Brotherhood of the Cross and Star (BCS), a religious organization based in Calabar, has set aside N46.9 million to train youths in various fields such as skills acquisition, agriculture, and sports.

Patriarch Christ Shepherd Edet Archibong, the organization’s spokesman, revealed this at a press conference in Calabar on Monday to mark the start of the 8th Annual Convention of the Brotherhood All Youth Assembly (BAYA), which he described as an umbrella body in charge of empowerment programs.

BAYA was founded in 2012 to assist youth in becoming financially independent in order to promote global peace and sustainable development, according to Patriarch Archibong, and its mandate was to develop an empowerment program for youths within the next five years.

“This is to directly empower 230 youths over the next five years at a cost of N46,960,000, with a projected multiplier effect of empowering and creating jobs for another 2,150 youths.

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‘Taking into account the disparity in youths’ felt-needs, the plan has earmarked the flotation of programs in various areas such as agriculture, education, entertainment, broadcasting, and sports,’ he said.

This year, he said, 70 young people had been trained in organic farming, including fish hatching and rearing, mushroom, pepper, fluted pumpkin, okro, and tomato cropping, among other things.

Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Enugu, Kaduna, Kogi, and Rivers were among the ten states chosen, he said.

“Selection for the 2022 Empowerment Programme, which will focus on education, will begin on Sunday at this year’s Convention. UTME (JAMB), WAEC, and tuition fees tickets will be drawn from lucky dip boxes by contingents from different states. It is expected that 175 people will benefit from this.

“The program is an interventionist scheme that aims to purchase UTME and WAEC forms as well as provide undergraduate and postgraduate scholarship,” Archibong explained, adding that “a good chunk of the youths will gain entry into a more stable and sustainable source of livelihood” as a result of the program.

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According to him, the BAYA Convention has already had a positive impact on hundreds of young people across the country, with events held in Rivers State, Abuja, Uyo, Lagos, Owerri, Yenegoa, and Asaba.

BAYA was created to promote holiness among youths, encourage evangelism, stimulate academic excellence, establish vocational/skills acquisition, institute and support entrepreneurship development, and empower the physically challenged in society, according to him.

The Federal Government has reached an agreement with health workers under the auspices of Joint Health Sector Unions, thanks to the intervention of Minister of Labour and Employment, Dr. Chris Ngige (JOHESU).

The agreement was forced by JOHESU’s recent strike warning to the government over the latter’s failure to provide certain benefits due to health workers.

JOHESU had previously given the Federal Government a 15-day deadline to meet their demands or face a strike. However, after the meeting, which lasted about five hours, Ngige told journalists that they had productive discussions and that the Memorandum of Understanding would be signed this week.

He stated that they discussed all of the issues in dispute in a friendly manner and came to an agreement on all of them, including the increase in hazard allowance, the review of the retirement age from 60 to 65 years, the arrears of the consequential adjustment of the national minimum wage, and the upward adjustment of the Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) as done with the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS).

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The Minister stated that they had no issues with the old issues, while the meeting agreed that the new issues should be discussed with their employer, the Federal Ministry of Health.

On the hazard allowance, Ngige recalled that the government had previously held four meetings with JOHESU and the Nigeria Medical Association (NMA), as well as their affiliates, but that there were some areas of disagreement.

He pointed out that NMA and a union previously thought to be a part of JOHESU demanded the compartmentalization of the hazard allowance discussions, which the government agreed to.

“We delivered to them (JOHESU) the financial implications of what is due to them based on previous discussions, and they promised to get back to their members and report back to us. The government, on the other hand, will meet with the NMA next week for a separate discussion on hazard allowance. The Federal Government has already set aside N37.5 billion for this purpose.

“The problem was resolved to everyone’s satisfaction. Some people want the public to believe that the government is delaying the hazard allowance. Government has been making concerted efforts for the past six months to bring the new hazard allowance into effect, which we are doing now except for a disagreement between NMA and JOHESU,” Ngige said.

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On the proposal to raise the retirement age from 60 to 65 years, Ngige said the meeting received reports from the Federation’s Head of Service and the Federal Ministry of Health, both of which agreed that the proposal was realistic.

“The matter has already been dealt with by the Federation’s Office of the Head of Service, which has then forwarded it to the National Council on Establishment for further processing at its meeting in December 2021,” he said.

According to Ngige, the meeting agreed to treat the issues of non-implementation of allowances included in the 2017 agreement holistically, including consequential minimum wage adjustments and skipping.

Concerning the non-adjustment of CONHESS as in CONMESS, he recalled that the matter was taken to the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) for adjudication after a civil society organization filed a lawsuit, and the court remitted the matter back to JOHESU and its employer, the Federal Ministry of Health, for further discussion.

