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International Day Of The Girl-child: Bauchi Govt Urged To Promote Digital Learning

Published

4 years ago

October 5, 2021

Editor

Our Reporter, Bauchi

Some female children in Bauchi State, have urged the state government to provide an enabling environment to promote digital learning, to enable the girls realise their full potentials.

Aishatu Abdullahi, President of the Girl-Child in the state, made the call at an event organised to mark the 2021 International Day of the Girl Child.

It could be recalled that on Dec. 19, 2011, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 66/170 to declare Oct. 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child.

The Day is aimed at encouraging girls to know their digital realities and the solutions they need to pave way to freedom of expression, joy and boundless potential.

The event was organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the Bauchi State Universal Basic Education Board (SUBEB), as part of activities to celebrate the Day in the state.

Abdullahi, a student of the Government Day Secondary School, Sa’adu Zungur, Bauchi, said the call was imperative towards reducing the number of Out-of-School children in the state.

She also urged the state government to initiate a policy that would facilitate establishment of post basic school attached to every primary school across the state.

This, she said, would ensure continuity of learning and reduce the dropout rate in the state.

“The girls ask the state government to help in providing an enabling environment for teaching and learning with focus on digital and technical innovations.

“The girls also ask for recruitment of more female teachers in schools to encourage the retention of girls in schools.

“To also help in creating specific policy that will ensure availability of a junior secondary school attached to every primary school, to enhance continuation of learning and reduce the dropout rate of girls in schools,” Abdullahi said.

In her remarks, Hajiya Halima Umar, UNICEF Focal Person in SUBEB, said that Oct. 11 had been set aside by the UN, to promote the rights of girls and address challenges facing the girl-child.

Umar said that the day would enable diverse groups with the same goal to deliberate and act towards the promotion and advancement of the rights of the girls.

“This day also highlights gender inequalities that remain between boys and girls as well as highlights the various sorts of discriminations and abuse suffered by girls around the world,” she said.

According to her, the gender gap for internet users has grown from 11 per cent in 2013 to 17 per cent in 2019, adding that in a developing country like Nigeria, the percentage hoveres around 43 per cent.

On his part, Mr Tushar Rane, UNICEF Chief of Field Office, Bauchi, said that sequel to that closure of schools occasioned by the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, the UN agency in collaboration with the state government developed a strategy to ensure that students continue to learn while at home.

Rane, represented by Mr Raphael Aiyedipe, Bauchi UNICEF Education Specialist, said that the organisation realised that teaching and learning could be taken out of the four corners of classroom.

“This means teaching and learning can go on even while the children are at home and that is why the theme of this year is, “Digital Generation not without Girls”.

“We know that the world is becoming a global village and while at home you can learn and that has taught us a very good lesson.

“But there is the need for us to build the capacity of all the children to be digitally inclined,” he said.

Hajiya Aisha Mohammed, the Wife of the State Governor, said that the girls were truly of the digital age, adding that they should be prepared to present themselves anywhere as girls of the digital generation.

She charged them to take up the challenge of the digital age.

“Let me use this opportunity to call on you to be ready to exude your readiness to learn, use technology and become women in technology in a few years to come.

“Make Bauchi state proud by becoming software, hardware and competent engineers that will help to solve development and social challenges facing our state and country at large,” Mohammed said

The governor’s wife also urged parents to take the advantage of digital entrepreneurship as a means of retaining girl-child in schools and help them to attain their potential.

She also urged government at all levels to provide necessary support to assist the girl-child to become educationally empowered.

She, however, said that the Gov. Bala Mohammed’s administration had invested extensively in the education sector and would continue to do so to help the children to attain their potential.

Headline

Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Clashes Escalate After Alleged Air Strikes

Published

1 day ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

Afghanistan’s Taliban forces launched armed reprisals against Pakistani soldiers along the shared border on Saturday, accusing Islamabad of carrying out air strikes on its soil, senior officials from several provinces said Saturday.

On Thursday, two explosions were heard in the Afghan capital and another in the southeast of the country. The following day, the Taliban-run defence ministry blamed the attacks on Pakistan, accusing its neighbor of violating its sovereignty.

“In retaliation for air strikes carried out by the Pakistani army on Kabul,” Taliban forces are engaged “in heavy clashes against Pakistani security forces in various areas” along the border, the Afghan military said in a statement.

