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From Magnus Eze, Abuja
The Federal Government yesterday blamed the prohibitive cost of fertilizer in the country on the activities of Boko Haram insurgents.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, said insurgents were deploying urea, a critical component of fertilizer, for making bombs.
A bag of fertilizer ow costs about N8,000.
Ogbeh said Nigerians should not entertain fears about famine, as the ministry has engaged in the buying-back of assorted grains under the Guarantee Minimum Price Programme for restocking of strategic silo complexes.
He added that arrangement had been made with some state governors for farmers to commence planting this dry season to ensure food security in the country.
Similarly, the minister assured farmers that government was working hard to make fertilizer affordable, and one of such efforts was the recent memorandum of understanding signed with Morocco.
“There was a challenge in fertilizer movement some time last year because it was discovered that Boko Haram was using urea, a component element of fertilizer raw material, to manufacture bombs. We had to disrupt the movement for a while and that was when the price of fertilizer moved to, N10,000 per bag.
“The good news is that we have just signed MoU with Morocco; we are going to buy potassium, because they are the highest producers of potassium,” the minister said.
Ogbeh further explained that government had carried out soil tests across the country and would soon come up with soil-based fertilizers, noting that there was no reason fertilizer should be sold above N5,500 per bag.
The Presidency recently raised the alarm of imminent famine because of the large quantity of grains exported to neighbouring countries, which invariably inflated the price of grains in the market.
However, the minister explained that the current high cost of grains was because the demand was high.
NCCE: NCCE insists on minimum standard for colleges
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
The National Commission for Colleges of Education (NCCE) has warned all Federal Colleges of Education and other institutions that fall under its supervision that it would not tolerate any compromise on the set minimum standard expected from the institutions.
The commission linked the perceived drop in the quality of basic education in Nigeria to several compromises in the colleges that are responsible for the production of basic education teachers.
“We want to make it abundantly clear that the commission has not and will not share its statutory mandate of quality assurance with any college of education,” the Executive Secretary of the NCCE, Prof. Muhammadu Bappa-Aliyu, who addressed a meeting of provosts of colleges of education in Abuja yesterday, said.
He encouraged the colleges to uphold professionalism and freely consult with NCCE, which has the constitutional mandate to supervise the colleges, in case of any challenge, so that they can get professional assistance, thereby escaping the wrath of the commission.
He disclosed that the NCCE would, next year, embark on the review of the current NCE minimum standards and called for suggestions, observations and contributions, to arrive at an inclusive document that would improve the education system.
Bappa-Aliyu also reminded them that times have changed, and there was need to elicit feedback from individual graduates, stakeholders and the labour market.
NEMA: FG gives aid to Nigerian IDPs in Cameroun
From Fred Ezeh, Abuja
Federal Government, through the Presidential Committee on North East Initiative (PCNI), has delivered additional relief materials to displaced Nigerians living in the Republic of Cameroun, in support of the humanitarian efforts of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA).
This was in addition to 1,460 bags of assorted food items delivered to over 80,709 Nigerian IDPs currently taking refuge in that country over the weekend. The items, according to the humanitarian agency, include 650 bags of rice, 300 bags of guinea corn, 200 bags of millet, 150 bags of beans, 10 bags of groundnut, 50 bags of flour, 50 bags of sugar, 50 bags of salt, 100 cartons of tinned tomato, 50 cartons of seasoning cubes, 150 cartons of spaghetti, 150 cartons of bath soap and 50 cartons of vegetable oil.
NEMA spokesman, Sani Datti, in a statement yesterday, said that the additional relief materials donated by PCNI were non-food items presented to the IDPs by the NEMA Director, Search and Rescue, Air Commodore Salisu Mohammed.
Daily Sun learnt that the additional items are 1,941 pillows, 1,214 mattress, 4,646 sandals, 1,520 mosquito nets, 990 blankets, 3,990 items of clothing, 3,946 sanitary pads, 1,957 plastic buckets, 4,032 notebooks, 3,984 exercise books, 1,2240 plastic plates, 4,800 plastic cups, 960 plastic spoons, 9,920 baby mats, 36,000 toilet soaps and 4,032 pencils.
The items were distributed by UNHCR officials to the displaced Nigerians based on households.
NDIC: NDIC trains EFCC, ICPC operatives
From Uche Usim, Abuja
In line with its plans to reduce fraud in the financial sector, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) has trained 52 officials of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and six operatives the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission (ICPC) in various capacity building programmes.
According to the spokesman of the NDIC, Hadi Birchi, the programme lasted for 52 days in line with existing collaboration between the NDIC and the EFCC, towards enhancing the capacity of the anti-graft agency’s staff.
He added that the training programme was structured into six courses, namely accounting for non-accountants, foreign exchange investigation, tracing and tracking of suspicious transactions, financial and banking regulations, auditing and investigation fundamentals and financial analysis.
“Out of 48 paper facilitators for the capacity building programme, 37 were from NDIC while the other 11 were subject matter experts from financial system regulators, operators and practitioners. The training programme was residential and took place at the EFCC Academy, Karu, Abuja.
The programme ran from Monday, August 22 through Wednesday, November 30,” he said.
