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CBN okays N100bn loan for health sector

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Central Bank of Nigeria has set aside N100 billion as loan to encourage private sector participants in the health sector as independent and partners with the government.

Minister of Health, Dr Osagie Ehanire, said this at the Cardiocare Multispecialty Hospital Complex ultra-modern Cathlab in Abuja.

The minister said the government would encourage private sector participants to join hands with the government in developing innovative strategies to provide healthcare access to all Nigerians.

He said the ultra-modern cardiac catheterisation laboratory, cardiac surgery theatre and multi-specialty health facility are laudable projects in the specialty area of cardiac care.

Ehanire urged more private sector entities to enter the health space.

According to the minister, the World Health Organisation has affirmed cardiovascular disease as the number one cause of deaths globally, taking an estimated 17.9 million lives each year, which is 31 per cent of all global death.

He added that in Nigeria, cardiovascular disease remained a great public health concern.

According to him, the non-communicable disease programme under the Federal Ministry of Health has reported that cardiovascular diseases are responsible for 11 per cent of the over two million non-communicable disease-related deaths annually.

The Group Medical Director of Limi Hospital, Dr Iseko Iseko, said with the country losing over $1 billion annually to medical tourism, the health ministry had to commit several health centres to addressing issues related to availability of quality medical care.

Iseko said the cardiocare hospital had successfully carried out over seventy minimally invasive interventional procedures between set up in February and the official launch in November 2020.

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Abuja-Kaduna road: Infiouest not Infoquest awarded contract, active, says Minister Umahi

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Abuja-Kaduna road: Infiouest not Infoquest awarded contract, active, says Minister Umahi

Minister of Works, David Umahi, has clarified that the contract for Section 2 of the Abuja-Kaduna highway was awarded to Infiouest International Limited, not Infoquest Nigeria Limited as stated in a Daily Trust report of Tuesday.

The minister stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Tuesday, stressing that the contractor given the project had the capacity to deliver.

Daily Trust had published the status of Infoquest generated at 22:21 (Monday, January 20, 2025) as showing inactive.

The firm was reported to have got “No objection” from the
Bureau of Public Procurement ( BPP)
for the rehabilitation of a section of the
road at N252.89 billion.

It reported a source familiar with the procedures and operations of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, as well as extant laws governing awards of contracts, as saying Infoquest had never paid tax and hurriedly registered as a tax-paying entity in the early hours of Tuesday.

“As of yesterday (Monday), there was no record. It was registered today (Tuesday) with all the details,” the source said.

But the minister also in a statement issued by his media aide, Orji Kalu Orji, said the ministry had no business relationship with Infoquest Nigeria Ltd, but has a contractual relationship with Infiouest International Limited.

He said Infiouest International Limited was “corporately active and is absolutely in compliance with all legal requirements and regulations set by the Companies and Allied Matters Act.”

The statement described the Daily Trust report of Tuesday as “mischievous”.

It said it was a deliberate orchestration to malign the ministry and undermine the efforts of the Renewed Hope Agenda of the administration in revolutionising road infrastructure development, and to “demarket the company that has proven capacity in road construction.”

It demanded a public apology to be published in at least five national dailies “for unjustifiably publishing falsehoods against the Ministry of Works.”

The statement said that the ministry was facing a coordinated onslaught of “falsehood, blackmail, and gang-up by adversaries to the policy of the government because of the ministry’s insistence on a new order of value for money, quality assurance, and best practices in project pricing and execution.”

He urged the public and the media to join in what he called “a desirable fight against national sabotage by some contractors”.

During his press conference, the minister described Infiouest International Limited as capable of completing the Abuja-Kaduna highway as the company had conducted several projects in the country.

“Some of its equipment is leased to Julius Berger Construction Company,” Umahi added.

“We want the public to know that we are facing a backlash. Corruption is fighting back.

“ut I want the public to know that our hands are very clean and those who are demarketing us, we have not collected any kobo from anybody, we are insisting that the taxpayers should have value for their money,” he said.

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Avoid confrontation with Trump, Bolaji Akinyemi tells Tinubu

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Avoid confrontation with Trump, Bolaji Akinyemi tells Tinubu

 

A former Nigeria’s Minister of External Affairs, Professor Bolaji Akinyemi, has advised President Bola Tinubu to avoid confrontation with Donald Trump, the newly inaugurated 47th president of the United States.

He also said Nigeria is not part of the focus of the 78-year-old most powerful president and that the country should not expect anything extraordinary from the Trump presidency.

Akinyemi spoke Monday night on a Channels Television programme, Politics Today, on how to relate with the US president.

The former minister said Tinubu should devise means of dealing with Trump “even if he does things that annoy or step on the interests of Nigeria”.

“If I were President Tinubu, I would try to steer clear of antagonising him because there is nothing a bully likes better than taking on people who are not strong enough to resist him,” Akinyemi said on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Monday.

“You know there is that African proverb that if you are not strong enough to take on a bully and you take him on, you are just even going to suffer more for it.

“That’s the advice I will give President Tinubu: try and avoid having a confrontation with him even if that means that he does things that annoy or does things that step on the interests of Nigeria. There are ways in which you could address his reaction without confrontation,” he said.

Prof Akinyemi faulted the inaugural speech of Trump as uninspiring, “shocking and depressing”.

The octogenarian said rather than rallying the world for peace, Trump took time to threaten the rest of the world with a bouquet of hostile policies including tacking back Panama Canal, renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, tariff wars, and others.

Akinyemi said the US president would “soon learn that there are repercussions to policies, to jingoism”, adding that the world is “in for a rough ride for four years” of the Trump presidency.

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DHQ: Foreign fighters influx responsible for recent terrorists attacks 

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DHQ: Foreign fighters influx responsible for recent terrorists attacks 

 

The military on Thursday reacted to the recent frequent terrorist activities in North-East and North-West states.

Defence Headquarters (DHQ) attributed the spike in the attacks to influx of foreign agents coming to strengthen the local terrorists.

The Director of Defence Media Operations, Major General Edward Buba, disclosed this during a press conference in Abuja.

Some 40 farmers were brutally murdered last Saturday in Borno State by the terrorists.

Over 50 people including soldiers that went to retrieve the corpses of the farmers on Tuesday were yet to return home after terrorists ambushed them.

Buba said the new foreign agents served as reinforcements for their local colleagues.

He said the situation was made worse by local collaborators disclosing troops’ movement.

He said, “The resurgence in terror attacks can be attributable to the influx of foreign fighters that come in as reinforcement for these terrorists. These foreign fighters are from the Sahelian Region.

“The other contributing factor are the local collaborators that form a support base for these terrorists. They serve as informants to the terrorists reporting on troop movement.”

Buba however declared the troops remained “profoundly conscious of their role and responsibility in ending insurgency and terrorism in the nation.”

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