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PULP Foundation rolls out maiden outreach, lauds Gambari, Boss Mustapha

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Worried by the state of the Nation’s security challenges and its threats to National unity, People United in Love and Peace (PULP) foundation, has during its unveiling flagged off its maiden outreach in Mararaba, Nasarawa state. 
PULP which is a non governmental organization was instituted by a group of eminent Nigerians led by Dr. Chuks Victor James.


According to a communique signed by its founder Dr. James the foundation asides its empowerment initiatives is poised to seek various means to foster love, unity, peace and progress amongst Nigerians.

The outreach exercise included the distribution of cash sums to indigent women followed by a Gala Night which witnessed a large turnout of dignitaries from within and outside Nasarawa.
The occasion saw the presence of ; Arewa Youths, HRH Jodan Markinta of Adamawa State,  Hon Yusuf Musa Ardo, the Mieti- Allah National Chairman of Fulani Peace Initiative, Alhaji Ahmadu Sardauna, Matarsa Nasarawa State, Comr. Magaji Musa Adamu among other dignitaries.

Speaking during the elaborate outreach in Mararaba, the founder, a U.S. based Dr. James, enjoined Nigerians to develop a positive mindset towards the country, adding that such positive thoughts will propel the nation to greatness.

“This is the first time we are coming publicly to announce the formation of this foundation. The aim of the foundation is to do everything we can, to unite our brothers from the north with our brothers from the south.


“It doesn’t cost us money for us to unite our country, it’s just for us to work on our change of mindsets. I flew all the way from New York, US to Nigeria to speak about the essence, the need for us to live in peace and unity. 

Appreciating the Federal Government’s roles in combating the global Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19), Dr. James commended President Muhammadu Buhari; his Chief of Staff, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari and the Secretary to the Federal Government, Boss Mustapha for taking proactive steps to stem the tide in the spread of the virus.

He said, “The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the entire universe but Nigeria was saved because of the actions taken by Mr President, Mohamadu Buhari, carried out by the Secretary to the Government of the Fderation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, Prof Ibrahim Gambari and the 36 state Governors.
“They played a very good role in making sure that some of the citizens were vaccinated and received the Covid protocols/palliatives.”

Harping on the need for Nigerians to eschew violence and live in peace , Dr. James identified lack of peace and unity as being  responsible for love lost amongst Nigerians.
The foundation founder encouraged participants to spread the good news of peace and unity amongst brothers, sisters and parents, telling them of the need to change their mindsets about segregation and unhealthy thoughts against the nation.

The climax of the event was the announcement of PULP Foundation to stage a massive concert to be held at Eagle square in Abuja, where women will be given 1 Million Naira each to support their economic growth. According to Dr. Chuks the reason behind the foundation’s priority for women stems from the fact that women usually turn out first to embrace peace and unity, saying that women are pillars and the stability of Nigeria cannot be fixed without women”.

In his concluding remarks,  PULP-F founder enjoined Nigerians to change their habit of negative criticisms and casting slurs at public office holders in the country.
He added that foreign investors take their investments to other countries due to the negative notions created by citizens about its public officeholders. He said that these negative perspectives will do Nigeria no good, he therefore, charged Nigerians to take this message of unity, peace and love to all states, as he also stressed on the need to put the nation first before religion and ethnic divides.
“If you look presently,  investors are taking their businesses abroad, away from Nigeria. Nigeria has the man power, we have the population, we have everything but because we’re not speaking together as brothers and sisters, everyone is saying that am from Zamfara State therefore it’s only Zamfara people that will do this, am from Abia state therefore only Igbo people will do that, No! We are first and foremost Nigerians. 

“We must understand these facts, that is when developments will start and that is when even the international communities will all come back to Nigeria, bringing in their foreign direct investments because they know that Nigeria has the population and manpower.
“We should shun religion if we must progress. We were born here as Nigerians before religion came to play a part in our  lives, so,  let’s consider ourselves as nothing but Nigerians first before religion, Dr. James said.
Harping on Nigeria’s unity, he canvasses for the removal of State of origin from the Nation’s constitution, he said that that every Nigerian should be accorded their full rights to engage in any economic and political activity regardless of the state where they hail from.

He said “In my Nigeria and America passports they wrote Benue state but if I want to run an election in Benue, I am told to go to Abia state however in my passport, there’s no Abia state on it.
“If we can remove all these impediments Nigeria will be a better place to reckon with in Africa.
“We must also learn to love our families. Our father, mother, sisters and brothers. Most importantly we must love our mothers greatly because through them we were born. We must give our women enough credit”.

