About 40 Boko Haram militants willing to surrender

The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC, in Borno says about 40 Boko Haram insurgents have indicated willingness to surrender to the Corps in the state.

The Commandant of the corps in the state, Ibrahim Abdullahi, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria on Wednesday in Maiduguri.

Mr. Abdullahi said that the insurgents had indicated their intention to renounce membership of the terrorist group but through an intermediary.

He said that negotiations between the command and the insurgents were conducted through a firewood vendor.

He also said that six insurgents had earlier surrendered to the Corps in the last one month in the state.

The commandant stated that the extremists surrendered voluntarily under the Federal Government’s Safe Corridor Initiative (SCI).

“About 40 of the insurgents have come forward to surrender. They indicated that many of them are willing to lay down their arms,” Abdullahi said.

According to him, the command has also conducted town hall meetings with communities and religious leaders to enhance security in the state.

NAN report that hundreds of the insurgents had surrendered to the Nigerian Army under the SCI in the past three months.

The surrendered insurgents are currently undergoing de-radicalisation process at the Military Rehabilitation Centre, Gombe, to facilitate their reintegration into the society.

Premium Times

Teachers in Kaduna, Nigeria fail pupils' exam

Thousands of primary school teachers in Nigeria's northern Kaduna state are to be sacked after failing the exams they set for their six-year-old pupils.

State governor Nasir El-Rufai said 21,780 teachers, two-thirds of the total, had failed to score 75% or higher on assessments given to pupils.

He said 25,000 new teachers would be recruited to replace them.

Mr El-Rufai made the comments at a meeting with World Bank representatives in the state capital, Kaduna.

"The hiring of teachers in the past was politicised and we intend to change that by bringing in young and qualified primary school teachers to restore the dignity of education in the state," he was quoted as saying by Nigeria's Daily Trust newspaper.

Mr El-Rufai said problems with pupil-teacher ratios across the state would also be addressed.

He said some areas currently had one teacher for every nine pupils while in other areas the ratio was one to 100.

BBC

Video - Operations at Nigeria's main sea port almost grounded to a halt

For over two months now operations at Nigeria's main sea port in Lagos have almost grounded to a halt. The roads leading to the port are in bad shape and reconstruction work has been slow. Lines of trucks and tankers trying to access the port now stretch back to over 10 kilometers, making it virtually impossible to drive around the port area. The situation is now taking a serious toll on exporters of agriculture products.

Ban on open drugs markets in Nigeria to take effect in 2019

Open drug markets will be outlawed in Nigeria and shut down by the end of next year, the federal government has said.

The Minister of Health, Isaac Adewole, made this known on Monday in Lagos at a workshop organised by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) in collaboration with the World Health Organisation on “The prevention, Detection and Response of Substandard and Falsified medical Products.”

According to a report of the event by Thisday newspaper, the minister said the government would introduce coordinated wholesale centres nationwide for distribution of drugs, to check the menace of fake medical products in Nigeria.

Mr. Adewole said the new measure would ensure that drugs are sourced directly from importers or manufacturers and distributed down to the end users instead of having Nigerians continuing buying drugs from the open drug markets.

He said the ministry had developed a National Drug Distribution Guidelines (NDDG) in 2012 to address Nigeria’s chaotic drug distribution system.

Mr. Adewole said the “Coordinated Wholesale Centres”, which will accommodate open market medicines sellers, had been approved and are being developed in Lagos, Onitsha, Aba and Kano and will commence operation by January 1, 2019.

He said: “Medicine is an important component of healthcare delivery service and without the infusion of medicines; the health care service delivery system of a nation is sterile.

“A good-quality medicine supply system is essential for healthcare delivery. There is a special need to prevent therapeutic drug falsification in order to safeguard against health and maintain trust in healthcare system. The overall scale of trading in medicine and the resultant harm done to global health has not been adequately accessed,” he said.

In his remarks at the workshop, the acting Director General of NAFDAC, Ademola Mogbojuri, noted that the public health implications of substandard and falsified medical products include treatment failure, high treatment cost, development of resistance, loss of confidence in the healthcare providers and healthcare system and may ultimately, result in fatality and death.

Mr. Mogbojuri who noted that the problem has become a serious threat to global public health, said the fight against the menace requires a sustained action by both governmental and non-governmental bodies. 

While noting that single and isolated interventions cannot address the issue of substandard falsified medical products, he called for coordinated actions with international organisations to reduce the practice to the barest minimum.

Premium Times

Video - Children in Nigeria's northeast miss on education due to insecurity

As the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria's northeast drags into its ninth year, children in the region continue to miss out on an education. Many schools remain closed due to insecurity.