By Tony Obiechina, Abuja 

The Federal Government is set to install facial recognition technology at major Airports in Nigeria, Minister of  State , Budget and National Planning, Prince Clem Ikanada Agba has disclosed. 

The Minister stated this when he hosted the Japanese Ambassador to Nigeria, H.

 He affirmed that the airports would soon be operating an automatic security measures that would incorporate the use of Facial Recognition Technology in order to improve security around Airports and easily detect impostors.

Agba said that the Technology would be deployed to Airports through grant agreements between the Federal Government of Nigeria and the Japanese Government with a focus on Lagos and Abuja International Airports in the pilot phase before the project would be extended to Port Harcourt, Enugu and Kano Airport.

The Minister also disclosed that as part of the pre-requisites for the processing of the Facial Recognition Technology, he would be leading the Ambassador and the team on a site survey visit to Lagos and Abuja Airports  for necessary assessments.

 Agba said: “I am happy that the series of meetings, which began in January this year in Tokyo on this project, aimed at recognizing faces of persons who pass through our international airports has started to yield result.  This, we believe, would further strengthen the security of our people and the country as a whole. This project was conceived in view of several security concerns among Nigerians and the need to nip these growing concerns in the bud”

The Minister expressed his readiness and determination to leave a worthy legacy that would be inherited by the next administration in the area of a more secured country, just as he pleaded for the understanding and cooperation of all relevant stakeholders that would make the proposal a reality, assuring that Facial Recognition Technology had proven to be very effective globally, in securing Airports.

 In his presentation on the project, the Ambassador His Excellency Matsunaga Kazuyoshi  explained that the use of advanced technology like the facial recognition system would ensure that security threats were reduced in and around Nigeria Airports.

The initiative, he said, would further strengthen the country’s security architecture and encourage more investment opportunities in different sectors of Nigeria’s economy, citing the instance of similar project implemented in Nairobi, Kenya and how the project changed Kenya’s security narratives.

 He stated that the security solution works through image capturing techniques, Neo Face Watch Logging in, live view, widgets and dashboard, face Search and image manager and basic configuration, among others, the Ambassador assured that it was practically impossible to compromise security issues with the use of  Facial Recognition Technology.

 Kazuyoshi called on the Nigeria Police and the country’s immigration services to embrace the initiative as it would automate most of their operations and ease day to day security checks in the Airports.

“In all, we want to holistically support Nigerian Government to improve security, social cohesion and promote better migration management through the use of technology and installation of CCTV Cameras at strategic places.”, the Ambassador added.

By Mathew Dadiya, Abuja

The Federal Government and the World Bank will spend a whopping $200 million to improve the knowledge of teachers in the federal technical colleges in the country with the 21st century skills that will digitalise the students.

While the whole $200 million is earmarked for Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) project, about $30 million will be used to train teachers from technical schools to enable them equip the students with the adequate digital skills.

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Education, Mr.

Adejo said there is the utmost importance to strengthen the technical schools with the aim to increase the availability of competent and motivated technical teachers and instructors. 

He explained that the workshop come on the heels of the realisation that the 21st century presents a radically different economy and society, which is having profound implications generally on education and more specifically on skills development in Technical and Vocational Education. 

The Permanent Secretary said that the skills development system in Nigeria must therefore, adapt to the emerging trends of globalisation for economic viability especially in our relevant skills for the formal and informal sectors of the economy.

“All the federal technical teachers in the 27 technical schools across the federation will be trained and captured in this component and the five states that are participating in the IDEAS project, each of the state has three technical colleges and all the teachers in these technical colleges will be captured. 

“I’m very certain that we except so much from the teachers, the administrators and the project’s  implementors,” she said.

National Project Coordinator, Innovation Development and Effectiveness in the Acquisition of Skills (IDEAS) Project, Blessing Ehi Ogwu said the purpose of the project is to development a comprehensive structure for training technical teachers in Nigeria.

Mrs Ogwu expressed confidence that collective knowledge and expertise of the participants will help create a framework that can effectively prepare technical teachers to meet the challenges of the future. 

She also disclosed that they target to equip about 5000 people with technical skills to meet up with the market demand, adding that technical education plays a crucial role in shaping the future of our society

According to her, it’s imperative that we have well-trained teachers who can effectively impart technical knowledge to our students.

However, she noted that designing an effective training program for technical teachers is not an easy task, saying it requires careful planning, coordination and collaboration among various stakeholders. 

On her part, a World Bank consultant, Dr Mistura Rufai, disclosed that the entire IDEAS Project is about $200 million and that teachers training is one of the components of that project with about $25 million to $30 million will be spent on training teachers in Nigeria.

Dr Rufai however said though the teachers training has not started but they want to put in place some structure to ensure that when they start, they kickoff the training this year.

