AK
Posts
All Comments
Wednesday, 4 November 2015
FAYOSE INTERACT WITH ANOTHER ELDERLY WOMAN IN EKITI STATE
Photos: Fayose interacts with another elderly woman in Ekiti state
Fayose stopped his convoy and spoke with another elderly woman about her
concerns in the state yesterday. See more photos after the cut...
Tuesday, 3 November 2015
#Afromusicpopparty returns to Lagos with 9ice, TJan, Sefiya, Sojay & Akintunde powered by Martini
The channel with the support of Martini will host 9ice alongside the man with the sonorous voice Tjan, Sojay , Akintunde and Diva Sefiya. This month’s edition will feature lots of energetic performances , with the highlight of the night being the presentation of gifts to the winner of the Selfie contest. The winner of the #AfroMusicPopSelfie will be announced November 5.
Venue is Road Runners, Akoka Yaba.
Red Carpet starts 10PM
This Event is proudly supported by Martini, Culbeed Media, Remote Pictures, GigglesPlus, EstolPr
Hundreds of supporters loyal to Assad have been locked cages by militant Islamists
Women & Men loyal to President Assad in a besieged
region of Damascus are being paraded in metal cages in the hope of
preventing further air- strikes raining down on a stricken suburb of the
Syrian capital. Almost 500 Alawites have been
rounded up by ISIS militants and are now being held captive in
the cubed jails mounted on the back of flat-bed trucks and pick-ups. The
locals see this extreme retaliation as the only way of ensuring the
airborne attacks are ended. More pics after the cut...
CBN BLOCK FIVE MILLION CUSTOMER
Banks block five million customers’ accounts • No withdrawal without BVN –CBN
Oyetunji Abioye and Ifeanyi Onuba
At least five million bank accounts were
deactivated by Deposit Money Banks operating in the country on Saturday
night following the October 31, 2015 deadline set by the Central Bank
of Nigeria for bank customers to register and obtain their Bank
Verification Numbers, findings by our correspondents showed on Monday.
The affected customers were, among other
things, barred from withdrawing cash and transferring funds through
Automated Teller Machines, Internet banking platforms and
over-the-counter in the banking halls.
The development created chaos in the
banking halls across the country on Monday as angry customers besieged
several branches to get their suspended accounts reactivated.
Long queues were seen in various banking halls when one our correspondents visited some branches in Lagos.
Similar situations were recorded in Abuja, Port Harcourt and other major cities across the country.
Findings showed that a significant
number of the five million customers whose accounts were suspended had
obtained their BVNs but failed to link it with their account numbers.
Branches of First Bank of Nigeria
Limited, Guaranty Trust Bank Plc and Access Bank Plc visited in
Surulere, Yaba, Isolo and Oshodi in Lagos all had long queues of
customers filling forms to verify their BVNs.
Majority of the customers expressed anger as they filled the verification forms given to them by bank officials.
However, some of the customers, who had
obtained the BVNs but failed to link them up with the account numbers,
had their accounts reactivated immediately.
It was observed that majority of the
customers that failed to lodge their complaints were those who had
obtained the BVNs but failed to visit their banks to link the number up
with their accounts.
Due to the high number of people in the
banking halls, majority of the customers who filled the BVN verification
form were asked to drop it in anticipation that the banks would
reactivate the accounts later.
The spokespersons for First Bank,
GTBank, Access Bank Plc, Diamond Bank Plc, Fidelity Bank Plc and Skye
Bank Plc declined to give the number of bank accounts they deactivated
on Saturday night.
However, officials of some banks, the
CBN and the Nigeria Interbank Settlement System Plc said at least five
million bank accounts were deactivated by the DMBs on Saturday night
when the CBN deadline expired.
The Managing Director, NIBSS, Mr. Ayo
Shonubi, had early last month said only 14 million BVNs had been linked
to customers’ bank accounts.
As of the time, he said 19 million
customers had registered and obtained their BVNs, indicating that six
millions customers had yet to get their BVNs linked to their respective
bank accounts.
On Monday, the Head, Corporate
Communications, NIBSS, Mrs. Lilian Phido, could not readily provide the
number of the BVNs that had been linked to the customers’ accounts.
