France: Le Pen accused of embezzlement ahead of election runoff

French prosecutors are looking into a EU report which accuses far-right candidate Marine Le Pen and her associates of embezzling over €600,000.

Far-right leader Marine Le Pen and her aides allegedly misappropriated EU funds while serving in the European Parliament

With a week to go before far-right candidate Marine Le Pen squares off against incumbent Emmanuel Macron in the presidential election runoff, the nationalist politician faces a potential embezzlement scandal.

On Sunday, Paris prosecutors told the DPA news agency they were studying the accusations against Le Pen and her party contained in a report from the European Union's anti-fraud office OLAF. Separately,  a source in the European Parliament told the AFP news agency that the parliament will try to recover the money owed by Marine le Pen.

What is Le Pen suspected of?

OLAF indicates that the nationalist politician embezzled nearly €137,000 ($148,000) in EU funds when she was a lawmaker in the European Parliament between 2004 and 2017.

The agency alleged that Le Pen and others used the EU funds for national political purposes, personal expenses or services that would benefit commercial companies close to her Rassemblement National (National Rally) party.

The funds were also allegedly used by the former far-right grouping in the European Parliament, Europe of Nations and Freedom (ENF).

The report also names three former lawmakers from Le Pen's party — her father Jean-Marie, her former partner Louis Aliot and the party's former vice president Bruno Gollnisch.

The three are said to have embezzled a total of €486,000, redirecting it for for national policy purposes or to support service providers that are close to the party.

None are accused of profiting directly.

Part of the OLAF reports was published Saturday by Mediapart, the investigative news site.

How has Le Pen reacted to the accusations?

Le Pen's lawyer Rodolphe Bosselut, who is quoted in the Mediapart report, denied the accusations, raising suspicions over the "timing" of the report.

He said the presidential hopeful reserved the right to take legal action against anyone linked to the party who may have committed misconduct without her knowledge.

The attorney added that Le Pen "has not been summoned by any French judicial authority" and slammed the failure to send him or his client the final OLAF report.

The investigation was opened in 2016, Bosselut said, and Le Pen was questioned in writing by post in March 2021.

National Rally president Jordan Bardella told Europe 1 radio that the French public "will not be fooled by attempts of the European Union and the European institutions (...) to interfere in the presidential campaign and harm Marine Le Pen." 

He said his party had filed two legal complaints against OLAF, and that it would be filing a third in response to the report.

Aliot, who is now mayor of the southern French city of Perpignan, also denied the accusations in comments made to broadcaster Franceinfo on Sunday.

Previous embezzlement case pending

The embezzlement accusations are not the first against Le Pen and her party.

Since June 2017, Le Pen has been under investigation on suspicion of having given party members fake jobs as assistants at the European Parliament.

She is accused of "embezzling public funds" and "complicity" in this crime as part of the judicial investigation.

Macron remains in the lead

Macron, a pro-European Union centrist, won the first round of the presidential election on April 10, with Le Pen coming second, setting up a similar runoff battle as in 2017.

The pair are due to clash in a live TV debate on Wednesday evening.

Macron is seen winning the second round with a 55.5% share of the vote, according to a poll published Saturday by Ipsos-Sopra Steria Poll For France Info And Le Parisien-Aujourd'hui En France.

However, he must still convince enough supporters of socialist candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon — who came third in the first round — to support him, rather than abstaining or spoiling their ballot.

Le Pen has softened her party's anti-immigration image and sought to position herself as the candidate that will solve the country's cost of living crisis.

mm/dj (AFP, dpa, Reuters)

DW RECOMMENDS

The rise of mercenary armies in Africa

More African countries are turning to foreign security companies to protect leaders or deploy them in conflict zones. However, criticism of the use of mercenaries, who some accuse of impunity, is growing louder.

A number of African leaders are opting for foreign private security firms for protection

They protect influential African leaders and their properties, secure foreign investments, and intervene in intra-African conflicts — usually without regard for losses.

Foreign private military companies are being deployed in more and more crisis-ridden countries in Africa.

