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The general elections have been described as a good opportunity to establish functional education in Nigeria.

This assertion was made on Tuesday by the Founder, Spiritual head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke in his address titled, ''SHAPING THE FUTURE OF EDUCATION IN NIGERIA-THE FUTURE IS NOW'' at the 3oth Annual Shafaudeen-in-Islam stakeholders' Conference in Ibadan, Nigeria.

''Functioanl education is deserved by a nation like Nigeria to promote inclusive society, civility and patirotism, credible leadership and good governance driven through zero tolerance to corruption and institutional indiscipline. Education will make us realize achieving this sanity-prone environment for development. Luckily for us, the 2023 general elections will avail us the opportunity to achieve this if we make give the right choice of a visionary leader that would be spirit led to operationalize democracy through justice and equity to propel Nigeria into peace and sustainable development and a safe and secured environment., Prof. Olagoke stated.

The provision of the appropriate policies, programs, services and information that supports children and youth development has been recommended for the grooming of the future generation.

 This recommendation was given on Saturday by the Founder, Spiritual Head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeen-in-Islam Worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke at the opening ceremony and Inter-House Sports of Shafaudeen Group of Schools in Ibadan,, Oyo state, Nigeria.

In his address titled, ;; Child Rearing and Wellness for Growth and Development, Prof. Olagoke stated : ''Appropriate policies, programs, services and information that focus on nurturing care are, therefore, needed to build an environment in which children and young people can thrive. So,the way parents nurture and the way government as well as other stakeholders support children and the youth constitute one of the most critical factors for their health, growth and development.''

Written by Michael Caster, Asia Digital Programme Manager at ARTICLE 19.

