At least 13 passengers have been abducted by gunmen in Kogi state.

The passengers, who were said to have been travelling from the south-east to Abuja, were kidnapped in Inyele Eteke, Olalamaboro LGA, on Saturday.

The gunmen reportedly hijacked the vehicles before abducting the occupants.

William Aya, police spokesperson in Kogi, confirmed the development to our correspondent Monday night.

Aya said the incident involved a GIGM bus carrying 12 passengers and a vehicle owned by ABC Transport with two occupants.

The police spokesperson said the driver of the GIGM bus has been rescued by security operatives.

“Efforts are on to ensure that others are rescued,” he said.

There has been an uptick in kidnapping for ransom, and killings orchestrated by gunmen across Nigeria in recent times.

Last week, gunmen abducted schoolchildren from their school bus in Ekiti.

They were rescued on Sunday Morning after spending six days in captivity.

Gunmen also killed traditional rulers in Ekiti and Kwara states in about two weeks ago.

Bandits have also been raiding and abducting residents of Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city in recent times.

Authorities and security agencies have been struggling to contain the surge in attacks and abductions by bandits in border towns of Abuja.

 

The Cable

Blinken returns to Mideast in push for hostage deal and postwar plan for Gaza, but obstacles loom

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince Monday at the start of his fifth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, hoping to press ahead with a potential cease-fire deal and postwar planning while tamping down regional tensions.

But on all three fronts he faces major challenges: Hamas and Israel are publicly at odds over key elements of a potential truce. Israel has dismissed U.S. calls for a path to a Palestinian state, and Iran’s militant allies in the region have shown little sign of being deterred by U.S. strikes.

In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas has begun to re-emerge in some of the most devastated areas after Israeli forces pulled back, an indication that Israel’s central goal of crushing the group remains elusive. Video footage from the same areas shows vast destruction, with nearly every building damaged or destroyed.

Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would continue to conduct operations in northern Gaza for many months and press ahead with its main offensive in the south, where it has been locked in heavy fighting for weeks, until it has “full reign” over the entire territory.

He said the offensive will eventually reach the town of Rafah, on the Egyptian border, where some 1.5 million displaced Palestinians have sought refuge. Egypt has said an Israeli deployment along the border would threaten the peace treaty the two countries signed over four decades ago.

Blinken met with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman shortly after arriving in the Saudi capital, Riyadh. Saudi officials have said the kingdom is still interested in normalizing relations with Israel in a potentially historic deal, but only if there is a credible plan to create a Palestinian state.

Blinken “underscored the importance of addressing humanitarian needs in Gaza and preventing further spread of the conflict,” and he and the crown prince discussed “the importance of building a more integrated and prosperous region,” the State Department said in a statement.

But any such grand bargain appears a long way off as the war still rages in Gaza, where 113 bodies were brought to hospitals in the last 24 hours alone, according to the Health Ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory. Another 205 people were wounded, the agency said.

The fatalities bring the overall Palestinian death toll from nearly four months of war to 27,478. The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count but says most of the dead have been women and children.

The war has leveled vast swaths of the tiny enclave, displaced 85% of its population of 2.3 million Palestinians and pushed a quarter of residents to starvation.

HAMAS RETURNS TO WAR-BATTERED STREETS

A video circulating online Monday showed masked gunmen leading a line of shirtless detainees past bombed-out buildings in northern Gaza, forcing them to shout out that they are thieves. The Associated Press was not able to independently confirm the incident, but it is consistent with AP reporting.

It was the latest sign that Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since seizing power from rival Palestinian forces in 2007, is reasserting control in parts of the north. Residents say Hamas-led security forces, which numbered in the tens of thousands before the war, have begun to reappear in some areas where they focus on distributing civil salaries and cracking down on looters.

The Israeli military says it has launched targeted operations in northern Gaza over the last week to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its capabilities.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to continue the war until Israel crushes Hamas’ military and governing abilities and wins the return of the 100-plus hostages still held by the militant group after the Oct. 7 cross-border raid that ignited the war.

Hamas and other militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the attack and abducted around 250. More than 100 captives, mostly women and children, were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November in exchange for the release of 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.

Meeting with troops on Monday, Netanyahu said Israel had defeated 18 of Hamas’ 24 battalions, without providing evidence. “We are on the way to absolute victory, and I want to tell you that we are committed to it and we will not give it up.”