But many mercenaries do not shy away from crimes and human rights violations, according to a recently published study by the Group for Research and Information on Peace and Security (GRIP), an independent research institute based in Brussels.

"Private military companies have increased their power and influence in many African countries over the past few years," Amandine Dusoulier, author of the GRIP study, told DW.

She warned that in some African countries, the [mercenary groups] had become a kind of state within a state, thereby threatening the countries' sovereignty.

Russian private security company Wagner Group has increased its presence in Africa

Shadowy mercenary missions

It is still difficult to estimate the number of private soldiers on the African continent. Many of these companies operate in the shadows, says Jade Andrzejewski of the French Observatory for International Relations, OERI. "There is no detailed information about private military companies operating internationally."

Andrzejewski told DW that the companies often operate unofficially and camouflage their activities.

The shadowy Russian mercenary group, Wagner, reportedly working in Libya, Mozambique, Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali, is the main object of criticism.

Wherever Wagner mercenaries appear, they make negative headlines. But other private military and security companies — including those from the US and Europe — are also active in Africa and do not always take human rights seriously either, according to the GRIP study published in March 2022.

The US' Blackwater private security firm was accused of human rights violations in Iraq

UN concerns

Last September, a United Nations working group also expressed concern about "the increasing involvement of private military and security providers in humanitarian operations."

The UN group called for a "binding international legal framework" for private security companies.

In its report, the UN working group recalls human rights violations committed in the past by private military companies in various regions of the world. 

For example, in 2007, guards from the US security firm Blackwater fired indiscriminately on Iraqi civilians and killed 14 people, including children.

These atrocities made international headlines. But similar atrocities are still being committed, including and especially in Africa, the UN working group said.

"In Africa, the activities of mercenaries continue to be a matter of serious concern," said United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres on the occasion of the working group's report.

The African Union Commission Chairman Moussa Faki Mahamat stressed that the fight against mercenaries must be seen in the context of promoting peace and security on the continent.

AU President Mahamat says mercenary groups must contribute to Africa's peace

Wagner, DAG, Asgaard & Co.

The list of accusations against private security companies is long: Mercenaries from the Russian Wagner Group have repeatedly committed serious human rights violations against civilians in the Central African Republic, among other places, according to the United Nations document.

The Dyck Advisory Group (DAG) is also in the pillory. The Mozambican government had hired the South African security firm to combat Al-Shabaab jihadist violence in Cabo Delgado in the north of the country.

The UN paper said that instead DAG operatives killed civilians indiscriminately in June 2020 and did not distinguish between civilian and military targets.

US companies CACI and Academi are among the most prominent private military companies present on the African continent, apart from Russia's Wagner Group. 

In addition, the French company Secopex, Great Britain's Aegis Defence Services and G4S are also active in Africa. Others are Omega Consulting Group from Ukraine, South Africa's Dyck Advisory Group, and from Germany, Xeless.

Germany's mercenary involvement

OERI expert Andrzejewski says most mercenary companies hide their activities

Asgaard, another German private security company, recruits mainly former Bundeswehr soldiers and police officers for security duties. This company is mainly active in Sudan, Libya, Mauritania and Egypt.

The private security industry has a long history on the African continent, says GRIP researcher Dusoulier, whether in the Sahel, Mali, or the Central African Republic.

"This state of affairs is fostered by two factors: the weakness of government institutions in some countries and the continent's wealth of mineral resources," Dusoulier points out.

The OERI expert listed Angola, Sierra Leone, G5 Sahel nations, Sudan, Chad, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and CAR as some of the African countries that have resorted to the services of private mercenary forces in the past.

But criticism of using mercenaries in Africa is growing. At the African Union summit in early February, the AU commissioner for political affairs, peace, and security, Bankole Adeoye of Nigeria, called for the "complete exclusion of mercenaries from the African continent."

This article was translated from German.

Edited by: Chrispin Mwakideu

THE THREE ABRAHAMIC SECTS
Passover, Easter, Ramadan 2022 fall simultaneously

In a rare conjunction, three major holidays of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are occurring at the same time this year.