In late November, protests erupted in a factory manufacturing Apple products in the Chinese city of Zhengzhou amid workers’ discontent about pay. Footage and images from the site showed police beating protesters and arresting them. The turmoil in Zhengzhou was the latest in a series of challenges that have delayed the manufacturing of Apple products in China and led to the company accelerating its plans to move its production elsewhere. Other tech giants are seeking to do the same, concerned about tensions between the US and China and COVID-19-related shutdowns imposed by the Chinese authorities. As these companies start to relocate their operations, they have the chance to account for their human rights record in the communist country. For years, they have bowed to state policies that restrict the fundamental freedoms of Chinese citizens. These companies have to review their human rights records in authoritarian states and commit not to make the same mistakes in the countries where they will relocate their production or grow their markets. It is time for tech companies to undertake a human rights reset. Compliance with censorship Apple, the world’s richest company, has made a significant profit in China, which has also left it vulnerable to pressure from the local authorities to act against its stated human rights commitments. While the size of its production has been politically and economically important to the Chinese government, which in theory would have given the company leverage to oppose such rights abuses, Apple has been seemingly unwilling to push back in meaningful ways. The company has complied with repressive legislation, such as the Cybersecurity Law and others, which require tech companies, among others, to monitor and report politically sensitive content, store Chinese users’ data in China and provide the authorities with access to it. Apple has also engaged in censorship, deleting tens of thousands of apps from its Chinese App Store, including encryption and circumvention tools, such as VPNs needed to hop over the Great Firewall of China. Most recently, in November, Apple limited the parameters for wireless filesharing on its app AirDrop after its use by anti-government protesters in China. The changes allow the option “share with everyone” to be active for just 10 minutes before it switches back to “contacts only”, effectively eliminating its utility during protests. Apple is not alone. Microsoft, another US-based tech giant, has also been compliant with the repressive policies of the Chinese government. Following the implementation of the Cybersecurity Law, the company partnered with the state-owned China Electronics Technology Group to develop a version of its Windows operating system specifically for Chinese government users. This has raised concerns about the company giving backdoor access to its software to the Chinese government. Microsoft is also a member of the Internet Society of China and as such has made a pledge to block websites that offend the Chinese censors. After most services offered by Google were blocked in China in 2010, Microsoft’s Bing has been the only major foreign search engine that works without a VPN. Surely, compliance with Beijing’s censorship demands helps keep it that way. Similarly, LinkedIn, which Microsoft acquired in 2016, was the only big foreign social networking site available in China, after Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube were blocked in 2009. In late 2021, LinkedIn had over 57 million users, making China its third largest market after the United States and India. In exchange for access to this sizeable userbase, LinkedIn too was expected to play the censorship game. The platform geoblocked content belonging to high-profile human rights defenders, such as Zhou Fengsuo, journalists like Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian, and corporate investigator Peter Humphrey, along with the posts of millions of Chinese users deemed “sensitive”. Despite its record of compliance, in March 2021 the Cyberspace Administration of China rebuked LinkedIn for not censoring enough. Finally, in October 2021, Microsoft announced it was shutting down LinkedIn services in China due to a “significantly more challenging operating environment and greater compliance requirements”. Clearly, the cost of tech companies doing business in China’s enormous market, whether producing or selling products and services, has long been to abandon their responsibilities to respect human rights. But it shouldn’t be this way. A human rights reset As big tech companies prepare to reduce their reliance on production in China, they have an opportunity to set new standards for human rights. Apple is looking to shift its supply chain to India and Vietnam. But both of these countries are known to engage in severe censorship as well. India leads the world in internet shutdowns, responsible for 106 of 182 shutdowns documented last year by the #KeepItOn Coalition. In recent years, the Indian authorities have enacted legislation that pressures tech companies to over-censor and retain user data to hand over to the government. It now looks to threaten end-to-end encryption. India has ordered platforms to take down content it didn’t want and warned of severe penalties for noncompliance, including threatening Twitter staff with up to seven years imprisonment. Earlier this year, Twitter sued the government for such “overbroad and arbitrary” regulations. It is also concerning that Apple is expanding into Vietnam, which ranks among the five worst internet freedom abusers in the world, according to US-based pro-democracy organisation Freedom House. Like China, Vietnam’s Cybersecurity Law requires tech companies to comply with data localisation, actively censor content, and make user data available to the authorities. In November, its government announced plans for new rules that would require platforms to remove offending content within 24 hours. Vietnam has also shown that it will hold tech companies financially hostage until they comply with its digital diktats. In 2020, following months of government-backed bandwidth throttling to drastically slow down its services, Facebook, which makes about $1bn a year in the country, agreed to increase censorship of “anti-state” content on its platform. With such repressive policies in place in both India and Vietnam, Apple faces the risk of repeating the same mistakes it made in China unless it changes its approach to dealing with government pressure. The company and other tech giants doing business with repressive states should heed their responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGPs) to address any adverse human rights impacts their activities may have, including on the rights to privacy, freedom of expression, and access to information online. They should resist government orders to arbitrarily restrict freedom of expression and implement labour protections in their supply chains. They should be fully transparent about how they negotiate market access and licensing agreements with governments and make such documents publicly available to empower independent oversight. Companies should have a robust policy on how they will adhere to their human rights responsibilities in the face of government pressure and hold open consultations with civil society to establish clear benchmarks and red lines. Companies must commit to independent human rights impact assessments, which should be revised as conditions change, and be publicly available. Shareholder groups in these companies should also impress upon corporate leadership the importance of compliance with their human rights responsibilities. Tech companies can and should do business without hurting human rights. Having a positive human rights record could be just as profitable as bowing down to repressive state policies.

Source-Article 19

The systematic increase in the pump price of the Premium Motor Spirit(PMS) and the recent increase in electricity tariffs by the electricity distribution companies has been described as premeditated attempts to exterminate Nigerians.

This is the opinion of a former chairman of the Oyo state council of the Trade Union Congress(TUC), Comrade Andrew Emelieze.

''The systematic increase in the price of petrol and then now the increase in electricity tariffs are premeditated attempts to wipe out Nigerians by continuously ensuring that life is unbearable.''

Note-Olorunsogo, Molete, Molusi, Oshodi, Aluko, Scout Camp and Felele among several other communities in Ibadan, Oyo state Nigeria, where parents and guardians groom their children and wards to become future criminals.

Of worry, is the high population of dropouts that has made it very difficult to justify the expenditure on education.

Illiteracy, ignorance and idleness coupled with crime and all forms of criminality have now become norms and values. Sadly, the government of the day, at all levels may have proceeded on vacation or are complicit.

