The Nigerian Army has vowed to fish out those behind the attacks on three villages in Jema’a Local Government Area of Kaduna State.
Adeniyi Oyebade, the General Officer Commanding, One Division of the Nigerian Army, stated this on Friday during his visit to the villages.
He assured the residents of their safety, adding that Army personnel would be stationed in the area for some time until normalcy returns.
Eleven persons were reportedly killed and several others sustained injuries in the attacks that lasted several hours in Gada Biyu, Akwa’a and Angwan Anjoo villages in Godogodo town, Kaduna, between Monday and Tuesday.
Residents of the villages have fled their homes for fear of fresh attacks they claimed were being carried out by some Fulani herdsmen.
One of the villagers, Monday Adamu, described the attack as the continual and systematic killing of Southern Kaduna people without government intervention.
The attacks followed a series of attacks since 2011 on villages in the southern part of Kaduna State that have claimed many lives and destroyed properties worth millions of Naira.
Since the latest incident occurred, the displaced villagers have been taking refuge in neighbouring communities.
Beyond the presence of military and Police officials, the natives urged the government to find lasting solutions to the lingering crisis between the locals and Fulani herdsmen.
South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress, ANC, has suffered its worst electoral setback since apartheid ended in 1994.
With 94% of the votes counted after Wednesday’s municipal elections, the party has lost the key battleground of Nelson Mandela Bay to the opposition Democratic Alliance, DA.
The two parties are in a close fight for Johannesburg and Pretoria but the ANC is still in the lead nationally, with 54% of the vote.
The ANC has won more than 60% of the vote at every election since the end of apartheid more than two decades ago. However, unemployment and corruption scandals surrounding President Jacob Zuma have tarnished the party’s image.
The loss of Nelson Mandela Bay, which was named after ANC’s liberation hero and South Africa’s first democratically elected president, Nelson Mandela, is a big blow to the party.
Many of the leaders of the struggle against apartheid come from the area.
The Democratic Alliance, which took 46.5% compared to the ANC’s 41%, says it is in talks with other parties to form a coalition in the municipality on South Africa’s southern coast.
The ANC has conceded defeat in Nelson Mandela Bay after initially saying it was going to challenge the result.
“Of course we have had setbacks in areas like the Nelson Mandela Bay but we are magnanimous in victory and also magnanimous in defeat because we are democrats,” ANC’s chief whip, Jackson Mthembu, was quoted as saying.
DA leader, Mmusi Maimane, said the Nelson Mandela Bay had voted for change.
“I think that to me says that our message got through – it says our people heard us and South Africans still believe in a dream of a non-racial South Africa, South Africans still want our country to prosper,” he said.
The municipal election result is probably the biggest wake-up call that the governing ANC has has received since it ushered in democracy in South Africa in 1994.
By Friday mid-morning, the ANC had 54%, followed by 26% for the DA and 8% for the radical Economic Freedom Fighters, EFF.
Many people believe that a poor ANC performance could embolden Zuma’s rivals within the party to challenge him.
The next general elections are due in 2019 but Zuma cannot stand for a third term as president.
The President has also had to weather a corruption scandal, after being ordered to repay taxpayers’ money spent on his private home.
Security was tight for the elections and the electoral commission said voting had passed off smoothly.
The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, has concluded a three-day training of stakeholders in North-East on how to deal with flood emergencies.
Olusoji Adeniyi, a UNICEF Emergency Specialist, spoke to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, at the end of the training on Friday in Yola, the capital of Adamawa State, saying that the training was to prepare the stakeholders for possible flooding.
He said participants at the training programme were drawn from State Emergency Management Agencies, National Emergency Management Agency and non-governmental organisations, among others.
“The goal of UNICEF is to make sure that all stakeholders know what needs to be done, how it should be done and whether it meets their expectations,’’ Adeniyi said.
He urged the government against politicizing emergency situations when there are trained experts than could be deployed, and called on the trainees to put into use what they had learnt in the training.