Islamabad did not confirm that it was behind Thursday’s attacks, but called on Kabul “to stop harbouring the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) on its soil.”

The TTP, trained in combat in Afghanistan and claiming to share the same ideology as the Afghan Taliban, is accused by Islamabad of having killed hundreds of its soldiers since 2021.

Taliban officials from Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost, and Helmand provinces — all located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan — confirmed that clashes were ongoing.

“This evening, Taliban forces began using weapons. We fired first light and then heavy artillery at four points along the border,” a senior official in Pakistan’s Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, bordering Afghanistan, told AFP.

“Pakistani forces responded with heavy fire and shot down three Afghan quadcopters suspected of carrying explosives. Intense fighting continues, but so far, no casualties have been reported,” he continued.

– Uptick in violence –

In recent months, TTP militants have intensified their campaign of violence against Pakistani security forces in the mountainous areas bordering Afghanistan.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants who use Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation denied by authorities in Kabul.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Earlier this year, a UN report said the TTP “receive substantial logistical and operational support from the de facto authorities”, referring to the Taliban government in Kabul.

Pakistani Defence Minister Khawaja Muhammad Asif told parliament on Thursday that several efforts to convince the Afghan Taliban to stop backing the TTP had failed.

“We will not tolerate this any longer,” Asif said. “United, we must respond to those facilitating them, whether the hideouts are on our soil or Afghan soil.”

Earlier Saturday, the TTP claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several districts in northwest Pakistan that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

AFP

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Taliban Attacks Kill 23 In Northwestern Pakistan

Published

2 days ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

The Pakistani Taliban on Saturday claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in several northwestern districts that killed 20 security officials and three civilians.

The attacks, which included a suicide bombing on a police training school, were carried out on Friday in several districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province that borders Afghanistan.

Militancy has surged in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa since the withdrawal of US-led troops from neighbouring Afghanistan in 2021 and the return of the Taliban government in Kabul.

Eleven paramilitary troops were killed in the border Khyber district, while seven policemen were killed after a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden car into the gate of a police training school, which was followed by a gun attack.

Five people, including three civilians, were killed in a separate clash in Bajaur district, security officials told AFP on Saturday.

The Pakistani Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP), claimed responsibility for the attacks in messages on social media. The group is separate from but closely linked with the Afghan Taliban.

The attacks came hours after Afghanistan’s Taliban government accused Pakistan of “violating Kabul’s sovereign territory”, a day after two explosions were heard in the capital.

Pakistan did not say if it was behind the blasts in Kabul, but said it had the right to defend itself against surging border militancy.

Islamabad accuses Afghanistan of failing to expel militants using Afghan territory to launch attacks on Pakistan, an accusation that authorities in Kabul deny.

The TTP and its affiliates are behind most of the violence — largely directed at security forces.

Including Friday’s attacks, at least 32 Pakistani troops and three civilians have been killed this week alone in the border regions.

AFP

Headline

US Threatens To Sanction Countries That Vote For Shipping Carbon Tax

Published

2 days ago

October 11, 2025

Editor

The United States on Friday threatened to impose sanctions and take other punitive action against any country that votes in favor of a carbon tax on maritime transportation to be implemented through a UN agency.

“We will fight hard to protect our economic interests by imposing costs on countries if they support” the Net Zero Framework, said a joint statement by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and his counterparts at the departments of energy and transportation.

Members of the London-based International Maritime Organization (IMO) are set to vote next week on the adoption of the Net Zero Framework (NZF) agreement aimed at reducing global carbon emissions from the shipping sector.

Washington, however, described the proposal as imposing “a global carbon tax on the world.”

Since returning to power in January, US President Donald Trump has reversed Washington’s course on climate change, denouncing it as a “scam” and encouraging fossil fuel use by deregulation.

In the statement, Rubio, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said the Trump administration “unequivocally rejects” the NZF proposal.

They threatened a range of punishing actions against countries that vote in favor of the framework, including: visa restrictions; blocking vessels registered in those countries from US ports; imposing commercial penalties; and considering sanctions on officials.

“The United States will be moving to levy these remedies against nations that sponsor this European-led neocolonial export of global climate regulations,” the statement said.