Even though GM and Ford had been after giants of the international vehicle sector, their sector capitalizations have been dwarfed by EV maker Tesla
DETROIT – Standard Motors Co and Ford Motor Co are predicted to report future 7 days they turned stable revenue for the very last quarter of 2021, but seldom has previous efficiency mattered fewer to investors.
The two Detroit automakers are in mid-leap amongst a combustion-run present, and a foreseeable future they have promised will be defined by electric powered autos and computer software-run expert services.
The two organizations have mapped out multibillion-dollar investments in new North American electrical motor vehicle and battery factories, aimed at difficult Tesla Inc and a flock of more compact EV startups in the nonetheless-very small market. But people new factories will not be at complete speed until eventually the center of this 10 years.
Even though GM and Ford were being when giants of the world-wide auto sector, their industry capitalizations have been dwarfed by EV maker Tesla. Tesla on Wednesday noted stronger than expected profits and revenue for the fourth quarter of 2021, but warned that offer-chain bottlenecks would go on through 2022 and very likely avert its factories from running at complete capability.
GM final 12 months bought much less vehicles in the United States than Toyota Motor Corp, the first time in 91 many years that GM was not the No. 1-advertising automaker in its household industry.
GM and Ford’s revenue in 2021 had been lifted by buyers willing to shell out record-higher selling prices for petroleum-run pickup vehicles and SUVs. In 2022, analysts are concerned the Detroit suppliers will face a far more unsure financial ecosystem, together with mounting desire prices, substantial oil charges and continuing provide-chain bottlenecks that could curtail output.
Analysts anticipate equally companies to be cautious in their outlooks for 2022. Shortages of semiconductors are envisioned to weigh on output into the second 50 percent of the 12 months, Financial institution of The united states wrote in a take note.
“Even though automakers will appreciate production restoration and inventory restocking, (these) could be coupled with price tag declines, combine deterioration, rising input costs,” Morgan Stanley reported.
Ford informed buyers in its third-quarter report that it expected $1.5 billion in better commodity charges, and saw inflationary pressures throughout a wide assortment of bills.
Wall Street has revealed more confidence about the last quite a few months in attempts by Ford’s CEO, Jim Farley, to speed up the firm’s electrical pickup truck and van programs. Ford’s current market price strike $100 billion in mid-January, exceeding GM’s value for the very first time in more than five a long time. But the market place value of Ford, whose quarterly results are envisioned on Thursday afternoon, has considering the fact that dropped by 20{cfdf3f5372635aeb15fd3e2aecc7cb5d7150695e02bd72e0a44f1581164ad809} following the firm issued a complex reworking of its 2021 gain assistance.
GM Main Govt Mary Barra is expected to have a extra clear-cut story to inform on Tuesday about fourth-quarter and entire-calendar year results. GM Main Economic Officer Paul Jacobson explained to buyers in December the enterprise envisioned altered pretax financial gain for 2021 to attain $14 billion, larger than former forecasts.
The firm reported it is expanding groups that electrify vehicles, acquire motor vehicle program and autonomous engineering and engineer gasoline cells.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of people to be ill and led to millions of deaths worldwide. This public health emergency has affected everyone’s life and well-being. Through the suffering, however, there is one silver lining: The pandemic has also provided motivation for different disciplines to come together and put up a united front against this crisis.
Share on PinterestHow has the COVID-19 pandemic changed interdisciplinarity? VICTOR TORRES/Stocksy
Interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration are crucial to both research and care settings. When experts with different specialisms are able to come together and help each other, better outcomes are guaranteed for all.
As early as 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) was stating the importance of interprofessional education — that is, mutual teaching and learning exchanges between healthcare professionals with different specialisms — for the future of public health.
“Interprofessional education is a necessary step in preparing a ‘collaborative practice-ready’ health workforce that is better prepared to respond to local health needs,” the WHO then stated.
“Collaborative practice strengthens health systems and improves health outcomes.”
– WHO Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice, 2010
However, there are myriad obstacles in the way of interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration. These include a lack of targeted funding and rigid, incompatible frameworks.