“I will appeal to governors and in particular deputy governors that are in charge of state emergency agencies to ensure that the people who had been trained are the ones that will continue to do the job,” Adeniyi said,
Some of the stakeholders who spoke to NAN said they learnt a lot from the training and that it would go a long way in helping them to come up with a standard contingency plan.
The stakeholders are expected to use the knowledge and come up with action plan for their respective stateswithin one week.
Representatives from Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Jigawa and Yobe states participated in the training.
Kano State governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, has said that Kano has become a center for convergence of Almajiri in Northern Nigeria because there is no legislation outlawing movement of such children in the name of Qura’nic education.
“At the moment, Kano has the highest number of Almajiri and from the statistics we got, their number is equal to, if not more than those attending formal schools”, the governor stated
He said recent statistics conducted by the state government showed that majority of the Almajiri in Kano, who roam the streets in the name of Tsangaya or Qur’anic education, are actually not indigenes of the state but children who migrate with their Malams or are sent by their parents purportedly to study.
The governor made the remark while receiving the Project Director of Khalifa Dankadai Foundation, a local Non-governmental organization in his office, saying the influx of child beggars to the state has formed a stumbling block to the government’s developmental plans.
According to Governor Ganduje, he has personally presented a proposal to the Northern States Governors on how to integrate the pupils of Tsangaya and Qur’anic schools into the formal education system, to enhance their intellectual and moral capacity, lamenting that many of them end up begging instead of staying in one environment to learn.
He promised that the state government would partner with Khalifa Dankadai Foundation, to initiate a far reaching programme regarding welfare and education of the Almajiri, as well as to generally promote social development in Kano.
The Promoter of the foundation, Khalifa Mustafa Dankadai told the governor that it focuses on human capacity building of youth and women in addition to a special programme on Almajirai education.
NNPC GMD, Maikanti Baru and the Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Alfonso Barnuevo
Nigeria and Spain have expressed their readiness to strengthen their bilateral trade relationship in every spectrum of the oil and gas industry for the benefit of the two countries.
A Press Release by Garba Muhammad, the Group General-Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, said that the Group Managing Director of NNPC, Maikanti Baru stated this while receiving the Spanish Ambassador to Nigeria, Alfonso Barnuevo at the NNPC headquarters in Abuja.
The GMD revealed that the NNPC, as an integrated oil and gas company, is currently undergoing transformation which includes increasing the corporations refining capacity.
He added that the Corporation would work closely with the Spanish National oil company, REPSOL, to improve the technical capacities of Nigerian refineries.
“As you know, we have challenges with our refineries and with REPSOL refining about 900,000 barrels of crude oil per day, we can collaborate on that going forward,” Baru noted.
He added that “While we are fixing our refineries, we also have the opportunity to bring in more petroleum products into the country to meet our domestic needs.”
Baru stated that the NNPC was also working on the Trans-Sahara Gas Pipeline Project and would rely on the technical support of some Spanish companies towards addressing the challenges of gas supply.
The Spanish Ambassador said that Nigeria and Spain have an established cordial relationship dating back to over three decades.
“This visit is to further strengthen these good ties between our nations and in particular, between the NNPC and REPSOL,” Barnuevo said.
According to him, Spain is Nigeria’s second best client in the area of oil and gas as the country currently buys about 4.6 billion Euros worth of oil and gas from Nigeria.
He explained that in the first quarter of 2015, Spain represents nine percent of the total export from Nigeria, “Therefore NNPC and REPSOL will benefit tremendously from sustaining this collaboration,” the ambassador concluded.
A Nigerian human trafficker has been handed a 22-year prison sentence in the United Kingdom on a 12-count charge that included conspiracy to traffic persons for sexual exploitation, trafficking persons outside of the UK for sexual exploitation and assisting unlawful immigration.
The lady, Franca Asemota, was arrested by the operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on March 24, 2015 in Benin, the capital of Edo State on suspicion of money laundering and was later extradited to the United Kingdom for prosecution.
38-year-old Asemota was part of a criminal network that trafficked girls, boys and women from Nigeria to Europe, using the threat of “juju magic” to guarantee their compliance.
For many months, she was wanted by the UK government for using London Heathrow airport as a transit hub.
