Ismail Abdulaziz - News Agency Of Nigeria

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Wed, 2021

Unical VC set up campus COVID-19 task team

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By George Odok
The Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Florence Obi, has inaugurated the COVID-19 Taskforce Central team for the institution under the leadership of Dr Kingsley Akaba.

Other members of the team include Dr Paul Odey of the faculty of Basic Medical Sciences, Dr Leku Odey, Director of Health Services and Dr Alexander Peter, Public Health.

The rest of the taskforce members are Dr Bassey Ubi, Microbiologist and Mrs Josephine Bisong, Logistic personnel.

Inaugurating the team on Wednesday in Calabar, Obi urged members of the team to coordinate all the terms of reference as established by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) in the campus.

She explained that the taskforce team would also oversee the activities of all sub committees and execution of their goals and report directly to the Vice Chancellor’s office on a day-to-day activities of the COVID-19 task force.

The VC also created sub committees to help in facilitating the assignment given to the taskforce.

The committees include the Infection Prevention and Control; Quality Assurance, Management of COVID-19 Cases and Technical/Procurement.

Responding, Akaba assured the VC that the team would do its best in ensuring that the protocols of COVID-19 are strictly adhered to on campus.

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Wed, 2021

Health

20 doctors contract COVID-19 in Kwara

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By Fatima Mohammed-Lawal
At least 20 doctors have been infected with COVID-19 at the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital (UITH), an official has disclosed.

Dr Badmus Habeeb, President of UITH chapter of Association of Resident Doctors (ARD), said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Ilorin.

He said that members of the association were battling with the pandemic based on available resources.

“About 20 of our members have been infected with the virus in the past two to three weeks. I must reiterate that this is not the best of times for us, our families and the affected patients,” he said.

Habeeb, however, said that the discovery of COVID-19 vaccine has brought hope and relief to the people.

“There is a poor resource setting in the country, where basic necessities to make the roll out of the COVID-19 vaccines easy and possible, are not readily available.

“So it, therefore, seems we may never be able to get the vaccine anytime soon.

“Base on available evidence COVID-19 vaccine is effective and there is no reason why Nigerians should not follow the guide of scientific evidence, especially with proper information,” he said.

He advised the government to provide necessary resources and incentives to health workers across the country to help curb its spread.

“The public should adhere strictly to COVID-19 protocols as announced by NCDC,” he said.

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Wed, 2021

Economy/Business

Nigerian Railway starts e-ticketing Jan. 20

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By Lucy Ogalue
The Nigerian Railway Corporation (NRC) says it has commenced the e-ticketing for train services on the Abuja-Kaduna route.

Mr Fidet Okhiria, the NRC Managing Director, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja that the process would be on test run for a week before its formal inauguration on Jan. 20.

“We have commenced the e-ticketing for the Abuja -Kaduna train service today. We intend to test-run this process for about a week after which the formal inauguration will be done at the Ministry of Transportation on Jan. 20.

“The essence of this e-ticketing is to enable people to access tickets easily with fewer hurdles and especially during this period of social distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said.

According to Okhiria, the e-ticketing platform will guarantee orderliness in purchasing of tickets and address some major security challenges in the country.

He said that the e-ticketing would also ensure that the database of all passengers boarding the train were captured in case of emergencies and for other purposes.

An e-ticket (short for electronic ticket) is stored in the airline/train’s reservation system and therefore eliminates the need for a printed ticket.

The passengers are expected to check in with a government issued photo ID (e.g., driver’s license, passport) to receive their boarding pass.

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Wed, 2021

Foreign

Indonesia suspends search for crashed jet’s cockpit recorder

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Indonesia on Wednesday suspended a search by divers for the cockpit voice recorder of a Sriwijaya Air that crashed with 62 people on board shortly after take-off on Saturday.

The search in the Java Sea had to be halted due to bad weather that whipped up waves of up to 2.5 metres (8.2 feet) in height, officials said.

Earlier on Wednesday, divers retrieved more debris and a damaged Identity card of one of the victims, Navy official Abdul Rasyid told reporters on board the Indonesian navy ship Rigel.

Divers had retrieved the plane’s flight data recorder (FDR) from the seabed on Tuesday and officials said they had also found the beacon that was attached to the cockpit voice recorder (CVR).

A remotely operated underwater vehicles (ROV) will be deployed to scour the seabed on Wednesday, Rasyid said.

He added that the search had been made more complicated because no pings were now being emitted after the beacon detached from the CVR.

“We have the ROV that will confirm the location again and tomorrow we will dive and comb that location again,” he said.

