TheNewsGuru

Tag: Job

  • Suffering is part of my job, Arsene Wenger declares

    Suffering is part of my job, Arsene Wenger declares

    Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger says suffering is all part of being a manager and admits he has had his fair share of late.

    Yet the smile returned to the Frenchman’s face on Friday after his side snapped a four-match losing streak to beat AC Milan 2-0 in the San Siro the previous evening.

    Arsenal closed in on the quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League.

    “Any manager will tell you that when you don’t get results the first thing affected is the mood, the lack of sleep,” Wenger said.

    “I’ve managed in 820 or so Premier League games and 200 odd European games but there is no possibility not to suffer. You have to suffer. You have to be capable to go through periods when it’s very difficult.”

    Wenger’s future at Arsenal, where he has been in charge since 1996, has been a source of constant debate.

    His team are down in sixth place in the English Premier League, having suffered a 3-0 thrashing by Manchester City in the English League Cup final.

    He says he has had messages of support from past and current managers, even old adversary Alex Ferguson, and that finding solutions to problems remains an addictive part of the job.

    “The desire to find solutions is interesting as well,” he said. “When you are a young manager you think you can win every game but it’s not like that. It is to survive the disappointments. It can make you a better manager.”

    Wenger says money and ‘starification’ has become too important in football.

    “At the end of the day I have to stand up for what is important for the club,” he said. “I am thankful that I have respect in the game. Football is first about values but my regret is that has gone underwater.”

    Wenger says some of the recent criticism aimed at himself and his players have been over the top.

    “We have to have a little perspective. We got to a Cup final and we fight to be in a Cup final,” the 68-year-old said. “We played against the best team in the country.

    “We have been in four finals in the last five years and lost once, against Man City who is the best team in the country. So, it’s surprising the intensity the storm the players have faced.”

    Arsenal face Watford on Sunday with their hopes of a top-four finish hanging by a thread, as they trail fourth-placed Tottenham by 13 points.

    They will be without injured Alexandre Lacazette and Hector Bellerin against Watford while Sead Kolasinac is a doubt with an ankle problem.

  • FG inaugurates National Employment Council

    The Federal Government has inaugurated the National Employment Council to curb the menace of rising unemployment in the country.

    Sen. Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, said this while inaugurating the National Employment Council and unveiling the revised National Employment Policy on Thursday in Abuja.

    According to Ngige, there is need for a shift from reactive and temporary measures to curbing the menace of rising unemployment in the country.

    “As job creation policies and programme must anticipate future labour market requirements rather than reacting to it.

    “In coordinating implementation of strategies to fast-track employment creation, we must bear in mind that such strategies are most likely to be successful.

    “That is, if it anticipates future labour market requirement rather than reacting to them.

    “We have to move away from past approaches where strategies for employment creation and poverty alleviation were a response to a crisis or a temporary measure to mitigate the impact, ‘’ he said.

    Ngige, who noted that unemployment was a global challenge, observed that Nigeria like other nations needed to make concerted efforts towards curbing the menace.

    The minister added that the concern is even more urgent due to the association of youth idleness to perennial violent crimes in the different parts of the country which poses a threat to socio-economic stability.

    Ngige said that the task before the inaugurated council was formidable and expressed confidence in the ability of the Council to come up with the solutions to the menace.

    According to the minister, the council should in the medium and long-term reverse the current alarming trend of unemployment.

    “The task before this council is formidable.

    “However, we have confidence in the calibre of members of this Council, which is made up of renowned experts, practitioners and policymakers in the field of development and employment promotion,

    “I have no doubt in my mind that you have what it takes to proffer solutions that will ultimately halt and in the medium and long-term reverse the current unemployment situation in the country, ‘’ he said.

    Earlier in his address, Mr Bolaji Adebiyi, Permanent Secretary in the ministry, affirmed that unemployment, underemployment and poverty are critical challenges that would require the concerted efforts of all stakeholders to address.