After her arrest by the EFCC, Asemota was extradited to the UK on 27th January 2016 following a Federal High Court ruling on the extradition request filed by the office of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice.
The successful prosecution underscores the important role cooperation between law enforcement organizations across the world, in this case between the National Crime Agency of the UK and the EFCC, can play in fighting transnational organized crime.
Nigerian Troops of the 121 Task Force Battalion, have launched vocational training/skills acquisition programmes for widows and Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, in Pulka, Borno State.
Army spokesman Sani Usman on Thursday, stated that the programme which was flagged off by the Commander, 26 Task Force Brigade, Adeyinka Laguda, a Brigadier-General featured various kinds of vocational training including tailoring, soap making, poultry and fish farming, amongst others.
The aim of the scheme was to equip the victims of insurgency with the necessary skills that would help them earn a decent living and improve their living standards as lasting peace gradually returns to the Northeast region.
Adeyinka also commissioned a new medical centre established in Pulka by the unit in collaboration with UNICEF.
The event witnessed a large turnout of people including dignitaries from Borno state government.
The controversy in the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, is anything but abating, as Jimoh Ibrahim, who is gearing to contest the Ondo State governorship position under the umbrella party, on Thursday obtained his nomination form from the Ali Modu-Sheriff-led faction of the party.
Ibrahim, while collecting the form, stated that the Chairman of the party’s National Caretaker Committee, Ahmed Makarfi has no right in law to lay claim to the chairmanship of the party.
He said that Sheriff is the person known to the law having taken over from Adamu Muazu who resigned as national chairman before the expiration of his tenure.
The controversial businessman said that he would better the lots of the citizens of the state by ensuring prompt payment of their salaries, promising to clear the salary arrears of workers in the state within his first 100 days in office.
Modu-Sheriff commended the aspirant, describing him as a capable hand that could turn the state around if giving the opportunity and promised to support him.
Meanwhile, the Ondo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has disowned Jimoh Ibrahim, saying he was not a member of the party.
Ayo Fadaka, PDP Director of Media and Publicity in the state, insisted that Ibrahim was a member of the Accord Party not the PDP as he claimed.
Fadaka said, “I can confirm to you that Jimoh Ibrahim is not a member of our party, the PDP, he has since been rid of his membership and we all know that he is a bonafide member of the Accord Party. So, for him now to be making a somersault to pick a form of PDP is a shameless thing anybody can do in this situation.
“Also I want to confirm to you again that Jimoh Ibrahim, apart from the fact that he is not a member of our party, he does not have any relationship with the PDP in any case and if he is taking a form from Sheriff, he confirms to the entire world where Sheriff is coming from “
Also, the Ondo State Commissioner for Information, Kayode Akinmade said the PDP and the present administration of Dr. Olusegun Mimiko were not bothered by the action of Ibrahim as he had never been a loyal member of the PDP.
Akinmade said, “He is not our member, during the last general election, he didn’t work for the PDP, we know who he worked for. As far as we are concerned there is no cause for alarm, Ondo State PDP is not shaken we are intact.”
Both Modu-Sheriff and Makarfi are laying claim to the leadership of the PDP in a crisis that is threatening to tear the opposition party into pieces.
Series of court cases have been initiated and different judgments given in the course of the leadership controversy, the latest being the order by Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court Abuja, barring the Makarfi-led faction of the PDP from going ahead with its planned Party Convention that was scheduled to hold in Port-Harcourt, the Rivers State capital onAugust 17.
The faction, however, insisted that it was going ahead with the planned convention and on Tuesday, released the names of the convention organizing committee.
The chairman of the Independent Corrupt practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, Ekpo Nta, has denied media reports that the case files of some former governors being investigated by the agency were missing.
Speaking to our reporters at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday, Nta said that the case files of former governors being referred to were handed over by the pioneer chairman of the anti-graft agency, retired Justice Mustapha Akanbi, to the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, in 2004.
The ICPC chairman said that there could not have been any investigation by the commission as the law setting it up does not allow it to investigate or prosecute persons who occupy the positions of President, Vice President, Governor and Deputy Governor.
