Its chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, stated this at the commission’s meeting in Abuja with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) for the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Yakubu said the commission was working to update its registration software to accommodate the newly established polling units to enable prospective voters to register.
“However, more work still lies ahead.
“Apart from the CVR, we shall continue our preparations for two bye-elections scheduled for June 19 in Sabon Gari State Constituency in Kaduna State and Gwaram Federal Constituency in Jigawa State,” he said.
The Nigeria Labour Congress has suspended the five-day warning strike in Kaduna State to pave way for negotiations as requested by the Federal Government.
The Chairman, Kaduna chapter of NLC, Ayuba Suleiman, had asked workers to ground all activities for five days as directed by its national leadership to serve as a warning, following the sacking of no fewer than 4,000 state workers in April.
Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had said that the Federal Government would intervene to bring the labour crisis rocking Kaduna State to a peaceful end.
Mohammed said that the Federal Government was disturbed about the sudden turn of events in Kaduna State, stressing that the Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, is already working to broker a truce between the opposing sides.
He said, “The Federal Government is not folding its arms and already, the Minister of Labour and Employment has waded in and he is in touch with both the government of Kaduna State and the Labour.
“In addition, the security apparatus all over the country have also taken pre-emptive measures to ensure that hoodlums don’t take advantage of this situation.
“At the end of the day, all the parties have to come back to the drawing table to agree and hammer out concessions and agreements”.
The Senate has asked the Federal Government to suspend plans to deploy the 5G network technology in Nigeria till further notice.
The red chamber has equally directed the Nigerian Communications Commission, and the Mobile Network Operators to put the exercise on hold, for now, to enable them to study the trend of 5G deployment across the world.
The Senate took the decision when it considered and passed the report of its Joint Committee on Science and Technology, ICT, Cyber Crime, and Primary Health chaired by Senator Oluremi Tinubu.
The development followed a motion by Senator Uche Ekwunife.
The committee recommended that Nigeria should still observe the trend of 5G deployment around the globe and engage in extensive sensitisation of the public through all channels before the commencement of commercial deployments in the country.
The Chairman of the joint committee, while presenting the report, said the overwhelming aggregate opinions from the majority of stakeholders was that it is appropriate for Nigeria to join the comity of nations that are engaged in the deployments of 5G for all its inherent gains.
The committee urged the NCC in collaboration with the Mobile Network Operators Federal Ministry of Health, Federal Ministry of Science and Technology, Federal Ministry of Environment, and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control, among others to locally conduct a scientific experimental study over a period of about 6 months to ascertain if a correlation exists between 5G networks and public health.
Although the Senate said it could not establish any evidence linking 5G technology to Covid-19, it asked the MNOs to halt their plans to deploy the 5G network for the next six months.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, who stated this at plenary said the exercise will hold in 12 centres across the country on 26 and 27th May 27.
Lawan urged Nigerians to participate fully in the exercise as the National Assembly has no pre-conceived agenda but would be opened to suggestions from Nigerians on how to move the country forward.
The service’s Public Relations Officer, Sunday James, disclosed this in a statement made available to journalists.
James quoted Babandede as saying this at the NIS headquarters in Abuja during a media chat on Innovations and Administration for Ease in Passport Issuance and Processing following the decoration of 87 newly-promoted Assistant Comptrollers-General and Comptrollers of Immigration Service.
The statement was titled, ‘NIS promotes senior officers.’
The statement quoted Babandede as saying “With effect from June 1, 2021, the Minister of Interior, Rauf Aregbesola, has directed that the issuance of passports to Nigerians will take a period of six weeks during which applicants must resolve their concerns with the passport office and the office must resolve their concerns with applicants.
“If you submit incomplete documentation, you will receive a text message asking you to come and rectify the issues. Immediately you correct your documentation the six weeks start.
“When you apply you wait for six weeks and you will get your passport. If you don’t get it, hold us responsible. “If any passport officer fails to contact an applicant and the passport is not issued after the stipulated time, disciplinary measures will be taken against that officer.”
Babandede said, “So, there will be no operations at the passport office from today until May 31. We will use this period to clear the backlogs of passports yet unissued.
“Payment portals have been closed locally from 12 midnight today. Payments from June 1, 2021, will be purely online.
On the re-issuance of passports, Babandede added, “Applicants can come for the re-issuance of their passports from June 1, 2021; six months before their passport validity elapses.
“This means that as soon as your passport has reached six months before it expires, you have the right to come for another one.
We have improved it from three months to six months. This will solve the challenges we have been facing with reissuing passports. Also, the public must know that we no longer take cash here.
In a statement signed by SERAP deputy director Kolawole Oluwadare, the organisation said: “Governor, Nasir El-Rufai and Kaduna State authorities must end the harassment and intimidation of NLC leaders and to withdraw the illegal statement declaring Mr Wabba and other NLC leaders ‘wanted’.
The statement, made available to newsmen in part: “Kaduna authorities must respect the human rights of Nigerian workers, and ensure the safety and security of the leaders of Nigeria Labour Congress.”
Declaring NLC leaders ‘wanted’ simply for peacefully exercising their human rights is antithetical to the Nigerian Constitution of 1999 [as amended] and the country’s international obligations.”
“Authorities ought to protect workers from attacks by thugs. Allowing thugs to disrupt the peaceful protest by workers is illegal and unconstitutional.”