    Adebiyi said it was in a bid to holistically address the unemployment crisis that the National Employment Policy was formulated.

    He said this was aimed at consolidating into an integrated and coherent document, a beacon for the attainment of full employment for all Nigerians, particularly the youths.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the National Employment Council members whose membership was provided for in the National Employment Policy comprises of representatives of Ministry of Labour and Employment, Ministry of Finance, Federal Ministry of Budget and National Planning.

    Others are Ministry of Youths and Sport Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Works, Power and Housing, Ministry of Women Affairs, Ministry of Trade and Investment, Central Bank of Nigeria, National Bureau of Statistics, among others.(

  • Africa can create jobs with sports – Buhari

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Wednesday called on African leaders to exploit the potentials of sports to create job and promote peaceful coexistence.

    Buhari, represented by Solomon Dalung, Minister of Sports and Youth Development, stated this at the opening ceremony of the United World Wresting African Championships in Port Harcourt.

    He said that sports could also promote well-being of a nation.

    “African youths must believe in themselves and exploit the great potentials of the continent, and work hard to make the continent great,” he said.

    The President urged the athletes representing Nigeria to do their best and bring laurel to the nation.

    “”You must showcase the talents you possess because it is from this competition that athletes for the 2020 Olympics will emerge; so, this is a battle of your destiny,” he added.

    Buhari said the the participation of over 45 countries in the wrestling tournament implied that it was a successful occasion.

    He commended the Rivers government for putting in place a sporting edifice of international standard.

    Gov Nyesom Wike of Rivers, in his welcome address, said that the hosting of the championships, Port Harcourt 2018, would foster regional unity.

    He said that the event would also provide platform for highly talented national wrestlers to prove themselves.

    “With this event, the state is capable canvassing unity and friendship in Africa, because Port Harcourt is a dynamic, vibrant and beautiful city for hosting national and international events.

    “Rivers has the capacity to host more sporting activities with the facilities on the ground in the state,” he said.

    The governor thanked the United World Wrestling and Nigeria Wrestling Federation for choosing Rivers to host the event.

     

  • FRSC disowns online job advertisements

    The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) has dissociated itself from online sites allegedly advertising application forms for vacant positions in the organisation.

    The Corps Public Education Officer, Mr Bisi Kazeem, said in a statement on Wednesday in Abuja that the advertisements did not emanate from FRSC.

    Kazeem stated that “the corps’ attention has been drawn to a number of online sites currently advertising application forms for vacant positions at FRSC.

    “This is to inform the public that the corps is not responsible for any of the advertisements.

    “The FRSC expressly disclaims all liability for extortion of any form arising from reliance on any information contained in these sites.”

    He added that any recruitment organised by the corps would be published in national dailies, on
    FRSC website, as well as all social media platforms of the agency.

    He urged job seekers to be patient and avoid desperation so as not to fall prey to fraudsters.

     

  • Gov. Okowa grants 78 Libyan returnees automatic job placement

    The Governor of Delta State, Senator Ifeanyi Okowa, has absorbed at least 78 Libyan returnees, who are indigenes of state, into the state’s job and wealth creation skill acquisition and empowerment programme.

    The returnees, who were between the ages of 18 and 28, described their ordeal in the drylands of Kano to Niger republic to Agades and Libya as ‘awful and animalistic.’

    Special adviser to the Governor on International Affairs, Dr. Genevieve Modi, who received them, said Gov. Okowa had given a directive for immediate rehabilitation of the returnees.

    TheNewsGuru reports the returnees were among the 5,500 people rescued by a high-powered delegation led by the Minister of Internal Affairs, Abdulrahman Dambazau, under the auspices of the European Union (EU) in conjunction with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

    “Governor Okowa provided the transit, food and other logistics in addition to what the federal government made available and the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) provided.

    “The state is going to absorb them in batches. They will fill the job creation forms before we can rehabilitate them,” Modi said.

     

  • Nigeria must create four million jobs annually – Ambode

    Lagos State Governor, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode yesterday said for the country to meet its growth ambitions and achieve full economic potential, efforts must be made to create at least four million jobs annually.

