticket: idea fixation pathetic, religion be excluded in politics and governance, says El-Rufai

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2 years ago

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June 11, 2022

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The Governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai, has described the possibility that the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, would run a Muslim-Muslim ticket in the 2023 presidential election as mere speculation.

Making a remark on Channels TV’s political show, Politics Today, he said, Nigerians’ obsession with religion – when it comes to voting – rather than competence is sad. “This fixation of Nigerians on religion instead of competence, capacity, and capability is quite sad and pathetic.”

El-Rufai said that anyone asking him questions about the controversial Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket is asking the wrong person, because, in the 2019 general election he settled for a qualified Muslim woman as a running mate and won the election in Kaduna State.

He said, “I don’t look at people from Muslim-Muslim or Christian-Christian angle. Most of my closest friends are Christians. It was Pastor Tunde Bakare, a Pentecostal pastor, that took me to the CPC, not President Buhari. I’m very close to Bakare. I’m very close to many Christians. I don’t think the business of governance has anything to do with religion. I think we should look for the best person for the job. A person that will get the job done and let him do that.”

He advised Nigerian journalists to keep religion out of politics and government. He said, “I don’t think we should be looking at religion. We want to develop this country. When I get into a plane, I don’t ask about the religion of the pilot. When I go to the hospital, I don’t ask for the doctor’s religion of the doctor, I just want to get well. I just want to get to my destination when in an aircraft.

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Column

Nigerian Universities, the interference of Professional bodies, and the time bomb

Published

2 years ago

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November 4, 2021

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Having worked with multidisciplinary teams during my PhD at the Department of Engineering of the University of Leicester and postdoctoral fellowship at the Department of Electric Power Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), I decided to experiment the acceptability of a multidisciplinary team in Engineering departments in Nigerian universities in 21st century on my return in 2015. Then, I was already due to be a Senior Lecturer in ABU since 2014. So I sent my CV and an application letter for the position of Associate Professor to the VC through the Head of Electrical Engineering Department of one of our public universities in November 2015. And I received the following not very surprising reply.
“Having perused your application documents, I found them interesting and relevant to the need of the department. However, I cannot pass your application for further processing because of the post applied for. For your information, the Council for Regulation of Engineering in Nig. (COREN) has fixed the bar of an Engineering lecturer who is not registered with COREN at Lecturer I regardless of the number of his/her publications.”
The question that came to my mind was that is the regulation of engineering lecturers in universities part of the mandates of COREN? I read the reply again and he was very emphatic on my PhD and postdoctoral research experience and the relevance to his department. I was made to understand that the University has no academic staff in the area of high voltage engineering, but for them to utilize my experience in high voltage engineering, if I was actually ready to move there, I have to accept to be demoted for 4 years because COREN said so. And I can’t grow no matter my research output till I am registered with COREN. Amazing offer! It will take a complete idiot to accept such an offer. That is the reality of the compartmentalization of our university system and the destruction of the Nigerian university system and the structure by supposed professionals.
This was completely different from my experience in my two universities in Europe. Prof. Len Dissado had a first degree in chemistry and a PhD in chemistry but was a Professor of Engineering at Leicester because his research area was in Dielectrics, a topic very relevant to High Voltage Engineering. He was retained as Emeritus when I left in 2012. Dr. Steve S. Dodd had his first degree in Physics and PhD in Physics but was employed as a Senior Lecturer in Engineering (High Voltage Engineering group) because his research area was in Electrical insulation materials. He retired as a Reader in High Voltage Engineering. The HoD of the Electric Power Engineering as at the time I left the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in 2015 had a PhD in Physics and was a Professor of Electric Power Engineering. Universities in the rest of the world are closing gaps, while we are widening the gap. Since I could not close the gap, so we decided to have a High Voltage Laboratory in the Physics department.
In universities, we are academics and research workers. Irrespective of the field, we are employed to teach and do research. The yardstick for evaluating your performance is research output. Engineering graduates in academia are not left out. They are not employed as Engineers. Universities have their Engineers to do the engineering work. As an academic, you can be COREN registered to enable you to practice outside the university but not for the classroom and research labs in the university. I once asked a colleague some years back if as a university worker, he is an Engineer for real or a teacher and he was silent. I asked about the value of COREN registration in his teaching of Engineering courses, research output, and student project supervision and he could not give me a straight answer.
I still find it weird that COREN, a body regulating practicing engineers on the field is now setting standards for promotion in the Engineering departments of Nigerian universities. They will soon be telling Nigerian universities what to teach and what not to teach. The other councils of professionals will soon follow to set what they perceived as standards for the respective faculties or departments.
The interference of the Councils of professionals in the affairs of Nigerian universities has grown beyond setting promotion guidelines. They are now deciding the establishment of faculties and the duplication of academic departments. It does not matter the burden of running such faculties and departments on the universities. I am still wondering how they are able to twist the hands of NUC and the universities’ Senate and Governing Council to achieve all that. Not long ago, the Faculty of medicine in Nigerian public universities were converted to Colleges of Medical Sciences with 4 faculties and several departments, thanks to the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria.
What baffled me was the fact that the Department of Biochemistry, for example, that has taught medical students the biochemistry they know since the inception of the study of medicine in Nigerian universities is suddenly no more qualified to teach medical students because the Lecturers do not have a degree in medicine. Very amazing! We now have duplicated Biochemistry departments across Nigerian universities that they called “Medical Biochemistry” in the college of medicine. The “medical biochemistry” will possibly be taught by the Medical Doctors based on what they learned from the Biochemists in life science while in medical school. Could this be a case of trading quality for ego?
We also, for example, have a medical microbiology department in the college of medicine, a microbiology
department in the faculty of life science, and a vet microbiology department in the faculty of Veterinary medicine.
The microbiologists will be able to explain to us the difference between the different versions of the microbiology.
I was in Norway in 2014 when the Norwegian couple at NTNU shared the Nobel Prize for Medicine with a Professor at the University College London (UCL). I tried to check the structure of these 2 universities. The faculty of medicine at NTNU has no biochemistry department. The Department of Biotechnology and Food Sciences, a replica of the Biochemistry department, is in the faculty of natural science and they provide service to the faculty of Medicine as we had before the coming of the colleges of medicine in Nigerian universities.
How the increased number of departments helping to improve the quality of our academic output is what I can’t figure out. Rather than the duplication of service departments that will only increase the number of academic departments and won’t really add much value to the system but increased running cost, we should have created a college of life sciences and pulled the relevant faculties and departments into it.
Individualistic research is going extinct and most of the novelties of the 21st century are from interdisciplinary researches. One of the winners of the 2014 Nobel prize in medicine John O’Keefe is a neuroscientist in the Faculty of life sciences at the UCL with his degrees in Psychology. But the others, May-Britt Moser and Edvard I. Moser are both neuroscientists from the Faculty of Medicine at NTNU and received their first degree from the Department of Psychology and PhD in neurophysiology at the Faculty of Medicine in Oslo.
There is nothing more fascinating than the fusing of different ideas together to produce a unique product. That is the exploration in the 21st century. The world has left us behind in individualistic ideology and moved into multidisciplinary academics. If we must make progress in our universities, we must break our erected artificial barriers that are keeping us apart. The academics in physical sciences and engineering must come together with possibly a research centre that is into cutting-edge research that will involve research groups from all the relevant departments. Same way to bring life science and medical complex together.
I have seen graduates of mathematics that became Professors of Econometrics in Economics departments in universities in Europe, but not in Nigerian universities. I have seen a graduate of Chemistry that became a Professor of Engineering in Europe, but not in Nigerian universities. I have seen a graduate of Physics that became a Professor of Electric Power Engineering in Europe, but not in Nigerian universities. In Nigeria, I have seen Engr (Prof) XXX boldly written on our doors in the department but not in the universities in Europe. Are we having an identity crisis?
Professional bodies that are supposed to focus on the regulation of Professionals in the field should focus on their mandate and not be given free hands to change University policies as it pleases them. If we don’t end their interference, just like the medical council, COREN could wake up one day to tell our universities that there is a need for colleges of Engineering with departments of mathematics and physics to service the college because those in Mathematics and Physics departments are not qualified to teach engineering students because they don’t have engineering degrees. Vet council, Pharmaceuticals council, builders council, architects council, Quantity surveyors council, etc, may follow. So, how are we going to handle that?
Let’s stick to the founding principles of the university. Universities have world standards. We can stick to our British standard or borrow a leaf from the world’s top universities to improve our system, instead of allowing professional bodies to manipulate us and create barriers within the university system that will further slow down the progress we are to make.
Our universities are not in it’s best form and we have to do what we have to do to improve them. We should be more preoccupied with that. We should be discussing how to reposition Nigerian universities to be able to stand up to our various challenges and not duplicate departments without facilities because some Councils of professionals said so.
Finally, to my colleagues in Electric power engineering or high voltage engineering in Nigerian universities, you are welcome to experience our High Voltage Materials Laboratory in the Department of Physics, Ahmadu Bello University Zaria. We have a 400 kV DC generator and 100 kV AC source with a partial discharge measurement system to serve you. Join us to learn the physics of electric power equipment. We do not have barriers!

