The Senator representing Rivers East Senatorial District in the National Assembly, Senator George Thompson Sekibo has presented an opthalmological equipment to the Rivers State University Teaching Hospital and COVID-19 items to 106 senior secondary schools in the state. The materials, according to Senator Sekibo, were part of his constituency outreach programme for the Rivers East Senatorial District. The programmes include presentation of computers, printers and stationery to traditional rulers in the district, internet training and recharge card production and widows’ empowerment.
Presenting the equipment to the management of RSUTH led by the Chief Medical Director of the Hospital, Dr Friday Aaron, Senator Sekibo said he was determined to assist the state government in ensuring that RSUTH become the foremost teaching hospital in the country.
Ogoni Scholarship Fund, under Kiisi Trust Foundation, has granted 346 scholarships to undergraduates of Ogoni extraction in tertiary institutions across Nigeria.
At its maiden initiation in 2018, the fund started with just 18 awards of N150,000 per scholar specifically to final-year Ogoni undergraduates across Nigeria to support their dissertation projects.
In the expanded scope this year, 124 second-year students, 23 third-year students, and 199 final-year students were awarded the scholarship.
Former House of Representatives member, Honorable Uchechukwu Onyea-gucha, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Kiisi Trust, said the Trust which gave birth to the Ogoni Scholarship Fund was created in the 2009 Wiwa vs. Shell lawsuit that awarded the plain-tiffs $15.5 million,of which $5 million was set aside for the creation of the Kiisi Trust.
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The House of Representatives has called for the immediate suspension of the controversial Special Works Scheme of the Federal Government.
The National Assembly and the Federal Ministry of Labour, Employment and Productivity had clashed over the recruitment of 774,000 workers for the scheme.
At the plenary, yesterday, the House asked the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget, and National Planning not to fund the scheme, which is billed to take off in January, 2021.
The National Assembly had appropriated N52billion for the exercise in the 2020 Appropriation Act.
It was to begin in November.
The House also faulted the removal of the Director-General of the National Directorate of Employment, Dr Nasiru Argungu, who had backed the parliament in the controversy.
The Rivers State Governor, Chief Nyesom Wike says if universities must improve on the quality of graduates they turn out, teachers who do not possess the right qualification and problem-solving research capabilities should not be retained by universities.
He also suggested that universities’ curriculum must begin to address the issues of skills, linkages to industries and relevant competences for job creation or self-employment of the graduates.
Wike made this assertion in his address at the 32 convocation and 40th anniversary of the Rivers State University, Port Harcourt, yesterday.
He said, for the universities to be reckoned internationally as serious citadels of learning, creativity and innovation, stakeholders must find the means to address the problem of declining quality of graduates.