Perhaps for the first time in many decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the motivation necessary for specialists from varied disciplines and professions to come together and overcome existing differences and difficulties.
The public health crisis has also meant that researchers have had more access to national and international funding, as they strove to develop effective vaccines to prevent infection and severe disease and drugs that could help fight COVID-19.
When the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines started across the world, many people expressed hesitancy about receiving them, as they were used to a much longer timeline of vaccine development.
More often than not, in the past, the process of developing a vaccine and confirming its safety and effectiveness could take up to 10–15 years.
So, how was it possible to develop, test, and roll out several new vaccines — some of which use novel mRNA technology — in under a year from the start of the pandemic? The answer: interprofessional collaboration and generous funding.
In a talk they gave at the WIRED Health:Tech conference in 2020, both Tal Zaks, then the chief medical officer of Moderna Therapeutics, and Prof. Uğur Şahin, co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, strongly emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary, interprofessional, and interinstitutional collaboration in the fast development and testing of their new vaccines, which were then still at the stage of vaccine candidates.
“The way [in which] the whole industry developed vaccines against COVID-19 […] is the best performance of collaboration,” said Prof. Şahin.
“Moderna teamed up with the NIH [National Institutes of Health], we teamed up with Pfizer, [and] AstraZeneca teamed up with Oxford University. So, there are several models of collaboration, and we have the strongest transparency in the development of a vaccine,” he explained.
This strong collaboration was crucial to being able to develop new candidate vaccines within a matter of months, as a sense of urgency stemmed from the ever-rising number of COVID-19 cases in countries all around the world.
Funding was also key. Although funding bodies usually tend to split their funds a lot more between disciplines and projects, the pandemic made it necessary for more funds to go toward the development of vaccines and drugs that could tackle SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19, efficiently.
In the United States, Operation Warp Speed went full steam ahead to support the development, manufacture, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in as little time as possible. In Europe, the European Commission pledged $8 billion to COVID-19 research.
In a guest editorial that appeared in the Journal of Interprofessional Care in August 2020, a team of 11 health experts wrote about how and why interprofessional education and collaborative practice research are especially important during the pandemic.
They also outlined some of the steps and considerations that would be necessary to ensuring constructive interdisciplinary collaboration in a medical research setting.
These include not only combining different types of expertise but also combining methodologies and building teams that are racially, socially, and professionally diverse.
“Inclusive [interprofessional education and collaborative practice] research teams would envision practitioners/clinicians from an array of experiential/applied settings, learners, service users, community members, various academic disciplines, and civil society as partners in all phases of research,” the authors wrote.
Collaboration between different experts and institutions has become more important than ever, not just in research but also in clinical settings and in ensuring effective communication between health experts and the general public during what has become a distressing time for all.
In a statement from May 2020, Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, emphasized the importance of “[c]ollaboration, coordination, and communication across the public health community.”
He noted that:
“Strong and integrated management of public health services, primary care services, and […] hospitals and long-term care facilities is critical to [navigating] this delicate phase.”
Although healthcare systems everywhere have been under great strain due to the high number of COVID-19 patients requiring urgent hospital care, this has not negatively impacted healthcare professionals’ collaborative efforts, according to some recent studies.
Medical News Today spoke with Dr. David Cutler, a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, about the ways in which interprofessional collaboration in a clinical setting has changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Interprofessional and interdisciplinary collaboration has been important to clinicians for decades, he told us, as health workers aim for stronger communication between specialists to ensure holistic care for their patients.
“Several forces are at play [that] foster greater interprofessional cooperation. First, there is the hospitalist movement,” he explained.
“Over the past decade, inpatient hospital care has transitioned from being mostly provided by physicians with practice outside the hospital who would see their few patients in the hospital daily to one where full-time, hospital-based physicians provide the primary care for inpatients.”
“Since hospitalists will generally have no prior knowledge of these patients or follow them subsequent to their hospitalization, there needs to be close collaboration between inpatient and outpatient physicians during the course of the hospitalization to optimize care,” Dr. Cutler noted.
