Headline

Jonathan Reveals Why He Built Almajiri Schools In The North

Published

4 years ago

February 7, 2022

… Diri Advocates Scholarship For Children From Oil Producing Communities

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has stated that he embarked on the Almajiri Schools programme in the north while he was in office to infused western education curriculum into Islamic education to make the pupils employable and to check incessant crisis and insecurity.

Jonathan stated this while delivering a keynote address at the maiden Bayelsa State Education Summit, with the theme “Optimizing the Delivery, Performance and Sustainability of Outcomes in the Education Sector.”

The event was held at the Conference Hall of the Nigeria Content Development and Monitoring Board, NCDMB, in Yenagoa the Bayelsa State capital.

He explained that his vision and philosophy of development is that the development of a people must be based on education, adding that there cannot be a functional society without a functional education system.

He noted that education remains the key to change the country.

The former president who commended Governor Douye Diri administration for organising the summit which is aimed at fashioning a road map for the educational sector, said such roadmap, once developed, should be passed into law so that no succeeding governor could unilaterally alter it and stressed that everything must be done in the interest of the people.

He said as a predominantly riverine state, the state government should be leading the country in anything maritime, whether in communication, technology, science and other areas.

Jonathan further noted that greater attention should be focused on transition to Information Communication Technology, ICT, as ICT education is gradually phasing out other disciplines.

He also emphasised the need for teaching of international languages and development of one common language for the state.

His words: “When I was the Vice President I was discussing with one of my Technical Assistant from Anambra State about the crisis in the North and say we must frame how we will tackle it. Some group of young boys appear not to have future and we cannot allow the system to remain like that so that we don’t have crisis tomorrow.

“We went around the North, discussed with the clerics who teach the boys under trees and makeshift buildings, we also discussed with the emirs and so on. We identified a group of boys and they are Muslims, and most Muslims when you understand the Koran is like you are more than a professor of law and through the Almajiri programme, they understand the Koran and you cannot underrate them.

“Some of them can even memorize the Koran as voluminous as the Koran is, and for someone to memorize the Koran and you say that person is not educated, you are not telling the truth.

“They (Almajiris) felt that they were educated but the society still reject them that even their local government council cannot employ them even as messengers because they don’t have any element of Western education attached to the Koranic education.

“That is why the federal government said we must assist the states, that these young people must be encouraged to study Islamic education but in addition to the Islamic education we are not going to remove anything from it, they should also take some parts of Western education so that when they finished at that level they can go on to study other things like Engineering, Medicine, etc, because you cannot convince an educated person to do certain things and without education, you cannot manage the security of this country. That was what motivated us to go into Almajiri education.”

Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, also stressed the need for a central language and urged the summit to look at all the missing links and explore avenues for the private sector to partner with government in implementing its vision for education.

Diri also called on international oil companies to provide special scholarships for children from oil-producing communities as part of their Corporate Social Responsibility in addition to the provision of basic social amenities.

He said Bayelsans must be global citizens and open up the state while urging the summit to consider far-flung communities in Ekeremor, Southern Ijaw and Brass local government areas while discussing digitalisation of education.

In his welcome address, the state Commissioner for Education, Gentle Emelah said there was need to move education to the next level adding that the state government has been increasing access to education and building of infrastructure in the past two years.

Headline

FULL LIST: US To Review Green Cards From 19 ‘Countries Of Concern’ After Washington Shooting

Published

11 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

The Trump administration announced on Thursday that it will review the immigration status of all permanent residents, or “Green Card” holders, from Afghanistan and 18 other countries following the attack on National Guard troops in Washington, D.C.

U.S. officials identified the suspect in Wednesday’s shooting as a 29-year-old Afghan national who previously worked alongside American forces in Afghanistan.

The individual was granted asylum earlier this year, not permanent residency, according to AfghanEvac, an organisation that assists Afghans resettled in the United States after the Taliban takeover in 2021.

“I have directed a full-scale, rigorous reexamination of every Green Card for every alien from every country of concern,” said Joseph Edlow, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), on X.

The review follows a June executive order from President Trump classifying 19 countries as “of Identified Concern.”

The order banned entry for nearly all nationals from 12 countries, including Afghanistan. The full list of these countries is:

Afghanistan

Myanmar

Chad

Congo-Brazzaville

Equatorial Guinea

Eritrea

Haiti

Iran

Libya

Somalia

Sudan

Yemen

A partial travel ban applies to seven additional countries, though some temporary work visas remain allowed: Burundi, Cuba, Laos, Sierra Leone, Togo, Turkmenistan, and Venezuela.

