Business
Bayelsa Teachers, Students Schooled in Emergency Health
FIRST Exploration & Petroleum Development Company Limited and the NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P Joint Venture, in partnership with the Health Emergency Initiative, have trained over 100 secondary school students and teachers from public schools in Bayelsa State on first aid, cardiopulmonary resuscitation and other emergency response skills.
The two-day training, held in Yenagoa, was aimed at equipping the participants with basic lifesaving skills to provide immediate assistance to victims of emergencies before the arrival of professional medical help.
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Speaking during the programme, the Executive Director and founder of HEI, Paschal Achunine, said the initiative was designed to change the attitude of bystanders who often resort to recording emergencies on social media instead of taking steps to save lives.
Achunine said the programme had been implemented in several states, adding that participants were expected to transfer the knowledge acquired to other students and members of their communities.
“Our expectation is that as opposed to the current practice, where people take pictures and videos and put it on social media when an emergency happens, we’ll see more proactive response, a robust response from young people,” he said.
He said the participants were trained in basic first aid, CPR and other pre-hospital emergency skills, adding that timely intervention could improve the survival chances of accident victims and people suffering cardiovascular emergencies.
“We’ve seen a lot of high-profile people, young persons, adults, who slumped, and some were in their office, some were on the road, and people around were pouring water, doing nothing positive to save or to offer them CPR. So this is to change that story,” Achunine said.
The HEI founder noted that road traffic crashes accounted for a significant number of deaths among young people, stressing that equipping students with emergency response skills could help reduce preventable deaths.
He also disclosed that more than 30 per cent of deaths in Nigeria occurred during the pre-hospital stage, describing the training as a proactive intervention to address the challenge.
According to him, HEI had operated a post-crash care programme since 2017 in partnership with organisations, including the Federal Road Safety Corps and hospitals, providing up to N100,000 deposit support for critically injured crash victims taken to hospitals.
He said the first responder training would complement the post-crash intervention by ensuring that appropriate lifesaving measures were taken before victims reached medical facilities.
“This is a further sweetener to ensure that not only when people are critical, but at the early phase of that pre-hospital emergency, more lives can be saved,” he said.
Achunine further disclosed that HEI had partnered with the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council to integrate emergency health education into the school curriculum.
He said approval had been obtained from the relevant authorities to introduce the programme into composite subjects in primary and secondary schools.
“In the coming months, in the new academic year, we’ll start seeing emergency health education, which is a more robust version of this training conducted in parts and conducted with practical applications in secondary and primary schools,” he said.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, Corporate Services, FIRST E&P, Emmanuel Etomi, said the company supported the initiative because timely intervention during emergencies could determine whether a victim survived.
“During a medical emergency, road traffic accident, cardiac arrest, or other life-threatening incident, the difference between life and death can be measured in minutes,” Etomi said.
He said there was a need to ensure that people in communities knew what to do before professional help arrived, adding that the trained students and teachers could serve as first points of assistance during emergencies in schools, homes and communities.
Etomi described the training as an investment in community resilience, saying the knowledge acquired could turn helplessness into informed action and potentially save lives.
He also disclosed that HEI was among the five inaugural beneficiaries of Impact FIRST: Heritage, a multi-year funding programme launched by the NNPC Limited/FIRST E&P Joint Venture to support organisations with proven impact and sustainable delivery models.
Etomi commended the Bayelsa State Government and HEI for bringing the programme to the state, expressing optimism that the partnership would help deepen and expand its impact.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has said Nigeria must reduce losses between farms and markets as part of efforts to bring down food prices and ease the cost of living.
Tinubu made this known in his Independence Day address to Nigerians on Thursday, as the country marked its 66th anniversary.
The President said reducing the cost of producing and transporting food would be critical to making essential goods more affordable for Nigerians.
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According to him, the government is expanding mechanised irrigation and dry-season farming while improving access to seeds, fertiliser, storage and transportation.
He said the government was also building and completing roads, railways and ports to improve the movement of agricultural produce and connect farms and factories to markets.
Tinubu explained that when farmers produce at lower costs and fewer crops are lost before reaching the market, the savings can ultimately be reflected in the prices paid by consumers.
“Our logic is simple. When a farmer produces more cheaply, when fewer crops are lost between the farm and the market, when a manufacturer spends less on electricity, when a truck reaches its destination faster, and when the business environment fosters fair competition, all those savings will ultimately find their way into the price of goods in the market,” he said.
