NPC

By Sabiu Abdullahi

Nasiru Isa Kwarai, Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), disclosed that six out of Borno State’s 27 local government areas (LGAs) are excluded from the ongoing 2023-24 Demographic Health and Survey (NDHS) due to escalating security concerns. 

He stated this in a press briefing held in Maiduguri on Monday. 

Kwarai identified the omitted LGAs as Chibok, Magumeri, Abadam, Mobar, Marte, and Guzamala, citing them as potential flashpoints necessitating heightened security logistics.

“The safety of our staff is paramount, and conveying them to these areas poses significant risks,” Kwarai Sa’id. 

Despite the exclusion, Kwarai assured that the impact on the omitted LGAs would be mitigated as neighboring communities and participating LGAs would indirectly influence them.

He stated, “The results obtained in these neighboring areas will also be applied to the excluded ones,” addressing concerns about potential data gaps. 

Represented by Haruna Ibrahim, the Director of the NPC in Borno, Kwarai underscored the critical role of the NDHS exercise in collecting high-quality data on vital indicators such as fertility rates, maternal and child health, childhood mortality, gender-related issues, and nutrition. 

Anticipating that major stakeholders would leverage this data to make informed decisions, Kwarai highlighted its potential to address the unique needs of citizens, enhance health outcomes, and alleviate disease burdens nationwide. 

While urging media involvement, Kwarai called on press outlets to utilize the five-month period to educate the public on the NDHS exercise. He emphasized the importance of dispelling cultural and religious misunderstandings surrounding the program.

By Nasiru Tijjani

The role of guidance, counselling, and mentoring in our interaction remains strategic and fundamental for achieving one’s goals and objectives. Doubtless, none of us is perfect enough not to be mentored, guided, counselled or nurtured at one point or another. Therefore, mentors, parents, counsellors, teachers and the likes are vested with the power of educating the teeming youth on the implication of age in one’s life.

Honestly, age is one of the problematic issues that need to be treated with extreme caution. But unfortunately, the problem appears to be common even among the students of tertiary institutions, civil servants, corp members and business people. Initially, the issue cannot be divorced entirely from ignorance, carelessness, poor mentorship, parental attitude toward learning, policy review and implementation, selfishness and what have you. Therefore, age is needed in every situation to meet a particular requirement for admission, job or anything.

In Nigeria, as we grow older, our services are no longer needed in some institutions. Accordingly, National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has classified ‘date of birth’ as one of the fields in the data of a person to be non-updatable and non-modified unless an approved fee of ₦15,000 is paid. Meanwhile, the country’s birth certificate is issued to the citizens by the Nigeria National Population Commission. However, until recently, ‘date of birth’ has not received proper attention from the youth, parents, teachers, mentors, etc. UNICEF (2016) has reported that only 30 per cent of  Nigerian children under the age of five (5) have their births registered. Meanwhile, the country had one of the highest average birth rates in the world between 2010 and 2015.

In the academic arena, date of birth has denied many people access to secure admission into higher learning institutions at national and international levels. For instance, a friend of mine was recently denied admission to an undergraduate programme in Sudan. The university management told him that was due to his age.

In addition, the National Examination Council (NECO) has reviewed its policy in 2020 and mandated that ‘date of birth’ be written on the candidates’ results. Furthermore, the National Youth Service Corps has introduced a new policy in the year 2020, which states that the date of birth must be written on the national certificate to guard against age falsification. Before this, the NYSC  policy had mandated that graduates should not be or exceed 30 years of age to be enrolled on the scheme. Therefore, with this mandate, many graduates end up collecting exemption letters.

Returning to civil service, ‘date of birth’ has sent many civil servants to early retirement. I discussed with someone who lamented that he had unceremoniously and unduly retired from service due to the age written on his documents. In contrast, his colleagues are still in the system, for they have no problem with age. I trust you have a lot to say on this case. In Nigeria, for example, the retirement age of civil servants is 60 years by birth and 35 years in service. However, on January 20, 2021, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approved a bill to increase teachers’ retirement age and service years. With the bill in effect, teachers are now to retire at 65 years by birth and 40 by service.

Furthermore, no one can deny that banks attach value to the topic of discussion, and due to this, many people, including the writer of this piece, have suffered the pain of having dual dates of birth. Without hesitation, I can attest that many accounts have been restricted and closed due to irregularities in age. Equally, many transactions have been denied, cancelled or withheld by the banks’ managements. I trust you can give an example of the victim of the problem.

