Exclusive Report - Senate tasks Federal Government, security agencies to unravel Alex Badeh's assassination

The upper chamber of the National Assembly, Thursday, urged the federal government to unravel the circumstances surrounding the assassination of former Chief of Defence staff, Air Chief Marshal Alex Badeh (retd).

The Senate also urged the security agencies to search and rescue the personal staff of the slain Air Force Chief held hostage by the assailants.

The call by the Senate was sequel to a motion sponsored by Senator Binta Masi Garba (Adamawa North) and co-sponsored by Senator Bala Na’Allah (Kebbi south).

Garba recalled that “Badeh retired in July 2015 in line with military tradition a pulling-out parade was held at the Mogadishu cantonment Abuja where Air Chief Marshal Badeh gave his valedictory speech before proceeding to his home state”.

She however regretted that the late Chief of Defence staff died from gunshot wounds sustained when his vehicle was attacked while returning from his farm alongside his driver while one of his personal staff is still held hostage by the assailants.

In his contribution, Senator Shehu Sani, who lamented that the killing was an addition to the cases of unresolved assassination, warned that the state must take the issue very seriously.

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Federal Government to employ 1m people for N-Power

The Federal Government will expand the N-Power scheme from the current 500,000 to accommodate one million beneficiaries in the next phase.

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, said that the expansion became necessary because of the successes recorded in the programme.

The government established the programme because of the growing need for government’s direct intervention in job creation. The Vice President stated when he responded to a variety of questions at a town hall meeting in Abuja on Monday. He said that the programme would become the largest post-tertiary job scheme in Africa.“

The idea of N-Power is supposed to be government’s own programme of direct employment and training. At the moment, we have taken up to 500,000 and in the next phase we are looking at another 200,000 and closely followed by another 300,000.“In all, we will be employing up to a million, and that will be the largest post-tertiary job programme in the entire Africa. The reason why we have done this is because of the employment problems that we have, we may not be able to engage everybody but at least government must give some direct provision of jobs.”Osinbajo explained further that though government could not pay more than the N30,000 currently paid to beneficiaries and also fix all the unemployment issues, it is working on creating the enabling environment to ensure that beneficiaries as well as other unemployed Nigerians become useful to themselves.“It is infrastructure that will create the opportunities to provide more jobs, especially through manufacturing and Industry.“So, we are doing roads and rail, providing power; that is the way we can develop industry.

We are energizing our markets at the moment, putting solar power in the markets.“We have designated 300 markets, we have done Ariaria in the South East, Sabon Gari inKano, Surat in Lagos, Isikan in Ondo, Gbagi in Oyo and we are expanding so that more peoplecan work.”On the need to engage more women in productive activities,Prof. Osinbajo said: “one of the ways the Buhari administrationis engaging more women is through our GEEP loans.”He said: “56% of our GEEP loans go to the women. So there is a lot of preferential advantage that we give to women and this is because women are effective managers of resources; they pay back these loans when they are given.”

via vanguard

FG to hire economic growth expert for N458m

The Federal Executive Council on Wednesday approved the hiring of a consultant to conduct a study that will aid the implementation of the present administration’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan.

The Minister of Budget and National Planning, Udo Udoma, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of a meeting of the Council presided over by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Udoma put the cost of the approved consultancy job at N458m.
According to PUNCH, he said the consultant would identify relevant stakeholders in both private and public sectors for the implementation of the ERGP.

He said the study would be conducted on agriculture, transportation, power, gas and processing, among others.
The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, also said the Council approved the contract for the construction of Gombe-Biu Road at the cost of N27bn.