10 Ways to Impact Your Community

Do you dream about making a positive spiritual impact on your community as an individual, a group or a church? If your answer was a yes, you might find the following tips compiled by Tearfund, a leading relief and development charity useful. These suggestions cover crucial areas of learning and development for church projects and Christian organisations that want to make a lasting contribution to the fight against material and spiritual poverty, according to Tearfund.
1.     Encourage Spiritual Passion – Fundamental to giving our best to our communities is keeping faith at the heart of what we do. In other words, put God first in all you do!
2.     Aim for Professional Excellence – God inspires and equips us to give people our absolute best. Set and maintain the highest standards in your work; be prepared to undertake training and gain qualifications where necessary; be strategic in your planning and delivery; and ensure your team are thriving and fulfilling their capabilities.
3.     Be Strategic – Being strategic encompasses so much more than planning. It’s about taking time to continually seek God’s wisdom about the project; turning your ‘big picture’ into a detailed workable plan with achievable objectives; and being able to monitor, evaluate, reflect, adapt and change as you go.
4.     Create Sustainability – To be around for the long haul, it’s vital to focus on sustainability rather than short-term fundraising needs. This means: finding ways to sustain and nurture the vision; being strategic; nurturing your team and building in safeguards so you/they don’t burn out; and exploring ideas to create reliable income streams that help to outwork your vision.
5.     Nurture Your Team – Nurturing your team goes beyond just investing in your staff and volunteers so that they give a good return. Developing your team means having a genuine Christ-like love and concern for them.
6.     Protect Against Burnout – The more you do in your community, the more needs you will see and the more demands can be placed on your time. To make sure you don’t overstretch yourself and end up burnt out, safeguards should be put in place for you and your team to ensure your physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.
7.     Involve Your Community – Involving your community in a serious, considered and on-going way goes far beyond just asking them what their needs are. Making a long-term commitment to community involvement includes finding ways to maintain relationships with key stakeholders and blessing others who are working like you to bless your community.
8.     Communicate Your Christian Distinctive – Your project will stand out from many other services in your community because it is prompted by your faith. This means working on how to explain your vision orally and in writing. Ensure that your words and deeds communicate the same thing.
9.     Sow Into Others – As you seek to bless your community, be ready to encourage, empower and equip other Christians, churches and projects in your area to help transform lives together. You can support others financially, with advice and guidance, through prayer and friendship, and with training.
10.  Keep The Heart Right – Keep your heart right in all you do. To do this, you need to stay focused on God and get strength from Him, ensure you’re getting sufficient rest time, find ways to deal with disappointment, frustration and fatigue, be accountable to others, and stay in community and not get isolated.

FG vows to fulfill agreement With ASUU

Minister of Education, Professor Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, Thursday, assured that the federal government would henceforth endeavour to fulfill every agreement reached with the Academic Staff Union of the Universities, ASUU. While appreciating the union for its understanding of the federal government’s position to call off the strike, Rufa’i  reiterated government readiness to fulfill every agreement entered into with the academic body.
According to her, “government is not in any way contemplating of backing back with terms discussed with ASUU and other unions of the tertiary institutions. … and that anything discussed and agreed we  are certain that we will do that.
The minister however, thanked  President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan for his support throughout the negotiating period during which government came to terms to the demands of ASUU thus putting an end to the lingering impasse. She also commended the efforts of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), and that of the National Assembly in resolving the misunderstanding.
On how government intends to raise the N100bn promised to universities Prof Rufa’i disclosed that there were some other accruable interventions from the Tertiary Education Trust Fund, TETFund, Nigerna Nationa Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN and ICT intervention from the ministry of Communication and its parastatals.

NIGERIA: SAME OLD SONG

NIGERIA: SAME OLD SONG

The promise of spending savings from subsidy removal on infrastructure and social safety nets has been presented as an anesthesia by every administration since subsidy removal was introduced into the national lexicon in 1986.

Former military president Ibrahim Babangida premiered it, when he claimed that at 23kobo per litre, petrol in Nigeria was too cheap, even cheaper than the price of a soft drink. Babangida explained that government was subsidizing petroleum products and that there was a need for that to stop so that the money saved could be used for infrastructural development. By the time he left in 1993, Babangida has raised pump price of petrol to 70k per litre. But the country was no better in terms of infrastructure. As recently revealed by former president Olusegun Obasanjo, there was no new investment in the Nigerian power sector throughout Babangida’s eight years in office. Ernest Shonekan, who succeeded Babangida, adopted the same excuse, raising the price per litre of petrol to N5 per litre from 70kobo.

In a move to sell himself to the distrusting public, the late General Sanni Abacha, Shonekan’s successor, slashed the pump price to N3.25kobo. But less than one year in office, Abacha also returned with the same argument. In October 1994, he increased the pump price of petrol to N11.00. He announced that “Freed subsidy” will be invested in infrastructure for the “masses” for which purpose he set up the Petroleum Trust Fund, PTF. The PTF, headed by General Muhammadu Buhari, attracted controversy aplenty, with allegations its interventions were concentrated in the northern part of the country. And except for the few road it constructed and facilitation of acquisition of buses on hire purchase basis by the transport unions in the guise of mass transit, the PTF did not leave any enduring legacy.

In fact, it was under Abacha that the railway system finally collapsed. Abacha’s successor, General Abdusalami Abubakar, raised the price of petrol to N25. But he reduced it to N20 in January 1999, following pressure from organized labour.

Then came Obasanjo. Under the pretext of freeing funds for investments in infrastructure, encouraging investments in the downstream sector of the oil industry and ending waste and corruption associated with subsidizing petroleum products more than 10 times during his eight years in office.

This was in spite of regular resistance by labour/civil society coalition. Obasanjo later adopted the trick of announcing an outrageous increase in prices, waiting for labour and the civil society to threaten mass action and then offering a marginal reduction. At the end of his tenure in 2007, petrol was selling for N75 per litre. But the promise of improved infrastructure did not materialize. If anything, obasanjo left the country’s infrastructure considerably worse state than when he took over in 1999.

Therefore the President Jonathan’s promise to invest savings from removal of subsidy on petroleum products is justifiably greeted with “WE HAVE HEARD IT BEFORE”.