Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Sterling Bank introduces flexible work conditions for staff

To further demonstrate its philosophy of enriching lives, Sterling Bank Plc has come up with a policy to promote work-life balance among its staff as it continues to strive to build a great place to work for its workforce through the introduction of Flexi-time and Flexi-place.
The initiative which the bank says complies with global best Human Resources (HR) practices, is currently being piloted in it’s corporate Head Office and is aimed at introducing flexibility in work arrangements for the Bank’s staff.
According to a statement from the lender,the Flexi-time arrangement allows members of staff the opportunity to determine their own working hours by choosing a convenient time to come to work within the options provided by the bank. Similarly, the Flexi-place package gives staff the opportunity to choose a convenient location from which they can carry out their job functions. In this pilot phase, interested staff particularly in the Head Office are encouraged to select locations closer to their place of residence.
The Bank’s Executive Director, Strategy & Finance, Mr Abubakar Suleiman who described the pilot stage as highly successful, expressed his optimism that the initiative will enhance productivity of staff, promote bonding among family members, reduce the stress of waking very early and spend long hours in traffic to get to the office early, improve the well-being of staff and ultimately promote work life balance among staff..
“Employees  in the cities are faced with the onerous yet elusive goal of maintaining work-life balance as they are confronted with the challenge of waking up very early to beat the traffic going to the office and also pass through same stress going home in the evening.
“We recognise that the fast-paced nature of cities is likely to continue to deprive workers of quality time with their families as they spend a lot of time commuting to and from work.
With the staggered resumption time offered by these initiatives, staff will be able to determine preferred and more convenient work hours. We believe with this initiative, they would be in a better position to spend quality time with their family, commute at more convenient traffic times and spend less on Medical care thus become more productive at work,” he said.
To ensure the effectiveness of the workplace solutions, Mr Abubakar noted that appropriate structures and resources have been put in place adding that each team during the pilot phase, had a succession plan with back-ups knowledgeable on other duties and available at crucial periods.
He assured that Sterling Bank will continue to come with initiatives to enrich the lives of all stakeholders as “we have demonstrated this in various areas such as education, sports, entrepreneurship, environment and the introduction of various products and services to meet the banking needs of our customers. This time, we want to focus on the people who work tirelessly to implement these initiatives- our staff.

Tribune

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

Court sends ex-Ministers Nenadi Usman, Fani-Kayode to prison

A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered that two former ministers, Nenadi Usman, and Femi Fani-Kayode, be remanded till Friday when their bail applications would be heard.
The two ex-ministers as well as Danjuma Yusuf and a firm, Jointrust Dimensions Nigeria Limited, were on Tuesday arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on a 17-count charge bordering on conspiracy, stealing, corruption and making cash payments exceeding the amount authorized by law.
Mrs. Usman is a former minister of finance and director of finance of the Peoples Democratic Party Presidential Campaign Organization in the 2015 election.
Mr. Fani-Kayode is a former aviation minister. He also served during the 2015 election as director media/publicity of the PDP Presidential Campaign Organization.
They are alleged to have stolen and illegally disbursed about N4.9 billion belonging to the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The defendants pleaded not guilty to all the charges preferred against them.

Premium Times

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Reduced To Barest Minimum In 5 West African Countries – NACA

The Chairman of the Governing Body of the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Organization and Director General of the NACA, Mr John Idoko, told a gathering in Abuja that Nigeria is recording a minus three percent new infection rates while Ghana has achieved a minus-one prevalence rate.

The organization is set up to control the prevalence of sexually transmitted diseases, HIV/Aids and Ebola in the West African sub region.

14 years after its establishment, Chairman of the organization said the region has achieved significant reduction in the prevalence of HIV/Aids and control of other disease that are easily transferred along the borders of these countries where 65% of the economic activities of West African states happen.

Commending the efforts of the West African countries, the representative of the United Nations Agency for HIV/Aids said there is need for more co-operation and integration of other country borders to ensure that the West African sub-region achieves the United Nations goal of eliminating HIV/Aids completely or reducing it to the barest minimum by the year 2020.

Channels Television’s Amaka Okafor reports that the consensus at the event is that the results achieved by the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor Organization needs to be replicated along other borders in the West African sub-region to achieve the aim of completely eradicating HIV/Aids from the region.

