YellowStone Media International

As Nigeria joins the rest of the world to mark the 2018 International Workers Day today, the National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) has called on employees and employers of labour to push for the implementation of National Workplace Policy on HIV/AIDS, HIV/AIDS Anti-discrimination Act and the National HIV/AIDS Stigma Reduction Strategy. In a statement made available to the media on Monday which was signed by the Director General of NACA, Dr. Sani Aliyu, he said HIV response in Nigeria has been hindered with cases of employment-related stigma and discrimination, adding that it has continued to constitute a major threat to the goal of ending AIDS epidemic by 2030. According to him,   “The unequal treatment of workers based on their HIV status in the workplace is a clear breach of their right to gainful employment. A 2012 study of stigma among people living with HIV (PLHIV) in Nigeria showed that 26 per cent of those surveyed have lost their jobs or sources

The leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has again rebuffed the move by former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rejoin the ruling party. Senator Ali Modu Sheriff planed defection to APC was to have been heralded by a reception at national secretariat of the party in Abuja last Wednesday. Sheriff was scheduled to meet with the APC National Chairman, Chief John Odigie Oyegun, along with members of the National Working Committee (NWC) Thursday but the meeting was cancelled at the last minute. According to the media invitation sent out by the APC publicity unit, Sheriff was expected to storm the APC national secretariat in Abuja with his supporters by noon Thursday. However, in a statement issued by the party's National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdulahi, it said Sheriff would not be received back to the party in Abuja. The statement said in line with the constitution of APC, registratio

I know, I know. Real Madrid is mega-rich, mega-successful and mega-annoying. But here’s some bad news you almost certainly know already: Unless you root for one of maybe 10 clubs in the world, yours is never winning the Champions League. Soccer is as top-heavy as any sport, so you have to find someone or something to root for at the highest level. You could analyze the tactics and pour over the match film and still come up well short of reasonable answers for why Real Madrid has put together the most unprecedented dominance in the history of club soccer. It doesn’t make sense. So isn’t it sensible to just embrace it? Take Wednesday’s  Champions League semifinal  leg against Bayern Munich, for example. The Allianz Arena is a cauldron for 99 percent of Europe. Not Real Madrid, which plays with such reckless abandon that it’s now won three straight times at Bayern’s home stadium in the Champions League knockout stages. And perhaps the key is that abandon is completely se

Peeved by alleged injustice meted against their representative in the National Assembly, a group, Delta Central Collective Base (DCCB), in Abraka, Ethiope East Local Government Area of Delta State has called on the leadership of the Senate to honourably allow Senator Ovie Omo-Agege to continue to represent them without any hindrance, threatening to resort to self or collective representation. The group wondered how the seat of their representative, suspended Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, would be vacant for the rest of the eight Assembly without anybody speaking on their needs, alleging that it was a deliberate attempt to shut out the fourth largest ethnic group in the country which he represents.       DCCB, in a protest letter addressed to the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and copied President Muhammadu Buhari as well as all the security agencies, on Thursday maintained that the suspension of their senator and Delta Central from the Senate was extremely prov

President Muhammadu Buhari has been summoned by the Senate to explain the spate of killings in Nigeria. This followed a deliberation of a motion on ‘Continued Killings in Benue State’ sponsored by the lawmaker representing Benue North West, Senator George Akume. The killings in the country have become worrisome to state governments and their people, with Benue being the worst hit following the death of no fewer than 35 people since the beginning of the week. The motion was extensively debated on Thursday in Abuja by the lawmakers who concurred with an earlier summon of the President by the House of Representatives on the same issue. However, lawmakers at the Upper Chamber asked President Buhari to address a joint session of the National Assembly, suggesting measures by the Presidency to curb the alarming rate of insecurity in the country. The Senators also expressed concerns about the competence of the country’s security chiefs and the need to declare a state of emerg

  The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it has registered a total of 304,359 voters made up of 154, 830 females and 149,429 males in the ongoing continuous voter registration exercise, (CVR) in Enugu State as of April 20, 2018. Speaking at a stakeholders’ forum on CVR and update on the commission's readiness ahead of the 2019 general election, on Wednesday, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in the state, Mr. Emeka Ononamandu, said they were working round the clock to ensure every eligible voter was captured in the registration exercise. He said the commission had distributed 22,913 outstanding Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVC) from 2014 registration exercise that was not collected then. Ononamandu said the total number of registered voters has placed Enugu State within the first 10 states that have registered more people than other states in Nigeria.   Ononamadu further disclosed that the commission has transferred 3,272