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Empowerment

US based Pastor doles out scholarship to 300 students in Niger

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***Carpets FG over students loan scheme

The general overseer of the Glory House City Church, Atlanta Georgia United States of America, Pastor Chuzzy Udenwa has given scholarships to 300 students drawn from various high institutions of learning in Niger state to support their education.
The beneficiaries were picked from eight tertiary instructions in the state which include Federal University of Technology, Minna, Niger State Polytechnic Zungeru, Niger State college of education, Federal Polytechnic Bida, Justice Fati Lami school of legal studies, Minna and Newgate University of Medical Sciences, Minna.
48 beneficiaries received instant cash of N50, 000 to support their education while the remaining ones were given different categories of scholarships.
The scholarships were given to the benefiting students during the two day Niger Inter Campus Fire Crusade organized by the Glory City Campus Fellowship Nigeria at the Niger State College of Education Minna, the state capital at the weekend.
Speaking at the well attended Niger Campus Fire Crusade, Pastor Udenwa said the decision to invade the Nigerian campuses for the crusade which has taken him to five states so far and Abuja was borne out of the need to pray for Nigerian students because of the evils that have taken over the campuses in Nigerian.
In addition to this, he pointed out that there is the urgent need to give back to the society through sponsorship of students who are at the verge of being thrown out of school due to lack of sponsorship.
According to him “there are a lot of evil in our campuses today that have pushed our children into cultism, drug abuse, Internet frauds, armed robbery, prostitution among others. We need to pray for these students.
“If you want to rebuild Nigeria today, you don’t start with the elders, you start with the students who are the leaders of tomorrow and you can only achieve this through engaging them, that is what informed the campus fire crusade.
“While we pray for them, we also give them financial supports in terms of scholarships to help those who can not meet up with their school fees. We give some financial supports and others full scholarships”.
He disclosed that 30,000 students across six states of Enugu, Anambara, Imo, Niger, Ekiti and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja have benefited from the scholarship programme, adding that each of the crusades cost the ministry well over $30,000 aside the scholarship.
This according to him includes the transportation to and from the venue, feeding and hotel accomodations of students who traveled from a far distance.
Speaking on the federal government students loan scheme, Pastor Udenwa dismissed the loan scheme saying that such initiative will not work because the targeted beneficiaries will have no means of paying back the loan.
“Are you going to arrest the parents who did not have money to pay their children school fees in the first place, or are you going to arrest the students who don’t have job after graduation”, he queried.
He argued that “when you throw money at the students in the name of loan without changing their mindset it will be a waste of resources because they will see it as their own share of the national cake. It will not yield any impact.
“The system has affected the psych of the students, so you need to change their psych and way of thinking and mindset. There is so much corruption in the system, so such initiative will not work”, he added.
Pastor Udenwa said that it is high time the government hands off education and allow private individuals and institutions run the educational system while it plays a supervisory role, stressing that “in the western world, education is for the private individuals, sometimes it is a joint venture”.
He however warned that Nigeria must do something very quickly about growing population of its youths, adding that the country will soon explode if nothing is done about the students who graduate every year without jobs.

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FG to train 5m Nigerians annually to curb unemployment, poverty – Presidency

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The federal government has outline strategic plan aimed at creating job opportunities for five million Nigerians with various artisanal skills annually.

In the same vein it also also mbarking on the training of 500 inmates in all the Correctional Custodial Centres across the country, even as the beneficiaries will be granted N500,000 to start a business after the training.

Speaking with newsmen, Wednesday in Abuja, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Technical, Vocational and Entrepreneurial Education, Abiola Arogundade, said the initiative is targeted at reducing down the 133 million Nigerians living below the poverty line.

She explained that the initiative which entails collaboration with various countries, educational and financial institutions in the country would expose beneficiaries to the acquisition of artisanal skills that would not make them self relating but would be a source of earning the country the much sought after foreign exchange.

Arogundade explained that already her outfit has trained no more than 500 inmates in each of the correctional centres spread across the country in line with the objective.
“We’ve also started training in the correctional centres. We launched the scheme in Kuje. We took a few members from my office to the correctional centre to do an audit of the needs of the inmates.
“I’m happy to announce that we started conducting the assessment and auditing of the trainees. And I am happy to announce that every single person that we train there is also going to be certified.

“They will not be left behind. It’s the same curriculum that we have and we are partnering with global bodies to make sure that any skill you acquire in Nigeria is going to be recognised worldwide and we are happy to also announce that we have secured it for every single person in training. 

“At the end of their prison term and our training, we give each of the beneficiaries N500,000 to set up their businesses so they don’t become a second-time offender at a correctional centre. This scheme is ongoing. 

“So after Kuje Correctional Centre, we are moving to Suleja. We are going to try and duplicate this intervention in all our correctional centres across the country. 

“There are two dimensions to the training, we will be training artisans to build and we are going to employ them. We are also training the beneficiaries. “For example, if you are going to be a hairdresser, we train you on how to have the best skills in hairdressing. We empower you with the kiosk. Not only that, the kiosk will have three streams of income.
“You can use the kiosk for your main skill which in this case as I mentioned, will be hairdressing, you can use it for POS business and other ventures. 