The three largest monotheistic religions will be celebrating in Jerusalem this weekend

This Friday, Christians commemorate the crucifixion of Jesus, and on Sunday celebrate Easter, marking their belief in his resurrection. On Friday, Jewish people celebrate the eve of Pesach, commonly called Passover, which commemorates the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and the end of their slavery.

And this weekend as well, Muslims around the world mark another Friday, their weekly holiday, within the month of Ramadan, which began on April 2 and ends on May 2. This coincidence of dates is unusual, especially as far as the proximity of the Islamic Ramadan to the Christian Lent or to the dates of Pesach and Easter is concerned.

This rare conjunction of holidays is possible because unlike the Christian calendar, which is determined by the course of the sun and is widely used in the Western world, the Islamic calendar is aligned with the moon and the lunar year. Twelve months in the solar year last 365 days, in the lunar year, on the other hand, only 354 days. Thus the Islamic cycle of holidays moves across the Western calendar over the course of a good three decades.

PASSOVER IN PICTURES: JEWS OBSERVE HOLIDAY OF DELIVERANCE
Passover: A freedom celebration
Passover, also called Pesach, is one of the major Jewish holidays. The week-long holiday begins at sundown on the first day. It follows the lunar calendar, meaning it takes place every year on different dates, but it usually falls in mid-March or April. It celebrates the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt under the leadership of the Old Testament prophet Moses.
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'Siblings in humanity'

The shorter course of the year offers Muslims "the chance to experience Ramadan as well as other festivals in different seasons and different climatic conditions," the spokesperson for Germany's Coordination Council of Muslims, Abdassamad El Yazidi, told DW. At the same time, it ensures that the Muslim holy days coincide over time with various holy days of Christians and Jews. "That should remind us that we are all siblings in humanity and must work together for good."

The Jewish holiday of Pesach and the Easter date of the Western churches, on the other hand, always occur quite close together in early spring. But they don't often fall on precisely the same date. In 2022, Passover begins on April 16, and the Christian Holy Week — which began on April 10 on Palm Sunday — climaxes from Maundy Thursday evening on April 14 to Easter Sunday morning. The holiday covers Jesus' "Passion," from the last supper with his disciples to the celebration of the resurrection.

The difference is due to the fact that the Christian calendar dates Easter to Sunday since the year 325 CE, more specifically to the first Sunday after the spring full moon. In the Jewish calendar, on the other hand, Passover can begin on any day of the week.

TRADITIONS AND RITUALS OF RAMADAN
Ramadan: Islam's holiest month
Every year, millions of practicing Muslims across the world fast, pray and give alms in observance of Islam's holiest month, the exact dates of which change each year. From firing off cannons to lunar sightings, DW explores how Muslims mark the occasion and what it means to the faithful.
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Jerusalem celebrates

Nowhere in the world do the celebrations of multiple monotheistic religions come together as closely as in Jerusalem. One can feel how all three religions are "looking forward to these days," German Benedictine monk Nikodemus Schnabel told DW. In what he described as an "intense time" there, "the city literally vibrates with the various pilgrims, as if there was a need to catch up after the coronavirus, to celebrate outside again and to come together for the festivals," said the monk, who has lived on the outskirts of Jerusalem's Old City for many years.

Ultimately, according to Schnabel, the common experience of a pilgrimage festival connects the religions. Christian churchgoers parade in prayer through the Old City for several days in a row. On Friday morning, Muslims go to the mosque on the Temple Mount for prayer. And during these days, many Jews are drawn to pray at the Wailing Wall — the ruins of the Western Wall of the Second Jewish Temple in antiquity. The location is considered by many Jews to be one of the holiest sites to pray at, due to its proximity to the nearby Holy of Holies, the most sacred part of the ancient temple. In view of the political tensions in the area, such days are always a challenge for all security forces in the city.

GERMANY'S BEST-LOVED EASTER TRADITIONS

The decorated Easter egg

Germans love painting Easter eggs. The Sorbs, a cultural minority in Lower Lusatia, Brandenburg, are famous for their art of beautifully decorating eggs with wax. You can learn more about the Slavic minority and their customs at the Spreewald Museum in Lübbenau.