    Speaking at the opening session of the 9th Annual Bankers’ Committee Retreat of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) in Ikeja, Lagos, the governor said it was time for the government to review such policies that inhibit growth. He called for a well-functioning low cost financial system that will work for all.

    He described the theme of the retreat – “Improving Financial Access, Enabling Job Creation and Driving Inclusive Growth in Nigeria,” as apt, saying same was at the heart of the nation’s economy and are important determinants of the country’s future prosperity, but that all hands must be on deck to create more jobs for the people and ensure 6.7 per cent annual growth rate.

    According to him, “To meet our growth ambitions we need jobs. Figures from the National Bureau of Statistics show that in employment terms, from a labour force population of about 81million people, we currently have 11.5million people unemployed in Nigeria and 17million people under-employed with the total employment is around 52.6million while the working age population grows by 3.7 per cent every year. So, to make a meaningful dent on un-employment and underemployment, and to reduce poverty (which is at over 60 per cent), we need to be creating at least four million jobs per year.

    “Where do banks fit into all of this? Well, the reality is if we do not have a well-functioning banking sector, all of this is not possible. Both investment and day-to-day commerce requires the intermediation of banks. And while someone outside of the formal financial sector can in some cases make a living, the reality is that incomes of the bottom of the pyramid are increased when we have better financial inclusion but we are not there yet.”

    The Governor, who alluded to the strategy adopted in Kenya to deepen financial inclusion, said efforts must be made to ensure low cost access to banking services especially through mobile money.

    He said it was painful that mobile money had been so slow to take off in Nigeria despite huge population, saying it remained very low, increasing from just 0.7million adults in 2014 to 0.9million in 2016, despite the fact that there were about 58.2million people who actually had mobile phones in 2016.

    Ambode challenged the CBN, the Nigeria Deposit Insurance Commission (NDIC), commercial banks and other players in the financial system to decide the type of financial system that will really impact on employment and bring more people into the formal financial system.

    According to him, “This is where we should focus as a nation not the type of directives or decisions that actually try to stifle growth and commerce. One clear example is this; as a State Government, I want to take a commercial loan from the bank and they tell me I should go and get a letter from Debt Management Office (DMO); I should get approval from the Federal Ministry of Finance; I should go to CBN and so on. Who does that?

    “You want to accelerate growth and everything that I am doing even when I take loan from the bank; when I do bond and so on, I am only trying to reflate the economy. Each construction site that you see in Lagos, I am trying to create employment at the lower level so that the artisans, the bricklayers and so on can go home with N5,000. I need to do something in Badagry to make the people stay there and not come to the central Lagos and when you take the extra money outside the IGR, you are actually trying to help the economy to reflate itself and that is why you are able to excite yourself with the growth that you have seen in the third quarter that we say is 1.5 but that is not the number that we want.”

    Responding to earlier comment by the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele on the inability of the Micro Small and Medium Scale Enterprises (MSMEs) to access the N200billion fund earmarked for them, Ambode said the easiest way to achieve same was to reduce the lending rate to about five per cent or lower.

  • 300 graduates dump Ganduje’s job over meager N35,000 salary

    About 300 graduates on the payroll of the Kano State Internal Revenue Service have dumped their appointments as revenue collectors due to the paltry thirty five thousand Naira (N35,000) they receive as salaries.

    TheNewsGuru.com reports that this is coming barely three months after their employment. The KIRS had recruited a total of 765 graduates as revenue collectors.

    The graduates maintained that the KIRS promised them better salaries and convenient working environment, thus making them to resign their former appointments which according to them was better compared to what they are now offered at KIRS.

    Speaking with news men on condition of anonymity, one of the aggrieved graduates said the KIRS failed to fulfill some of the promises made to them.

    Referring to the service salary scale, he disclosed that majority of them were influenced to abandon their earlier engagement and embrace the tax generation job but only to be remunerated, with N35, 000 monthly.