CEASE-FIRE TALKS ADVANCE, BUT GAPS REMAIN

The United States, Qatar and Egypt have drawn up a proposal for a cease-fire of several weeks and the phased release of the remainder of the hostages.

But Hamas, which has yet to publicly respond to the proposal, has said it won’t release any more captives until Israel ends its offensive. The militants are expected to demand the release of thousands of Palestinian prisoners in return — demands Netanyahu has publicly ruled out.

The war has ignited tensions across the region, with a flurry of strikes and counterstrikes raising the risk of a wider conflict.

Israel and Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militant group trade fire across the border on a daily basis, and in recent weeks apparent Israeli strikes have killed senior Hezbollah commanders.

A drone attack launched by Iran-backed militants killed three U.S. soldiers near the Jordan-Syria border last week, prompting a wave of retaliatory U.S. strikes. The United States and Britain have also carried out strikes on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen in response to their attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea, which the rebels portray as a blockade of Israel.

 

AP

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Some Ukrainian soldiers express unease over possible dismissal of army chief

As Ukraine's president looks poised to fire the head of his armed forces, some soldiers fighting Russia's latest onslaught on the eastern front are sceptical, but say that much will depend on who he might be replaced by.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview published on Sunday that he is considering replacing armed forces Commander-in-Chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi as part of a broader wartime shake-up of the top brass.

Zaluzhnyi is viewed as a hero by most Ukrainians, with the memories of the stunning underdog victories against Russia in 2022 outweighing the failure of last year's counter-offensive in the minds of many.

"I think this dismissal would not be appropriate now, because on the field of battle you do not change commanders," said a 31-year-old anti-tank unit commander who asked to be introduced by his call sign, Tiger.

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Tiger's brigade, the 59th, are fighting on a section of the front in the eastern Donetsk region near Avdiivka, a town built around a vast coking plant which has borne the brunt of Russia's second winter assault.

The soldier, choosing his words carefully and speaking in the basement of a house where he was resting between frontline rotations, said a lot depended on who would replace him.

"The most popular (commanders) are those who are here, and who fight alongside the lads, who sit in the trenches," he said.

He added that whoever was in charge should ensure the arrival of fresh replacement troops and a larger supply of drones - both things that Zaluzhnyi has pushed for.

The importance of the identity of the next commander was echoed by 33-year-old company commander Ihor.

"Before you fire someone from their post, especially such an important one, you need to be sure who will replace this person and what their vision is for the future of this situation," he said.

"If our government wants to change someone, these changes should only make things better, and not worse."

A December 2023 poll by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology found 72% of Ukrainians would view the dismissal of Zaluzhnyi negatively, with only 2% seeing it positively.

The soldiers who spoke to Reuters were cautious not to express strident opinions in a row that pits their commander-in-chief against a president who heads the armed forces.

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But Mykola, a 59-year-old who commands a GRAD rocket launcher truck, said he thought Zaluzhnyi had been sucked into a political dispute.

"Everyone thinks we had some successes in 2022... But in 2023 (not as much). That doesn't mean that Zaluzhnyi was managing the armed forces badly," he said.

MOBILISATION WORRIES

Longstanding friction between Zelenskiy and Zaluzhnyi over the conduct of the war has come to a head over the issue of mobilisation.

Zelenskiy has said the military wants to recruit up to 500,000 men in 2024, something a source said the president opposes, although his government has submitted a draft law to parliament tightening up military recruitment.

The soldiers in Donetsk region, many of whom volunteered not expecting to be still fighting after two years of full-scale war, said they did not want to shoulder the entire burden of the conflict.

"The mobilisation is necessary, because we don't have enough people, the enemy has a great advantage over us in the number of soldiers," Ihor said.

Tiger estimated 60-70% of the original 59th brigade were still serving, and it had not been able to fill all the gaps left by those killed, injured or signed off for other reasons.

Mykola, the 59-year-old, said he would go home when he turned 60 in line with the current rules. He said he felt for younger soldiers who didn't have that option.

"Everyone has to understand that the entire country of Ukraine is at war, not just those who have been fighting for the last two years."

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Russian drone production soaring – deputy PM

Russia expects to see a major increase in drones supplied to its military this year, Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov said in an interview with the TV channel Russia 24 on the sidelines of the second World Defense Show that kicked off in Riyadh on Sunday.

According to Manturov, who also serves as the trade and industry minister, Russia is planning to allocate 100 billion rubles ($1.1 billion) for the research, development, and production of drones in the next three years. 