The project is for TVET teachers in Nigeria wether it’s being implemented in the state or not, it’s going to cover all the six geopolitical zones, all the states in the country.

“Already we have 38 technical colleges that have been equipped with workshops across the country this is one of the things we are going to leverage on. 

“These schools are going to be used as training centres for teachers, we are also looking at boosting the capacity of tertiary institutions that are already providing training for teachers, look at how we can up skill and digitalize their training. There is also plan to up skilled these tertiary institutions providing training to teachers. 

“We work with the institution to ensure that the equipment they are getting are 21st century equipment that are market relevant.”

The World Bank consultant said that they wanted the teachers to be trained with the skill demand in the market so that when the students graduatee with their skills for them to be market relevant and provide the skills that the market wants.”

Ben Akpan, a facilitator at the workshop, said the essence of the world bank is to enable the federal government to take ownership of the project so they would have acquired the know-how and continue the project.

The Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, yesterday, inaugurated the first indigenously developed COVID-19 vaccine candidate for preclinical trials in Nigeria.

The Vaccine Development Consortium was formed by the Usman Danfodiyo University, Sokoto, UDUS.

TETFund had in the first instance, collaborated with the Nigeria Institute for Medical Research, NIMR, Yaba Lagos, and National Veterinary Research Institute, NVRI.

It subsequently involved the University of Jos and the National Research Institute for Chemical Technology, NARICT, Zaria.

Speaking at the event, Sonny Echono, the Executive Secretary TETFund, described the occasion as a milestone on its sponsored Vaccine Development Mega Research.

Mr Echono said TETFund had been making concerted efforts aimed at identifying more innovative ways of using government and donor funding in research programmes and projects for maximum developmental impact.

“This is the basis of the institution of the Mega Research intervention by the Fund.

“The Intervention aims to strengthen decentralised cooperation involving clusters of researchers from different institutions to consolidate problem solving research and promote Innovation in Nigeria,” he said.

According to the executive secretary, the project is one out of the four projects supported by the fund at a total collaborative research by promoting sum of NI.25 billion.

He said the project had shown that collaboration among stakeholders, to address issues of national priority would achieve the desired goals towards national development and tackling of developmental challenges.

“It also indicates to us that we are moving in the right direction, as one of the mandates of the fund’s research and development department, is to promote multi-disciplinary research,” he added.

Mr Echono congratulated the group on the achievement and encouraged it not to relent in sustained efforts towards achieving the overarching goal of delivering a home-made COVID-19 vaccine.

Earlier, Prof. Lawal Bilbis, the Vice-Chancellor of UDUS, said the motive behind the development followed the terrible and unacceptable state of the country’s vaccine production capacity.

“More than 90 per cent of the vaccines used in Nigeria are imported from abroad through foreign donors.

“The COVID-19 pandemic had made us realise and understand that all multilateral agreements between Africa and other nations of the world can easily be disrupted in the event of global health crisis.

“This, therefore, left us with no option but to promote self-sufficiency through local vaccine research and development projects, using the biomedical scientists present in some of our universities and research institutes across the country.

“We decided to form a Vaccine Development Consortium with a view to bringing unique sets of skills to mastermind the development of the first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine,” he said.

Mr Bilbis assured the fund that the nation was very close to reaping the benefits of the investment, adding, “we will, by the special grace of God, converge in the next few months to celebrate its successful completion.” (NAN)

Resident Doctors Shelve Planned Nationwide Strike

The Nigerian Association of Resident Doctors (NARD) said its members will not be embarking on industrial action.

The association’s President, Dr Innocent Orji, disclosed this yesterday in Abuja.

“The industrial action has been shelved for now as negotiations are ongoing with necessary government bodies to meet the demands of the association.

“The National Executive Council (NEC) of the association has mandated the National Officers Committee to engage the Federal Government further on issues already outlined and revert back to it if the need arises.

“We took this decision in public interest and peculiarities of the moment,” he said

The association had on Jan. 11, written a letter to the Federal Government addressing the Ministers of Health and Labour and Employment and other relevant Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).

The letter was titled “Imminent Nationwide Industrial Disharmony in Health Sector: A Matter of Urgent Administrative Importance”.

In the letter, the resident doctors said there were lingering unresolved issues affecting their members and if those issues were not resolved before its NEC meeting between Jan. 24 and Jan. 28, there may be industrial action.

Those issues include irregularities in the new circular on upward review of the Medical Residency Training Fund (MRTF), outstanding payment of the arrears of the new hazard allowance and non-payment of the skipping arrears for 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Also, non-payment of the consequential adjustment of minimum wage to some of its members, delay in the upward review of the

Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS), salary arrears of its members in State Tertiary Health Institutions running into several months, including Abia, Imo, Ondo, Ekiti and Gombe States.

It also stated the non-domestication of the Medical Residency Training Act (MRTA) in most states across the federation as one of the pending issues.