Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State (3rd left), President, Walmart – Europe, Middle East, Africa and Canada, Mrs Shelly Broader (2nd left), Chief Executive Officer, Massmart Holdings Ltd, Mr Guy Hayward (3rd right) and others, during a buisness meeting between Walmart Group and Governor Ambrode in Lagos, yestereday.

Bauchi
Bauchi State Government says it would soon send an assessment
team to all the 20 local government areas of the state, to assess people’s immediate needs.
Governor Mohammed Abubakar made this known  in Bauchi when officials of Katagum Emirate Council, paid him a courtesy call.
“ Government is sending out teams to all the local government areas to assess most urgent needs.
“Efforts are being made to review the budget we inherited from the last administration to make it conform with the All Progressive Congress (APC), manifestos,” he said.
The governor promised to emulate the leadership style of fairness to all, exhibited by the late Second Republic governor of the state, Alhaji Tatari Ali.
Ekiti
Two residents of Ado-Ekiti have been arrested for violating the state
environmental law, Mr Bisi Kolawole the Commissioner for Environment, has said.
Kolawole told newsmen in Ado-Ekiti that the two men were arrested while dumping refuse into the canal at site of the channelisation project in the state capital.
He said the culprits pleaded for forgiveness and were fined N5, 000 each.
He warned the people against indiscriminate dumping of refuse into drains, canals and river channels to avert flooding and other natural disasters
He urged the people to complement government’s effort to rid the state of filth to reduce diseases and disasters.

FCT
A former Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Na
tions, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, has called for an Inter-Ministerial Council to coordinate the nation’s foreign policy.
Gambari spoke as the Chairman of the Public Presentation of the book “Economic Diplomacy and Nigeria’s Foreign Policy’’, written by Dr Musa Babayo, in Abuja.
Babayo was a former Chairman, Governing Board of Tertiary Education Trust.
According to him, the body will provide a link between Nigeria’s foreign policy and its economic interests.
Gambari said that it had become necessary to set up such an authoritative focal point to coordinate the broad range of Nigeria’s socio-economic development and welfare of its people.

Gombe
Governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe State has urged people in
the state to be vigilant to avoid future attacks by insurgents.
Dankwambo gave the advice during a visit to the scene of the multiple bomb blasts in Gombe.
A Wednesday night twin blast at Dadin/Kowa and Dukku motor parks, Gombe metropolis, left 36 people dead and more than 100 injured.
The governor called on residents of the town to be prayerful and seek divine protection of lives and property.
He directed the management of parks and other public building to be using metal detectors to screen people partonising such places.
The governor said the state government would settle medical bills of the victims.
Jigawa
A philanthropist, Alhaji Abubakar Tela, the Chief Executive of Yayari
Oil, Hadejia, on Monday donated 100 sets of uniform to inmates of the Hadejia Prison in Jigawa State.
Addressing newsmen in Dutse, the Controller, Nigeria Prisons Service, Jigawa, Mr Muhammad Bedi, said the gesture by Tela was to assist inmates in the facility.
Bedi said the uniforms were distributed to virtually all the convicts in the prison and commended the oil marketer for complementing the Federal Government’s efforts at providing an enabling environment for the reformation of inmates.
The controller urged other public-spirited individuals in the state to emulate him, and do all in their power to complement the government’s efforts, stressing that government could not do it all alone.
Bedi also called on the general public to assist the inmates with soaps, buckets, mats, mattresses and bowls, among other items.

Kogi
Pensioners in Kogi State have rejected the e- payment platform used
in handling the payment of their monthly pensions, saying that the system has led to discrepancies in pensions.
The state Chairman of Nigeria Union of Pensioners ( NUP), Mr Onu Abdullahi,said in Lokoja that the platform, Remita, which was deployed about six months ago, had been deducting their monthly pensions without justifications.
The chairman said that the platform had also been omitting the names of genuine pensioners , saying that the names of 255 pensioners had been omitted from payment in the past three months.
Abdullahi called on the state governor, Capt Idris Wada, to immediately disengage the consultant , since the arrangement had not been working well.