“First of all, of course, there will be more drones. Our armed forces are actively using them in many areas. The range of products is very wide, from heavy unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs] to first-person view [FPV] drones,” the official said.

He specified that the plan entails producing hundreds of thousands of FPV drones and dozens of heavy UAVs.

“This is one of the important areas where we will be working together with the Defense Ministry, and our industrial enterprises are expected to build up both competencies and production volumes,” Manturov said.

He stressed that communication equipment ensuring tactical interaction in the field would be produced in greater amounts, while production of heavy and light armored vehicles, air-defense systems and equipment for counter-battery warfare will see an expansion as well.

The use of drones has become a critical part of combat operations in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Although the technology has been used extensively on twenty-first-century battlefields, the current conflict has produced innovations in autonomous warfare never seen before, military experts highlight.

 

Reuters/RT

The shock of the new, in political life, often sends us back to the past in search of an intellectual compass. Amid the rise of Donald Trump, Viktor Orban, Jair Bolsanaro and other authoritarian leaders, Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism,” published in 1951, enjoyed a surge of attention, and Arendt herself acquired a prophet-like status among liberals seeking to understand how their world had gone so wrong. The threat of illiberal nationalism hasn’t faded — on the contrary — but in an age consumed with racism, police violence and the legacy of European colonialism in the Middle East and Africa, Arendt’s popularity is increasingly rivaled by that of a man she both sharply criticized and grudgingly admired: Frantz Fanon.

Fanon, a psychiatrist, writer, and anticolonial militant, who grew up in a middle-class Black family in French colonial Martinique, was not merely a thinker; he was a political theoretician, a fiery spokesman for Algeria’s independence movement, the National Liberation Front (F.L.N.), which he joined while working as a psychiatrist in Blida, on the outskirts of Algiers. He captured, as no other writer of his time did, the fury engendered by colonial humiliation in the hearts of the colonized. He was also a startlingly prescient analyst of contemporary ills — the enduring psychological injuries of racism and oppression, the persistent force of white nationalism and the scourge of autocratic, predatory postcolonial regimes.

Fanon wrote at the height of the Cold War, but, with no less prescience, he regarded the East-West struggle as a passing sideshow, of far less consequence than the divisions between North and South, of the rich world and the poor world. If the colonial world was, in his words, “a world cut in two,” our postcolonial world seems scarcely less so. Just consider the starkly different responses to the wars in Ukraine and Gaza — or South Africa’s case against Israel, on the charge of genocide — in the global north and the global south.

Much of the writing Fanon produced in his short lifetime — he died at 36, of leukemia — was in the form either of psychiatric studies or propaganda dashed off for the purpose of revolutionary instruction. It gives off the heat of battles that haven’t ended, battles over colonialism and racial injustice. Not surprisingly, Fanon’s name has been invoked in discussions of everything from the precariousness of Black lives to the campaign to repatriate African art objects, from the refugee crisis to Hamas’s murderous attack on Oct. 7. It’s not as if his work ever vanished. But it hasn’t been cited with such frequency or urgency since the late 1960s, when the Black Panthers, Palestinian guerrillas and Latin American revolutionaries pored over copies of “The Wretched of the Earth,” Fanon’s 1961 anticolonial manifesto.

Back then, Fanon was a minor celebrity on the radical left. Today he is an icon, enlisted on behalf of a range of often wildly contradictory agendas: Black nationalist and cosmopolitan, secular and Islamist, identitarian and anti-identitarian. He’s the subject of two forthcoming biopics, and “The Wretched of the Earth” even shows up as a prop in an episode of “The White Lotus.” Left-wing artists, academics, activists and therapists hungrily rummage through his writings for catchphrases (and there are many) about the psychological effects of white domination, racist misrepresentations of the Black body, the meaning of the Muslim head scarf, the anger of the colonized and the exhibitionist violence of imperial powers. But the far right has also had a longstanding fascination with his work: both the writer Renaud Camus and the French politician Éric Zemmour, proponents of the racist Great Replacement theory, are readers of Fanon.

After the murder of George Floyd, protesters held up banners quoting Fanon’s observation in “Black Skin, White Masks,” a study of racism published in 1952 when he was 27 years old, that the oppressed revolt when they can no longer breathe. Since Oct. 7, he has been celebrated by pro-Palestinian students — and denounced by their critics — for his defense of violence by the colonized in the first chapter of “The Wretched of the Earth.” What Fanon’s contemporary admirers and detractors have in common is that many, if not most, of them appear not to have read past the first chapter, portraying this complex and challenging thinker as little more than a supporter of revolutionary violence by any means necessary — a Malcolm X for the French-speaking world. Or, more precisely, the caricature to which Malcolm X, like so many Black revolutionaries, has been reduced.

