The report that the General Medical Council which licenses and maintains the official register of medical practitioners in the United Kingdom licensed at least 266 Nigerian doctors in June and July, 2022 is one of the trending stories in Newspapers on Wednesday.
The Punch reports that the General Medical Council which licenses and maintains the official register of medical practitioners in the United Kingdom licensed at least 266 Nigerian doctors in June and July, 2022.
According to the Punch newspaper, the implication is that at least three Nigerian doctors were licensed per day in June and July 2022 despite the moves by the Federal Government to stop the exodus of doctors and health workers in the country amidst worsening brain drain of the professionals in the country.
Our correspondent, who has continued to monitor the GMC register, noticed that the number of Nigeria-trained doctors in the UK currently stands at 9,976.
The figure does not include other doctors of Nigerian origin, who did not undergo medical training in Nigeria.
Presently, Nigeria has the third highest number of foreign doctors working in the UK after India and Pakistan.
The country however suffers a shortage of doctors.
The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria noted that Nigeria now has over 100,000 doctors who have registered with the council.
The newspaper says that the Nigeria Railway Corporation has suspended the Lagos-Kano and Ajaokuta train services due to fear of terrorist attacks.
Multiple sources in the Ministry of Transportation and the NRC confided in one of our correspondents that the train services would not resume until the security along the Lagos-Kano route and the Ajaokuta train station was guaranteed.
It was also learnt that the NRC suspended services at the Ajaokuta station along Warri-Itakpe route because of the attack on some passengers by gunmen on Monday.
It was gathered that the Lagos-Kano train services were suspended because of the high level of insecurity in Niger and Kaduna states, which are the routes of the train heading to Kano from Lagos.
The NRC Managing Director, Fidet Okhiria, confirmed the suspension of the train services at the Ajaokuta station and the Lagos-Kano route to The PUNCH on Tuesday.
Speaking on the services along the Warri-Itakpe route, he stated, “We have not stopped (services), rather what we said was that we are not going to be stopping at the Ajaokuta station.”
The Guardian reports that the Industrial Training Fund (ITF) has decried the soaring poverty and unemployment, reportedly affecting about 90 million Nigerians.
According to the Fund, the unemployed are desirous to work, but cannot find jobs, due to the absence of requisite skills.
The Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Sir Joseph Ari, disclosed this during a press briefing on the ITF Strategic Policy Direction 2022-2025, which held at its Centre for Excellence Auditorium in Jos, Plateau State.
Ari, however, regretted that in the face of the above, the country’s population continued to soar, with the World Bank estimating that it might hit 216 million by the end of 2022.
“Equally worrisome is the spectre of out-of-school children, which, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), is projected to be over 18.5 million in 2023,” he added.
Harping on the need to fully acquaint the public with ITF’s plans, Ari said the ‘Strategic Policy Direction’ was the third of such plans by his administration, sequel to the 2016 plan he unveiled on assumption of office entitled ‘Strategy for Mandate Actualisation.’
The ITF boss explained further that the plan, which was to terminate in 2022, was reviewed in 2020 to address gaps identified in the course of its implementation, to appropriately respond to the negative impact of the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and ITF’s numerous clients.
Despite the numerous achievements of the Fund on account of the initiatives, he noted: “We have realised that more needs to be done, if we must fully tackle the numerous socio-economic problems bedeviling us as a nation.”
The newspaper says that the management of Lekki Deep Sea Port has disclosed that construction work was at 95.65 per cent completion at the end of July.
According to information released on the company’s official social media page, the project is on course for completion as scheduled.
According to the release, the Lekki port management, board of directors, shareholders, EPC Contractors and the project manager remain focused on its objective to complete construction by September 2022 and start operations by the end of the year.
The tweeter post read: “We are delighted to announce that the construction of Lekki Port is now at 95.65 per cent completion.
“The wait to behold a deep seaport with a container terminal operated with efficiency and world-class standards in Nigeria is almost over.”
The deep seaport had, on July 1, 2022, taken delivery of three Super Post Panamax Ships to Shore (STS) cranes and 10 Rubber Tired Gantries (RTGs) ahead of the commencement of port operations.
The port also witnessed the arrival of its first berthing vessel,“ZHEN HUA 28,” which conveyed the STS cranes and RTGs to Nigeria from Shanghai, China.
The Managing Director of Lekki Port, Du Ruogang, in early July, explained that the cranes are highly sophisticated port equipment that will be used for the first time in Nigeria at Lekki Port, thereby putting the country at the forefront of container operations in West Africa and on the global maritime map.
The Guardian also reports that Nobel Laureate, Prof. Wole Soyinka and a human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, yesterday, backed the move by National Assembly members to impeach President Muhammadu Buhari over his failure to end terrorism in the country.
Members of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had, last week, given President Buhari a six-week ultimatum to end insecurity or be impeached.
Supporting the move by the lawmakers, Soyinka and Falana submitted that President Buhari had failed in the promises he made to Nigerians. They both spoke on Tuesday in an interactive session, organised to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Abeokuta Club in Abeokuta, Ogun State capital.
Soyinka was the moderator of the interactive session, which had Falana, Registrar of the Joint Administration and Matriculation Board (JAMB), Prof. Ishaq Oloyede; a lawyer and chartered accountant, Gbenga Adeoye; a businessman, Ogo-Oluwa Bankole and the spokesman of electricity distribution firms, Sunday Oduntan, as panelists with the theme ‘Good Governance or Mis-governance: The Contract called Democracy.’
Soyinka in his submission argued that the President should be impeached because he had breached the contract of democracy.
Soyinka said: “A democracy indicates a contract that is why the candidate puts on a manifesto and on the basis of that manifesto, they are either accepted or rejected.
“Very often, the grounds for breach of contract, I think we all agree, is mis-governance and one of the ways of breaking this kind of contract we know even before the duration of a contract, is known as impeachment.”
Falana, in his remarks, corroborated the submission of Soyinka on the need to stop abuse of democratic process.
Oloyede, in his submission, urged Nigerians not to focus on the faults of the Federal Government, but concentrate on the state governments’ involvement in the failure.
GIK/APA