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NSCDC uncovers Illegal underground refinery in Sokoto

Kingsley OBIEJESI
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NSCDC uncovers Illegal underground refinery in Sokoto

Illegal oil refining now taking place in Sokoto says NSCDC
The Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) says it has discovered an illegal refinery in Sokoto state.

Incidents of illegal crude oil refining is common in the oil-rich Niger Delta region but this is the first of such instance in Sokoto, which is a non-oil producing State.

Babangida Dutsin-ma, the Sokjoto State NSCDC Commandant, said this during an interview wit NAN on Friday.

He said the “mini refinery”, which was being operated from a rented apartment, was discovered by operatives of the NSCDC surveillance team. The apartment belongs to a popular Sokoto businessman and is located along Bodinga road in the outskirt of Sokoto metropolis.

“The NSCDC anti-vandal team on surveillance detected the centre in which those involved in the adulteration dug a big hole using a large tank in perpetrating the act,” Dutsin-ma said.

“The ditch is connected to a transformer from which they tap electricity for heating the adulterated products,’’ he added.

He also said that preliminary investigation showed that the “criminals” use adulterate Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), also known as petrol, and black oil to produce various petroleum products, which they then push into the black market for sale to unsuspecting consumers.

Dutsin-ma said that the perpetrators of the act fled the scene on sighting officials of the NSCDC, but added that some of their equipment were confiscated.

They include jerry cans, empty metal drums, electric cables and containers, used in adulterating the petroleum products.

He urged members of the public to assist the command with useful information that could lead to the arrest of the suspects.

National assembly are a bunch of unarmed robbers, says Obasanjo

iCiR
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National assembly are a bunch of unarmed robbers, says Obasanjo

Olusegun Obasanjo

Olusegun Obasanjo, former President, on Thursday described the National Assembly as a “bunch of unarmed robbers”, saying the earn “bogus” pay.

Speaking in Ibadan at the public presentation of a I am Kagara, I Weave the Sands of Sahara, a book written by Professor Mark Nwagwu, Obasanjo urged the federal government to respect its 2009 agreement with the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU).

However, he warned that a situation where the country spends so much on overheads does not bode well for socioeconomic development.

“Government allows itself to be stampeded into signing agreement particularly when one group or the other withdraws it services and goes on strike. After the agreement has been signed, without full consultation within government, implementation becomes an issue,” Punch quoted him as saying.

“But an agreement is an agreement; whoever the agent is that signed that agreement on your behalf, you are bound by it. You may now have to renegotiate to have a new agreement but the agreement earlier signed remains an agreement.

“When the university teachers go on strike, there is an agreement; and when doctors go on strike, there will be a special agreement. And when the universities teachers see that the agreement reached with the doctors is different from theirs, they go on strike and this is bad for our economy.

“The way we are going about spending all our revenue to pay overheads, we will not develop. And we will have ourselves to blame. Ninety per cent of revenue is used to pay overheads, allowances, salaries and not much is left for capital development. In a situation like that, we have to rethink.

“It is even worse for the National Assembly. They will abuse me again but I will never stop talking about them. They are a bunch of unarmed robbers.

“They are one of the highest paid in the world where we have 75 per cent of our people living in abject poverty. They will abuse me tomorrow and if they don’t, maybe they are sleeping. The behaviour and character of the National Assembly should be condemned and roundly condemned.”

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Pressure mounts on Cameroon to release journalist jailed for covering Boko Haram

Kingsley OBIEJESI
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Pressure mounts on Cameroon to release journalist jailed for covering Boko Haram

RSF demands release of Cameroonian journalist jailed for covering Boko Haram activities

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in collaboration with other international non-governmental organisations are demanding the release of Ahmed Abba, a journalist who was handed a 10-year jail sentence in April for covering activities of the Boko Haram terrorist group.

Abba was a correspondent with Radio France Internationale in Cameroon before he was arrested and tried before a military court in Yaoundé, the country’s capital.

He was subsequently sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined the sum of €85,000 on a charge of “laundering the proceeds of a terrorist act”.

However, Abba claims he is innocent, insisting that he always kept a professional journalist’s distance with the terrorist group.

A coordinated support committee was launched by the RSF ahead of Abba’s appeal hearing on Thursday in order to step up public and political pressure on the Cameroonian authorities.

Cléa Kahn-Sriber, head of RSF’s Africa desk, said: “Bringing together well-known figures from around the world and especially Africa, the committee has decided to begin online by creating a Facebook page in which we will share the messages of his supporters.