 

New York Times

Sometimes, the signs that someone is smart are easily recognizable. Other giveaways are more subtle.

The top one: being a good listener, says New York-based psychotherapist and career coach Jenny Maenpaa.

People who “are able to perceive an interaction holistically, rather than just being in the moment and responding to the last thing you said with the first thing they thought of” are usually highly intelligent, Maenpaa tells CNBC Make It.

This skill is also known as active listening, and it requires more than just sitting in silence while someone speaks.

“Active listening is when someone can listen to you at length, truly taking in what you’re saying, and not interrupt,” Maenpaa says. “Active listeners respond with questions because they are genuinely curious about what you’re saying. They can hold their questions in their mind until you finish instead of interrupting to clarify or to share a thought they had just because you reminded them of it.”

Successful people can use this skill to foster relationships and build trustand with colleagues, bosses, mentors or anyone else around them. Many professionals believe that they’re active listeners, but 70% of them actually exhibit poor listening habits in the workplace, resulting in misunderstandings and damaged friendships, according to a 2020 University of Southern California report.

Some people are “naturally gifted with [active listening skills] from an early age, and often receive feedback like, ‘You’re so easy to talk to!’ or ‘I feel like I’m the only person in the room when we talk,’” says Maenpaa.

Others can develop the ability through practice. Maintain eye contact with your conversation partners, sit still instead of fidgeting, and wait for people to finish their thoughts before speaking, psychologist and mental health coach Amanda O’Bryan recommended in a 2022 Positive Psychology blog post.

Internalizing what the other person is saying, rather than focusing exclusively on your own thoughts, can also help.

“Active listeners will be able to circle back to an earlier point in the conversation and say, ‘What you just said reminds me of something you said a few minutes ago,’ and make connections or draw themes from the conversation,” Maenpaa says.

The skill can help you create long-lasting connections with the people around you, she adds: “Talking to someone who is an active listener will often have someone leaving the conversation feeling seen, heard, and validated from their interaction.”

 

CNBC

Parents of five abducted pupils of the Apostolic Faith Group of Schools, Emure Ekiti on Sunday said they went through a tedious journey before securing the release of their children.

The abducted five pupils of the school were released on Sunday after the kidnappers collected a N15m ransom.

Apart from the ransom, the kidnappers insisted on collecting fried rice, energy drinks and cigarettes.

The school proprietor, Gabriel Adesanya, told The PUNCH that the driver was killed. According to him, the corpse of the driver, who was kidnapped alongside the pupils and staff members of the school, has yet to be found.

He said, “The corpse of the driver has not been found yet. The freed kidnapped victims said he was killed between yesterday and this morning. We cannot trace the body at the moment since we don’t know the location where they were kept. We have discussed with the police whether we can recover it.”

When contacted, one of the parents of the kidnapped victims, Adebisi Jegede, confirmed that a ransom was paid to the kidnappers.

He said, “A ransom was paid to the kidnappers and the money raised was around the N15m they demanded. I was not the one that counted the money but it was around that amount.”

Relatives of the victims said the kidnappers, who initially demanded N100m, reduced it to N15m after negotiations.

The victims were on their way home from school last Monday when five of the pupils, three teachers, and the bus driver were abducted.

The schoolchildren were abducted on the same day gunmen killed two Ekiti monarchs-the Onimojo of Imojo, Olatunde Olusola, and the Elesun of Esun Ekiti, Babatunde Ogunsakin, but the Alara of Ara Ekiti, Adebayo Fatoba, escaped.

The parents and families of the kidnapped persons, who were happy to reunite with their beloved ones who spent six days in the den of kidnappers, said that the journey to their release was torturous.

A man, whose wife and son were among the kidnapped persons, said that N15m ransom and some other items were handed over to the kidnappers in an expansive forest before the abductees were released to them.

The man who spoke anonymously for fear of being abducted, said, “Nine persons were kidnapped. But eight persons were released, we didn’t see the ninth person. The kidnapped persons told us after their release that the gunmen shot the driver dead”.

The man said, “It gave us a lot of problems to see the kidnappers. When we first entered the forest, we spent about two hours without seeing them. We had to go forth and back before we saw the kidnappers.