She told one of our correspondents that
the figure would be provided later when the agency had obtained the data
from relevant stakeholders.
Phido also said details of the total number of customers who had registered as of Monday would be provided later.
Meanwhile, customers and stakeholders on
Monday berated the CBN and the NIBSS over the BVN project, saying
customer education on the project was poor.
They said the CBN and the NIBSS had done
well on the project but failed to handle the customer enlightenment
campaign effectively.
“Most of the customers are not aware
that they have to go to their various banks to link the BVN with their
accounts. Imagine the number of customers whose bank accounts were
deactivated over the weekend on the ground that they did not know they
had to link them up,” a customer who identified himself as Dr. Kelvin
Ibeh told one of our correspondents at a First Bank branch in Akoka,
Lagos.
Some bank officials, who spoke on
condition of anonymity, said the CBN and the NIBSS did not handle some
aspects of the BVN projects very well.
They are of the opinion that the linking
of bank accounts with the BVN ought to have been done by the NIBSS
since it had the data base of those who registered under the project,
rather than asking the customers to do so.
The CBN on Monday night extended the
timeline for Nigerian bank customers in the Diaspora to enrol for their
BVN to January 31, 2016.
It also said that no bank customer would
be allowed to make withdrawals from their accounts without completing
the BVN registration exercise.
In a statement made available by the
Director, Corporate Communications, Mr. Ibrahim Mu’azu, the CBN
explained that the extension was to enable customers in the Diaspora to
complete the enrolment as well as link the BVN to their respective
accounts.
While emphasising that the extension was
only for customers outside the country, the statement advised the DMBs
to ensure that the exemption was utilised by the targeted group.
The statement read in part, “The CBN has
also expressed satisfaction with the progress made in the
implementation of the BVN project, especially for accounts operated by
residents of Nigeria.
“However, with the expiration of the
October 31 enrolment deadline, the CBN has directed that bank accounts
of Nigeria residents without the BVN would henceforth be operated as ‘No
customer initiated debit accounts until the account holders obtain and
attach the BVNs to the accounts.
“This means that a customer may not be
allowed to withdraw money from his or her account until the BVN has been
acquired and linked to the account.”
The statement clarified that accounts of
Nigeria residents without the BVN would continue to receive cash and
electronic credit inflows, and would neither be deactivated nor
confiscated.
It, therefore, advised the banks to educate their customers accordingly.
It also advised the banks to remind
their customers of the need to link the BVNs with their accounts if they
had done the enrolment at another bank.
SEASON OF WOMEN
Season of Women
03 Nov 2015
Panelists discussing an issue
The recently concluded Women in Business and Leadership Summit organised by the GLEEHD Foundation, was another striking reminder of the gender revolution sweeping through the African continent, writes Solomon Elusoji
After centuries of patriarchy promotion, Africa is gradually waking up to the modern consequences of gender inequality. Statistics have consistently shown that societies who do not give the same economic, social and legal opportunities to men and women, in the long run, are never better off than those who do. When women work, several studies have shown, the economy grows faster and everyone is better off.
“A society that does not educate its women is leaving a vast resource fallow,” writes Charles Wheelan, in his seminal book ‘Naked Economics’.
He adds: “Women in the developing world do smarter things with their money. As women get wealthier, they spend more money on the family’s nutrition, medicine, and housing. When men get wealthier, they spend more money on alcohol and tobacco. Really. There was an elegant little experiment in this point in the Ivory Coast, where men and women traditionally grow different crops. In some years, the men’s cash crops do particularly well. MIT economist Esther Duflo found that when the men have a banner year, the household spends more on drinking and smoking; when the women rake in the cash, the household spends more on food. Development officials have learned that if they give cash to the female head of household, it will do more good.”
This, of course, is not to encourage gender comparison, but to highlight the economic potential of an empowered woman, a phenomenon which patriarchy refuses to let blossom. For example, according to a United Nations report, women comprise an average of 43 per cent of the agricultural labour force in developing countries, varying considerably across regions from 20 per cent or less in Latin America to 50 per cent or more in parts of Asia and Africa. Still, despite the regional and sub-regional variation, women make an essential contribution to agriculture across the developing world.
