Daily Trust

Nigeria accounts for 10% adolescent­s living with HIV globally

- By Olayemi John-Mensah Court hears suit against GIG motors today

The Director General, National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) Dr Sani Aliyu said Nigeria has the second highest burden of adolescent­s living with HIV in the world.

He said 240,000 adolescent­s in the country representi­ng 10 per cent globally are living with the disease. The National Industrial Court in Abuja will today hear a suit filed by a dismissed staff of God is Good (GIG) Motors against the transport company.

The claimant, Alamudun Adedayo Victor, approached the court to challenge his alleged verbal terminatio­n of employment. He asked the court for a declaratio­n that the verbal terminatio­n of his employment without notice or one month salary in lieu of notice was unlawful and breaches his contract of employment.

He told the court that while he was employed by the company on May

Aliyu made this known at a programme tagged “All-In” - working with adolescent­s and young people to achieve 90:90:90 in Nigeria.

He said with the burden, Nigeria was not preventing new infections, enrolling and retaining young people in treatment fast enough, saying with their strong drive, idealism and fresh ideas, young people could 28, 2015, he was verbally sacked on July 26, 2017 after a disagreeme­nt with one of the managers. He asked the court to order that his salary from the date of his sack be paid while the sum of N500,000 be awarded against GIG as legal charges.

The transport company in its statement of defence, told the court that the claimant abandoned his employment and unilateral­ly terminated his employment without due notice or payment in lieu of notice. The defendant therefore asked the court to order the claimant to pay it the sum of N50,000 as salary in lieu of notice and also the sum of N500,000 as cost of engaging a legal representa­tive. introduce new solutions to the challenges.

“In view of this, the Nigerian National HIV response led by NACA, with support from UNICEF in partnershi­p with Population Council, has embarked on an adolescent participat­ion initiative that will help to define a framework for engaging adolescent­s in the AIDS response specifical­ly,” Aliyu said.

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