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Sports

Galadima Knocks Nigeria Sports Handlers Over Laziness in Talent Development,

Published

3 years ago

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November 27, 2020

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By Abdulgafar Oladimeji.

Former chairman, Nigeria Football Association , NFA Ibrahim Galadima(MFR) has faulted the administration, promotion and development of sports in Nigeria, noting that  the continuous  degenerating  global  status of Nigeria on the  sporting  arena could be attributed to laziness.

The outspoken sports administrator   stated that the absence of  clear  cut policies  on how  sports should be driven in Nigeria  constitutes parts of the factors that  has enrolled Nigeria on the path of total  failure.

Galadima in his remarks  on ( Thursday)at a one day workshop organized by Sports Writers Association of Nigeria, SWAN  Kano state chapter held at the conference hall of the Kano state Sports Commission with the theme “Early Warnings and Security Vigilance At Sports Events, he said “we re yet to clearly structure and drive the message clearly to say whether we   are in sports for business or  for leisure purposes.”

“our sports is going through difficult times, certainly, the Kenyans have  a clear concentration, they  have  shown clearly where they belong by dominating marathon races, recently they came to Kaduna and stamped their dominance.

“The abundant talent in Nigeria remained untapped, no age group graduation, even if you are in Chad, you are considered as a foreign based athlete, we are now so lazy in identifying talents.” Galadima lamented.

He alleged that lack of trust and confidence has  sent sponsors out of the industry, adding that potential brand sponsors are shying away from injecting their monies into  the industry for the fear of unaccountability.

 

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