“When we eventually saw them, they took us into the bush far away from where we parked the motorcycle that we took there. We gave them what they demanded and they released the kidnapped persons to us.

“We gave them N15m and the food items they asked us to buy for them – eight packs of fried rice with chicken and drinks – can malt drink, fearless energy drink, bullet energy drink and cigarettes.

 As they collected the money and the items, they said we should run off.”

The source, who said he could not say specifically the location in the forest, said, “The place is between Ondo and Ekiti States. We entered around Ago Panu along Owo–Ikare Road in Ondo State and went deep in the expansive forest.

“When they released them to us, I embraced my family members, I thank God for the reunion, for surviving the torture, and hunger.”

Shedding more light, a woman, whose three grandchildren were among the kidnapped persons, said that her joy knew no bounds on reuniting with them after they were released in the early hours of Sunday.

She said, “My joy knows no bounds as I speak with you. When I saw my children, we held one another in long embrace and we all wept especially when I saw the condition they were in. They spent about a week in the forest.

“God was with us in our journey yesterday (Saturday), I could see my children again. I went to the bush with the search party for the rescue. It was located off Owo-Ikare Road in Ondo State. Initially, I didn’t want to go because of my leg, but on second thought that my three grandchildren were involved, I chose to go.

“The kidnappers were calling persistently that we should hurry up. They said we should meet them at Ikare Junction. I wondered how come Ikare junction when they took the children from Eporo. When we got to Ikare Junction, they said we should buy food, so we went to buy rice, meat, and other things.

“At a point, they called that we should turn back and described another road. We decided that all of us should not go there so that they would not think that we came with policemen who could make them injure the abductees.

“Later, the kidnappers said that only two persons should come. They threatened to waste the kidnapped persons if more than two persons should come. So, only two persons continued while the rest of us sat on the road there.

“The driver of the vehicle had to return at a point and two persons then used a motorbike to trace the kidnappers to drop the money and food.

“On collecting the money and food, they released the kidnapped persons, and our people used the motorbike to take them to the road, it was then they called us to bring the vehicle to convey them.

“The kidnappers collected N15m. We (parents and families) contributed N4m, people came to our aid by contributing. Even they called for contributions in the markets and the people supported, they contributed so that the kidnapped persons would be rescued.

A political leader at Eporo, who pleaded anonymity, said, “The children told us that when the kidnappers were asking for the telephone numbers of relatives, the driver told them he didn’t know that of his wife and school proprietor off-hand, this made them angry and they hit him with their gun.

“For five days, he was said to be having issues after the injury he sustained and he was shot dead on Saturday morning. It was a bitter experience for the victims, especially looking at how the driver was killed.

One of the parents appealed to the governor to employ the freed teachers in any of the public schools in Eporo.

“If the governor can show mercy to them by giving them jobs or teaching appointments, there are public schools in Eporo where they can teach without having to travel to and fro daily. Then, they will have job security as well.

“I plead with the governor, to please, have mercy on the teachers and as well the children. May God give them the grace to forget their experience in the kidnappers’ den. If the governor can do this, it will be yet another positive thing we will be saying about him,” the parent said.

The Proprietor of the school, Adesanya, on his part confirmed that a ransom was paid, adding that a group of persons in the community organised the payment.

“Ransom was paid to secure their release but I was not a party to the people that went to pay the money. One thing I am sure of is that ransom was paid. I am aware that the last time they called, they were hell-bent on collecting N15m and the parent was not even able to raise enough money. And as of the time they claimed to have raised N7m, I did not know if the money was up to that.”

He said, “When I spoke to the people that were coordinating the payment, they said the important thing was to get the victims released and that whatever money they were demanding, they would work it out. So by the time they concluded, I was not informed. I was not even told when they went to pay the money. I was only invited when the victims were brought to the palace. In fact, I was thinking the police would be able to rescue having deployed their resources including a helicopter, but today I was called that they were already brought to the palace.”

 

Punch

Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) says the national grid has been fully restored.

The national power grid had collapsed in the early hours of Sunday, causing a blackout across the nation.

Speaking in a statement on Sunday, Ndidi Mbah, the general manager of TCN’s public affairs, blamed the incident on gas supply constraints that continuously affect the stability of the grid.

“The grid experienced a partial disturbance at about 11:21 Hours today with Ibom power islanded, feeding Eket, Ekim, Itu & Uyo transmission substations, during the period of partial disturbance,” TCN said.

“TCN initiated immediate restoration of the affected part of the grid, and presently, the grid is fully restored.