During the pandemic, this spirit of open collaboration in the healthcare system has become all the more present, he went on to say. According to Dr. Cutler, that is because:
“[COVID-19] is treated very differently when it is mild/moderate/outpatient than when it is severe/inpatient. […] [R]ecognizing early on when hospitalization may improve outcomes requires effective and timely communication between primary care, urgent care, ER, specialists, and inpatient physicians. Getting patients to the right level of care can be a matter of life and death. Decisions regarding monoclonal antibody infusions, steroids, remdesivir, intubation, and ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation] therapy involve multiple physician specialties.”
Technological advances, such as having greater access to e-medical records, are also helping strengthen interprofessional collaboration in a clinical setting, added Dr. Cutler.
“The electronic medical record is perhaps the greatest force improving physician collaboration during the pandemic,” he told MNT. “Physicians who may even be in different healthcare systems can see prior testing and treatment done elsewhere, which promotes improved interdisciplinary care.”
“Electronic records also allow patients access to records generated by geographically diverse providers, which is a great boon to the quality of care,” he added.
Inevitably, the public health crisis that led to numerous lockdowns and travel restrictions across the world has also had a severe impact on the mental health of people around the globe.
This means that mental health care has also had to step up to the challenge. One key way of doing this has, once again, been pushing for more interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration.
MNT spoke with Lea Milligan. He is the CEO of MQ Mental Health Research, which is a United Kingdom-based charity funding mental health research. Milligan told us more about the challenges and successes of collaboration across fields and specialisms during the pandemic.
“On the eve of the pandemic, the mental health research community had performed the great task of agreeing [on] a set of ambitious 10-year goals for 2020–2030,” he told us. “They derive from recommendations in the ‘Framework for Mental Health Research’ published in [December] 2017, and [they] also build on previous research priority exercises.”
Milligan explained that the agreed-upon goals for mental health research and care require cross-disciplinary collaboration from the get-go: “Research to support the targets under each goal should be undertaken in partnership with the life sciences industries, charities, the NHS [National Health Service], voluntary, social and independent healthcare sectors, together with patients/ service users, their families/carers and clinicians.”
This need for collaborative mental health research and care has increased exponentially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he went on to point out:
“Coordination across the [mental health research] sector is essential for the tide to be turned and for mental health science to become the super discipline it has the potential to be. Substantial investment is needed in both human capacity and infrastructural capacity. The emergent umbrella discipline of mental health science needs [an] opportunity to convene, develop a common language, and explore opportunities for collaboration between different approaches.”
The good news is that collaboration is already happening. According to Milligan, “Over the [past] year, in response to the pandemic, we have seen many groundbreaking projects with experts from psychiatry, data science, [and] neuroscience and people with lived experience coming together to tackle some of the biggest challenges faced within mental health care.”
As an example, he mentioned DATAMIND. This is a U.K.-based “hub for mental health informatics research development,” which makes new tools and mental health-related data available to researchers from all disciplines who may benefit from using them.
He also mentioned the Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 Study, which aims to look at the long-term effects of COVID-19 — including those on mental health.
“This holistic approach has resulted in a far more in-depth understanding of the virus’s impact and has opened the door to further areas of research into the long-term cognitive effects [that] many [people] are reporting,” said Milligan.
What remains to be seen is whether or not the progress in establishing and fostering interdisciplinary approaches that researchers and healthcare workers have made throughout the pandemic will persist beyond this public health crisis.
Some challenges remain. For example, although collaborative research has been intensifying during the pandemic — particularly in terms of vaccine development and distribution — there is still a sense that equitable collaboration, wherein all research partners are actively listened to and receive due credit, is often lacking.
A comment feature that appeared in Nature Human Behaviour in March 2021 emphasized the continued inequitability in research settings, noting that it hampers progress and ultimately harms global collaboration.
The authors write that although “[n]umerous academic organizations and departments of anthropology, psychology, and related fields reliant on cross-cultural data production have now declared commitments to combat racism […] and improve [the] representation of minoritized groups among their faculty and student body,” these commitments are often shallow, failing to address deep-rooted systemic inequities.
“Often missing from this discussion among high income country-based researchers, however, is the promotion of equitable collaboration in cross-cultural research with national universities and research [centers] in low and middle income countries,” they go on to note.
