The Nigeria Union of Pensioners (NUP) has said the actions and inactions of Federal and State Governments is responsible for the untimely deaths of senior citizens in the country.

The union lamented the delay in the implementation of the consequential adjustment of monthly pensions following the approval of N 30,000 national minimum wage in April 2019.

Addressing journalists at the national secretariat of NUP in Abuja during the weekend, the union’s President, Dr Abel Afolayan, alleged that a report of the committee set up by Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission has been missing since November 2020.

“It is disheartening to note that for almost 2 years running, pensioners are still awaiting the approval of their own consequential adjustment of monthly pensions in compliance with the constitutional stipulations.

“It is to inform you that the committee set up by the Salaries, Incomes and Wages Commission, having completed its assignment, submitted the committee’s report to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) since November 2020 for onward transmission to the President for his assent,” he said.

The union, however, commended the federal government on the payment of the 10 months residual arrears of pensions to its members through PTAD.

They said, ‘You are a savage and dangerous woman.’

“I am speaking the truth. And the truth is savage and dangerous.”

So wrote Nawal El Saadawi, who has died at the age of 89, according to Egyptian media reports.

The pioneering Egyptian doctor, feminist and writer spent decades sharing her own story and perspectives – in her novels, essays, autobiographies and eagerly attended talks.

Her brutal honesty and unwavering dedication to improving the political and sexual rights of women inspired generations.

But in daring to speak dangerously, she was also subjected to outrage, death threats and imprisonment.

“She was born with fighting spirit,” Omnia Amin, her friend and translator, told the BBC in 2020. “People like her are rare.

Born in a village outside Cairo in 1931, the second of nine children, El Saadawi wrote her first novel at the age of 13. Her father was a government official, with little money, while her mother came from a wealthy background.

Her family tried to make her marry at the age of 10, but when she resisted her mother stood by her.

Her parents encouraged her education, El Saadawi wrote, but she realised at an early age that daughters were less valued than sons. Later she would describe how she stamped her foot in fury when her grandmother told her, “a boy is worth 15 girls at least… Girls are a blight”.

“She saw something wrong and she spoke out,” says Dr Amin. “Nawal can’t turn her back.”

One of the childhood experiences El Saadawi documented with uncomfortable clarity was being subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of six.

In her book, The Hidden Face of Eve, she described undergoing the agonising procedure on the bathroom floor, as her mother stood alongside.

She campaigned against FGM throughout her lifetime, arguing that it was a tool used to oppress women. FGM was banned in Egypt in 2008, but El Saadawi condemned its continued prevalence.

El Saadawi graduated with a degree in medicine from Cairo University in 1955 and worked as a doctor, eventually specialising in psychiatry.

She went on to become director of public health for the Egyptian government, but was dismissed in 1972 after publishing her non-fiction book, Women and Sex, which railed against FGM and the sexual oppression of women.

The magazine Health, which had she founded a few years earlier, was closed down in 1973.

Still, she continued to speak out and write. In 1975, she published Woman at Point Zero, a novel based on a real life account of a woman on death row she had met.

It was followed in 1977 by the Hidden Face of Eve, in which she documented her experiences as a village doctor witnessing sexual abuse, “honour killings” and prostitution. It caused outrage, with critics accusing her of reinforcing stereotypes of Arab women.

Then, in September 1981, El Saadawi was arrested as part of a round-up of dissidents under President Anwar Sadat and held in prison for three months. There she wrote her memoirs on toilet paper, using an eyebrow pencil smuggled to her by a jailed sex worker.

“She did things that people just didn’t venture to do, but for her it was normal,” Dr Amin says.

“She wasn’t thinking about breaking rules or regulations, but telling her truth.”

People may need to wear face coverings and socially distance for several years until we return to normality, a leading epidemiologist has predicted.

Mary Ramsay, the head of immunisation at Public Health England, said basic measures could be in place until other countries successfully roll out jabs.

She also said a return of big spectator events required careful monitoring and clear instructions about staying safe.

The defence secretary has not ruled out the foreign holiday ban being extended.

Ben Wallace told BBC One’s Andrew Marr Show that booking a break abroad now would be “premature” and “potentially risky”.

The UK set another record for the number of coronavirus vaccine doses given in a single day on Saturday, with 873,784 jabs.

Dr Ramsay said restrictions such as face coverings in crowded places and social distancing had become accepted by many and still allowed the economy to function.

