I manage and work in a private hospital in Anambra, when i first started, was very surprised at the number of people registered with NHIS that come to the hospital because we are participants in the programme.
i was really impressed that health insurance scheme is slowly kicking off in Nigeria and it works.
my biggest problem with NHIS is that
1) they will give you their own drug price list and medications, which is lower than what we charge everyday patients, not taking into account, fluctuations in drug price in the market.
2) Even though we adhere to their price list, most often than not, when their bill is sent to them, they will never pay the full amount.
The Chief medical director is considering pulling out of the scheme from next year, he don't really need them, merely joined cuz of the novelty in the programme.
Banks dont argue with the bills we send when their staffs come for surgeries and treatment, they pay straight up.
Valid points you raised. These are management issues anathemic to Govt managed initiatives across board.
Do you work with HMOs as well? I believe they also are under the NHiS framework.
360command: Nigeria is just a messed up place.. No good national health insurance scheme in nigeria.. The guy above me said something about private companies shud provide health insurance.. Look, as Nigerians we need a national health insurance scheme whether I work or not.. That is my right. ..
They're no hidden charges sir. The survey/allocation fee is N300k per plot Development levy is N250k Deed of Assignment fee is N50k
These fees are only applicable at the time of physical land allocation
Call or send us a message on whatsapp 08068677558 to request for prerequisite documents relating to this property sir. And also site inspection is free
When Doundou Chefou first took up arms as a youth a decade ago, it was for the same reason as many other ethnic Fulani herders along the Niger-Mali border: to protect his livestock.
He had nothing against the Republic of Niger, let alone the United States of America. His quarrel was with rival Tuareg cattle raiders.
Yet on Oct. 4 this year, he led dozens of militants allied to Islamic State in a deadly assault against allied U.S.-Niger forces, killing four soldiers from each nation and demonstrating how dangerous the West’s mission in the Sahel has become.
The incident sparked calls in Washington for public hearings into the presence of U.S. troops. A Pentagon probe is due to be completed in January.
“He is a terrorist, a bandit, someone who intends to harm to Niger,” he said at his office in the Nigerien capital Niamey earlier this month.
“We are tracking him, we are seeking him out, and if he ever sets foot in Niger again he will be neutralized.”
Like most gunmen in so-called Islamic State in the Greater Sahara, which operates along the sand-swept borderlands where Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso meet, Chefou used to be an ordinary Fulani pastoralist with little interest in jihad, several government sources with knowledge of the matter said.
The transition of Chefou and men like him from vigilantes protecting their cows to jihadists capable of carrying out complex attacks is a story Western powers would do well to heed, as their pursuit of violent extremism in West Africa becomes ever more enmeshed in long-standing ethnic and clan conflicts.
For now, analysts say the local IS affiliate remains small, at fewer than 80 fighters. But that was also the case at first with al Qaeda-linked factions before they tapped into local grievances to expand their influence in Mali in 2012.
The United Nations this week released a report showing how IS in northern Somalia has grown to around 200 fighters from just a few dozen last year.
The U.S. military has ramped up its presence in Niger, and other neighboring countries, in recent years as it fears poverty, corruption and weak states mean the region is ripe for the spread of extremist groups.
GENESIS OF A JIHAD
For centuries the Tuareg and Fulani have lived as nomads herding animals and trading - Tuareg mostly across the dunes and oases of the Sahara and the Fulani mostly in the Sahel, a vast band of semi-arid scrubland that stretches from Senegal to Sudan beneath it.
Some have managed to become relatively wealthy, accumulating vast herds. But they have always stayed separate from the modern nation-states that have formed around them.
Though they largely lived peacefully side-by-side, arguments occasionally flared, usually over scarce watering points. A steady increase in the availability of automatic weapons over the years has made the rivalry ever more deadly.
A turning point was the Western-backed ouster of Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi in 2011. With his demise, many Tuareg from the region who had fought as mercenaries for Gaddafi returned home, bringing with them the contents of Libya’s looted armories.
Some of the returnees launched a rebellion in Mali to try to create a breakaway Tuareg state in the desert north, a movement that was soon hijacked by al Qaeda-linked jihadists who had been operating in Mali for years.
Until then, Islamists in Mali had been recruiting and raising funds through kidnapping. In 2012, they swept across northern Mali, seizing key towns and prompting a French intervention that pushed them back in 2013.