In terms of collaborations regarding clinical and mental health care, Milligan told MNT that future improvements should focus more on holistic approaches to treatment.
He also suggested that tackling structural racism and ingrained biases in healthcare remains crucial to building a true spirit of collaboration and to providing adequate care.
“Three areas we would like to see [a] more explicit focus on are: the need for truly interdisciplinary approaches, [the] requisite of seeing the whole person (not an isolated diagnosis), and [a] more explicit focus on addressing inequalities across all targets.”
Yet Milligan was hopeful. “Interdisciplinary working is here to stay, as it should be,” he told us. “When experts from across the spectrum of experience share views and knowledge, it gives us a more rounded approach to research.”
To achieve this “rounded approach,” he explained, it is important to include not just scientists and clinicians in the conversation about health research.
Those on the receiving end of care are also experts, thanks to their lived experience of ill health. Their unique expertise, Milligan added, can transform research and care for the better.
“The next step is to ensure that experts by lived experience are involved in the co-production of research so that their vital contributions are not missed out on.”
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Logility® is a registered trademark of Logility, Inc. Other products described in this document are registered, trademarked or provider marked by their respective owners.
• We will track down financiers of Igboho, Kanu for threatening our national security • Buhari reiterates restoration of Twitter after fulfilling conditions • Lawan urges unity, faith in Nigeria • We have what it takes to overcome today’s threats, trials, says Jonathan • I am deeply concerned at the level of disunity in Nigeria – Atiku • PDP bemoans rising insecurity, economic stress, others under Buhari • APC: Our Independence provides a strong source of unity, strength • Let’s bury old prejudices to save Nigeria, says Mark • CAN blames nation’s woes on selfish leadership • NADECO urges UN to fast-track referendum on Nigeria • France, Indian presidents congratulate Nigeria • U.S. will continue to stand by Nigeria despite challenges, says envoy
It’S a mixed feeling today, the 61st anniversary of Nigeria’s attainment of independence. Amid the celebration of nationhood in the national colours of green and white, symbolising natural wealth and peace, the reality for citizens is the exact opposite, gloom and a state of fear.
Acknowledging this reality, President Muhammadu Buhari in his Independence Day broadcast, today, said “the past 18 months have been some of the most difficult periods in the history of Nigeria. Since the civil war, I doubt whether we have seen a period of more heightened challenges than what we have witnessed in this period.
Buahri
“Our original priorities for 2020 were to continue stabilising our economy following the deep recession while restoring peace in areas confronted with security challenges, but the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating impact on all nations meant we needed to shift gears and re-strategise.
“Despite the global inequity in access to vaccines, the government has continued to explore all available options to ensure Nigerians have free access to safe and effective vaccines.
“But as our economy continues to open after the COVID-19-related lockdowns, we have also seen the resurgence of insecurity in certain parts of the country.”
Reeling out steps taken to address the problem, President Buhari said the government was ready to arrest and prosecute all persons inciting violence through words or action.
“Our resolve for a peaceful, united and one Nigeria remains resolute and unwavering. I use this day to ask all Nigerians to embrace peace and dialogue, whatever their grievances.
“The seeds of violence are planted in people’s heads through words. Reckless utterances of a few have led to losses of many innocent lives and the destruction of properties.
“Such unfiltered and unsubstantiated lies and hate speeches by a few evil persons must be stopped. Our media houses and commentators must move away from just reporting irresponsible remarks to investigating the truth behind all statements and presenting the facts to readers.
“We shall continue to work on dialogue-based solutions to address legitimate grievances. But we remain ready to take decisive actions against secessionist agitators and their sponsors who threaten our national security.
“The recent arrests of Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Adeyemo, and the ongoing investigations being conducted have revealed certain high-profile financiers behind these individuals. We are vigorously pursuing these financiers including one identified as a serving member of the National Assembly.”
Speaking on the suspension of Twitter in the country now nearing its fourth month, the President said: “Social media is a very useful platform that has enabled millions of Nigerians to connect with loved ones, promote their businesses, socialise, and access news and other information.
“However, recent events have shown that the platform is not just an innocuous platform for information dissemination. Rather some users have misused the platform to organise, coordinate, and execute criminal activities, propagate fake news, and promote ethnic and religious sentiments.