Lagos
A cleric, Msgr. Gabriel Osu, has told the new leadership of the
Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) to work assiduously to stop harassment and intimidation of journalists.
Osu, the Director of Social Communications of the Catholic Archdiocese of Lagos, made the call in a congratulatory message to Mr Waheed Odusile on his recent election as President of the NUJ.
The cleric applauded members of the NUJ for the peaceful and orderly manner they conducted themselves during the election.
He said that the election was exemplary and  “worthy of emulation by members of the political class.
“The new NUJ leadership should work assiduously in ensuring that the plight of Nigerian journalists such as incessant harassment and intimidation is addressed.’’
Osu also charged the new executive to also look into the poor remuneration of media workers because of the important role they played in national orientation and development.

Niger
The Niger State Government says it will continue to give prior
ity to health data generated from its health facilities at all levels.
The Permanent Secretary in the state Ministry of Health, Dr Ibrahim Tiffin, made the disclosure at the stakeholders meeting in Minna on Tuesday.
According to him, this is aimed at improving health planning process geared toward improving the current monitoring and evaluation activities.
Tiffin said that all stakeholders in data management had been asked to harmonise their data tools in line with the District Health Information System (DHIS) and Health Management Information System (HMIS).
He pledged that the reward and sanction measure would be adopted to encourage compliance to data tools and its usage at health facility levels.
He stressed that data collected on health issues would be strictly submitted by stakeholders on the seventh day of every month.
The Niger State Health Data Consultative Committee meeting held at the Ministry of Health Conference hall was aimed at mobilising resources for mentoring, monitoring and supervision of National Health Management Information System activities in the state.
Ondo
The Ondo State Government has assured pensioners on its
payroll of payment of their outstanding pension and gratuity.
This is contained in a press statement released by Mr Kayode Akinmade, the Commissioner for Information, in Akure.
The statement added that the pensioners would be paid after the workers’ salaries have been paid this week.
“Government thus assures the pensioners to expect payment of their arrears after salaries of workers in the state would have been paid later in the week,’’ it said.
The statement said the commissioner acknowledged that the pensioners were being owed outstanding arrears and hinged the inability to pay on the dwindling revenue from the Federation Account, as well as low internally generated revenue.
It added that government owed its pensioners the obligation to pay them their pension, as at when due.
The statement appreciated the role of the pensioners in building a virile state through their contributions while in active service.
Plateau
The Chairman, Poultry Association of Nigeria (PAN) in Plateau
State, Mr John Dasar, says bio-security measures remain the best method to totally eradicate bird flu disease from Nigeria.
Dasar stated this in an interview with newsmen in Jos.
According to him, strict adherence by poultry farmers to bio-security measures will totally eradicate bird flu disease from this country.
He said among the many measures farmers were expected to adopt to avoid their farms from being cut up by the hydra headed disease, were “copious bio-security measures.
He warned his colleagues to avoid selling infected birds to desperate marketers, saying that it is another fast means of spreading the disease to humans because many people consume chicken meat.
The chairman said though cases of bird flu had drastically reduced in Plateau, he, however, admonished farmers not to neglect other measures of protection of their birds.

Sokoto
Prof. Gajam Von of the Department of Education, Usman
Danfodio University, Sokoto, has called on Nigerians to support the efforts of President Muhammadu Buhari to end insurgency in the country.
He made the call on Monday in Sokoto in an interview with newsmen.
He said that Buhari had finetuned the nation’s security apparatus with the appointment of competent hands to manage the affairs of the armed forces for optimal performance.
He said that the task ahead for Nigerians was to come out with intelligence reports on suspected miscreants and make them available to the security agencies for prompt action.
Von urged Nigerians to develop the habit of offering intelligence information on security threat in their localities to the security agencies.
He expressed satisfaction with the efforts made so far by the new service chiefs in confronting the insurgents in some part of the country.
The don urged the federal government to intensify efforts to end the ‘senseless killings’ of innocent Nigerians for peace, progress and political growth of the country.

Zamfara
The Zamfara State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA),
says 50 houses and property worth millions of naira were destroyed in Tsafe, Tsafe Local Government Area of the state.
The Executive Secretary of the agency, Mr Sanusi Kwatarkwashi, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen in Gusau.
Kwatarkwashi said that the flood, which destroyed a school building in the town, resulted from the Sunday downpour in the area.
He attributed incident to the blockage of the drains and building of houses on the natural waterways by the residents.
According to him, most of the houses affected in the area were built along the waterways.
He said that the agency had written a report on the incident and would soon forward it to the state government for assistance to the victims.
Kwatarkwashi said that the report would also be forwarded to the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) for Federal Government’s assistance to the victims.