Amid the violence and chaos, some of the Tuareg turned their guns on their rivals from other ethnic groups like the Fulani, who then went to the Islamists for arms and training.
In November 2013, a young Nigerien Fulani had a row with a Tuareg chief over money. The old man thrashed him and chased him away, recalls Boubacar Diallo, head of an association for Fulani livestock breeders along the Mali border, who now lives in Niamey.
The youth came back armed with an AK-47, killed the chief and wounded his wife, then fled. The victim happened to be the uncle of a powerful Malian warlord.
Boubacar Diallo, president of the livestock breeders association of north Tillaberi on the Mali border, goes through a list of over 300 Fulani herders killed by Tuareg raiders in the lawless region, during an interview with Reuters in Niamey, Niger October 31, 2017. Picture taken October 31, 2017. REUTERS/Tim Cocks Over the next week, heavily armed Tuareg slaughtered 46 Fulani in revenge attacks along the Mali-Niger border.
The incident was bloodiest attack on record in the area, said Diallo, who has documented dozens of attacks by Tuareg raiders that have killed hundreds of people and led to thousands of cows and hundreds of camels being stolen.
“That was a point when the Fulani in that area realized they needed more weapons to defend themselves,” said Diallo, who has represented them in talks aimed at easing communal tensions.
The crimes were almost never investigated by police, admits a Niamey-based law enforcement official with knowledge of them.
“The Tuareg were armed and were pillaging the Fulani’s cattle,” Niger Interior Minister Mohamed Bazoum told Reuters. “The Fulani felt obliged to arm themselves.”
“SELF-DEFENSE”
Gandou Zakaria, a researcher of mixed Tuareg-Fulani heritage in the faculty of law at Niamey University, has spent years studying why youths turned to jihad.
Niger Defence Minister Kalla Mountari poses for a portrait at his office after an interview with Reuters, in Niamey, Niger November 1, 2017. Picture taken November 1, 2017. REUTERS/Tim Cocks “Religious belief was at the bottom of their list of concerns,” he told Reuters. Instead, local grievances were the main driving force.
Whereas Tuareg in Mali and Niger have dreamed of and sometimes fought for an independent state, Fulani have generally been more pre-occupied by concerns over the security of their community and the herds they depend on.
“For the Fulani, it was a sense of injustice, of exclusion, of discrimination, and a need for self-defense,” Zakaria said.
One militant who proved particularly good at tapping into this dissatisfaction was Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi, an Arabic-speaking north African, several law enforcement sources said.
Al-Sahrawi recruited dozens of Fulani into the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA), which was loosely allied to al Qaeda in the region and controlled Gao and the area to the Niger border in 2012.
After French forces in 2013 scattered Islamists from the Malian towns they controlled, al-Sahrawi was briefly allied with Mokhtar Belmokhtar, an al Qaeda veteran.
Today, al-Sahrawi is the face of Islamic State in the region.
“There was something in his discourse that spoke to the youth, that appealed to their sense of injustice,” a Niger government official said of al-Sahrawi.
Two diplomatic sources said there are signs al-Sahrawi has received financial backing from IS central in Iraq and Syria.
How Chefou ended up being one of a handful of al-Sahrawi’s lieutenants is unclear. The government source said he was brought to him by a senior officer, also Fulani, known as Petit Chapori.
Like many Fulani youth toughened by life on the Sahel, Chefou was often in and out of jail for possession of weapons or involvement in localized violence that ended in deals struck between communities, the government official said.
Yet Diallo, who met Chefou several times, said he was “very calm, very gentle. I was surprised when he became a militia leader”.
U.S. and Nigerien sources differ on the nature of the fatal mission of Oct 4. Nigeriens say it was to go after Chefou; U.S. officials say it was reconnaissance mission.
One vehicle lost by the U.S. forces was supplied by the CIA and kitted with surveillance equipment, U.S. media reported. A surveillance drone monitored the battle with a live feed.
The Fulani men, mounted on motorbikes, were armed with the assault rifles they first acquired to look after their cows.
Without prejudice it’s clear the Fulani will always arm themselves as a means of self defense against cattle rustlers, giving them an unfair advantage over a typical farmer should conflict between them arise.
Is this not a valid reason for every state to implement an anti-open grazing law?
At what point does the collective good of Nigeria and it’s citizens outweigh the chosen “way of life of a select few Fulani herdsmen”?