“So we are partnering with the bank. They will supply the POS and also you can use it to charge phones. We are using that as a multi-purpose intervention for three streams of income which we are launching today and we will be giving it out to the beneficiaries after we train and certify them.

“We also want to announce that we will be starting the programme which we call MYTV videos. Online we told people to send a one-minute video on what their skills are. Once you upload your video, we train you.
“We are happy to announce that we got over 10,000 entries and we are at the stage where we are picking 2000 people to go through the free training. Part of the curriculum of the free training for your assessment is to write a business plan. Those who write a good business plan will be granted N500,000 to continue and upscale their business. 

“We are also working with the Bank for Industry.  We are working on something called training for Industries.
“Like I said before, our methodology is backward integration, so we are working with the Bank of Industry, to work with the private sector and we are training people to make sure they have the right skills that the industries are looking for. So we have started that assessment as well.

“We have had meetings with different ambassadors.  So what we are trying to do is to work with multinationals. Sometimes they complain about our citizens not having the skills.”

Speaking on the idea of introducing compulsory skill acquisition for Secondary School leavers, the presidential aide said: “I am in talks with the Chairman of House of Representatives Committee on Polytechnic, Vocational and Technical Schools and we have being talking on how to introduce one skill for Senior Secondary School so that you come out with one skill and get even get certified. We started doing some research, so it’s something we think it’s important. It’s still work in progress.”

While revealing its collaborations with the Bank for Industry (BoI), Industrial Training Fund (IDF), Presidential Amnesty Program (PAP), National Board for Technical Education (NBTC), Private Sector and others, Arogundade revealed an ongoing program tagged “The unlock program” aimed at empowering youths and guiding them on creating commercial and sustainable businesses.

She said: “We told people to send a one-minute video on what their skills are. Once you upload your video, we train you, we are happy to announce that we got over 10,000 entries and we are at the stage where we are picking 2000 people to go through the free training. Part of the curriculum of the free training for your assessment is to write a business plan.
“Those who write a good business plan will be granted N500,000 to continue and upscale their business.”

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NG-CARES: Kogi CSDA flags off Lab, borehole projects in Apata community

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By Friday Idachaba, Lokoja.

KOGI Community and Social Development Agency (CSDA) has flagged off construction of a science laboratory block and Rehabilitation of a hand pump borehole for Apata community in Lokoja Local Government Area of Kogi.

Chief Dauda Momoh, General Manager of the Agency while presenting the Approval Letter and cheque for the commencement of the projects at Apata-Ipatun, said the two projects had a total envelope of N15 million.

He said that the two micro projects intervention were being executed under the Basic Services Infrastructure of the Nigeria COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (NG-CARES) programme.

The General Manager expressed delight that the Agency was making the desired impact and commended Governor Yahaya Bello for providing and supporting the World Bank-Assisted programme.

He noted that ordinarily, the World Bank stipulated a 10 per cent community counterpart contribution from benefitting communities but the state government in its bid to enable more communities to benefit, reduced the counterpart contribution to 2.5 per cent.

He urged the community to show personal interest in the projects and assume complete ownership saying, “This project is a grant. No government will later come to take it from you. It is yours, own it, protect it.”

The General Manager said the construction of the science laboratory and furnishings would take N13,699,614.00 while renovation of the handpump borehole takes N1,307,250 making a total of N14,976,864.00.

Presenting a cheque of N3,998,362.10 to the Community Project Management Committee (CPMC) chairman, Hon. Adekunle Babatunde, the General Manager charged the committee to judiciously utilize the fund.

He said that the pace of work would determine the release of the next tranche adding that they were lucky to have a royal father who is much interested in their welfare.

Chief Dauda Momoh appealed to well meaning citizens to help improve facilities in their various communities, citing the transformation of a CSDA health facility in Eika-Ohizenyi to a hospital.

He said that wife of the governor, Barr Amina Oyiza-Bello using her pet project, Hayat Foundation  reconstructed and equipped the health facility in Eika-Ohizenyi community and transformed it to a hospital.

In his remarks, the traditional ruler, the Olu of Apata, Oba Frederick Durojaiye Balogun thanked the state government and the Agency saying the flag-off of the projects was a dream true for the community.

“This is the appointed time God ordained for this project. if we fail to acknowledge your relentless efforts in making sure that this project is a reality today, that means that we are ingrates.

“The government has passionately, out of its kindness, favoured our community. And I want to say here today, we shall continue to support the government of the day and when necessary we shall do what is expected of us.

“This project, I assure you that I will personally supervise it to ensure that quality job is done here and at the end of it, we will take full ownership of this and take care of it. We are indeed, very grateful”, he said.

Chairman of the CPMC, Hon. Adekunle Babatunde pledged on behalf of members of the committee to ensure proper book keeping, quality and timely delivery of the project. (Ends)

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