“To address these negative trends, the Federal Government of Nigeria suspended the operations of Twitter in Nigeria on June 5, 2021, to allow the government to put measures in place to address these challenges.
“Following the suspension of Twitter operations, Twitter Inc. reached out to the Federal Government to resolve the impasse. Subsequently, I constituted a Presidential Committee to engage Twitter to explore the possibility of resolving the issue.
“The Committee, along with its Technical Team, has engaged with Twitter and have addressed a number of key issues. These are National Security and Cohesion; Registration, Physical presence and Representation; Fair Taxation; Dispute Resolution; and Local Content.
“Following the extensive engagements, the issues are being addressed and I have directed that the suspension be lifted but only if the conditions are met to allow our citizens continue the use of the platform for business and positive engagements.”
PRESIDENT of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, has called on all Nigerians to unite for the progress of the country and continue to keep faith with their fatherland.
Lawan, in his Independence anniversary message, signed by his Special Adviser on Media, Ola Awoniyi, said: “This is the first year of our seventh decade as a nation and also the second year of the third decade of the Fourth Republic. I find it remarkable that we are living in the longest era of democracy in our history as a nation.
“That may seem modest as an achievement but it is an additional cause for celebration in the light of our political experience. Every patriot will always remember with pride that historic moment on October 1, 1960, when the British Union Jack was lowered and our Green-White-Green flag hoisted in its place.
“Over six decades on, the journey has been eventful and the challenges enormous. But we can be proud of the progress that we have made, draw lessons from the missteps and rededicate ourselves to our historic mission of nation-building. We should never abandon that mission.
“The National Assembly is determined to facilitate a meaningful review of the Constitution by the people, to ensure that the instrument continues to serve its purpose and to meet the yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians. A people-oriented Constitution will address the frictions that we are currently witnessing and this is why the National Assembly is taking very seriously this national assignment,” he said.
FORMER President Goodluck Jonathan has affirmed that Nigeria has got what it takes to overcome its present “threats and trials.” He has, therefore, urged Nigerians to be optimistic about the future of the country, despite the challenges currently being faced by citizens.
Jonathan stated this in his goodwill message to Nigerians on the occasion of the nation’s 61st Independence anniversary, stressing that the nation holds abundant promises for its citizens.
The former president encouraged the nation’s leaders and the citizens to rededicate themselves to the virtues of equity, justice and tolerance and strive to give their best for the good of the nation. He further described it as a day of freedom that provides an opportunity “to reflect on our progress, celebrate our humble attainments and ponder over those dreams that are yet to be fulfilled.”
In the message released by his media assistant, Ikechukwu Eze, Jonathan wrote: “I join all citizens to celebrate the 61st Independence anniversary of our great nation, Nigeria.
“As we mark this day of freedom, it gives us the opportunity to reflect on our progress, celebrate our humble attainments and ponder over those dreams that are yet to be fulfilled.
“We may have hiccups along the way and challenging times that might be stretching our resolve and determination to forge ahead. But we should not relent nor succumb to fear, discouraging trials and threats of today.
“The journey of nationhood is a marathon, which requires patience, resilience, tolerance and determination. The uncertainties of this time cannot be compared to the limitless promises that this nation holds for us all.”
FORMER Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, urged Nigerians to remain united despite their current existential challenges and struggles for economic survival. He also called on governments at all levels to enunciate policies that would lead to improved standards of living for the average Nigerian, even as he assured that the future ahead as a nation will be brighter and better.
In his goodwill message, issued by Paul Ibe, media adviser to Atiku, the former Vice President expressed concern at the level of disunity, intolerance and bigotry in the country, which resulted in conflicts with its attendant losses of human life and property.
According to him, disunity does not help Nigerians because it made it impossible for them to unite for a mutually beneficial common cause.
“I believe that our common interests are greater than those things that divide us. If we spend our energies on division rather than fighting for our common interests, it would be more difficult to bring about positive change to assuage the situation,” Atiku said.
THE opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reviewed the 61 years of Nigeria’s nationhood and submitted that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led All Progressives Congress (APC) administration has gone down in history as the worst in the annals of her national life.
