Easter message: Pope Francis prayed for end on persecution of African Christians

ITRealms:

Pope Francis prayed for an end to the persecution of Christians in his Easter Sunday address, commemorating the students massacred by Islamist militants at Garissa University in Kenya, reports Reuters.

Francis, after saying Mass for thousands of people in a rainy St. Peter's Square, delivered a mostly somber and grim "Urbi et Orbi" (to the city and the world) message.

Attacks on Christians in Africa and the Middle East have been the grim backdrop of all Holy Week ceremonies leading up to Easter.

"We ask Jesus, the victor over death, to lighten the sufferings of our many brothers and sisters who are persecuted for his name, and of all those who suffer injustice as a result of ongoing conflicts and violence - and there are many," he said.

The pope spoke as churches in Kenya, where al Shabaab gunmen massacred nearly 150 people, singling out Christians for point-blank executions, turned to armed guards to protect their congregations on the most important day of the Christian liturgical year.

"May constant prayer rise up from all people of goodwill for those who lost their lives – I think in particular of the young people who were killed last Thursday at Garissa University College in Kenya - for all who have been kidnapped, and for those forced to abandon their homes and their dear ones."

The 78-year-old Argentine pope, celebrating the third Easter of his pontificate, spoke from the central balcony of St. Peter's Basilica after saying a Mass below for tens of thousands of people wearing plastic ponchos and holding umbrellas against the driving rain.

Calling for peace in Libya, where last February Islamic State militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians, the pope called for an end to "the present absurd bloodshed and all barbarous acts of violence".

He prayed for peace in Syria, Iraq and Yemen, Sudan, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria, where Boko Haram Islamist militants have also targeted Christian churches.

"We ask for peace and freedom for the many men and women subject to old and new forms of enslavement on the part of criminal individuals and groups," he said.

"Peace and liberty for the victims of drug dealers, who are often allied with the powers who ought to defend peace and harmony in the human family. And we ask peace for this world subjected to arms dealers, who make their money from the blood of men and women" he said.

Just about the only positive part in the pope's address was a reference to the deal reached in Switzerland last week between Iran and the international community on a framework for a nuclear accord.

"In hope we entrust to the merciful Lord the framework recently agreed to in Lausanne, that it may be a definitive step toward a more secure and fraternal world," he said.

+Reuters @ITRealms @ITRealms

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Pix: Pope Francis

Election fraud: APGA wants colluding INEC officials arrested

ITRealms:

The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) has called on the law enforcement agents in Nigeria to arrest officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who colluded with some unscrupulous politicians to rig the national assembly elections a fortnight ago across the country, reports ITRealms.

Mr. Okwukwe Ibiam, the national publicity secretary, APGA, told ITRealms that those INEC officials who aligned with dishonest politicians to commit electoral fraud during the presidential and national assembly on March 28, 2015 in Anambra, Abia, Enugu, Nassarawa, Imo and parts of Ebonyi States. 

These officials, Ibiam said in a press statement made available to ITRealms, are a cankerworm to society and must be uprooted if Nigerian democracy is to flourish, describing it as a shame that people entrusted to guard and preserve the society's confidence at the polls willingly sabotaged same.

“Talk about tampering and stealing what was kept in your trust. Is this Long-Neck or INEC?” he wondered. 

APGA insisted that it’s shameful for INEC officials, who willingly colluded with Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) officials at the Local Government headquarters across Nigeria, to re-write the official election results from the polling booths which favored other participating political parties in the elections held Saturday 28/3/15.

“They - INEC officials, should be arrested for treason, knowingly and intentionally inciting the Nigerian voter and public to unrest,” he said.

APGA, he said, therefore call on the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega to remove them, “Now and hand them over to law enforcement agents for proper prosecution.”

Ibiam stressed that those failing INEC officials have sabotaged the public trust.

“There is nothing solemn about their oaths to their jobs or the Nigerian public. They may not continue.  We, at the APGA will appeal that they not be entertained in our politics,” he said.

Chuks Egbuna/GEE +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)
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Nigeria can no longer play catchup with technology – Olashore

ITRealms:

… Plans iPad deployment in classrooms

The Chairman, Board of Governors of Olashore International School, Prince Bimbo Olashore, has said that Nigeria cannot continue to play catchup with technologies, just as his school has advanced plans to deploy iPads in classrooms, reports ITRealms.

Speaking at the 2015 Apple iPad Summit organized by Core Group Africa in Johannesburg, South Africa, Prince Olashore said that Nigeria cannot also wait for technology transfer any more but to do something about being competitive with the rest of the world, hence his school took the path it has taken to empower teachers and students technologically.

“We have to leapfrog to catch up and get our young Nigerians prepared for the new technology driven world. We are pleased to be making substantial investment in this direction,” he said.

The iPads in Classrooms programme is expected to be achieved by setting up Local Area Network (LAN) distribution in classrooms and hostels, wireless distribution, indoor wireless device with high frequency, and firewalls to manage internet access on the iPad.

In addition, Prince Olashore informed ITRealms that they have plans to deploy audio and visual multimedia systems in the classrooms that will support the iPad integration, Learning Management System (LMS) that will not use the Internet and a Mac Server for Mobile Device Management to manage the iPads.

Equally speaking, the school Principal, Mr Derek Smith also said that Olashore International will also review its overall technology framework, through a curriculum mapping program, faster internet connection, a new mobile device management (MDM) to check unproductive online presence. 

“It will also make professional development for teachers mandatory, constant and purposeful, and finally, reinforce Students’ responsibility in taking charge of their lives,” he said.