“Prior to the incident, total generation on the grid was 3,901.25 MW at 08:00 Hours, a little over three hours before the time of partial collapse.

“It is important to note that low power generation has persisted since January 2024, to date, exacerbating daily due to the lingering gas constraint.

“According to the National Control Center (NCC), the Internet of Things (IoT) was revealed just before the partial disturbance, which occurred at 11:21 Hrs. Today, Sapele Steam & Egbin Substations lost a total of 29.32MW & 343.84MW at 11:20:14Hrs & 11:20:17Hrs respectively, totalling 373.16MW.

“This, combined with the current low power generation due to gas constraints, caused the imbalance leading to the partial system disturbance.

“Gas constraints continue to impact grid flexibility and stability.”

Mbah, however, said ensuring sufficient gas supply to power generating stations is crucial for grid stability as sufficient generation allows for better grid management in the event of sudden generation losses.

She also said the transmission company will investigate the cause of the tripping of Sapele Steam and Egbin power generating units.

 

The Cable

More than 500 personnel of the National Hospital, Abuja (NHA), left its services in search of greener pastures in the last two years, its Chief Medical Director, Mahmud Raji, has disclosed.

According to the CMD, most of them went abroad in search of better working conditions.

“The way they leave is a very hurtful thing for all hospital administrators.

“The most pitiful and worrisome aspect of it is the amount of money the Nigerian government has invested into each of these individuals as a doctor, a nurse, a pharmacist, a physiotherapist or whoever it is that leaves.

He said that the brain drain syndrome was an almost everyday activity as he treats two or three files of young people wishing to leave.

“Sometimes, not only young people; some people have actually gone through the ranks with lots of experience that they could teach other people. So, Nigeria is losing so much, painfully.

“Here, we have lost a number of quite senior doctors, especially the middle cadre doctors, and the very young ones.

“Nurses have also left from the middle cadre and the younger ones. Some of our medical engineers are hotcakes outside and have left.

“I must tell you, Nigeria trains people so much, Nigerian graduates and staff are well sought after, all over,” he added.

On reasons for their departure, he said that remuneration and job satisfaction had always topped the list.

“For instance, if a doctor or a nurse comes here, he or she needs to see an environment that is quite serene, quite beautiful, even to rest in a very comfortable area during their one hour break.

“At least you are able to have something to eat, replenish your energy before you go back to the next phase of work, but usually, in our hospitals in Nigeria, we don’t have such.

“In terms of the remuneration, it may not be as good as what you would expect elsewhere. Even though I must say the purchasing power in Nigeria is far better than the purchasing power elsewhere and our money is still able to buy something.

“We should also look at the unsolved problem of inter-professional rivalry that also eats into people’s psyche. People should be comfortable with the next person they’re working with, be it a nurse, a physiotherapist or whoever.”

Raji also said that the necessary equipment needed to work were not there and when these equipment are either non-existent or obsolete, the healthcare practitioners feel that more should have been done.

He, however, said that past governments had tried by taking very decisive stance on matters of health.

The current government has also put in a lot to rejig the health sector, he added.

“From what we can all see, the current administration has actually rekindled that hope in us that in the next couple of months, at couple of years, we will be able to see a change or a shift in this mindset among Nigerian health professionals eager to leave the country.

“Hopefully, we should even be able to attract them to come back while we retain the ones that are here.”

He, however, said that NHA had employed various strategies to try to retain the healthcare personnel working in it.

“I may not be able to change their remuneration since this is within the purview of government, we try to pacify them because remuneration is usually the first thing people complain about.

“Secondly, in terms of welfare, at least we have tried as much as possible to relieve some of them.

“We have established cooperatives to assist staff, either financially or in whichever way they can be supported to get mortgages for their homes and other things.

“On our own, we sometimes get these mortgage organisations to come and assist our staff. We have been able to get some buses to relieve the stress that the staff get in conveying themselves from work back home and from home to work.

“We are trying to also make the environment where they work a bit more serene and accommodating for them. This would require a lot of funding, but at least with the little that we are able to get, we are able to do bit by bit.”

In terms of training, he said that since training out of the country may be expensive, the hospital arranges local trainings and, when it is able to, it supports them to go for trainings within the country and sometimes out of the country as the funds allow.

The CMD said the hospital was also trying to fix the equipment that were not working efficiently or not working at all.

“Through budgetary and intervention pathways, we are also trying to get in some more new equipment that will make them happy while doing their jobs.