“This is just the first step. The campaign will grow in strength if the authorities do not free Ahmed Abba.”

The campaign to free Abba has received continent-wide support, not only from journalists and media houses but also from other performance artistes such as musicians and comedians.

So far, a total of 36 organisations, including Amnesty International, Journalist in Danger (JED), the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have joined the campaign to free Abba from prison custody.

The CPJ has also named Abba as one of the winners of its 2017 International Press Freedom Award.

“Each day that RFI journalist Ahmed Abba spends behind bars in a Cameroonian jail is another travesty of justice, which sends a chilling message to the media community in Cameroon,” said Angela Quintal, CPJ Africa Program Coordinator.

“We urge the Cameroonian government to free Abba without delay and to right this injustice. The world is watching.”

According to RSF, the proceedings against Abba were marked by gross irregularities.

“After his (Abba’s) arrest on 30 July 2015, he was held incommunicado and tortured by the intelligence services for nearly three months (and) no hard evidence was ever produced during the trial, which was postponed 18 times.” an RSF statement read in part.

Cameroon is ranked 130th out of 180 countries in RSF’s 2017 World Press Freedom Index, four places lower than in 2016.

The Boko Haram terrorist group is based in the north-eastern region of Nigeria but it began stepping up operations in northern Cameroon in 2014.

Help comes for Chibok boy injured in the spinal cord by Boko Haram

iCiR
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Help comes for Chibok boy injured in the spinal cord by Boko Haram

Ali Ahmadu

Dickens Sanomi Foundation, An Abuja-based charity, has offered to pay the medical bill of Ali Ahmadu, a six year-old boy from Chibok, Borno State, who suffered damage to his spinal cord during a Boko Haram attack in 2014.

Boko Haram militants ran over the boy with a motorcycle during an invasion of the town, where 275 schoolgirls were kidnapped by the insurgents.

According to a statement by the foundation, the medical bill for the spinal cord surgery to enable Ali to walk again is $48,000 (N14,640,000.00). Surgery will take place at a medical facility in Dubai, United Arab Emirates,

“Ali needs corrective surgery to enable him walk again after he was overrun by a motorcycle in Chibok by Boko Haram members during a night raid,” said Nuhu Kwajafa, Coordinator of Global Initiative For Peace, Love and Care (GIPLC), the NGO spearheading the campaign for the medical recovery of the young victim.

Kwajafa said the total financial requirement for the complete treatment of Ali was put at $60,000.00 (N18,300,00.00), including feeding, accommodation for three months.

He expressed thanks and appreciation to the National Assembly and all well-meaning Nigerians for their support and contribution, thus far.

Members of the GIPLC were at the Dickens Sanomi Foundation office in Abuja as part of the initiative to ensure that young Ali walks again.

They were received by Igho Sanomi, Chairman of the Foundation, and Board of Trustee members.

Sanomi, who is also Chairman of energy company Taleveras said, “as a father, it is very touching to see a young boy like this suffer. It is sad what some of our kids have to go through. This is an opportunity for us to show our love to those who need it.

“Although education remains the key focus of the Foundation, kids have to be healthy before they can attend school. On behalf of the board of trustees of Dickens Sanomi Foundation, we will take care of Ali, this will include paying the hospital bill and we will visit him in the hospital after the surgery.”

Founded in 2011 by the children of Dickens Oghenereumu Patrick Sanomi, the Dickens Sanomi Foundation (DSF) serves to commemorate the life of the family’s patriarch and to provide charitable support for that particular objective upon which he placed such great value, the education of Nigeria’s youth.

 

Saraki, Dogara visit Buhari in London

Kingsley OBIEJESI
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Saraki, Dogara visit Buhari in London

Saraki, Dogara visit Buhari in London

Bukola Saraki, Senate President, and Yakubu Dogara, Speaker of the House of Representatives, visited President Muhammadu Buhari in London on Wednesday.

This was made known by Lauretta Onochie, Special Assistant to the President on Social Media.

“President Buhari receives in audience Senate President Bukola Saraki and Speaker of House of Representatives Hon. Yakubu Dogara at the Abuja House London on 17th Aug 2017,” Lauretta posted on her Facebook page.

The visit of Dogara and Saraki comes five days after the president’s media team visited him in London.

Calls for the president’s return or resignation continue to mount back home, but Buhari has himself admitted that although there is “tremendous improvement” in his health and he wishes to return home, he hasn’t been given the go-ahead by his doctors.