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Easter in Orthodoxy

After this weekend, however, the Easter celebrations are not over. In the Orthodox churches and some of the Eastern churches associated with the Catholic Church, the commemoration of the death and resurrection of Jesus is not held until the following weekend.

The reason for the differing dates is that in 1582, the Eastern Christians, under Pope Gregory XIII, opted for a calendar reform that shifted liturgical timing towards the Gregorian calendar. Those traditions now mark the beginning of spring differently.

The Greek, Russian, and other Eastern Christian Orthodox churches are celebrating Easter this year a week after the Western Christians. And in Germany, Ukrainian-speaking communities are preparing for a large crowd. Churches are expecting many Christians who have fled the Russian invasion in recent weeks.

This article was originally written in German.

SEE 

 https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2007/04/passover-song.html

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Pagan Origins of Easter 

 

Decolonizing Politics and Theories from the Abya Yala

Fernando David Márquez Duarte and Víctor Alejandro Espinoza Valle

Free PDF

Amazon (US, UK, CA, FR, DE)

And all good book stores

This book addresses, from a decolonial approach, various aspects of the original history of Abya Yala. Together, the chapters provide a critical view of the colonization of Indigenous Peoples that not only explains social or economic subjugation of Latin American people, but also makes it clear that colonization is ontological and epistemological. It is a way of conceiving history and memory as subjugation imposed by those who set themselves up as lords and masters of the land and of the social and cultural heritage of Latin America. Thus, colonization must be conceived as a totality. Therefore, deconstructing the hegemonic vision of history is necessary in order to recognize the ancestral rights of Indigenous communities. The decolonial vision is radical in the sense that it goes beyond the European descendants or mestizo visions from which the explanation of Latin American development was constructed. This book aims to investigate the roots of hegemonic thought and provide theoretical and empirical tools to imagine other readings of Abya Yala.

Find out more about E-IR’s range of open access books

Table of contents

Introduction – Aura Cumes

PART ONE: THEORETICAL DISCUSSIONS

Decoloniality And Contemporary Regionalism in Alianza Bolivariana Para Los Pueblos De Nuestra América (Alba) – Alina Ribeiro & Marina Scotelaro

Decolonizing South-South Cooperation: An Analytical Framework Founded on Post-Development and the Common – Marina Bolfarine Caixeta & Maria Do Carmo Reboucas Dos Santos

Armed Actors in the Colombian Conflict: State Vs Armed Groups – Deisy Milena Sorzano Rodriguez & Etienne Mulume Oderhwa

Decolonizing Environmental Politics: Sumak Kawsay as a Possible Moral Foundation for Green Policies – Valeria Victoria Rodríguez Morales

Latin American Critical Economic Thinking and the Labor Market – Rocio Arredondo & Javier Castellon

Latin American Antiphilosophies – Christina Soto Van Der Plas

PART TWO: PRAXIS ANALYSIS

The Crime of Defending a River: Domination, Racism, and Structural Violence in Guatemala – Miguel Alejandro Saquimux Contreras

Decolonising Social Movements in Latin America: An Approach Over the Internationalization of the Landless Workers Movement – Ellen Monielle Do Vale Silva & Guilherme De Lima Souza

Messages From the Meek: Dynamic Resistances at The Edge of Amazonian Colonization and Capitalism – Christian Ferreira Crevels

Development Or Bem Viver? The Xukuru Do Ororubá People’s Vision of Sacred Agriculture as a Counter-Hegemonic Proposal for the Relationship Between Human Beings and Nature – Iran Neves Ordonio, Carla Ladeira Pimentel Águas & Marcos Moraes Valença

‘El pueblo manda y elg obierno obedece’: Decolonising Politics and Constructing Worlds in The Everyday Through Zapatista Autonomy – Sebastián Granda Henao

Cultural And Artistic Expressions of Haitians on Mexicali, Baja California: The Road Toward Interculturalism – Kenia María Ramírez Meda & Adriana Teresa Moreno-Gutiérrez