GRAND RAPIDS – Barry Croft Jr., 47, of Bear, Delaware, was sentenced today to 235 months (19 years 7 months) in prison followed by five years of supervised release for conspiracy to kidnap the Governor of Michigan, conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction against persons or property, and knowingly possessing an unregistered destructive device, which was a commercial firework refashioned with shrapnel to serve as a hand-grenade. Croft was convicted by a federal jury in August 2022 during an 11-day retrial. According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Croft and others intended to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer from her vacation cottage near Elk Rapids, Michigan, and use the destructive devices to facilitate their plot by harming and hindering the governor’s security detail and any responding law enforcement officers. They specifically explored placing a bomb under an interstate overpass near a pedestrian boardwalk. A jury in an earlier trial was unable to reach a verdict. Croft is the final defendant to be sentenced for his role in the plot. Co-defendant Adam Fox, 39, of Wyoming, Michigan, was sentenced yesterday to 16 years in prison followed by five years of supervised release for his role in the conspiracy. Ty Garbin, 27, of Hartland, Michigan, pleaded guilty in January 2021 and initially received a sentence of 75 months, or over six years, in prison. The district court later reduced that sentence to a term of 30 months, or two and a half years in prison, after fully considering his cooperation at both trials. Kaleb Franks, 28, of Waterford, Michigan, received a term of four years in prison after pleading guilty and testifying at both trials. Co-defendants Daniel Harris and Brandon Caserta were acquitted at the first trial in April 2022. Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, Former U.S. Attorney Andrew Birge for the Western District of Michigan, appointed to oversee the trial, and Assistant Director Robert R. Wells of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division made the announcement. The FBI’s Detroit Field Office investigated the case with valuable assistance provided by the FBI’s Baltimore Field Office and the Joint Terrorism Task Force, including Michigan State Police and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Michigan charged the case and conducted the trials, with valuable assistance provided by the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

Source-FBI

The expectation of Nigerians is that credible leaders with passion to put an end to hunger and poverty in the country will emerge after the general elections.

This assertion was made on Thursday by the Founder, Spiritual head and Grand Imam of Shafaudeeen-inIslam worldwide, Prof. Sabitu Olagoke in his lecture titled ''Leadership and the Three Rings of Life'' at the second Ogunelu Aaare Alasa Dynasty day in collaboration with Shafaudeen-in-Islam Medical Outreach in Ibadan, Nigeria.

''Nigerians are expecting credible leaders at all levels of government, who will lift them out of hunger, poverty and unemployment to emerge after the general elections.Only credible leaders at all levels of government, who are purposeful, visionary, emotionally and passionately patriotic, ready to sacrifice their best to serve the people will all digilence can be goal getters and unifying factors to the people of diverse interest-religious, ethnic divides and gender equlaity challenge. They expect to be loved by the people, for them to buy in Zero tolerance to corruption and institutional indiscipline as a cultural or normal way of life,'' Prof. Olagoke stated.

Nigerians have been charged with keeping hope alive by praying ceaselessly for the present hardships and violent crimes weighing the country down to come to an end in the new year.

This charge was given by Pastor Opeyemi Ajayi.

''Nigerians should continue to pray ceaselessly for an end to the present hardships and spate of killings, ritual killings, armed robberies, rape and other violent crimes in the new year. The challenges Nigerians are passing through today will soon be over. It is a matter of time and at the end of it all we shall have cause to rejoice and be happy. Nigerians should be optimistic that the new year will bring good tidings,'' Pastor Ajayi stated.

Similarly, labor leaders in Nigeria have been castigated for keeping mute in the face of the hardships being experienced, particularly by workers and generally by Nigerians.

This castigation was given by a former chairman of the Oyo state council of the Trade Union Congress(TUC), Comrade Andrew Emelieze.

''We protested to demand that the labor movement should wake up from their slumber because we believe that the leaders of the Nigeria Labor Congress and Trade Union Congress are in a deep sleep and it is as if the labor movement in Nigeria is in a state of coma. Why can the labor leaders keep quiet in the face of the fuel crisis and the sky-rocket costs of living? Nigerians are suffering, our sufferings are no longer in silence. We are protesting the general hardships confronting Nigerians; their incomes are static while the prices of goods and services have gone beyond their reach,'' Comrade Emelieze concluded.

When confronted with difficult and hard times, stiff challenges and major disappointments, identify and hold on to those who offer encouragement and hope, if at all, they are brothers, sisters or friends.

Galatians 6 : 1-5

''1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. 2 Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. 3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself. 4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. 5 For every man shall bear his own burden.''