She said “people have got used to those lower-level restrictions now, and people can live with them, and the economy can still go on with those less severe restrictions in place”.

“So I think certainly for a few years, at least until other parts of the world are as well vaccinated as we are, and the numbers have come down everywhere, that is when we may be able to go very gradually back to a more normal situation,” she added.

Warning it was “very important that we do not relax too quickly”, Dr Ramsay said any circulating virus would inevitably pick on those who are vulnerable.

“We have to look very carefully before any of these restrictions are lifted,” she said.

Prof Chris Whitty, the UK government’s chief medical adviser, told MPs earlier this month that it was hoped “simple interventions like washing hands, face masks where appropriate, test-and-trace, and above all vaccines” would keep the virus controlled beyond the summer.

Sir Patrick Vallance, the chief scientific adviser, has also said face masks could be needed in certain situations if the number of infections rises in the winter, but that it was possible people will naturally behave in a way that promotes social distancing.

A group of government scientific advisers said last month that “maintaining a baseline of policies which reduce transmission” will be necessary for some time to come.

Those experts said these could include continuing test-and-trace, self-isolation, and public messaging that encourages “voluntary actions to reduce risks”.

France and Poland have reintroduced partial lockdowns as both countries battle a sharp rise in Covid infections in recent weeks.

Some 21 million people in 16 areas of France, including the capital Paris, are affected as the country fears a third wave.

In Poland, shops, hotels, cultural and sporting facilities are closed across the country for three weeks.

The country has the highest new daily rates of Covid cases since November.

Coronavirus cases are also rising exponentially in Germany, with Chancellor Angela Merkel warning it is likely that the country will now need to apply an “emergency brake” and re-impose lockdown measures.

The vaccine rollout across the European Union has been hindered by delayed deliveries as well as the suspension in several countries of the use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, over fears of possible side effects.

What’s the situation in France and Poland?

In France, the partial lockdown took effect from midnight on Friday.

Trains leaving Paris for parts of the country where lockdown restrictions do not apply, such as Brittany and Lyon, were reportedly fully booked hours before the measures were due to come into effect.

Traffic jams were reported on several roads leaving the capital.

The new restrictions are not be as strict as the previous lockdown, with people allowed to exercise outdoors.

Non-essential businesses are shut, but schools remain open, along with hairdressers if they follow a “particular sanitary protocol”.

France has reported more than 4.2 million infections since the start of the outbreak, with nearly 92,000 Covid-related deaths, according to the data compiled by America’s Johns Hopkins University.

In Poland, the three-week lockdown begins on Saturday.

Polish health officials earlier warned the nationwide restrictions were necessary because of a rampant British variant of Covid-19 in the country. The variant now makes up more than 60% of infections.

Poland has had more than two million confirmed infections, and nearly 49,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

Finland has been named the happiest place in the world for a fourth year running, in an annual UN-sponsored report.

The World Happiness Report saw Denmark in second place, then Switzerland, Iceland and the Netherlands.

New Zealand was again the only non-European nation in the top 10. The UK fell from 13th to 17th place.

Data from analytics researcher Gallup asked people in 149 countries to rate their own happiness.

Measures including social support, personal freedom, gross domestic product (GDP) and levels of corruption were also factored in.

The country deemed the most unhappy in the world was Afghanistan, followed by Lesotho, Botswana, Rwanda and Zimbabwe.

There was a “significantly higher frequency of negative emotions” in just over a third of the countries, the report authors said, likely pointing to the effects of the pandemic.

However, things got better for 22 countries. Several Asian countries fared better than they had in last year’s rankings, while China moved to 84th place from 94th.

“Surprisingly there was not, on average, a decline in well-being when measured by people’s own evaluation of their lives,” John Helliwell, one of the report’s authors, said in a statement.

“One possible explanation is that people see Covid-19 as a common, outside threat affecting everybody and that this has generated a greater sense of solidarity and fellow-feeling.”

Finland “ranked very high on the measures of mutual trust that have helped to protect lives and livelihoods during the pandemic”, the authors said.

The Nordic nation of 5.5 million people has managed far better than the majority of Europe during the pandemic, with just over 70,000 cases and 805 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University.

According to the report, the ten happiest countries are:

1. Finland
2. Denmark
3. Switzerland
4. Iceland
5. Netherlands
6. Norway
7. Sweden
8. Luxembourg
9. New Zealand
10. Austria