Governors and lawmakers around the country must do the needful.
fatymore: Seriously the demolition is too much but at the end of the day it would benefit all.. But one thing is still baffling me. The shops demolished at oshodi beside the bridge.. Thought he said it was brt park but it looks like a complex.. Hope it won't be lease out at the end of the day for them at exorbitant price
He is building a brt terminal not really a park. 3 multi story terminals are being built at oshodi. 1 for interstate movement and the other 2 for travel within the state.
The reason you are not supposed to be a lawyer. "It would have been announced publicly" really?? I feel sad for your clients. The onus is not on the defence now, is on the prosecutor FG that invaded his house to prove that he is not in their custody but the facts speaks for itself and the fact is this, they invaded his house, they now must provide information on where he is.
Interesting argument on both sides.
While I agree that the Army’s invasion didn’t help, the onus does not shift automatically to the prosecuting team. The defense team must prove beyond reasonable doubt with evidence that (1) Kanu was present in that location when the Army invaded and (2) that the Army has possession of Kanu at the moment.
To the best of my knowledge the Army is yet to acknowledge they have him. They only mentioned searching his home sometime this week which is several days after the fracas preceding Kanus disappearance. The Judge would be wrong to absolve the sureties based on unproven conjectures, hence responsible for producing Kanu will continue to remain with the sureties.
Lloydfather: help me asked them what led to them using sticks and stones? In fact they are foolish to have released this video. Shame on them that they are using live bullets on People with sticks and stones.
Op tell them I said in some African countries like. South Africa, Zimbabwe and Co not to mention europe, Asian and America. When civilians pick stone and sticks against the military, the military uses shield and baton, possibly tear gas to make arrest.
They should all go back to training they have failed. Wooooooooooooo.
The army is not in the best position to use shields and batons against agitating crowds anywhere in the world. It's not their core duty.
Unfortunately, we do not have riot police to handle such cases.
Contrary to my generic advice, the group appointment should have had a date for both of you. Group appointments override individual appointments.
Yes, bank statement of 31st August is perfect for any appointment in September and you don't need any other. Ideally you should be looking at having bank statements not older than a month.
Moreover are you saying your email and SMS confirmation of group booking did not come with a date info? While you were requesting for the group booking, were you ever prompted to choose a date and time?
The email confirmation of group booking was to send me a receipt saying successful payment. While requesting the group booking, I was never prompted to choose a date and time.
The process was:
- Create my account on TLS - Add both of our applications to group - Clicked on "Added Value Services" - Clicked "group appointment" and added to cart for both of us - Paid 30 pounds for both - Got the email receipt I referred to earlier.
Nothing else has come since then.
I just painstakingly went through the website again, and from the wording of the attached image, I have to contact a staff or send an email to them to fix a group appointment.
Hello Sir, did u ever read the email acknowledgement after you paid for your visa application? All you need is there. After payment you received an email confirming it, same with your wife. Check your wife's and confirm the date and time. Then locate yours and confirm the date and time. Then sign into your account and change your appointment date. Simples!!! You can't change application details but you can certainly change appointment date 24 hours before your original appointment/biometrics day. Make sure you change your appointment date and time to match your wife's since you are on a group appointment. This is not to get supporting documents messy. See an excerpt below...
Nonetheless did you receive any emails after paying for group appointment like you said you did?
Thank you sir. Yes we got an email confirming payment from UK VI and the TLS after paying for group appointment and SMS a receipt came via email but nothing else.
I will go ahead to update our appointment date and time to reflect same as you've advised.
It appears earliest date available is from the week of 18th sept.
Is a bank statement printed on the 31st of August still ok to be presented or we get a more recent one?
You apply separately but have group biometrics appointment at TLS...
Experienced guys in the house please help.
I have paid for a group appointment on TLS and linked our (wife and I) applications together.
The issue now is that my date of appointment on UKVI is different from what she chose...I did mine earlier and the same day as me was asking her to pay primetime so we just decided to choose the upper week for her as that didn't require payment.
Question: When is the actual appointment date and time? I can't seem to find any helpful information on TLS.
Do we apply seperately? or is there a way to add her to my application?
I selected the option that says if I'm travelling with anyone and provided her passport number. However, the visa amount of $121 I believe is just for a single 6-month visa.
Its very likely that the suya and a sun company runs a business there and wants to beautify it to aid his business. We all know those parks sometimes are suya joints.
He approached the govt to transform the place, he is doing it with his cash so what's the big deal if he puts his name there.