Gist-Link: Federal Government on Friday apologised to Nigeria...

Gist-Link: Federal Government on Friday apologised to Nigeria...: The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said this in a statement issued in Abuja by his Special Adviser on Media, Mr...

See 3 Africans On The List 11 Outstanding Black Women Named In Forbes’ Most Powerful.

11 outstanding black women made the list of Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful, these women of class, power, money and intelligence deserve our commendation. The interesting part is, Nigerian women made the list!
Forbes’ recently released its ranking of the 100 most powerful women in the world, a list filled with heads of state, CEOs and entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and influential entertainers all ranked by dollars, media influence, and overall impact. Eleven black women made the rank of the 2015 list.

Eleven outstanding black women of class made it to the list of Forbes’ 100 Most Powerful Women 2015. These women have performed giant strides to accord them this kind of honour. They are heads of state, CEOs, philantropists, academicians, entertainers and business women, and they deserve our praise for affecting the world positively in their great way. Here are the outstanding women who made the list starting with the top performer:

10. Michelle Obama

Michelle Obama, wife of President Barak Obama, makes the list due to her influence in policy making both nation and worldwide. At the beginning of this year she travelled to Southeast Asia to support an initiative to improve the education of girls and the financial stability of young women. She’s also been integral in the Obama administration’s effort to end homelessness among veterans in the U.S. and fought measures that would allow some schools to opt out of the federal dietary standards for school lunches.

12. Oprah Winfrey

Oprah is no stranger to the most powerful ranking. Her cable network, OWN has proven successful despite the naysayers and she still makes millions each year from the spin-off stars she helped launch to fame including Dr. Phil and Dr. Oz. Winfrey’s movie imprint, Harpo Films co-produced the well received Martin Luther King, Jr. biopic Selma and she also played a small role as civil rights activist Annie Lee Cooper. She is still the sole African-American woman on the Forbes’ 400 Richest Americans list, and she puts her money to good use by donating hundreds of millions of dollars to educational causes.

21. Beyoncé Knowles

Beyoncé makes the cut as the highest ranked entertainer on the Powerful Women list. Her tour with husband Jay Z last summer grossed approximately $100 million for 19 shows throughout North America, and she herself has pulled in more than $500 million in earnings as a solo artist

29. Ursula Burns

Burns helped Xerox, where she began her career in 1980 as a summer intern, generate $21.4 billion in revenue this past year as CEO, and has helped keep the company viable and profitable in an increasingly paperless world. She has told shareholders that she plans to continue to increase the company’s technology-driven and service-led portfolio.

34. Loretta Lynch

Lynch is the first African American woman in U.S. history to be sworn in as Attorney General. She has expanded President Obama’s proposed plan for police body cameras with a $20 million dollar program proposal of her own and has sworn to “vigorously prosecute all those who tilt the economic system in their favor,” including recently fining five major banks for rate rigging.

47. Ertharin Cousin

Cousin serves as the head of the UN World Food Programme, the world’s largest program for battling food insecurity and hunger. Cousin herself was raised in a low income neighborhood in Chicago and has stated that her goal is to eliminate hunger in her lifetime. The World Food Programme aids in this battle not just through handing out food during crises, but also by helping with food production and child malnourishment.

48. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Okonjo-Iweala was the minister of finance for Nigeria and has helped the country’s economy grow an average of 6% annually over three years. She’s also helped develop reform programs to improve governmental transparency.She is the first woman to serve as the country’s finance minister and spent 21 years as a economist at the World Bank.

65. Rosalind Brewer

Rosalind Brewer became the first woman and first African-American to lead a Walmart division when she took over as Sam’s Club CEO in 2012. She has introduced new measures to compete with other big-box stores such as a private health insurance exchange and access to payroll systems and legal services through Sam’s Club membership. She serves on the board of Lockheed Martin and is chair on the board of trustees for her alma mater Spelman College.

87. Folorunsho Alakija

Alakija is the richest self-made woman in Africa and one of only two female billionaires on the continent. Her first company was an upscale fashion label catering to Nigerian elites. This helped her develop a connection with the former military president, Ibrahim Babangida, who later gave her company a prospecting license for one of Nigeria’s most lucrative oil fields.

92. Risa Lavizzo-Mourey

Lavizzo-Mourey oversees the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the largest charitable foundation in the U.S. exclusively dedicated to health. Lavizzo-Mourey, who has an MD from Harvard and an MBA from Wharton, has a focus on improving access to quality healthcare and addressing socio-economic factors affecting health.

96. Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf

Johnson-Sirleaf, president of Liberia for nine years now, was in charge for the devastating Ebola outbreak that ravaged West Africa. Though she has overseen economic growth for the county, Liberia is still one of the world’s most impoverished nations and the need for modernization to infrastructure, education, and healthcare systems all impacted the growing crisis in the country. Her decision to use troops to quarantine heavily infected neighborhoods was widely criticized, but Liberia managed to quell the outbreak and achieve zero cases to become the first nation to wipe out the disease a year after recording its first case.

6 Officials of ABU Teaching Hospital Arraigns for N185m Fraud

The case was reported to the Commission by one Prof Lawal Khalid, Chief Medical Director of ABUTH, against the management of the Multipurpose Cooperative Society of the Non Academic Staff Union of the institution.