But, despite their massive contributions, women farmers control less land than men do, and also have limited access to inputs, seeds, credits, and extension services. It is estimated that less than 20 per cent of landholders are women. The UN report concludes that “gender differences in access to land and credit affect the relative ability of female and male farmers and entrepreneurs to invest, operate to scale, and benefit from new economic opportunities.”
In 2011, UNICEF estimated that 31 million girls of primary school age and 34 million girls of lower secondary school age were not enrolled in school and according to statistics, one in four women globally are still illiterate, with most of them living in sub-Saharan Africa.
It is reported that in 47 out of 54 African countries, girls have less than a 50 per cent chance of completing primary school.
In that respect, journalist, Belinda Otas has noted that “Education has long been argued as one of the key solutions to ensuring women and girls gain equal access to political and socio-economic power in society. Women activists, policy-makers and well-known voices, like the award-winning Benoise singer Angelique Kidjo, have long campaigned and fought vigorously for the education of girls, achieving significant gains. However, inadequate funds, tradition and culture (in particular, strong cultural norms that favour the education of boys over girls, as well as early child marriage) continue to be some of the main causes of a lack of education for women in Africa.”
Still, Africa is not standing still. A key aspect of life where African women are breaking new grounds is political leadership. Africa now has three female heads of state, after Catherine Samba-Panza of the Central African Republic took office in January. Though women leaders remain the exception in African politics, more people are beginning to find reasons to believe.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf was the first in 2005 as the country emerged from 13 years of brutal civil war. Joyce Banda stepped up in Malawi in 2012 after the sudden death of the president. She had been the vice president. And now there’s President Samba-Panza in the Central African Republic, a country torn apart by rebellion and sectarian violence. Astoundingly, each of these women has taken office amid crisis and turbulent transitions. It appears that during times of tragedy, Africans would rather support a woman.
In economics, women like Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and Folorunsho Alakija continue to eclipse dizzying heights, unconsciously becoming a metaphor for the Great African Woman. A plethora of voices have arisen across the continent, chanting the gospel of women empowerment. And, this – the evangelisation of women empowerment – is a beautiful thing that will transform the continent.
Recently in Lagos, the GLEEHD (Governance, Leadership, Economic, Environmental and Human Development) Foundation held the second edition of the Women in Business and Leadership Summit, as part of its efforts to support the cause of the African woman. With the likes of Harvard-trained Oby Ezekwesili and a plethora of other accomplished women, it was a salient three-day summit.
The summit, aptly themed ‘Building Greatness’ recognised the role of women in transforming economies, societies, and their families. The Summit also explored ways through which women as entrepreneurs and corporate executives are creating opportunities in the business world globally, while working to maintain and conserve increasingly limited natural resources.
On the summit’s second day, former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, delivered a keynote speech where she encouraged women to step into the orbit of greatness.
“You are not competing with anybody,” she said, “but you are competing with who you were the last time. See beyond the boundaries of Nigeria and strive to attain global dimensions. Greatness means having a lasting quotient; how lasting are you? Stretch yourself beyond your limit – don’t worry, you won’t break.”
She also pointed out that “greatness is mysterious”, since it is not found where the world expects it to be, and that “we can attain greatness, building on what skills we currently carry.”
For Oby, who is a frontline leader of the Bring Back Our Girls campaign, to be great is about serving others. “You don’t need a title to achieve greatness,” she said.
In an invitation letter, the Summit’s President and Chair of GLEEHD Foundation’s advisory board, Mrs. Opral Mason Benson noted that while the African Union has christened the years 2010-2020 as the African Women’s decade, women are still the most underutilised resources in community development in Africa.
“This oversight is the major reason for limiting positive outcomes as women are resilient and focus on quality-of-life issues,” Benson, who is also the Honorary Consul of Liberia to Nigeria, said. “It is on this premise that WIBLES is organised as a tool to build the capacities of women to deliver the future and create a platform for women to support other women.
“It is commonly said that there is a lot that women can do to support one another and the first thing we can do is simply show up for another. It helps tremendously to share not only our successes but also our failures with one another in order for us to grow and truly learn from one another.
“Since inception, the WIBLES and its sister events have continued to bridge the gap between women leaders of the 21st century and the millennials who admire them, by shaking up the women’s leadership arena and producing accessible platforms for mid-level and emerging women leaders to engage with leading women.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