Military chief Hadi Tjahjanto had on Tuesday said he had “high confidence” of finding the recorder soon. (Reuters/NAN)

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Wed, 2021

Foreign

China unveils prototype 620kmph superfast train

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A prototype train using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) maglev technology was rolled out on Wednesday in southwest China’s city of Chengdu.

The domestically developed maglev train boasts a designed speed of 620 kph, according to Southwest Jiaotong University, one of the train’s designers.

A 165-meter line to test the new technology was launched on the same day.

The first man-loading high-temperature superconducting (HTS) Maglev test vehicle in the world was successfully developed on Dec. 31, 2000 in the Applied Superconductivity Laboratory, Southwest Jiaotong University, China.

Heretofore over 24,500 passengers took the vehicle, and it has been operating back and forth for about 400 km.

The HTS Maglev vehicle provides inherent stability both in the vertical and lateral direction, so no control system is needed.

The only control system is used for linear motor driving devices. (Xinhua/NAN)

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Wed, 2021

Economy/Business

CAC generates over N19bn IGR in 2020

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By Joshua Olomu
The Registrar-General, Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), Alhaji Garba Abubakar, has said the organisation generated more than N19 billion as Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) last year.

Abubakar made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Wednesday in Abuja.

According to him, in spite of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected economic activities, the commission recorded increase in the registration of businesses and other corporate entities during the year.

“The year 2020 was one of our best years in terms of revenue generation as we recorded a surge in registration above the previous year.

“We had a revenue target of N18.2 billion, but we closed here with over N19 billion.

“For the first time in the last 10 years, we are able to give more money to the Federal Government in terms of operation surplus.

“We are hoping that we will meet our target for 2021 because where there is increased compliance by customers, there will be an increase in the revenue for government.

“Transactions are now easily carried out with the electronic system, as you pay through the remittal on our portal, without paper works,” he said.

He expressed the hope that the commission would surpass the N20 billion revenue target this year by leveraging on electronic systems transactions for most of its operations.

Abubakar, who was appointed to head the CAC on Jan. 7, 2020 by President Muhammadu Buhari, said the commission had undergone some reforms in the past one year.

According to him, the commission has successfully embedded the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) Tax Identification Number (TIN) on the certificate of registration for companies through the existing FIRS stamp duty portal.

He said that the commission had commenced the implementation of the Companies and Allied Matters Act, 2020 (CAMA 2020) with the introduction of a new self-service portal that allowed for end-to-end electronic submission by customers.

He said that the new CAMA provided a robust framework towards reforming identified legal, regulatory and administrative bottlenecks, which had hitherto slowed down the wheel of doing business for over three decades.

The Registrar-General, however, noted that inherited financial liabilities and the COVID-19 pandemic were some of the challenges he faced in steering the affairs of the organization in the past year.

“The challenges we had last year was the inherited liabilities, as I took over with over N6 billion liabilities, and also had challenges of service delivery because of the COVID-19 restrictions.

“Before the COVID-19 pandemic, we were registering company and business names within 24 hours, but the pandemic and the various restrictions to curb the spread of the disease affected our service delivery,” he said.

Abubakar said that part of the commission’s agenda for 2021 was to build stronger collaborations with relevant agencies and intensify the enforcement of the provisions of the new CAMA.

He tasked all registered entities on compliance with the new law in terms of filing their annual returns and other statutory duties to the commission.

According to him, with the new law it is now easier for companies to file their returns without going through any lawyer, accountant or chartered secretary.

“With the new portal a company can decide to have its own electronic account that will allow it to make all its fillings directly.

“The new portal also shows at a glance the status of a company, whether it is active, dormant, receivership or liquidation.

“We have given access to most government agencies and foreign missions in Nigeria to confirm the status of companies and we will continue to do that.

“Before they deal with any registered company, they will verify if such company is actually an active company and whether the information provided by such company is consistent with the CAC records,” he said.

Abubakar said the commission was working out modalities for granting amnesty on annual returns to companies and other registered entities and it would be announced before the end of the first quarter of this year.

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Tue, 2021

Sports

36 more contract COVID-19 in 20 EPL clubs

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A further 36 positive tests were reported by the 20 English Premier League clubs between Jan. 4 and Sunday.

A total of 27 of the tests came between Jan. 4 and Thursday, with 10 more coming between Friday and Sunday, the Premier League said in a statement.

The 36 positive tests represent a slight reduction on the record number of 40 tests in the previous week.

A total of 2,593 tests were conducted across the 20 clubs.(dpa/NAN)

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Tue, 2021

General News

Crash: Indonesia uses unmanned vehicles to search for victims

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Indonesia has deployed a remotely operated underwater vehicle to help divers search for the remains of victims from a Sriwijaya Air jet that crashed into the sea on Saturday.