South African police strangle Nigerian to death for ‘drug peddling’

Kingsley OBIEJESI
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South African police strangle Nigerian to death for ‘drug peddling’

South African police strangle Nigerian for alleged drug peddling

Uchenna Eloh, a Nigerian based in South Africa, has been strangled to death by South African policemen who suspected that he had illegal drugs on him.

Kanayo Onwumelu, Chairman of the Western Cape chapter of the Nigerian union in South Africa,  told NAN that the late Eloh was a native of Ezeagu, in Enugu State.

“At about 11.00 a.m. South African time on Wednesday, a Nigerian, Uchenna Emmanuel Eloh, popularly known as “Monkey’’, was killed by a South African police officer,” NAN quoted him as saying over the phone.

“He was walking out of his house toward the bus station when a police van stopped to search him, suspecting that he might be in possession of illegal substance.

“Three policemen accosted Eloh, one of them by the name Williams, held him on the neck suspecting that he swallowed a substance, while another police officer held him by the legs until he started foaming and suffocated to death on the spot.”

Onwumelu said that this was not the first incident of such killing of innocent Nigerians by the South African police.

“We have reported similar killings to the South African government and Nigeria High Commission in South Africa and nothing was done to bring the culprits to book,” he said.

“We want the Nigerian Government to intervene to stop this brutality against innocent Nigerians and stop killing Nigerians out of hatred, racism or xenophobia.”

Also, Ikechukwu Anyene, President-General of the Union of Nigerians in South Africa, confirmed the incident, adding that government of both countries must show more commitment in tackling the problem.

“Our government needs to do something urgently to make it clear that Nigerian lives matter,” Anyene said.

“We have made suggestions on what can be done, but it is now clear to us that the endless talks cannot yield any positive result.”

He also said that the union had engaged a lawyer to take up the case against South African Police Service “but this kind of legal service should form part of consular services to provide legal services to victimised Nigerians”.

Anyene said that the police had opened an inquest into the case.

Bello, Kogi governor, ‘converts’ major street to entrance of his new house

Kingsley OBIEJESI
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Bello, Kogi governor, ‘converts’ major street to entrance of his new house

Kogi Governor, Yahaya Bello converts major road to personal residence, says the people should be grateful

Yahaya Bello, Governor of Kogi State, is at the last stage of completing his personal mansion in Okene, for which he had to convert parts of a major street to serve as the entrance.

This is in spite of the fact that many of the civil servants in Kogi State are still being owed between three and six months’ salary arrears.

According to The Cable, the massive building is located on Mahmoud Atta street, GRA Okene.

However, residents of the area are complaining, albeit in hushed tones, that the development has disrupted their normal way of life and increased discomfort.

One of the residents who spoke under the condition of anonymity described the development as “a big shame”.

“He has converted the main street entrance to his private entrance and is creating another entrance for lesser mortals like us,” the resident lamented.

“A governor converting a public road to a private and exclusive road for himself. This is a big shame.”

The make-shift foot path constructed for public use
The makeshift foot path constructed for public use

But Kingsley Fanwo, the Governor’s spokesman, said the people should rather be grateful that Bello had made alternative arrangement for them.

He said: “Some of these issues are not the way we see them. The point is that if he is building a house and the structure is affecting the road network and he is giving the people a better road, they should be grateful.

“It’s not as if he is obstructing the road and he is not doing anything about it. It’s not that he is flexing his power as governor. He has been considerate enough to give them a better road.”

Fanwo denied that his principal was using state funds to finance the construction of his personal building, noting that Bello was already a “billionaire” and owned property all over Nigeria before becoming Governor.

“About why he is building a house when he is owing civil servant, we have responded to this over and over again,” Fanwo said.

“Also, I want you to know that this governor was a very successful businessman before he was elected. By all standards he was a billionaire before he became governor.

“He has houses all over Nigeria before he became governor. He has businesses that were blossoming before he was elected.”

Kogi State civil servants have cried themselves hoax at the non-payment of their salary arrears for several months.

One of the workers said Bello was “playing politics” with their salary payments.

“What he has been doing is that in an office, he would pay some and leave out others,” the civil servant said, asking not to be named.

“I have not been paid for six months, but some of my colleagues are being owed three months, some just a month. Under this kind of arrangement, how do you calculate the number of months that Yahaya Bello is owing?”

