Ebola: NYSC plans screening centres in orientation camps

The Director General of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, Brigadier-General Johnson Olawumi weekend said the Corps would  set up Ebola Virus Disease, EVD, screening centres in orientation camps across the country to check the spread of the dreaded EVD. He said already, the corps had taken measures to ensure the safety of the corp members and staff of the organisation during the orientation camps programme. The NYSC DG was in Akure, Ondo state capital for the inauguration of the NYSC/State governments collaboration on monthly environmental exercise According to him, the corps was determined to ensure that corps members deployed to various states of the country were free from the deadly virus.

Vanguard Newspaper

Stakeholders list benefits of N65 ATM charge

As debate on the recently reintroduced ATM charge gathers momentum, Nigerian banking community has been urged to embrace the policy, considering its potential to guarantee unhindered flow of financial services to bank customers. The remote-on-us automated teller machine (ATM) withdrawal charge of N65 introduced by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), which takes off today from September 1, 2014, stakeholders argue is designed to ensure better services for customers, increase healthy competition amongst banks, reduce wear and tear on the ATM machines, so that they can serve the customers longer, and checkmate increasing cash transaction, which negates the cash-less policy. These were the reasons given by the Central Bank of Nigeria for the introduction of N65 remote-on-us ATM charges, which will only be charged after the third ATM withdrawal in a month. Remote-on-us withdrawal is the case where a card holder goes to the ATM of a bank other than his bank to withdraw cash. According to the CBN, charging of fee on interbank network is a global best practice and widely acceptable norm. It is used to pay the cost for the remuneration of the switches, ATM monitoring and fit-notes processing. It noted that failure to charge this fee was already discouraging banks and poses a threat to financial interoperability.

Sun Newspaper

Nigeria Tightens Land Border Control to Fend off Ebola

 Nigeria has procured vehicles to beef up patrols at the nation's borders in an attempt to fend off further spread of the Ebola virus, officials said at the weekend. The Minister of State for Health, Khalliru Alhassan, said in a news conference in Sokoto that the government had formed a specialised rapid response team to effectively deal with the epidemic. According to Xinhua, the Chinese News Agency, the team is comprised of doctors, medical laboratory scientists and other professionals, which also include experts from the Centres for Disease Control (CDC) of the United States and Medicins Sans Frontiers, an international humanitarian organisation. According to the minister, a total of 13 cases of Ebola disease had been confirmed in Nigeria and that seven had been discharged while others, including the importer of the virus, a Liberian, died. Meanwhile, over 400 people are still under watch. Since earlier this year, the Ebola epidemic has spread to five West African countries, namely Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and Senegal, and claimed over 1,500 lives in the region.

Thisday Newspaper

Despite Security Challenges, FDI Inflows into Nigeria Grow

 In spite of the huge infrastructure gap and security challenges in the country, activities in the Nigerian manufacturing sector have continued to grow, attracting huge foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows by global multinational brands. In the same vein, the country’s foreign reserves since the new Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, assumed office have continued to inch up, rising to $39.401 billion by Friday last week from $36.809 billion on June 2 when he took over at the CBN. The country’s reserves are also expected to rise to the mid-forties by the end of the year, a CBN source informed THISDAY yesterday. THISDAY investigations revealed that there have been increased FDI inflows, with Indorama leading the pack with a $1.2 billion investment in a fertiliser plant in Onne, Rivers State; Procter & Gamble’s (P&G) $250 million consumer goods plant in Ogun State; as well as SAB Miller’s $100 million brewery at Onitsha, Anambra State. Shortly after Nigeria’s rebased GDP figures, which catapulted the country from the second spot to the number one position as Africa’s largest economy, Unilever, which had long ago halted its investment drive in Nigeria also expressed its readiness to expand its production in the country with a fresh investment of about $150 million. The Nigerian growth model is consumer-led accounting for Africa’s largest market with about 170 million people and a growing middle class, representing more than 23 per cent of the population.

Thisday Newspaper

Ebola Virus: Rivers Quarantines Three Persons

 Three persons out of 50 classified as high-risk contacts have been quarantined as in-house patients at the Ebola Isolation Unit, Eduoha in Emohua Local Government Area of Rivers State, the state government said yesterday. Rivers State Health Commissioner, Dr. Sampson Parker, in his briefing yesterday on the virus, said the three persons were placed under observation through the state’s Contact Tracing Committee. The three were said to have shown symptoms associated with the virus, he explained. Parker added that the three persons a doctor and pharmacist who work at Sam Steel Clinic (Enemuo’s clinic) as well as a female patient who was treated clinic had been taken to the quarantine centre at Eduoha for closer examination and observation by a team of medical experts. He further disclosed that 50 out of some 200 people under surveillance were categorised as high-risk because of their primary contact with the late Doctor Ike Enemuo. In addition, Parker appealed to about 60 people who had secondary contact with the late Enemuo and who were yet to be located to come out and report themselves to the Rivers State Government’s medical team as quickly as possible. He expressed regrets that some people were reluctant to present themselves to the medical team because of the stigma associated with the disease.

Thisday Newspaper

Thousands flee to Cameroon as Boko Haram conscripts youths to fight Nigeria

Following sustained Boko Haram attacks in the North-Eastern part of the country, thousands of Nigerians have been forced to flee their homes, swamping towns in the north of neighbouring Cameroon, authorities said yesterday. This came as Boko Haram terrorists, for three days, laid siege to Gamboru town, forcefully conscripting youths to fight both the Nigerian and Cameroonian troops. They were said to have killed those who resisted them. After the three-day attack, 29 persons were killed, while 215 of the youths, who fled to Cameroon to escape the forceful conscription, have recounted their ordeals in the hands of the insurgents. A Cameroonian police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity that: We’ve been flooded here in Mora by Cameroonians and Nigerians fleeing Boko Haram. The day before yesterday (Friday), there were already more than 10,000 people in Mora. Not a day goes by without more people coming. The number of internally displaced people in Nigeria and those who have crossed its borders into Cameroon, Niger and Chad because of the militant violence has been increasing, with no end in sight to the insurgency. A picture taken on August 21, 2014 shows Internally Displaced People (IDP) receiving food in Madagali camp in Nigeria's northeastern Adamawa State.

Vanguard Newspaper