The Boeing 737-500 plane with 62 people on board plunged into the Java Sea Saturday afternoon, four minutes after taking off from Jakarta’s main airport.

“Today we are focusing on finding the victims,” Yusuf Latif, a spokesman for search and rescue agency Basarnas, said on Tuesday.

A remotely operated underwater vehicle has been deployed to help scour the seabed, while navy vessels with sonar search from the surface.

Divers have narrowed down an area where they believe the flight recorders, known as black boxes, are believed to be but search efforts have been hindered by debris, officials said.

Once the flight data and cockpit voice recorders are found, Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee (KNKT) expects to be able to read the information in three days.

Indonesian police made the first identification of a victim from the crash on Monday. Flight attendant Okky Bisma was identified by his fingerprints, said a police official.

“My super kind husband… Heaven is your place… Until we meet again darling,” Okky’s wife, who is also a flight attendant, wrote on her Instagram account.

The Boeing 737-500 jet was headed on a domestic flight to Pontianak on Borneo island, about 740 km (460 miles) from Jakarta, before it disappeared from radar screens.

It was the second major air crash in Indonesia since 189 passengers and crew were killed in 2018 when a Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX also plunged into the Java Sea soon after taking off.

The jet that crashed on Saturday is a largely different design.

With few immediate clues on what caused a catastrophic loss of control after take-off, investigators will rely heavily on the flight recorders to determine what went wrong.

The Sriwijaya Air plane was nearly 27 years old, much older than Boeing’s problem-plagued 737 MAX model.

Older 737 models are widely flown and do not have the stall-prevention system implicated in the MAX safety crisis. (Reuters/NAN)

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Tue, 2021

Defence/Security

Senate lauds treatment of wounded soldiers

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By Mohammed Tijjani
The Senate Committee on Army has lauded the medical treatment on wounded soldiers at the 44 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital, Kaduna.

The soldires were wounded by insurgents during the fight against terrorists.

Sen. Abdu Kwari, a member of the committee, who visited the hospital, said the committee was encouraged by the care given to the wounded soldiers.

“From what I have seen, I have seen something that is akin to a first class treatment and care for these wounded soldiers.

“First, we want to appreciate our fallen heroes and those of them that have fought in the field and are still alive.

“I am here on behalf of the Senate Committee on Army to visit these facilities that have long history; it is the reference hospital of other reference hospitals around the country.

“It is in peculiar position as one housing the highest number of wounded personnel from our various battle fields.

“We thought we should be here to see and appreciate the management of the facility and the gallant men and women among them that have been brought here for care.

“The surroundings are kept very neat and also the people being cared for are well catered for and we have seen various facilities and spoken to some of them and they are appreciative of how they are adequately being cared for,” he said.

Kwari implored the hospital to continue its best for the wounded soldiers.

“What is important here is to note that bullets wounds are not the same as other wounds being treated in our conventional hospitals.

“The processes taken in this facility is good and we hope at the end of it, those being cared for in this facility will come out better,” the senator said.

Kwari also appreciated the rehabilitation efforts in the facility, which was meant for the men to go back to full life after treatment.

According to him, the senate will review existing laws to ensure that those whose productive lives are truncated as result of their involvement in wars get full compensation in line with global best practices.

“I will try to see how we can urge our colleagues to come on board and see how we can adequately compensate our young men and women who fight battles on our behalf,” he said.

Kwari also said that the funding for the military would be sustained, including funds for more reference hospitals.

“Developing references hospitals such as this will cost money and if the provisions are there, we will welcome it.

“We will continue to give our support and appeal to our colleagues for the budget to be reviewed upward from time to time.

“There is going to be a review of the budget sometimes in the year, that is the essence of seeing these facilities and then we make our case,” he added.

Earlier, the acting Chief Medical Director of the hospital, Col. Augustine Omogbethai, explained that the Chief of Army Staff had approved more equipment worth millions of Naira for effective service delivery in the facility.

He said that the hospital was doing everything necessary in terms of surgery, medication and fortified meals for the wounded personnel with a view of boosting their morale.

He pointed out that 51 nurses were recently recruited so that the soldiers would be adequately taken care of.

He noted that 52 wounded personnel who sustained lifelong injuries were currently taking a computer training to engage them in meaningful ventures.

Ismail Abdulaziz
Jan, Tue, 2021

Features

Nigeria’s COVID-19 cases hit +100,000 with 1,244 on Monday

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By Abujah Racheal
The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has reported 1,244 new cases of the Coronavirus (COVID-19), bringing the total number of infections in the country to 101,331.

The NCDC disclosed this on its official website late Monday.

The agency also confirmed additional three coronavirus-related deaths in the country in the past 24 hours.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that last week the country recorded more than 9,800 cases within seven days, thus surpassing its earlier weekly record of COVID-19 infections.

