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Imo Uncovers 257 Illegal Baby Factories
In its bid to eradicate the illegal orphanages, the Imo State Government uncovered 157 social homes which serves baby factories across the state and recovered a number of children.
This was just as the government has urged churches to establish more motherless babies’ homes to stem the tide of illegal baby factories in the state.
Special Assistant to the Imo State governor on Non-Governmental Organisations and Allied Matters, Rev. Simeon Nwulu, disclosed this when he played host to the leadership of Correspondents Chapel in the state, yesterday.
He said that only 15 of the 272 social homes in the state were legal.
Although the governor’s aide, who did not mention the actual numbers of children already recovered from such illegal homes, said that his office had discovered the illegal homes during its assessment visitation of social homes spread across the 27 council areas of the state.
According to him, “We’re doing our best to ensure such a thing does not exist in our society anymore. We’ve revoked so many fake homes.
“Out of 272 homes across the state, only 15 were genuine others were fake. Some of them are registered with the government but their activities are not genuine and we’ve revoked their licenses. Very soon we will be charging some of them to court over their nefarious activities.
“At the same time, this office has moved to ensure we stop illegal sales of children because the rate at which children are being marketed and sold like ordinary articles of trade is very alarming.
“At a peanut, the destiny of a child is destroyed and most of these adopters are not well-to-do to take care of these children”.
Meanwhile, Rev. Nwulu has advised churches within the state to get deeply involved in building motherless babies homes and old people’s homes and encourage well-to-do individuals in the society to adopt such children.
“If somebody becomes motherless, it does not mean that such a child cannot be somebody in the future.
“I’m glad some churches have shown interest to partner with government on that. Some of them have picked the forms to establish social homes.
“But we’re asking them to make the environment very conducive for the children and not to use it and make money because we know that nobody can take care of the children more than the church.
“We’re going house-to house appealing to people to adopt these children because we have over 2000 motherless children in different homes whose future seem very bleak without hope.
“As someone God has blessed, even if you have 10 children, please try and give these one’s life and hope”, he appealed.
He also disclosed that his office was working hard to ensure NGOs such as churches start fulfilling their mandate such as building institutions to help the needy and the poor.
“The bedrock of every NGO is the church. Unfortunately, the present day churches are not like the old churches. The present day churches are no longer involved in humanitarian or spiritual activities, but materialism and flamboyance.
“Before now, churches built schools and it was free of charge for people. Churches used to take care of the welfare of the needy, but today schools owned by churches are the most expensive in the country, the same as their hospitals. In fact, everything that belongs to the church is for the rich and not the poor and needy.
“We want to ensure that churches start building hospitals. If you look around, churches are no longer building hospitals. They are only building schools that will get them quick money.
“So, we’re asking churches to start building hospitals to complement the effort of the state government. The government is ready to assist them to equip the hospitals so that they will be for the benefit of our people. That is what churches used to do in the past”.
The Nigeria Immigration Service has officially ended passport production at multiple centres, transitioning to a single, centralised system for the first time in 62 years.
Minister of Interior, Dr Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo, disclosed this yesterday while inspecting Nigeria’s new Centralised Passport Personalisation Centre at the NIS Headquarters in Abuja.
He stated that since the establishment of NIS in 1963, Nigeria had never operated a central passport production centre, until now, marking a major reform milestone.
“The project is 100 per cent ready. Nigeria can now be more productive and efficient in delivering passport services,” Tunji-Ojo said.
He explained that old machines could only produce 250 to 300 passports daily, but the new system had a capacity of 4,500 to 5,000 passports every day.
“With this, NIS can now meet daily demands within just four to five hours of operation,” he added, describing it as a game-changer for passport processing in Nigeria.
“We promised two-week delivery, and we’re now pushing for one week.
“Automation and optimisation are crucial for keeping this promise to Nigerians,” the minister said.
He noted that centralisation, in line with global standards, would improve uniformity and enhance the overall integrity of Nigerian travel documents worldwide.
Tunji-Ojo described the development as a step toward bringing services closer to Nigerians while driving a culture of efficiency and total passport system reform.
He said the centralised production system aligned with President Bola Tinubu’s reform agenda, boosting NIS capacity and changing the narrative for better service delivery.
The Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) has disbursed N2.225 trillion as federation revenue for the month of August 2025, the highest ever allocation to the three tiers of government and other statutory recipients.
This marks the second consecutive month that FAAC disbursements have crossed the N2 trillion mark.
The revenue, shared at the August 2025 FAAC meeting in Abuja, was buoyed by increases in oil and gas royalty, value-added tax (VAT), and common external tariff (CET) levies, according to a communiqué issued at the end of the meeting.
Out of the N2.225 trillion total distributable revenue, FAAC said N1,478.593 trillion came from statutory revenue, N672.903 billion from VAT, N32.338 billion from the Electronic Money Transfer Levy (EMTL), and N41.284 billion from Exchange Difference.
The communiqué revealed that gross federation revenue for the month stood at N3.635 trillion. From this amount, N124.839 billion was deducted as cost of collection, while N1,285.845 trillion was set aside for transfers, interventions, refunds, and savings.
From the statutory revenue of N1.478 trillion, the Federal Government received N684.462 billion, State Governments received N347.168 billion, and Local Government Councils received N267.652 billion. A further N179.311 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) went to oil-producing states as derivation revenue.
From the distributable VAT revenue of N672.903 billion, the Federal Government received N100.935 billion, the states received N336.452 billion, while the local governments got N235.516 billion.
Of the N32.338 billion shared from EMTL, the Federal Government received N4.851 billion, the States received N16.169 billion, and the Local Governments received N11.318 billion.
From the N41.284 billion exchange difference, the Federal Government received N19.799 billion, the states received N10.042 billion, and the local governments received N7.742 billion, while N3.701 billion (13 per cent of mineral revenue) was shared to the oil-producing states as derivation.
The Governing Council of Kenule Beeson Saro-Wiwa Polytechnic, Bori, has decried the inadequate power supply and poor state of infrastructural facilities and equipment at the institution.
The Council also appealed to the government, including Non-Governmental Organisations, agencies, as well as well-meaning Rivers people to intervene to restore and sustain the laudable gesture, dreams and aspirations of the founding fathers of the polytechnic.
The Chairman of the newly inaugurated Council, Professor Friday B. Sigalo, made this appeal during a tour of facilities at the Polytechnic, recently.
Accompanied by members of the team, Prof Sigalo emphasised the position of technology, technical and vocational education in sustainable development.
He noted that with the prospects on ground, and the programmes and activities undertaken in the polytechnic, there is no doubt that the institution would add values to the educational system in our society and foster the desired development, if the existing challenges are jointly tackled.
This was contained in a statement signed by Deputy Registrar, Public Relations, Kenpoly, Innocent Ogbonda-Nwanwu, and made available to The Tide in Port Harcourt.
The chairman who restated the intention of his team of technocrats to ensure that KenPoly enjoys desirable face-lift, said the Council would deliver on its core mandates, accordingly.
Earlier, the Rector, KenPoly Engr. Dr. Ledum S. Gwarah, commended the appointment of Professor Friday B. Sigalo as Chairman of the KenPoly Governing Council.
He described him and his team as seasoned technocrats and expressed confidence in their ability to succeed.
The Rector pledged the management’s support to the Council to ensure that KenPoly resumes its rightful place in the comity of polytechnics in the country.
Facilities visited by the Governing Council include KenPoly workshops, laboratories, skills acquisition centre, library, hostels and medical centre.
Chinedu Wosu
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