“The government of President Muhammadu Buharishould investigate why the security forces stood by and watched as thugs disrupted and assaulted protesters-and take action against those who did so.”
Using thugs to attack peaceful protesters is a crime against humanity. Authorities need to find out who was responsible for the assaults and punish them appropriately.”
SERAP stated further that “Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai should immediately reinstate Kaduna State University lecturers and nurses unlawfully dismissed for allegedly joining the strike in the state.
“We’ll hold Governor Nasir El-Rufai and Kaduna authorities to account for the blatant violations of human rights.
Governor Nasir El-Rufai should explain why he reportedly unlawfully sacked all nurses below grade level 14 in the state on the pretext that the nurses embarked on strike in solidarity with the NLC.
“We’ll see in court if the lecturers and nurses are not immediately reinstated.
“We urge the UN human rights special rapporteurs to put pressure on Governor Nasir El-Rufai and Kaduna state to immediately end the brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters.”
He made this known in a press statement by his media aide, Muyiwa Adekeye, titled, ‘KDSG will not tolerate criminal acts disguised as industrial action’.
Part of the statement read, “Any academic staff of KASU that does not report for work will be dismissed. The authorities of KASU are to submit a copy of the attendance register for all categories of staff daily to the Secretary to the State Governemnt and the Commissioner of Education.
” All MDAs are also to submit daily copies of attendance register to the Head of Service;
” KDSG will not submit its treasury to the entitled minority. We will reform and rightsize our public service to meet the needs and resources of the Kaduna State even if the NLC strikes ad infinitum.
“The government remains committed to using all the resources it can generate to serve the interests of the majority of its citizens, providing social services beyond paying salaries, always putting the interests of the many ahead of the few.”
The governor directed the Ministry of Health in the state to immediately advertise vacancies for the replacement of the dismissed nurses.
Kaduna State has been grounded in the last 48 hours as aviation workers, bank workers, rail workers, electricity workers, health workers, teachers, amongst others, down tools in protest against the alleged injustice of the El-Rufai-led government and the mass sacking of over 60,000 civil servants.
However, the governor in a statement on Tuesday titled, ‘KDSG will not tolerate criminal acts disguised as industrial action’, described the action of the NLC as a “campaign of economic and social sabotage and lawlessness”.
In the statement signed by the governor’s Special Adviser on Media and Communication, Muyiwa Adekeye, El-Rufai warned that any worker not found in his or her place of assignment would be dismissed.
The statement added, “The Ministry of Health will dismiss all nurses below GL 14 for going on an unlawful strike. Salaries that could have gone to them are to be given as extraordinary occupational allowances to the health workers who are at their duty posts to fill the gap of those absconding from duty. The Ministry of Health has been directed to advertise vacancies for the immediate recruitment of new nurses to replace those dismissed.
“Any academic staff of KASU (Kaduna State University) that does not report for work will be dismissed. The authorities of KASU are to submit a copy of the attendance register for all categories of staff daily to the Secretary to the State Governemnt and the Commissioner of Education.
“All MDAs are also to submit daily copies of attendance register to the Head of Service.”
This is contained in a letter addressed to the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and read at plenary .
Buhari said the proposed loan which is equivalent to N2.3trillion is to finance the 2021 budget deficit of N5.6 trillion.
Buhari said the loan would enable the Federal Government to fund critical infrastructural projects in transportation, health, and education among others.
This is coming barely a month after the Senate approved the sum of $1.5bn and €995 million external borrowings for the Federal Government.
The loans were part of the $5.5 billion and €995 million external borrowings Buhari had, in May 2020, asked the Red Chamber to approve to finance various priority projects of the federal government and to support the state governments facing fiscal challenges.
Executive Vice Chairman of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, Prof Umar Garba Danbatta, announced these at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between NCC and the Nigerian Communications Satellite limited (NigComSat) at the headquarters of the Commission in Abuja.
Danbatta said: “Amongst the Frequency Spectrum bands allocated to 5G by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU, the C-band (3.4GHz – 3.9GHz) stands out because its balancing point between coverage and capacity provides the perfect environment for 5G connectivity.
“The C-band is most suitable and appropriate for immediate deployment of 5G services taking into consideration availability of device ecosystem with 60-70% of global commercial 5G network deployment currently in the band, thus the importance of this Spectrum for early deployment of 5G services in Nigeria cannot be over emphasized.
“For optimal 5G service performance, an average of contiguous 100 MHz of spectrum in the C-band is required by an Operator. However in Nigeria, only 120 MHz of the band (3.4 – 3.52) GHz is available for mobile services while the remaining 680 MHz (3.52 – 4.2) GHz of the band is used by NigComSat (NG-1R) satellites.
“The Commission initiated negotiation with NIGCOMSAT whom in our estimate could make some adjustment to its satellite operation and release part of its Spectrum holding in the band to facilitate the deployment of 5G in Nigeria.
“The two agencies have been in discussions on how to relocate the operations of NG-1R to the standard C-band 300MHz (3.9GHz – 4.2GHz) potion of the band, which is more suitable in terms of Satellite service offering because end user terminal are cheaper there, while leaving the non-standard C-band 400MHz (3.5GHz – 3.9GHz) portion of the band for 5G use.
“The cost of relocating the NG-1R is expected to be offset from the proceeds of the auction of the 5G Spectrum.
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