But Fanwo claimed that the current administration owes just the month of July, as Bello had directed that no political office holder should get salary until civil servants have been paid.

“As I am speaking to you, what the state government is owing as of today is July salary. You can confirm from civil servants in the state,” he said.

“We have paid till June and the governor has already given a directive that no political office holder should be paid before a civil servant.

“As I am speaking with you, I have not received my July salary because they have to pay the civil servants first.”

Judges and police are the highest bribe takers in Nigeria, NBS study reveals

Kingsley OBIEJESI
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Judges and police are the highest bribe takers in Nigeria, NBS study reveals

Bribery is part of administrative procedure in Nigeria, NBS survey reveals

A survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has indicted “law enforcement agents such as the police and judiciary workers such as judges and magistrates” as the highest takers of bribe in Nigeria. 

It also indicates that 32.3 percent of Nigerians had to pay some form of bribe to public officials between June 2015 and May 2016.

According to the survey, released late Wednesday, a total of N400 billion was received in bribes by public officials within the period in review.

“With such a large portion of public officials initiating bribes, which are paid upfront, it seems that many public officials show little hesitation in asking for a kickback to carry out their duty and that bribery is an established part of the administrative procedure in Nigeria,” the report read.

“Taking into account the fact that nine out of every 10 bribes paid to public officials in Nigeria are paid in cash and the size of the payments made, it is estimated that the total amount of bribes paid to public officials in Nigeria in the 12 months was around N400bn, the equivalent of $4.6bn in purchasing power parity.

“This sum is equivalent to 39 per cent of the combined federal and state education budgets in 2016. The average sum paid as a cash bribe in Nigeria is approximately N5,300, which is equivalent to $61 – PPP.

“This means that every time a Nigerian pays a cash bribe, he or she spends an average of 28.2 per cent of the average monthly salary of N18,900.”

The survey also showed that almost 70 per cent of the bribes were paid before any service was rendered. It also added that though money is the most important form of bribe payment in Nigeria, there are other forms including “provision of food and drink, the handing over of valuables or the exchange of another service or favour”.

Majority of the bribes were paid “to speed up or finalise an administrative procedure that might otherwise be delayed for a long period or even indefinitely”; the second largest proportion of bribes is paid “to avoid a fine through frequent encounters with police”, while 13 per cent of the bribes are paid “to avoid the cancellation of public utility services”.

According to the report “law enforcement agents such as the police and judiciary workers such as judges and magistrates were the highest takers of bribe in Nigeria”.

“Police officers are the type of public officials to whom bribes are most commonly paid in Nigeria. Of all adult Nigerians who had direct contact with police officers in the 12 months prior to the survey, almost half paid the officers at least one bribe, and in many cases, more than one since police officers are also among the three types of public officials to whom bribes are paid most frequently in Nigeria,” the report read.

“At the same time, the average bribe paid to police officers is somewhat below the average bribe size.

“Although fewer people come into contact with judiciary officials than with police officers over the course of the year, when they do, the risk of bribery is considerable: at 33 per cent, the prevalence of bribery in relation to prosecutors is the second highest, closely followed by judges and magistrates.”

Others include “car registration/driving licence officers; tax and customs officers; road traffic management officials; public utilities officers and land registry officers”.

Boko Haram originally wanted to rob the school, not abduct us, say freed Chibok girls

YEKEEN Akinwale
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Boko Haram originally wanted to rob the school, not abduct us, say freed Chibok girls

 

Federal Government To Rebuild Chibok School, Empower Women, YouthsA diary written by abducted Chibok Secondary School girls who were among the 82 recently released by Boko Haram claims the original intention of the insurgents was to rob the school — not abduct the girls.

According to diary, unveiled in an exclusive report by Reuters, life in the Sambisa involved “regular beatings, Koranic lessons, domestic drudgery and pressure to marry and convert”.

The girls wrote in the diary that their abduction by the terrorists, which has become a global issue, was accidental.

The secret diary, written by more than three of the abducted girls when they were in Sambisa, revealed that their mass abduction was the accidental outcome of a botched robbery.

While recalling the events of the night of their kidnapping in April 2014, Naomi Adamu one of the writers of the secret diary, described how Boko Haram had not come to the school in Chibok to abduct the girls, but rather to steal machinery for house building.

Unable to find what they were looking for, the militants were unsure what to do with the girls.

Arguments swiftly ensued.