The petitioner alleged that, sometime in 2013, First City Monument Bank, Zaria branch granted N185 million loan to Multipurpose Cooperative Society of NASU ABUTH Zaria and the fund was later disbursed by the society to the beneficiaries for subsequent repayment in full with interest within 24 months. The petitioner added that the Management of ABUTH guaranteed only the deduction from the beneficiaries’ salary for the monthly repayment and remittance to the Society’s account at the Bank which will enable FCMB to recover its money. The petitioner also stated that following complaint of over deduction of repayment by some beneficiaries, an internal investigation was conducted which discovered that N27, 211, 486.66 could not be accounted for.

It was further alleged that, ABUTH Management constituted an Ad-hoc committee on the issue which recommended that the sum of N25, 5387, 798.60 should be recovered from the officials of the society.

The accused officials include; Kabuk Dauda Chairman, Nuruddeen Mohammed Secretary, Cecelia Jatau Treasurer, Abdulrazak Garba and Abdulkadir B Danyaro of non Academic Staff Union (NASU) ABUTH Multipurpose Co-operative Society, Zaria.

The accused were arrested by the EFCC, and investigation later revealed that, the sum of N3, 995, 104.17 was supposed to be repaid on monthly basis by the Management of ABUTH to FCMB, but the accused conspired among them to be remitting N4, 834,076, and converted the difference to their personal use.

Count one of the charge read “That you KABUK DAUDA being the Chairman, NURUDDEEN MOHAMMED being the Secretary, CECELIA JATAU being the Treasurer, ABDULRAZAK GARBA and ABDULKADIR DANYARO of Non Academic Staff Union (NASU) Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Ahmadu Bello University Teaching Hospital Zaria (ABUTH) and Olatunbonsun Thomas (now at large) sometimes between May, 2013 and March 2014 at Zaria within the Judicial Division of the High Court of Kaduna State, while being in the management of the NASU Cooperative society and its Bank account with First City Monument Bank (FCMB) obtained two (2) loan facility of N85, 292, 000.00 (Eighty five million, two hundred and ninety two thousand Naira) and N100, 000, 000.00 (one hundred million Naira) but with intent to defraud, conspired among yourselves to do an illegal act to wit; Criminal Breach of Trust in the disbursement and pricing of the loan by increasing the interest rates in order to gain a monetary advantage to yourselves and cause lost to the beneficiary members and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 96 of the Penal Code Law and punishable under section 97 of the same Law”.

All the accused pleaded not guilty to charges read against them. In view of the above, the prosecution counsel Samuel Chime urged the Court to fix a date for hearing. He also added that, all the witnesses for this trial were ready.

Justice Ladan granted bail at N10 million to each of the accused and two reliable sureties for each in the like sum with landed property within the jurisdiction of the court.

The case was adjourned to 12th April, 2016 for trial. 

Coaches for the Abuja-Kaduna Rail Modernisation Project have arrived in Lagos and will begin test-run by March 31 - Minister

The minister reiterated the commitment of the Federal Government to test-run the rail project to ensure that by May, the project could commerce commercial activities.

He made the disclosure when Abuja Transport and Aviation Correspondents Association (ATCA), paid him a courtesy visit in Abuja on Friday.

"The coaches have arrived, I was to inspect them on Monday but unfortunately we lost our colleague, the Minister of State, Labour and Employment, so I had to call off the inspection.

"We are making arrangements to bring the coaches to Abuja. I just signed the letter for China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC), requesting for approval to test-run the coaches.

"We are still on target; the only problem we have is that of the Daughters of Charity Hospital, Kubwa, Abuja.

"The Certificate of Ownership has been signed and the Federal Government has paid the compensation, though not released to the hospital yet.

"But the CCECC is trying to be evasive with its corporate social responsibility commitment to the hospital, it previously agreed upon our request.

"CCECC is supposed to donate a building to the hospital. We are still discussing with the company.

"I feel CCECC should support the hospital.

"It’s not too much because the company is making money on the project; the church practically offers services to the community,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Muktar Muhammed, CCECC’s Public Relations Officer, said the company was committed to its agreement to donate a building to the hospital.

He, however, said the company had yet to effect the agreement because it was expecting another payment to carry on with the project.

Mohammed said that as soon as the money was paid, CCECC would commence the building. 

(NAN)

Nigerians Reactions On The Restructuring of NNPC

The restructuring of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation NNPC as announced by the Minister of state for Petroleum Ibe Kachicwu has continued to generate interest among Nigerians.

Guests on good morning Nigeria examined the restructuring initiative, its impact and controversies.

On Tuesday, the Minister unveiled a new structure for the NNPC. Under the new arrangement, there are seven divisions comprising the upstream, downstream, refining group, midstream, and finance ventures and services groups. In addition, there are 20 subsidiary companies.

This development generated reactions from different stakeholders particularly oil workers of the NNPC and its subsidiaries who shot down operations.

While a member of the house committee on petroleum downstream insisted that unbundling the NNPC requires legislative input other guests said the concept needs to be explained and the unions properly carried along to avoid misunderstanding.

As explained by Dr Ibe Kachikwu, the initiative will lead to a stronger NNPC.

Nigerians are however looking forward to benefitting more from the oil endowment that the nation is blessed with as the policy is fully put to test.