Ahmed Musa Husaini on facebook 13 12 2020 

For the president to contemplate going on a private vacation at a time of great social, economic and political upheaval, he lacks the mental and physical energy to carry on with the task of leading this country through these difficult times. I know it is impossible in our clime but a leader should have the courage and decency to resign when he feels he could no longer discharge the responsibilities of his office.

The abduction of school children in the president's homestate hours after he set foot in Daura is an affront to anything that he claims to represent, a scandalous middlefinger to an uninspiring c-in-c. I said Chibok abduction was bad and Dapchi abduction was even worse, but this one is more damning because we are supposed to learn from our past blunders and ensure that no community passes through similar tragedies again.

But beneath the president's incapacity lies the alarming degree of incompetence and irresponsibility at other levels of government. It is common knowledge that the Kankara area has for long been under the control of bandits (which itself is an indictment of government's failure to secure our communities). It is therefore doubly irresponsible for government to allow schools to open under such extreme security situations. 

There's nothing that can be said that has not been said before. As the North keeps unraveling, it is up to the region's political, economic and traditional elites to rise to the occasion and reverse this ugly trend. The president has demonstrated that he neither has the capacity nor the political will to secure our people. We are our own presidents now!



BREAKING: FG Orders Cancellation Of ₦20 NIN Retrieval Charge

 

The Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Dr Isa Pantami, has directed the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) to remove the N20 USSD fee imposed on subscribers for National Identification Number (NIN) retrieval requests.

This directive came following the outrage across the country from subscribers who were charged N20 by their network providers in order to retrieve their NIN.

A statement signed by the spokesperson of the minister, Mrs Uwa Suleiman, said the minister’s directive which takes immediate effect, is an intervention aimed at making the process easier and affordable.

“In a letter conveying the implementation of the directive, the Executive Vice Chairman NCC and the Director General of NIMC informed Dr Pantami that the relevant authorities had met with, and negotiated a waiver with the mobile network operators in that regard.

“By this waiver, all Nigerians, subscribers and applicants, can access the service using the *346# code for their NIN retrieval at no charge for the duration of the NIN/SIM Card integration exercise.

“Recall that the Federal Government had earlier directed that all National Identification Numbers be integrated with Subscriber Identification Modules (SIM) for security purposes.

“The minister appreciates the efforts of all stakeholders and encourages them to continue to sacrifice more for national interest,” the statement noted.