Headline

Romanian Defence Minister Quits After Admitting Error In Academic Record

Published

11 hours ago

November 29, 2025

Editor

Romania’s defence minister resigned on Friday after saying he made a “mistake” on his CV about his university education, as controversy swirled over alleged lies on his resume.

Ionut Mosteanu – who has admitted to writing on his CV that he graduated from a university he never attended – said he did not want the row “to distract” the NATO member at a time when it and Europe are “under attack from Russia”.

Romania has repeatedly seen drone fragments fall on its soil since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, and reported a number of drone incursions.

On Tuesday, a drone crashed in eastern Romania, which borders Ukraine.

Romania has also accused Moscow of “hybrid attacks”, including meddling in presidential elections last year that were subsequently annulled.

“Today, I resigned from my position as minister of national defence,” Mosteanu said in a Facebook post, adding he wanted the country to be focused on its “difficult mission”.

“Romania and Europe are under attack from Russia. Our national security must be defended at all costs,” he added.

Mosteanu had come under pressure after a media investigation published on Thursday revealed that he wrote in a CV that he graduated from a university which he did not actually attend.

That same day he apologised for what he called “a mistake”.

“In a CV I quickly put together in 2016 using a template I found online, there is a mistake that I admit embarrasses me. I didn’t pay much attention to these details at the time,” he said on Facebook.

Mosteanu was appointed defence minister in June of this year, when a new pro-European government was formed after months of political turmoil.

Prime Minister Ilie Bolojan said in a press release that he would propose economy and tourism minister Radu Miruta take over the defence portfolio in the interim.

AFP

Headline

Russia Insists Ukraine Must Cede Land Or Face Continued Military Push

Published

2 days ago

November 27, 2025

Editor

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he would end his Ukraine offensive if Kyiv withdrew from territory Moscow claims at its own — otherwise his army would take it by force.

The Russian army has been slowly but steadily grinding through eastern Ukraine in costly battles against outnumbered and outgunned Ukrainian forces.

Washington has meanwhile renewed its push to end the nearly four-year war, putting forward a surprise plan that it hopes to finalise through upcoming talks with Moscow and Kyiv.

“If Ukrainian forces leave the territories they hold, then we will stop combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t, then we will achieve it by military means.”

Russia controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory. The issue of occupied land, which Kyiv has said it will never cede, is among the biggest stumbling blocks in the peace process.

Another important issue in the talks are Western security guarantees for Ukraine, which Kyiv says are needed to prevent Moscow from invading again in the future.

Washington’s original plan — drafted without input from Ukraine’s European allies — would have seen Kyiv withdraw from its eastern Donetsk region and the United States de facto recognise the Donetsk, Crimea and Lugansk regions as Russian.

The US pared back the original plan over the weekend following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but has not yet released the new version.

Putin, who has seen the new plan, said it could be a negotiation starter.

“Overall, we agree that it could form the basis for future agreements,” he said of the latest draft, which the US is thought to have shortened to about 20 points.

US negotiator Steve Witkoff was expected in Moscow next week to discuss the revised document, Putin said.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is meanwhile due to visit Kyiv later this week, Ukraine’s top presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

– ‘Little can be done’ –

In his remarks Thursday, Putin repeated the claim that Russia had encircled the Ukrainian army in Pokrovsk and Myrnograd in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region — the most fiercely embattled area and a key target for Moscow’s forces.

“Krasnoarmeysk and Dimitrov are completely surrounded,” he said, using the Russian names for the cities.

Moscow was also advancing in Vovchansk and Siversk, as well as approaching the important logistic hub of Guliaipole, he added.

The Russian offensive “is practically impossible to hold back, so there is little that can be done about it”, Putin said.

Ukraine has denied Pokrovsk and Myrnograd are encircled, insisting its forces continue to hold the enemy along the front line.

Putin also questioned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s legitimacy and said signing any agreement with him would be legally “almost impossible” at the moment, a suggestion that has drawn groans from Kyiv and its allies.

According to data analysed by AFP from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russian forces have conquered an average of 467 square kilometres (180 square miles) each month in 2025 — a step up from 2024.

Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the worst armed conflict in Europe since World War II.

The war has killed hundreds of thousands of people and forced millions to flee their homes.