The President said the measures form part of his administration’s broader plan to lower the cost of living and move the country towards what he described as an era of shared prosperity.
Under-dispensing of petroleum products at retail outlets across Nigeria would no longer be tolerated and identified violations could lead to the revocation of the culprits’ licences.
The Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA) handed down the caution in an industry circular, in which it directed all retail outlet operators to immediately calibrate and verify their dispensing pumps and totalisers to ensure accurate measurement to be certain that consumers receive the full quantity of products for which they pay.
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The NMDPRA said it had observed incidents of under-dispensing at retail outlets nationwide, describing the practice as a serious breach of consumer trust.
It stated that it had intensified inspections and enforcement activities across the country and would take action against outlets found to be under-dispensing, operating with improperly calibrated equipment or otherwise compromising dispensing accuracy.
“Persistent or serious violations will be subject to appropriate sanctions, up to and including revocation of the outlet’s licence, in line with NMDPRA’s regulations,” the authority stated.
The regulator urged operators to take immediate corrective measures where discrepancies are identified, stressing the need to maintain the integrity and accuracy of petroleum product transactions.
The NMDPRA also directed the Major Energy Marketers Association of Nigeria (MEMAN), the Depot and Petroleum Products Marketers Association of Nigeria (DAPPMAN), the Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) and the Petroleum Products Retail Outlets Owners Association of Nigeria (PETROAN) to promptly communicate the directive to their members and support compliance across the industry.
The House of Representatives has extended the implementation period of the capital component of Nigeria’s 2025 budget from September 30 to December 31, 2026, citing economic difficulties and challenges affecting the execution of capital projects.
The decision was taken on Tuesday during plenary after Majority Leader Julius Ihonvbere moved a motion seeking an amendment to the Appropriation (Repeal and Enactment) Act, 2025.
Ihonvbere told lawmakers that several factors affecting the Nigerian economy had made it difficult to conclude the implementation of the capital component before the existing September 30 deadline.
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He said the extension was necessary to ensure that incomplete implementation would not be attributed simply to the expiration of the deadline previously approved by the National Assembly.
The House subsequently fast-tracked the bill through first, second and third readings before approving the extension.
The Senate also passed the measure, allowing Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) additional time to complete capital projects for which funds had already been appropriated and released.
Why the projects remain unfinished
Senate Leader Opeyemi Bamidele gave further details on the factors affecting implementation, pointing to procurement, contract execution, mobilisation, certification of completed works and payment processes.
According to Bamidele, these stages can affect the ability of MDAs to complete projects within the existing budget implementation timeframe.
He said the extension was intended to protect ongoing public investments, facilitate the completion of critical projects and prevent the waste of public resources already appropriated and released.
The latest decision therefore gives government agencies another three months to complete eligible projects and utilise funds already provided for the 2025 capital programme.
Fourth extension of 2025 capital budget
Tuesday’s decision marks the fourth extension of the implementation deadline for the 2025 capital budget.
The National Assembly first moved the deadline from December 31, 2025, to March 31, 2026.
It subsequently extended the deadline to June 30 and later to September 30.
The latest extension now moves the deadline to December 31, 2026.
The repeated extensions have kept portions of previous capital allocations in the implementation cycle while the government works through outstanding projects and obligations.
Earlier in June, lawmakers had cited procurement timelines, project implementation challenges and administrative processes as reasons for extending the capital budget deadline to September.
Previous budget pressures
The issue has also been linked to the backlog of capital projects from previous budget years.
A recent analysis reported that about ₦16.8 trillion in capital expenditure from the 2024 and 2025 budgets had been rolled into the 2026 fiscal year, with funding constraints and delays in releases contributing to the backlog.
The report said the 2026 capital budget was partly structured to address outstanding obligations from previous years.
President Bola Tinubu had also acknowledged in his 2026 budget speech that the implementation of the 2025 budget faced competing execution demands and the transition between budget years.
He disclosed that only ₦3.10 trillion, representing about 17.7 per cent of the 2025 capital budget, had been released as of the third quarter of 2025, while priority was given to completing 2024 capital projects.
The new December 31 deadline is therefore expected to provide additional time for MDAs to complete projects already at various stages of execution.
The House adjourned plenary until October 13, 2026, after considering the budget extension.
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