“When you go to our laboratories now, you will see that they are not as they used to be.

“We have so many automated machines; with these machines, all you need to do is just to put in samples and then the thing runs by itself, unlike earlier on where a person will have to run this, after this, you do that. So, now, they have it a bit easier.

“They also feel like, yes, we are working where we would wish to have flown to, to work. So we are upgrading our laboratories or rather, to a very large extent, we are comfortable to call them automated laboratories.

“That’s what we are trying to do, at least in our own little ways, to make life better and the good thing is, some of them do appreciate it.

“But, however much you try, some people are already fixated on leaving,” he said.

On the issue of inter-professional rivalry in the healthcare profession, he said that even though it exists in other institutions, at NHA, there has been some sort of a very harmonious relationship.

He added that hardly were there local strikes at NHA in the last couple of years because of that harmonious relationship.

“But the staff are not in isolation as they also mingle with other people outside.

“So, once in a while you would hear such complaints, but then some of these issues are actually realistic that you find in other centres and it can really be quite bad.

“It sometimes affects the function of some of such organisations but we are lucky here that we are able to, at least, control it.”

To put an end to it or at least control it, he said that several attempts were made to resolve the problem, but sometimes when solutions were about coming, some other bodies may lobby to stop it.

He recalled that a couple of years ago, a certain committee was set up by the Federal Government to look into it and the committee made some recommendations.

“I am not sure those recommendations have been fully implemented, but things might probably have changed now such that it’s time to probably have a new committee set up to look into this.

“I assure you that with the current administration and the mandate given by the president to resolve the issues in healthcare and the ministers we have running the ministry, people have the confidence that they have the roadmap to solving this problem.

“We have to look at it holistically such that you don’t just see doctors as a group, solve their problem, but while solving their problem you will have problem of nurses.

“So also, when you call the nurses and solve their problem, you cause a problem for the radiologist or the pharmacist and things like that.

“From the feelers we’re having from our interactions with those of our leaders in the ministry now, they’re likely going to look at it in that holistic manner, where it should be a win-win for all facets of healthcare.”

 

The Guardian

Hamas hounds Israeli forces in main Gaza cities

Palestinian gunmen kept up attacks against Israeli forces on Sunday in the Gaza Strip's two main cities, weeks after they were overrun by troops and tanks, in a sign Hamas still maintains some control ahead of any potential truce.

Nearly four months into the war triggered by the Palestinian Islamist group's deadly cross-border rampage in Israel, there was persistent fighting in Gaza City in the north of the densely populated enclave, and in Khan Younis to the south.

At the weekly Israeli cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said 17 of Hamas' 24 combat battalions had been dismantled. The rest, he said, were mostly in the southern Gaza Strip - including Rafah, on the enclave's Egyptian border.

"We'll take care of them, too," he said, according to a statement from his office. Hamas does not publish its losses.

The prospect of a push into Rafah has piled pressure on the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who have fled their homes elsewhere and are sheltering there. It also worries Cairo, which has said it will not admit any influx of Palestinian refugees in what it describes a bid to prevent any permanent dispossession.

An Israeli official told Reuters, however, that the military would coordinate with Egypt, and seek ways of evacuating most of the displaced people northward, ahead of any Rafah ground sweep.

Palestinians reported Israeli tank shelling and air strikes there, including one that killed two girls in a house.

As mourners bade farewell to the dead children, a relative, Mohammed Kaloub, said the air strike hit a room full of women and children in Rafah's al-Salam neighborhood.

"There is no safe place in Gaza, from the wire fence to the wire fence (borders from north to south), there is no safe place," he told Reuters.

Palestinian health officials said eight people were killed in separate Israeli air strikes on Deir Al-Balah areas in the central Gaza Strip. Deir Al-Balah is the second city in the enclave where Israel has not yet deployed tanks.

After conducting partial pullouts from Gaza City in the past few weeks that enabled some residents to return and pick through the rubble, Israeli forces have been mounting incursions. Netanyahu described these on Sunday as "mopping-up operations".

Before dawn on Sunday, air strikes destroyed several multi-storey buildings, including an Egyptian-funded housing project, residents said. The military said it killed seven Hamas gunmen in northern Gaza and seized weaponry. Israel's Army Radio said troops in the area were trying to penetrate two Hamas bunkers, a mission it said could take two weeks amid clashes at the sites.

"Gaza City is being wiped out," one resident who asked not to be named told Reuters. "The (Israeli) pull-out was a ruse."