In sum, the issue of ‘date of birth’ should not be treated slightly…Therefore, one will be at an advantage if one pays attention to the date of birth. Because of this, the following recommendations will be helpful:

• One should ensure they have a unique and standard date of birth.

• Parents should be cautious by avoiding anything that will jeopardise their children’s future, such as negligence to NIN enrollment.

• Parents should endeavour to register the birth certificates of their children in time or right at a tender age.

• Birth certificates or date of birth should be committed to memory so that forgetfulness and what have you will not strike between what is and what ought to be.

• No reason, or whatsoever, will warrant you to allow your friends to use your dates of birth.

Nasiru Tijjani writes from Gwaram Tsohuwa, Jigawa State. He can be contacted through tijjaninasiru@gmail.com.

By Salisu Uba Kofar Wambai

One of the basic tenets of democratic principles is building political parties on sound ideological ground. Ideology is an orientation that characterised the thinking of a group or nation. Thus, the people of the same thoughts on running public affairs come together to establish a party, preaching the gospel of a particular ideology to ascertain its primary objective in government or public sphere if they’re voted through an electoral process.

However, the missteps and embarrassing blunder committed by the Nigerian politicians in the party formation in 1998-1999 democratic process was enormous, and the country is paying the huge price now. The politicians then were overwhelmed with the military government’s commitment to hand over power to the civilians. Unfortunately, they hurriedly built the parties; thereby, the ideological consideration of the politicians was grossly undermined. The parties were just a kind of machine to let the military go.

The people democratic party (PDP) encompassed and encapsulated politicians of different ideologies by looking at their political background, which is the machine that shapes and moulds their thoughts and ideological thinking style. How can one explain forming a party with unrepentant progressives like Abubakar Rimi, Solomon Lar and topnotch conservatives like Lawal Kaita and Alex Ekueme in the same party! They had different ideological backgrounds by all calculations. They were purely strange bedfellows.

The other two most notable parties then were APP and AD. APP were just people who lost grips of power with the death of General Sani Abacha with revivalism agenda, and AD was nothing more than ethnic and regional irredentists. Therefore, the parties were all ideological-free. Their main aim was only to let the military go and let the civilians take over.

The PDP experienced intense intraparty wrangling and turmoil because the party’s bigwigs were not ideologically the same. And this led to much chaos and internal divides among them, which led to a new crop of politicians as governors hijacking the party and get rid of them politically with the backup of the presidency. It was the beginning of governor-turn-emperor as we see it today.

Retrospectively, in the First and Second Republics, the politicians had based-ideology. For example, it was NEPU that produced Malam Aminu Kano, who had been a minister and yet died with only 112 Naira in his bank account because the ideology of his party was to emancipate the masses from the subjugation of elites and traditional oligarchs who formed their NPC as a party with their aim of maintaining the status quo. And in the Second Republic still, the parties were ideological because PRP was an offshoot of NEPU, and NPN was NPC. That’s why the politics then was not much of the money-bags type. The political parties’ members were committed to bringing change according to their ideological bearings.

The politics of ideology produced the likes of former governor Balarabe Musa, who died with only his old tractor as a farmer. It produced people like Abubakar Rimi, who had to secure a bank loan as a governor before he built his house and left the government house with only 50 thousand Naira in his possession. It produced Aminu Kano, who had not even had a paltry freezer in his room, rather a traditional (randa) muddy-pot.

We had equally seen the lifestyle of Prime Minister Tafawa Balewa and the late Northern Premier Sir Ahmadu Bello Sardauna. It was all politics of ideology that made them. They all left this world owning only a local house in their towns when they could accumulate a lot had wished so.

Today’s ideology of our politicians is nothing more than gripping onto power, begin to run the governments like their personal companies, enrich themselves at the expense of the masses, building mansions, accumulating senseless wealth through looting and embezzlement, creating laws that only serve their interest, flaunting their newfound wealth and leaving their subjects dying in poverty and diseases.

Nevertheless, you can hardly find a politician who represents his people in the National Assembly, not a billionaire or close to billionaire status today. You can only see the effects of all these borrowings with them, leaving the electorate with no security and with nothing called social amenities.

It is up to our youth to form or join the ideological political trains, form parties of explicit ideologies, and bring positive changes if they want their names to be written with gold and remembered as heroes like Aminu Kano.

Salisu Uba Kofar Wambai writes from Kano State and can be reached via salisunews@gmail.com.