It claimed that “the push by this administration to sink the nation is evident in our daily lives; the lies, injustices, violations, state-backed violence, impunity, nepotism, treasury looting, harsh economic policies and accommodation of terrorism, but our nation has continued to survive by the resilient spirit of Nigerians.”
The party at a press conference presided over by its national publicity secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, however, said “though the APC and its government have been pushing the nation to the brink, Nigeria, as a nation, will never fail.”
According to the opposition party, “it is painful that all the gains made by our nation since Independence in 1960 and especially during the 16 years of the PDP in office – including the entrenchment of national unity and cohesiveness, freedom and personal liberty of citizens, rule of law, credible elections, justice, equity, fairness and economic progress – the very elements of an independent state, have all been reversed by the APC and the Buhari Presidency.”
It alleged that the Buhari Presidency and the APC have on all fronts “taken our nation back to the pre-independence days with associated bondage mentality and frustration resulting in much-losing faith in the system and leaving our country in droves within the last six years.
“Is it not an irony that our nation is celebrating Independence in the face of subverted elections, a brazen crackdown on the opposition and dissenting voices as well as other suppressive acts, including the muzzling of free speech as witnessed in the ban on Twitter in Nigeria?” PDP queried.
It lamented that “as we celebrate Independence, thousands of our compatriots are falling victims to extra-judicial killings, arbitrary arrests and illegal detention in dehumanising cells, which underscore the horrible situation under President Buhari and the APC, as even profiled by Amnesty International (AI) and US Department of State.
“Is it not painful that under President Buhari, our nation has been opened up to terrorists, bandits and kidnappers, who are wantonly killing our citizens while their known apologists are enjoying official cover with one of them even holding office as a cabinet minister?” it further queried.
On the economic front, the party noted that “we can’t celebrate when President Buhari and the APC have in a space of six years, wrecked our once robust economy and turned Nigeria into the poverty capital of the world, where over 82.9 million Nigerians can no longer afford their daily meals.
“How can we celebrate when the APC has plunged our nation into economic slavery with over N33.1 trillion accumulated debt, a 33 per cent unemployment rate, collapse of productive sectors and a weakened naira from the N167 to a dollar handed over to President Buhari in 2015 to a dismal N576 to a dollar today?”
BUT the Chairman APC Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee and Governor of Yobe State, Mai Mala Buni, said Nigeria’s 61 years of Independence provides a strong source of unity and strength. The governor said the long history of integration among the various ethnic, and socio-cultural groups should be a source of unity in diversity for the country.
“At 61 years, Nigerians should concentrate on issues that unite the country rather than divisive tendencies,” he said.
Governor Buni said although Nigeria might not have reached where it wanted to be after 61 years of independence yet, we have cause to celebrate our existence as a country.
“We should remember that every country including the developed nations has their challenges, ours should not be an exception to contest our existence as a country and provoke our growth and development.”
He said as a ruling party, APC is redefining party politics in Nigeria through institutionalisation of a strong internal democracy and a bottom-up approach to give ownership of the party and power to the people. He appealed to Nigerians to support and cooperate with the Buhari administration in its commitment to build a prosperous nation.
FORMER President of the Senate, David Mark, has called on citizens to bury old prejudices to religion, tribe or ethnic leanings believed to be antithetical to development.
Mark listed the misfortunes occasioned by the 30-month-old Nigeria/Biafra civil war, several ethnoreligious conflicts and agitations in some parts of the country as unfortunate incidents hindering developments.
In his goodwill message to Nigerians by his media adviser, Paul Mumeh, he noted that the security, socio-economic and political challenges bedeviling the country demand that “we bury mundane issues of attachment to religion, ethnic or tribal leanings and come together to rescue Nigeria from the precipice.”
To this end, he tasked governments at all levels to do all that is necessary to restore hope and rebuild citizens’ trust and confidence in leadership to actualize the project in Nigeria.
IN its message yesterday, the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) noted that for the past 61 years, bad and selfish leadership has largely contributed to the unfortunate state of the country, adding that these bad leaders did not plan for the country to grow and if they did, never made efforts to implement the development plans.