    The source further revealed that following the autonomy attained by the KIRS, the Service offered them a better salary package than what they were earning in their former firms of engagement but sadly ended up being paid N35,000 as graduates.

    However, in his reaction, the KIRS Public Relations Officer, PRO, explained that the Executive Chairman of the KIRS, Sani Abubakar Dambo is out of the state for Lesser Hajj, insisting that he (the chairman) will address the issue when he returns.

     

  • Killing me softly – by Femi Aribisala

    By Femi Aribisala

    Something terrible happened to Mr. Job. Something happened that made him despair for life. Most people celebrate their birthday, but Job cursed the day of his birth. He wished he had never been born.

    Job longed for the peace of death: “Let the day of my birth be cursed,” he said, “and the night when I was conceived. Let that day be forever forgotten. Let it be lost even to God, shrouded in eternal darkness.”(Job 3:2-6).

    How did Job come to this predicament?

    Endangered life

    Life happened to Job. The life Jesus came to deliver us from happened to him. The life many cling to tenaciously and rapaciously happened to him. Imagine you are suffering from a terminal sickness and when you consulted your doctor he simply tells you: “You are suffering from life.” How can you be cured from life? Jesus is in that business. He is in the business of delivering men from counterfeit life to eternal life.

    Life became deadly to Job. Life became sickness to him. Solomon, in his wisdom, reached the same conclusion. He lamented: “Therefore I hated life because the work that was done under the sun was distressing to me, for all is vanity and grasping for the wind.” (Ecclesiastes 2:17).

    Therefore, Job too hated life. At that stage, Job was ready for Christ. Job was a prime candidate for death, and for resurrection to newness of life by Jesus Christ.

    Job is everyman and he is every believer. Many Christians do not like to read the book of Job, afraid that his adversity might rub off on them. Most Christians would like to know Christ, but without the fellowship of his sufferings. But the dynamics of the kingdom of God indicate that God needs to take us to that place where we despair for life. He needs to take us to that place where we are convinced that it is better to die than to live. Only when he does this are we likely to relinquish counterfeit life.

    Sudden adversity

    Have you ever reached a point where you despaired for life? That is what life does. Life suddenly comes up with a problem for which you have absolutely no solution. Life suddenly throws you a curve. Everything was smooth sailing and you were blessing God and giving him thanks and then, “straightaway,” a major crisis of insoluble proportions shows up unannounced out of nowhere, and it completely changes your theology.

    Suddenly somebody close and dear dies. It might be a husband, it might be a wife, it might be a child, it might be a relative, and it might be a friend. Suddenly, there is a catastrophic accident, and somebody is hospitalised. Suddenly, there is a business failure, or a failed bank, or an armed robbery. Suddenly you lose your job.

    It has nothing to do with how righteous you are. It has nothing to do with how faithful to God you are. God himself testified that Job was righteous. And yet in one day, Job lost all his children, lost all his business and all his wealth, and then he lost his health. Then we are faced with the million-dollar question: will Job lose his faith as well?

    Why does this happen?

    Knowledge of good and evil

    It happens because we live in a fallen world. We live in a world that God was determined to shield man from. It is a world built with knowledge from the tree of good and evil. It ensures that everything man-made combines the good with the bad.

    Electricity provides light and it powers all kinds of useful gadgets. But the same electricity can shock and kill. The airplane is a wonderful means of transportation. It can take you from Cape Town to Cairo, or from Buenos Aires to New York in a relatively short time. But at the same time it can have blow up or come hurtling catastrophically down from the sky. It is only the blessing of the Lord and of the kingdom of God that enriches and adds no sorrow. The “blessings” of this world are prone to failure and can bring sorrow at any time.

    We live in a world under the sway of the evil one where the good, the bad and the ugly are intertwined. All are exposed to calamity. It is only in the future world where the good will be happy and the wicked will be punished. In the world to come, all that is irregular on earth will be regularised. “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low.” (Isaiah 40:4).