Channels news

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Omar Mateen: Ex-wife of Orlando gay nightclub shooter says 'he beat me'

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The ex-wife of the 29-year-old man suspected of killing 50 people in a Orlando nightclub early Sunday said that he was violent and mentally unstable and beat her repeatedly while they were married.
The ex-wife said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him.
At first, the marriage was normal, she said, but then he became abusive.
"He was not a stable person," said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. "He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that."
While the FBI has not identified Mateen publicly, U.S. law enforcement officials said his identification was found on the body of the suspected killer who was armed with a handgun and an assault rifle.

THROWBACK: June 12 Remains the True Democracy Day, By Wole Soyinka


Professor Wole Soyinka



July 12, 2015
The Organising Committee
June 12 MOVEMENT of NIGERIA
MKO ABIOLA’S Residence
44/46 MKO Abiola Crescent
Ikeja, Lagos.

Dear Friends and Comrades,

Regretfully, I am unable to be with you tomorrow morning. However, I extend a warm embrace to you in your resolve to keep within Nigeria’s short memory the events that have been central to the attainment of our democracy – warts and all – enjoyed today by you and me. June 12 remains the true Democracy Day despite the unprincipled efforts of some prime beneficiaries of that struggle to expunge it from a people’s chronicle.
If I had been able to join you, I would most certainly have asked you for help. It has to do with the nation’s latest alleged legislative stance against sexual abuse – molestation, rape, paedophilia etc etc. I am only a layman, not a “learned brother”, so any help from the learned is earnestly solicited. The question on my mind is this: is that legislative reinforcement not merely a case of rubbing vaseline on leprosy?

Suspect dies in EFCC custody


The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday said one of its suspects, Desmond Nunugwo, died after being taken into custody.
Mr Wilson Uwujaren, the Spokesman of EFCC in a statement in Abuja said the suspect’s death was confirmed at a hospital where he was rushed to after he took ill.
He stated that the late suspect was alleged to have fraudulently obtained N91 million from an acquaintance under false pretext.

Wednesday, June 08, 2016

I fought corruption by making money unavailable for people to touch – Jonathan

UThe immediate past President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan has observed that there have been corrupt practices in the country since Independence, but stressed that his administration did very well to curtail it.
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg TV, the former president averred that, “I cannot say that the country since the beginning of our Independence, that there was no corruption. Yes, there has been corruption.”

Jonathan continued, “I did very well also to curtail corruption. My approach to corruption was: don’t make money available for anybody to touch.

“We made sure that the area of fertilizer subsidies was cleaned up. The whole corruption there was removed. I wanted to do the same thing in the oil sector but the very people that have been accusing us of corruption are the very people that frustrated it. It’s unfortunate.”

Daily Post

Wednesday, June 01, 2016

Assembly Alerts Lagosians on Flooding

The Lagos State House of Assembly has called on residents and relevant agencies to guard against flooding as rainy season gets underway.

This call followed a motion moved on Tuesday by the member representing Epe Constituency II, Mr. Segun Olulade, on the flood that sacked residents of Poka and Imokin communities in Eredo area of Epe.

Olulade, who is the Chairman, House Committee on Health Services, while speaking on the motion, advised residents of the state to desist from disposing refuse into canals.

According to the lawmaker, “this issue of flooding is not far from building on waterways and illegal disposal of wastes. It is important for all relevant agencies to enforce all regulations to ensure protection of lives and property during this rainy season.

He also said the state Ministry of the Environment needs to redouble its efforts at ensuring functional drainages and free flow of water across the state as well as carrying out palliative measures in villages already affected by flood.

He, however, urged the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development to ensure that all building constructions comply with the approved design.

Also contributing on the not, Mr. Dayo Saka-Fafunmi, Chairman, Committee on the Environment said that relevant agencies needed to visit the affected areas.

Speaker of the Assembly, Mudashiru Obasa said government should not relent on sensitising the residents on the repercussions of blocking waterways with wastes and illegal building.

The assembly also advised the Ministry of Information and Strategy to continue sensitising the public on the danger of blocking the drains with indiscriminate disposal of refuse.

Source: Order Paper