Available data shows that between Jan. 3 and Jan. 9, the country recorded 9,833 cases, a sharp increase from the 5,681 cases recorded in the previous week of Dec. 27, 2020, and Jan. 2, 2021.

The public health agency said the new infections were reported from across 20 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).

It disclosed that Lagos state, the epicentre of the virus in country, recorded the highest number of confirmed cases with 774 new infections, taking the total number of cases in the state to 36,875.

The health agency added that Lagos, FCT and Plateau recorded the highest number of COVID-19 infections with 774, 125 and 102 cases respectively.

Ohers states with new infections were Anambra-47, Ondo-46, Rivers-27, Edo-18, Kaduna-16, Ogun-16, Gombe-16, Bauchi-11, Kano-11, Nasarawa-10, Akwa Ibom-seven, Sokoto-seven, Borno-five, Ekiti-four, and Zamfara-two.

NCDC also announced the discharge of 461 patients from isolation centres across the country.

“Our discharges today include 144 community recoveries in Lagos State managed in line with guidelines,” it said, adding that it had conducted at least 1,033,858 tests since the first confirmed case of COVID-19 was announced in the country.

According to it, a multi-sectoral national Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) activated at Level 3, is coordinating response activities nationwide.

The agency issued a public health advisory to alert Nigerians that non-adherence to public health and social measures was undermining its response efforts aimed at limiting the continued spread of the virus.

“The average number of daily confirmed cases recorded in the first week of January 2021, was higher than the cumulative cases recorded the last week of December 2020.

“Following the festive season, and in view of the increase in the number of confirmed cases in Nigeria, the NCDC and partners, with leadership from the Federal Ministry of Health and the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 are putting in place measures to strengthen the public health agency’s response to the pandemic,” it said.

To prevent the further spread of COVID-19, the NCDC said, ”Nigerians are reminded to wear a face mask properly, wash hands with soap, and maintain physical distance from others.

“This is not the time to let down our guard. The virus that causes COVID-19 never went away and is still very much with us, as evidenced by the rising cases in Nigeria and globally.”

The NCDC noted that COVID-19 could affect all age groups with severe outcomes in the elderly (50 years and above), and in persons with co-morbidities such as hypertension, diabetes, cancer etc.

“Recently there has been increased infection among the younger age groups.

“Therefore, NCDC urges all persons to take responsibility and adhere to the non-pharmaceutical interventions (regular hand washing, maintaining physical distance, and proper use of face mask,” it explained.

It said it would continue to work with other agencies under the leadership of the Federal Ministry of Health to spear-head public health response to the disease.

It added that it would continue to play a key role in the multi-sectoral response to the disease, within the Presidential Task Force on COVID-19 (PTF-COVID-19), established by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Given the sustained increase in cases, the agency said it would also continue to work closely with state governments, provide support through the deployment of Rapid Response Teams, provide laboratory and medical supplies as well as carry out other response activities.

“We urge state governments to take greater ownership of their response, maintain their COVID-19 surveillance structures, laboratory diagnosis and testing.

“Unless states actively test, they will not know their disease burden, putting local communities at greater risk of adverse outcomes, if the virus is not detected and impacts vulnerable populations.

“NCDC has significantly scaled-up the national testing capacity by expanding the number of laboratories for COVID-19 testing across states.

“Testing remains one of the best tools we have in our fight against COVID-19, as it enables prompt clinical management and helps in preventing further transmission.

“The cumulative number of samples tested in the country has increased significantly, and some states have sustained their higher levels of testing.

“Although the country has yet to meet its total testing capacity, this remains a major priority for the response.

“Sample collection sites have also been established in many Local Government Areas, making public health testing more easily accessible.

“Testing in public laboratories remains free of charge unless for travel purposes in private laboratories, where pricing structures vary,” it explained.

The NCDC charged healthcare professionals to maintain a high index of suspicion, especially when treating patients with breathing difficulties and also present with symptoms common to COVID-19.

It urged Nigerians to adhere to the recommended public health and social measures recommended by public health authorities and to avoid all non-essential travel within and outside Nigeria to reduce the risk of transmission.

“The virus that causes COVID-19 is more likely to spread in mass gatherings, especially in confined spaces with poor ventilation.

“It is advised that people avoid mass gatherings during this time, and if necessary meet outdoors and adhere to physical distancing and other public health measures.

“All these measures are critical in order to sustain the gains made since the onset of the pandemic.

“We also strongly advise business owners, employees and religious leaders to institute the strict enforcement and adherence to public measures, which include the wearing of face masks, ensuring the availability of handwashing facilities or providing hand sanitizers.