    But here on earth, the sun shines on the good and on the evil. The wind blows, the rain falls, the storms come on the good and on the evil.

    Appointed to suffer

    The righteous actually obtain fewer blessings from God than the wicked in this world. The wicked are happier and more prosperous: “The truth is that the wicked live on to a good old age and become great and powerful. They live to see their children grow to maturity around them, and their grandchildren too. Their homes are safe from every fear, and God does not punish them… They are prosperous to the end.” (Job 21:7-12).

    The psalmist concurs: “Behold, these are the ungodly, who prosper in the world; they increase in riches.” (Psalm 73:12).

    I woke up one morning to find the Lord singing a Roberta Flack song to me. The song goes: “Killing me softly with his words.” “But Lord Jesus,” I thought, “Why would you want to take my life? Why are you so determined to see me dead?” You may well ask if it was Jesus after my life. Would Jesus kill his beloved? Don’t ask me: ask Moses.

    Killing to make alive

    God called Moses to deliver the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh. But on the way, the same God met him and wanted to kill him: “It came to pass on the way, at the encampment, that the LORD met him and sought to kill him.” (Exodus 4:24).

    Does God want you dead? Don’t ask me. Ask David. He was promised a kingdom and anointed as king. But instead of going straight to the throne, he spent years running for his life. I know you thought he was running from Saul, but David was in no doubt it was God he was running from. He knew Saul could not succeed unless God allowed him. He knew only God could take his life.

    Therefore, David pleaded: “What will you gain, O Lord, from killing me? How can I praise you then to all my friends? How can my dust in the grave speak out and tell the world about your faithfulness? Hear me, Lord; oh, have pity and help me.” (Psalm 30:9-10).

    The Lord wants us dead. He wants us to surrender and, like Jesus, lay down our life. Then, and only then, can we receive the abundant life he has in store for us. Protestations will not change God’s will. If we want to live, we first have to die. God kills before he makes alive. (1 Samuel 2:6).

  • ‘FG to provide 200,000 jobs…’

    ‘FG to provide 200,000 jobs…’

    The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, says over 200,000 jobs will be created with the N300 million credit facility provided by the Bank of Industry (BOI), for artists.

    The minister made the disclosure at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), between BOI and the National Council for Arts and Culture (NCAC) in Abuja on Friday.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), reports the MoU was presented to the minister by Otunba Olusegun Runsewe, the Director-General of NCAC.

    “I have been reliably informed that top on the list of the benefits that will accrue from this landmark MoU is creation of over 200,000 jobs for the sector.

    “This is epochal and in line with one of the cardinal programmes of this administration, which is job creation and empowerment’’, he said.

    The minister explained the MoU would act as a catalyst for the development of the country’s craft industries, create a financing window and assist NCAC members in capacity building.

    Mohammed also said the MoU would encourage producers of cultural products and services to work toward attaining standard of modern practices in packaging of nation’s cultural products.

    He said that the memorandum would also enable artists to compete favourably at the global markets and earn them a decent living.

    Mohammed urged all states to take advantage of the loan for the development of the creative sector in their domains.

    He said the details of how to access the fund would form a major part of discussions at the forthcoming meeting of Chief Executives of Culture in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, from May 9 to May 12.

    The minister congratulated Runsewe for achieving the feat and putting the event together, few days after he assumed office.

    He also appreciated the Acting Managing Director of BoI, Mr Waheed Olagunju, for his support and partnership.

    The minister described the MoU as `a right step in a right direction and one of the biggest achievements the sector had recorded in recent time.’

    He said the Ministry had signed MoU with local and international partners, including the Tony Elumelu Foundation and the British Council, to develop the capacity of creative artists.

    Earlier, Runsewe said it was the first time in the history of the country that the industry was given a single digit approach to loans.

    He disclosed that two other similar MoUs were in the offing for the development of the sector

    Runsewe commended the minister for changing the nation’s narrative under his leadership and for his passion for the development of the culture and creative sector.