'NEUTRALISING' TUNNELS

In Khan Younis, overnight Israeli shelling killed three Palestinians, medics said. Residents reported street fighting raging in western and southern areas of the city, where Israel said a soldier was killed in a Palestinian attack on Saturday.

Troops in Khan Younis seized a Hamas compound and killed several gunmen, the military said. Netanyahu said Israeli forces in the city were "neutralising" Hamas tunnels that run throughout Gaza, enabling gunmen to hole up and launch ambushes.

"This demands more time yet," he told his ministers.

Gaza health authorities, who do not differentiate between militants and civilians in their tallies, said on Sunday more than 27,300 Palestinians have been confirmed killed since the war began. They say that 70% of those killed have been women and children. Thousands more are feared lost amid the ruins.

Israel says it has killed some 10,000 gunmen in its campaign to annihilate Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack by the group, which is sworn to Israel's destruction. In the rampage, 1,200 people were killed and 253 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.

More than 130 hostages are still in Gaza, and their possible release by Hamas is among issues under discussion in Egyptian- and Qatari-mediated negotiations, that are backed by the United States, to secure a truce.

Hamas has demanded an end to the war. Israel rules that out but is open to a temporary truce.

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi hosted French Foreign Minister Stephane Sejourne in a meeting on Sunday that Sisi's office said emphasized Egypt's collaborative efforts to establish a ceasefire and deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza.

 

Reuters

WESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Zelenskiy says he might replace several Ukraine officials, not just military

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in an interview broadcast on Sunday, said he was considering a "reset" to replace several senior officials.

Speculation has gripped Ukraine for weeks over suggestions that the president was about to dismiss the highly popular commander, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi. The two have been at odds over the conduct of the nearly two-year-old Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But Zelenskiy said any changes went beyond replacing a single person to harness efforts to oust Russian troops.

"When I speak of turnover, I have in mind something serious that does not concern a single person, but the direction of the country's leadership," Zelenskyi told Italian state RAI television when asked about Zaluzhnyi.

His comments were voiced over in Italian.

"It is a question of the people who are to lead Ukraine. A reset is necessary, I am talking about a replacement of a number of state leaders, not only in the army sector.

"I am reflecting on this replacement. Is a question for the entire leadership of the country."

To win the war, Zelenskiy said, "We must all push in the same direction, we cannot be discouraged, we must have the right and positive energy, negativity must be left at home. We can't take on giving-up attitudes."

Differences have come to the fore since a Ukrainian counteroffensive launched last year made only limited gains against Russian forces well dug in along the 1,000-km (600-mile) front line in Ukraine's south and east.

In an essay for the Economist last November, Zaluzhnyi said the war had entered a new phase of attrition. That drew a rebuke from the president.

Last week, as speculation over his dismissal intensified, he set out his case in a commentary for broadcaster CNN for new electronic means of warfare.

He also said some Ukrainian institutions were keeping the country from achieving its objectives, including efforts to build an effective fighting force to match Russian numerical superiority through "unpopular measures" like mass moblisation.

Zaluzhnyi has earned the admiration of Ukrainians for overseeing operations to repel Russian forces advancing on Kyiv at the outset of the war and subsequent advances that recaptured large swathes of territory in the south and northeast.

On two occasions in the past week, Ukrainian media issued a torrent of reports that Zaluzhnyi's dismissal was imminent. In at least one instance, the president's spokesperson denied the commander had been replaced.

Questions were also raised over whether Zaluzhnyi had been offered an alternative job, like an ambassadorship, and who might replace him.

Two leading possible candidates were Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of land forces, and Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Ukrainian defence ministry's intelligence directorate.

 

RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE

Ukrainian authorities admit stagnation at front due to delays in arms supplies

Ukraine's leadership admits that the ground conflict with Russia has become stagnant due to delays in arms deliveries.

"As for the situation on the ground, stagnation is obvious, because there were delays in the supply of weapons, and this leads to mistakes," Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said in an interview with the first channel of Italian state television RAI.

However, he positively assessed the operations at sea and noted that Ukraine needs not only ammunition, but also modern military equipment.

Vladimir Zelensky also considers it necessary to renew the entire administrative and management personnel of the country, not only in its military department.

"We need a reset and a new start <...>. This concerns not one person, but a group of managers and not only in the military sector," he said in an interview with the first channel of the Italian State Television RAI, answering a question about the possible resignation of the Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny.

 

Reuters/Tass