“One boy said they should burn us all, and they (some of the other fighters) said: ‘No, let us take them with us to Sambisa (Boko Haram’s remote forest base) … if we take them to Shekau (the group’s leader), he will know what to do,” Adamu wrote.

Reuters said the authenticity of the diaries, written by Adamu and her friend Sarah Samuel, could not be verified.

The diaries shed light not only on the horrors the girls endured under Boko Haram, but their acts of resistance, and their staunch belief that they would one day go home.

The girls said they started documenting their ordeal a few months after the abduction, when Boko Haram terrorists gave them exercise books to use during Qoranic lessons.

To hide the diaries from their captors, the girls would bury the notebooks in the ground, or carry them in their underwear.

Three of the other Chibok girls also contributed to the undated chronicles written mainly in passable English, with some parts scribbled in less coherent Hausa.

“We wrote it together. When one person got tired, she would give it to another person to continue,” Adamu, 24, said from the state safe house in the capital, where the girls are being kept for assessment, rehabilitation and debriefing by the government.

The girls’ spirits remained intact, as they devised amusing and mocking nicknames for the fighters, the diaries show. Yet cruelty and brutality were ever present.

When five girls tried to escape, the militants tied them up, dug a hole in the ground, and turned to one of their classmates.

The jihadists handed her a blade and issued a chilling ultimatum: ‘cut off the girls’ heads, or lose your own’.

“We are begging them. We are crying. They said if next we ran away, they are going to cut off our necks,” Adamu wrote.

On another occasion, the militants gathered those girls who had refused to embrace Islam, brought out jerrycans and threatened to douse them in petrol then burn them alive.

“They said: ‘You want to die. You don’t want to be Muslim, we are going to burn you,” read the diary entry.

As fear set in, the militants cracked into laughter — the cans contained nothing but water, the girls wrote.

One of the most striking excerpts illustrates the pervasive fear spread by Boko Haram in Northeast Nigeria, where the group has killed 20,000 people and uprooted at least 2 million in a brutal campaign that shows no signs of ending soon.

During their captivity in the Sambisa forest, some of the Chibok girls escaped and ended up in a nearby shop where they asked the owners for help, as well as food and water.

“The girls said: ‘We are those that Boko Haram kidnapped from (the school) in Chibok,'” Adamu wrote. “One of the people (in the shop) said: ‘Are these not Shekau’s children?'”

The shop owners let the girls stay the night.

But the next day they took them back to Boko Haram’s base, where the girls were whipped and threatened with decapitation.

Despite being flushed with relief at her own freedom, Adamu worries about her closest friend and co-author, Samuel, who is still with the group, having married one of its militants.

“She got married because of no food, no water,” Adamu said from the government safe house in Abuja.

“Not everybody can survive that kind of thing,” she added. “I feel pained … so pained. I’m still thinking about her.”

 

SPOTTED: Salihu Yakubu wants to lynch Charly Boy — and 244 people are behind him

Rebecca Akinremi
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SPOTTED: Salihu Yakubu wants to lynch Charly Boy — and 244 people are behind him
Salihu Yakubu
Salihu Yakubu

If Salihu Yakubu had his way, Charles Oputa, renegade entertainer better known as ‘Charly Boy’ or ‘Area Fada’, would have been dead by now.

It almost happened on Tuesday, though — only that when Charly Boy was attacked at Wuse Market there were a few people who were not thinking like Yakubu.

Charly Boy was attacked at the market by northern traders opposed to his #OurMumuDonDo protests demanding the resignation or return of President Muhammadu Buhari from the UK, where he has been receiving treatment since May 7.

Although traffic wardens fled from the scene of the violence, south-eastern traders at the market came to his rescue, before security agents mobilised to prevent what was threatening to degenerate into a Hausa-Igbo crisis.

Salihu Yakubu 2

When Saharareporters posted its report of the attack on its Facebook page, it drew lots of comments, with Yakubu’s arguably the harshest.

“I wish I was there, let me lynch Charlyfool and Co to death.” Yakubu said. “I love Buhari and nobody can ridicule or humiliate my hero, Nigeria’s Messiah, Mohamadu Buhari.”

Strangely, 244 people (as of 5pm when the ICIR took a screenshot) had expressed support for Yakubu’s wish by using either of Facebook’s ‘like’ and ‘love’ buttons.

Yakubu’s comment also sparked a heated exchange of counter-comments from other users of the social media platform, with both supporters and opponents of the comment using unprintable words to advance their points.

Hopefully, security agents are on the alert.

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