The Apple Summit was aimed at running a successful students’ centered classroom, integrating technology in the class for differentiation, putting learning at the center of the class not the technology, enabling a successful flipping of classroom, maximizing the learning time rather than the teaching time, encouraging collaborative learning system as well as making learning more experiential and interactive for the students.

Resource persons were invited from all over the world and most especially North America to facilitate the different sessions which catered for different levels of involvement in the deployment of iPad in the teaching learning process. 

One of such facilitators were Kathleen Monnin, Assistant Professor of Literacy at the University of North Florida, Tom Daccord, Tellagami, Beth Holland, amongst others. 

The Summit also looked at how the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition Model (SAMR model) in which a progression of the adopters of education technology often follow as they progress through teaching and learning can be adopted.

+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) 

 
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Pix: Mr. Derek Smith Olashore

ITU commences voting on Young Innvovators competition 2015

ITRealms:

Voting has picked up on high gear for the 2015 young innovators competition, as Knowledge Chikundi, an undergraduate student at the University of Zimbabwe, topping the chart with 8273 points and 369 votes, reports ITRealms.

The competition which is powered by Crowdicity, is open to young people anywhere in the world to engage in the challenge, contribute, comment, refine, and evolve ideas.

As gathered by ITRealms, the Young Innovators Competition is an annual ITU Telecom Initiative aimed at talented young social entrepreneurs using technology creatively to a range of real-life developmental challenges.

ITRealms also gathered that this years annual challenge seeks most exciting ideas or start-ups in response to four developmental challenges running one after the other in the months between now and ITU Telecom World 2015 in Budapest, Hungary.

The challenge 1, ITRealms gathered is centered on Entrepreneurship, while the deadline for the application has been slated to close on the May 7, 2015 at 12noon.

Daniel Nsolibe/GEE

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Data users on GSM networks now 81.8m, MTN still leads with 39,173,123 - NCC

ITRealms:

The number of Internet users on the Global System for Mobile (GSM) communications networks in the country has now increased to 81,892,84 as at January 2015, according to the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), reports ITRealms.

This increase arose from a total of 76,322, 802 in 2014 to 81,892,840 by January 2015, thus an increase of 5,570,038 internet users on the networks as MTN still leading the pack with 39,173,123 data users.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports weekend in Lagos this was contained in NCC Monthly Internet Subscriber Data, sourced by NAN.

This, NAN report said showed that from the 81,892,840 internet users recorded in January, MTN Nigeria led the table with 39,173,123 customers browsing the internet on its network.

It stated that MTN had an increase of 556,386 internet subscribers in January, after it recorded 38,616,737 users in the month of December 2014.

Globacom came second on the internet usage table, recording 17,671,405 subscribers surfing the net with its network in January.

Also the data revealed that Globacom gained a total of 532,085 additional internet users on its network, up from 17,139,320 users in December 2014.

Airtel Nigeria, it said was third on the roll with 14,969,924 internet users in January, as against 14,371,987 customers recorded in December.

The data showed that internet users on the Airtel Nigeria network also increased by 597,937 in January.

It disclosed that Etisalat was last on the table with 10,078,388 of its customers browsing the internet in January, compared to the 6,194,758 users in December, an increase of 3,883,630 users.

The NCC data also revealed that the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) operators (Multi-Links and Visafone) had a joint total of 153,798 internet users on their networks in January.

It showed, however, that the only surviving two CDMA networks in the country listed a loss of 526 internet subscribers in the month under review from the 154,324 users they recorded in December.

The data stated that Visafone recorded a decrease of 311 customers surfing the internet in January, reducing the number to 153,059 compared to the 153,370 users in the month of December.

It said that Multi-Links had 739 internet users in January, hence losing 215 customers from the December record of 954 users.

The data further showed that in spite of the decrease on the part of the CDMA networks, Nigerians were gradually embracing data as the next revolution in the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.

NAN +Remmy Nweke (ITRealms)

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IG Police Abba assures of security during Easter

ITRealms:

The Inspector-General of Police, Mr Suleiman Abba, has assured Nigerians that the force has adopted multifarious security strategies to ensure hitch-free celebrations of Easter across the country, reports News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Abba gave the assurance on Thursday in Abuja in a message issued by the Force spokesman Mr Emmanuel Ojukwu to mark Easter.

He urged the public to avail the police with useful information that would assist it to track down criminal elements and expose persons with ``questionable character.’’

The I-G, who felicitated with Christians on the occasion of Easter, called on Christian faithful to commemorate the resurrection of Jesus Christ by opening their hearts to issues of peace, forgiveness and harmonious co-existence.

He urged Christians to celebrate Easter within the ambit of the law.

While appealing to Nigerians to respect the nation’s diversities, Abba urged them to cooperate with security agents especially as April 11 elections draw nearer.

Meanwhile, the FCT police command said it had deployed personnel and equipment to strategic areas of the territory to guarantee security throughout the Easter period.

This is contained in a statement issued on Thursday by the spokesman of the command, ASP Manzah Anjuguri.

The statement said the Commissioner of Police in the territory, Mr Wilson Inalegwu, had ordered Divisional Police Officers and Area Commanders to strengthen security around critical areas of the territory.

It listed the areas to include shopping malls, gardens, recreation centres, places of worship, motor parks and other areas that attract large gatherings.

The statement said the measure was part of proactive strategy adopted by the Command to protect lives and property for seamless celebration.

It listed some dedicated lines which the residents of the territory could use to report incidents of crime in any part of the territory.

The lines are 08032003913, 08061581938, 07057337653 and 08028940883.
(NAN)

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