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, has ruled that the National Assembly does not have the power to amend the election timetable of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). It would be recalled that the Federal Legislators had adopted a reordered sequence of the 2019 general election, putting the presidential election last in a bill that was transmitted to President Muhammadu Buhari for assent. However, it was rejected by the President who said the amendments if allowed to pass would violate parts of the constitution. Shortly after President Buhari rejected the bill some lawmakers said the national assembly would evoke its powers under section 58(5) of the 1999 constitution to override the president. However, Accord Party through its counsel, Wole Olanipekun, filed an application to stop the lawmakers from tampering with the electoral act. Ruling on Wednesday, the court declared that it was the prerogative of the electoral commission to determine the seq

  Former President, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has been told to stop parading himself as democrat as he was accused of being responsible for the death of true fiscal federalism in the country. The accusation was made by Alhaji Femi Okunnu, the man who handed over to Obasanjo as the Federal Commissioner for Works in the government of General Yakubu Gowon (rtd) at the launching of former Akwa Ibom State Governor, Obong Victor Attah, book, ‘Attah On Resources Control’ on Wednesday. According to him, it was the 1979 constitution which Obasanjo midwifed that turn the country into a unitary state even though the country had rejected in the past. Okunnu, who was the chairman of the occasion, said the crisis that still rages in the country till date over fiscal federalism can be traced to that constitution which placed all resources in the hand of the federal government instead of the existing system whereby the producing states get 50 percent of the resources while

The ongoing industrial action by the Joint Health Sector Unions (JOHESU) may not end anytime soon as the parties involved are not shifting their positions with Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, insisting that there can never be pay parity between the Nigerian doctors and other health workers. Media findings on Wednesday revealed that the JOHESU's demand for pay rise and salary adjustment reflects exactly the amount currently earned by the counterparts within the Nigerian Medical Association (NMA). A document obtained by the media containing the proposed Consolidated Health Salary Structure (CONHESS) from level 09 to Level 15 revealed that is at par with the revised Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) from entry-level 01 to the apex level 07. While the CONMESS level 1:1 for doctors starts with annual salary figure of N1, 316, 488 and peaks at level 7:9 at N7,708, 500, the proposed CONHESS mirrored exactly the same amount wi

Former Nigerian Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has called for urgent restructuring of the country's institutions in order to cure the states and federal government of addiction to oil revenue. Atiku was addressing an audience of intellectuals, businessmen and Nigerians in the Diaspora at Chatham House in London, United Kingdom. He said restructuring in Nigeria was no longer a subject for debate but a necessity because history will record that "we were too drunk" to look after the oil revenues from crude oil sales when the prices were high. Atiku added that the country had nothing to show for the revenues collected over the years because poverty levels remain high throughout the country. At the government level, the former vice-president called for reforms especially to introduce effective revenue collection and transparency at all government levels. He said his dream was to see pure devolution of power and federalism in Nige

Sunday Okobi and Ugo Aliogo Experts and sports enthusiasts in Nigeria have maintained that with heavy investment and conscious interest in developing sports for Nigerian youths, the country can solve the biting crises affecting its young populace. They therefore called on the federal government to increase investment in youth sports development as part of efforts to improving sports and gainfully engaging the young people in the country in order to be at par with other countries like South Africa, Kenya, Egypt and others in Africa. At the recently held Youths Sport/Business Summit in Lagos, the founder of  Little Tigers Football Club, Mrs. Amaka Onyejianya Agbakoba, was of the opinion that despite being a sporting country, sports’ development has been mainly focused only on football (the country’s national sports), Agbakoba, who was also one of the organisers of the summit, posited that there is need for government to focus its interests in other sports becaus

Former governor of Cross River state, Donald Duke has berated former Minister of Finance, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, over the inclusion of a private conversation between both of them in the latter’s new book.  Okonjo-Iweala recently published a new book, titled, ‘Fighting Corruption is Dangerous: The Story Behind the Headlines’, detailing her experience as a minister of finance. In the book, she revealed that Duke had urged her not to serve in President Goodluck Jonathan’s government in 2011 to deny Jonathan’s government credibility so that it would be “weak and not succeed”. However she rejected his counsel and served in the government as Finance minister and Coordinating Minister for the Economy. Irked by the revelation, the former governor, who is reportedly gunning for the vice presidency under the third force movement led by former President Olusegun Obasanjo, described Okonjo-Iweala’s action as being in “poor taste.” “It’s true I met with Ngozi when the rumors w

   Local government elections in Kaduna State slated for May 12, 2018, will still hold in spite of last Saturday's fire incident that gutted some offices of the Kaduna State Independent Electoral Commission (KAD-SIECOM). Chairperson of the commission, Dr. Saratu Binta Dikko, announced this at an emergency meeting with all the political parties in the state on Tuesday. She said however that Smart Card Readers (SDR) would not be used for the election as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) would not be able to make the SDR available. Dikko stated that Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) would be used and verified through the voters register during the election. But the major political parties, especially the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were not disposed with the decisions of the electoral body. The PDP was particularly not comfortable with the decision to conduct the council polls without card readers