He said that if the discussions failed, they agreed to bring the matter back for conciliation, and that the meeting also resolved other issues raised by JOHESU, such as the 30% shift duty allowance for nurses and others, the payment of outstanding allowance to intern health professionals, and the payment of teaching allowance to JOHESU members on CONHESS 7.

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He said the Council on Health was responsible for resolving issues affecting their members in state health institutions, and that the Federal Ministry of Health had been directed to receive them and forward them to the council.

On Thursday, JOHESU will meet with the Federal Ministry of Health to draft a framework for all of the discussions to begin, he added.

“We will be prepared to deal with all issues. However, because of the fragile state of the economy, we agreed that the principle of capacity to pay will guide all of our discussions,” the labour minister said.

In response, the President of JOHESU stated that “striking is not the way to go,” and expressed optimism that all of the unions’ concerns would be addressed positively.

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Minister of Health, Dr. Osagie Ehanire, Ministers of State, Olurunimbe Mamora (Health) and Festus Keyamo (Labour and Employment), Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Labour and Employment, Peter Tarfa, and his Health counterpart, Director General, Budget Office, Ben Akabueze, and Chairman, National Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, Ekpo are among those attending the meeting from the government side.

Representatives from the Federation’s Accountant General, the Federation’s Head of Service, and IPPIS were also present.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday outlined some of the efforts his administration is making across the country to combat  threats and preserve biodiversity resources.

Buhari said Nigeria is known for its environmental resources such as forestry, wildlife, and wetlands resources spread across all geo-political zones of the country, speaking at the 33rd session of the International Coordinating Council of the Man and the Biosphere (MAB-ICC) program at the State House in Abuja.

The president, who was represented by the Secretary to the Federal Government (SGF) Boss Mustapha, stated that Nigeria has more than 5,000 documented plant species and 22,090 animal and other species.

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“A good number of the problems we face today can be traced to our destructive use of the environment, particularly its biodiverse resources, and we are regrettably living with the consequences of our actions,” he added.

“Nigeria has taken certain measures to ensure that it manages its environment,” he said, citing the development of environmental policies, solid waste management, plastic waste management, biosafety policy, gender, and climate change as examples.

“The following mitigation efforts are being carefully implemented through the aforementioned policies and programs, such as the accelerated implementation of the Ogoni cleanup for the restoration of polluted and degraded land, effective implementation of the Great Green Wall (GGW), and promotion of set tree planting targets, among others.”

Chief Sharon Ikeazor, Minister of State for Environment, stated that the world is facing a planetary crisis of climate change and biodiversity loss in her remarks.

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She did say, however, that if conservation efforts were scaled up and protected areas were expanded, it was not too late to reverse current trends.

She reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to take bold measures to reverse biodiversity loss and mitigate climate change.

Over 7,000 professional nurses leave Nigeria for greener pastures, according to Dr Faruk Abubakar, Secretary-General/Registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria.

This, he claimed, was clear proof that Nigeria has competent, efficient, and hardworking professional nurses who are among the best in the world.

This was stated by Dr Faruk Abubakar as he led members of the council to Dr Mordi Ononye, the Delta State Commissioner for Health, in Asaba, shortly before a five-day workshop for examiners engaged in nursing and professional examinations held in the state recently.

“In that regard, the council felt it was necessary that we maintain that standard, which is why we organize this workshop every two years and make sure that the examiners that we assign and appoint to conduct professional examinations have updated knowledge in line with global practices,” the secretary-general/registrar joked.

It should be remembered that Nigeria has seen an increase in nurse migration to developed countries as a result of push factors such as low remuneration, poor governmental policies, and poor working conditions, as well as pull factors such as good working conditions and better pay that developed countries offer.

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Dr. Ononye, the Delta health commissioner, however, described the high rate of migration of Nigerian nurses to developed countries as alarming and said it must be investigated immediately to prevent a threat to Nigeria’s health system.

“We have a situation where human resource experts, who have been trained and skilled at great cost to the country, are being lost to our health system as a result of migration to more developed countries,” he said.

“This is concerning to health-care stakeholders, and we welcome practical suggestions for resolving the problem.”

Dr. Ononye praised the council for the excellent work it has done in developing rigorous training programs for nursing students and professionals, which he believes is the reason for Nigerian nurses’ international competence.

“I applaud the council for organizing the examiners’ workshop and including participant evaluation as part of its training activities, which has undoubtedly elevated the workshop beyond a paper exercise.

“By doing so, the council has undoubtedly set the standard for other health players in the sector to follow,” he added.