---

About the editors

Fernando David Márquez Duarte is a Mexican decolonial activist and thinker from the Abya Yala. He has a BA in International Relations with Honorific Mention from UABC, as well as a MSc in Regional Development from El Colegio de la Frontera Norte (COLEF) with a CONACYT scholarship. He is currently enrolled in the PhD Political Science program at the University of California Riverside (UCR) with a Fulbright García Robles scholarship and the Dean’s Fellowship. He has more than 5 years of teaching experience in different universities in México and the USA, and is currently teaching at UCR. He has academic articles published in indexed journals of México, Brazil, Ecuador, Russia, Germany and the UK, as well as book chapters in México and Spain. He has worked advising and supporting Indigenous groups such as the Triquis and Cucapáh Indigenous communities in Baja California, México, regarding Indigenous rights and political participation. He has also worked with the Resistance in defense of water in Baja California with a participatory action-research project. He is proficient in Spanish, English, Portuguese and Náhuatl languages.

Victor Alejandro Espinoza is a tenured professor at El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. He has also taught at UABC and Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (UAM). He is a member of the SNI (National Researchers System). He holds a Master’s and PhD in Political Science from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and in Political Sociology from the Complutense University of Madrid. In 2019–2020 he was a visiting professor at the Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies at the University of California at San Diego, and in 2008 he was visiting fellow at the Mexico Institute, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has served as the director of journals Frontera Norte and the Revista Mexicana de Estudios Electorales and is the author of ten books and the editor of ten books. He has published 5 working papers, 65 book chapters and 40 articles in academic journals. He has made TV appearances on Novedades, Diario 29, La Crónica, El Mexicano & Zeta. He is a contributor for El Nacional, El Financiero and Excélsior – and 

Florida husband says wife killed in hit-and-run was rescuing turtle from busy road

By Johanna Chisholm

The Independent

 1 day ago

A Florida woman was attempting to save a turtle crossing the road when she was struck and killed in an alleged hit-and-run earlier this month, her husband told Fox 35 Orlando .

According to Florida Highway Patrol, Virginia Celli-Olivi had stepped out of her SUV at approximately 12.45pm on 5 April to rescue a turtle that was attempting to cross Curry Ford Road in Orange County , Florida.

A box truck driving down the same road allegedly crashed into the 57-year-old and her car as she was outside of her vehicle.

"She was doing something that she had done numerous times before, rescuing a turtle," said her husband, Rick Parrish, in an interview with Fox 35. He added that he believed that she was able to save the turtle, and was about to hop back into her car when the deadly crash occurred.

“[She] was coming back around behind the car to go on out and get into the driver’s side when she was struck,” Mr Parrish said.

The man driving the truck, Miguel Valero Gonzalez, 30, fled the scene of the crash, but was followed by a witness who’d seen the fatal crash, Florida Highway Patrol said in a statement.

The witness, they said, followed the box truck until a nearby gas station, where the 30-year-old suspect was apprehended by local authorities.

Mr Parrish, who when told about the witness’ efforts to not let the 30-year-old driver get away, told Fox 35 he was “very appreciative” of the “gentleman who did that”.

Recalling his wife’s life to the outlet, Mr Parrish explained how the former Venezuelan sociology professor had big plans on the horizon, including opening her own translation business.

“Coming to the realisation that I’ll never get to talk to her, never hold her hand - none of that - that’s the hardest part,” he said in an interview in their central Florida home.

The accused hit-and-run suspect was arraigned on 6 April where a judge set the man’s bond at $18,000 and revealed to the court that he was driving without a licence on the day of the 5 April crash.

Several organisations throughout the Orange County region began sharing their condolences for the former sociology professor, including the Venezuela USA Foundation, the Venezuelan American Caucus and the New Miami Hispanic Caucus.

“We mourn the loss of Virginia Celli Olivo, who to the Venezuelan American Caucus was a leader, a colleague and above all, a friend,” wrote the American Caucus in a Facebook post.

https://tinyurl.com/4u6v6ta5

COMMONWEALTH FOR ALL

Portrait of Thomas Paine by Laurent Dabos. 

Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Wikipedia Commons

The Thomas Paine Tax Plan – OpEd

 April 16, 2022

By Sam Pizzigati*

The great pamphleteer of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine, had much more on his mind than independence from the British.

Paine spent his life, Jeremy Bearer-Friend and Vanessa Williamson write in a new paper, advocating for a democratic “commonwealth” that shared the wealth. He wanted to free people “from domination both political and economic.”

In particular, Paine believed that a wealth tax on grand private fortunes could prevent the emergence of an anti-democratic elite. This tax season, over two centuries later, we may finally have a president who’s taking Paine to heart.

In its new budget proposal, the Biden administration is calling for a new “Billionaire Minimum Income Tax.” The White House isn’t calling this proposal a “wealth tax,” but we should.

Under Biden’s plan, Americans worth over $100 million would be expected to pay an annual tax of at least 20 percent on their total income — including any increases in the value of their stocks, bonds, and other liquid assets.

These liquid assets make up the bulk of every billionaire fortune, but increases in their value go totally untaxed until their wealthy owners decide to sell them off. That gives “ultra-high-net-worth households,” the White House points out, the ability to have their gains “go untaxed for decades or generations.”

Let’s take the example of a CEO who pockets $20 million a year in salary. He might pay a 20 percent tax on that $20 million.

But if this executive also holds stocks worth $10 billion and those stocks gain 10 percent in value — an extra $1 billion — then the vast majority of our CEO’s real income would go completely untaxed.

Under Biden’s plan, that CEO would have to pay taxes on his CEO pay and all his stock gains. That would hike his federal tax tab from $4 million to $204 million.

America’s 700 or so billionaires, the Biden administration notes, saw “their wealth increase by $1 trillion” last year. Yet current law has billionaires paying “just 8 percent of their total realized and unrealized income in taxes.”

That’s right: Billionaires pay at a lower overall rate than average Americans.

“Under current law, when an American worker earns a dollar of wages, that dollar is taxed as they earn it,” the White House explains. “But when a billionaire earns income because their investments increase in value, that gain is too often never taxed at all.”

Firefighters and teachers, adds the White House, “can pay double” the rate billionaires pay.

The Biden tax plan is actually taking much the same approach that Tom Paine took with a wealth tax proposal he first put forward in 1792, tax historians Bearer-Friend and Williamson argue.

Under Paine’s plan, the pair calculate, today’s billionaires would pay a tax of about 3.5 percent of their personal fortunes during normal market years. That figure is remarkably close to the tax rates that appear in wealth tax proposals that Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have advanced.

Biden’s plan doesn’t take that big a bite. But it does represent a significant step toward taxing the wealth of America’s wealthiest, says Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman.

Mega-billionaires Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Elon Musk, Zucman reminds us, together paid just $1.5 billion in federal income taxes over the five-year period that ended in 2018. Under the Biden proposal, this trio would pay at least 100 times more over the next decade or so.

Paine believed that extreme wealth undermines “the ability of citizens to choose their leaders,” Bearer-Friend and Vanessa Williamson argue, a condition that many will easily recognize today. Freedom, in Paine’s view, “meant both lifting the poor from penury and dependence” and eliminating the “vicious influence” of fiercely concentrated wealth.

THOMAS PAINE COMMONSENSE PDF

PERHAPS the entiments contained in the following pages, are not yet sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favor; a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable ou (americainclass.org)

Tom Paine had it right. And if Congress takes up Biden’s new tax plan, we can too.

*Sam Pizzigati co-edits Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies. His latest books include The Case for a Maximum Wage and The Rich Don’t Always Win. This op-ed was adapted from Inequality.org and distributed by OtherWords.org.

NIGERIA
ASUU strike: Opportunity for students’ engagement in NITDA-NART

By Zeenat Sambo
15 April 2022 

Director-General/CEO of NITDA Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi

The unresolved disagreement between the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and the federal government weighs heavily on youths out of school. While some have taken to vocational skills, others still lay idle in the discomfort of the economy finding it hard to support themselves and family.

In light of enjoying the free time created by the strike, digital learning has entrenched so wide for many to unravel their potential and access the web of technology for self-development.