In a statement titled: ‘Nigeria will Experience Showers of Blessings’ by CAN President, Rev Samson Ayokunle, he lamented that the political leaders embezzled the commonwealth of the nation and by their action, threw the citizens into unnecessary sufferings and pains.
“Unemployed youths have taken to criminalities. Youths are trying frantically to run abroad to search for a better life. Some in the process perished in the Mediterranean Sea or ended up being used as sex slaves. Some got themselves engaged in armed robbery and internet fraud, among others.
“The situation of the country appears bleak but knowing that God is not man and with him, all things are possible, this is the right time to believe that there shall be showers of blessings because some people are praying for this country.”
THE National Democratic Coalition (NADECO) has called on the United Nations, its Security Council and other global bodies concerned with the peaceful co-existence of the world to urgently fast-track their preparations to conduct variously demanded referendums to ascertain the wishes and aspirations for self-determination of various ethnic groups in Nigeria.
The group in its statement to mark Nigeria’s Independence anniversary and signed by its General Secretary, Chief Ayo Opadokun, said the call became necessary because of the agitation of various ethnic groups who have lost hope in efforts to redeem the country from drifting towards the precipice.
The pro-democracy group, blaming the 1999 Constitution for various social, political and economic challenges facing the country, expressed its support to some self-determination groups that threatened not to allow 2023 general elections to hold under the 1999 Constitution.
NADECO, however, told the international community “to accept that their failure to act timely on these legitimate demands for their intervention may be tantamount to an invitation to possible national conflagration and unmanageable national crisis, which may result into consequential deleterious situations on the West African Sub-Region, the African continent and the world in general.
“Let it be remembered that Nigeria as the most populous black nation in the world has about 200 million citizens residing in a suffocating geographical and political space, the possible reaction of the entrapped ethnic nationalities who are already overwhelmed with repression, discriminations on religion, gender, ethnicities can quickly result to national upheavals, forced dispersal and migration with their attendant global consequences.”
The group regretted that Nigeria remains an underdeveloped and retarded nation, 61 years after its independence from the British colonial government and blamed its underdevelopment on the 1999 Constitution, which the group said was imposed on Nigerians by the Military.
Blaming President Buhari for the spate of killings, maiming and kidnappings in almost all states in the country, the group alleged inability of the government to deploy modern technology, nepotism and favouritism to a particular tribe in the country for insecurity and increase in the activities of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in the country.
FRENCH President, Emmanuel Macron, has congratulated the President on the occasion of Nigeria’s Independence anniversary today. In a statement yesterday, he said: “You know my personal attachment to the relationship between France and Nigeria, the continent’s leading economic and demographic power. I firmly believe that it is in the mutual interest of our two countries to strengthen this relationship on all fronts.”
According to him, since his visit in July 2018, the ties between the two countries have been strengthened, especially in the economic field. The creation of the Franco-Nigerian Business Council will allow the birth of many structuring projects between France and Nigerian companies.
“We can do even more together because France and Nigeria share many common interests both on regional and security issues and on global issues. I hereby hope that our countries will intensify their exchanges on all these subjects.”
ALSO, the Indian President, Ram Nath Kovind, yesterday, congratulated Nigeria and its people on the celebration of the 61st Independence Day anniversary.
Reporting President Kovind’s good wishes to Nigeria, Special Adviser to President Buhari on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, said the Indian leader observed the friendly and deep-rooted ties between his country and Nigeria.
In a congratulatory letter to President Buhari, Kovind conveyed his best wishes to the Nigerian leader as well as the continued prosperity of the country.
“India and Nigeria have strong relations. Despite challenges during the pandemic, our economic relations have gained strength.”
MEANWHILE, the United States Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leonard, has pledged that President Joe Biden administration will continue to stand by Nigeria in spite of the many economic and security challenges confronting the West African nation.
The American envoy stated this in a statement titled: ‘Reflections on 61 years of U.S. – Nigerian Engagement’. Leonard said the U.S. Mission in Nigeria “recognise that security and economic concerns weigh on the minds of all Nigerians”, adding that it has been working in solidarity with the Nigerian government to address the challenges together.