It is an indisputable aphorism that “an idle mind is a devil’s workshop”. This continual strike by university lecturers with no compromise from both parties anytime soon can push many “stay-at-home” students into heinous acts.

At this juncture, most students are not practically engaged in ongoing digital skill acquisition initiatives/programs organised by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) and other stakeholders in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem.

The strike might turn out beneficial to some students because they have used the time to engage in virtual studies and digital skill development while others still struggle to fit into the digital trend due to financial challenges and others.

Even at this, delay in academics, long reversal of projects, university clearance, mobilization into national service, and the overburdened labour market are many of the challenges Nigerian students foresee within the academic terrain.

NITDA, in its effort to digitalise the nation and de-institutionalize learning, had developed digital channels for free e-learning through the NITDA Academy for Research and Training (NART) to build capacity, develop skills, and reduce unemployment in Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector.

The platform, in operation since 2020 with fully operational centers across the country, has been a blessing to promote e-learning in the country. In addition to bridging the skill gap between industry and academia, the program is also promoting a more inclusive ICT-driven for various segments of the Nigerian populace.

NART was developed to boost the capacity of Nigerians with courses that will help them to be creative and find their calling in the labour market.

The programme encourages Nigerians to acquire the skills that will help them harness the abundant opportunities to become job providers and wealth creators. Also, it will build capacity and develop skills of Nigerians in emerging IT sectors and reduce the unemployment rate by bridging the widening skills gap in the sector.

The fate of Nigerian students during this strike is reflective of the saying “when two elephants fight the grass suffers”. The unique difference is that there is a platform for students to engage in the attainment of productive skills with no financial challenge.

Thus, NITDA provision for self-development and skills acquisition online or at their community digital centres can be described as a digital solution to curb the effect of idleness on students during the strike.

The NART e-learning facilities and vocational training programs are scheduled into four categories. They are Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) Training, Students Training, General Training, and Digital skills are like realms of digital abilities for youth with preference to their disciplines to help them function better and achieve self-employment at the end of the training.

The programme seeks to increase access to learning opportunities and enhance the general quality of teaching/learning has continued to keep its training free, accessible, and impactful for students and youth in skills required in their discipline, profession, or career.

With hundreds of courses available, the e-learning resources have helped many to envision a realistic future of gainful entrepreneurial and digital competence. For students with little digital knowledge of the internet, programs like digital literacy, introduction to Packet Tracer, Entrepreneurship Courses, and many more are basics to knowing the web of technologies.

Over 47 different courses can be accessed on the NART website, and there is virtually every course that a student can delve into and learn. Introduction to computer science for lawyers is another interesting platform for upcoming legal practitioner’s to digitalise the profession and become self-competent before post-graduation.

There have been training of more than 26,000 active students and over 200 women in ICT, provision of tools at the end of the training, development of tech startups, and efficiency in artificial intelligence, among others. These have helped many Nigerians to spend their time meaningfully and get trained on new technologies that will build and develop their capacity in the tech world.

While out of the realm of academics, learning must never stop. In this regard, the Director-General of NITDA, Kashifu Inuwa, recently challenged Universities in the country to devote greater attention to entrepreneurship training to produce graduates that will create job opportunities, rather than become job seekers.

Considering the large number of young Nigerians graduating yearly, the agency must strengthen collaboration with Nigeria University to mandate students to partake in one or two courses that can serve as industrial training in digital communication to widen their scope of knowledge beyond their course of study.

Tertiary and vocational institutions should raise awareness to encourage virtual learning, building innovations, and developing digital skills among students and lecturers. This will enable Nigeria to produce more job creators and solution providers in no distant future.

It is impactful to be able to learn in the comfort of digital devices and be certified in a course/s in capacity building. With over 20 free training centres in Nigeria, the opportunities are available and awaiting more youths to delve into.

A society with multiple dimensions to learning always produces right-thinking, visionary and effective leaders. The ASUU strike should not be allowed to burn off the intelligence of students but expose them to knowledge-building opportunities created by the federal government.

Zeenat O. Sambo writes from Wuye District, Abuja.