According to him, the law mandates the ICPC to refer allegations of corruption against such high profile officeholders to the CJN who would then appoint a counsel to investigate the matter and make recommendations to the National Assembly on what to do.
“There are no cases of missing files in the ICPC. Those cases date back to Justice (Mustapha) Akanbi when the petitions were received,” he stated.
“If you read the ICPC Act, when there is an allegation against a serving governor, President, Vice President or Deputy Governor, the Act required that the commission should pass that petition to the Chief Justice of Nigeria who will set up a special counsel to do the investigation. That is the extent the commission is given a role by the law,” he said further.
The ICPC chairman added, however, that the commission was trying to convince the National Assembly to amend the law in order to allow the agency to investigate allegations of corruption against these categories of public officials before handing the case over to the CJN.
“Our thinking is that even if you appoint a special counsel to investigate the allegations, he would need investigations. So why don’t you allow the commission to do the investigation? So what we are telling the National Assembly is to let us do full scale investigation and we can hand the result over to the CJN.”
Nta said that all 27 case files involving former governors were handed over to the office of the CJN in 2004 by the then chairman of the ICPC.
The ICPC chairman also dismissed allegations that he was sitting on a case file involving allegations of corruption received by the commission against Godswill Akpabio, former governor of Akwa Ibom State and the Senate Minority Leader.
Media reports had insinuated that Nta was protecting Akpabio from being investigated and prosecuted because of a special relationship he had with the former governor, who hails from the same state as him.
In fact, Akpabio was said to have nominated the ICPC chairman to his position. The former governor was also reported to have sent emissaries to Nta ostensibly to convince him to hands off any corruption case against him.
Nta however denied having any relationship with the former governor of his state, adding that he also did not receive any emissaries from him.
“I am not sure the gentleman would say that he nominated me to this position. I am sure he would have been surprised himself to read that. I do not have that kind of relationship with him. And the person who made the appointment, the former President (Goodluck Jonathan) is alive…”
Regarding the petition before the ICPC against Akpabio, the agency’s boss said that the case file had been handed over to the EFCC because that agency also received similar petitions and had started investigations on them.
“The petitioner publicised it that he was going to send petitions to ICPC, EFCC and others. So when we received the petition, I did a letter to the EFCC and handed over to them to continue the investigation,” Nta said.
The ICPC chairman also spoke about the controversy surrounding his tenure, stating that his five years in office would end in 2017.
There had been controversy over when Nta was appointed as chairman of the commission, with some reports indication that having first been appointed in 2011, his tenure should end in 2016.
“We were sworn in as members of the board on November 29, 2011 by President Goodluck Jonathan, who refused to swear-in the then chairman for certain reasons. And he turned around and said ‘Mr Nta Ekpo you will act as chairman until I sort this out’. That was when I started acting.
“When my name was forwarded to the Senate for confirmation, I had to go through screening a second time and I appeared before the Senate and after clearance I was asked to come to the presidency for a fresh swearing in and I was issued a new letter as the substantive chairman on October 17, 2012.”
The ICPC chairman confirmed the receipt of a petition by former chairman of the Appropriation Committee of the House of Representatives, Abdulmumin Jibrin, against principal officers of the chamber, but refused to give any details.
Nta said that Jibrin came and personally submitted a petition to him but declined to speak further, arguing that the ICPC Act forbids him to speak on any allegation being investigated by the commission.
Section 64 (1) of the ICPC Act 2000 says: “Subject to Section (2), where any complaint made by any officer of the commission states that the complaint is made in consequence of information received by the officer making the complaint, the information referred to in the complaint and the identity of the person from whom the information is received shall be secret between the officer who made the complaint and the person who gave the information, and everything contained in such information, identity of the person who gave the information and all other circumstances relating to the information, including the place where it was given, shall not be disclosed or be ordered or required to be disclosed in public but only to the trial judge and defence lawyer in attendance in any civil, criminal or other proceedings in any court or tribunal.”
Information and Culture Minister, Lai Mohammed addressing the Nigerian Guild of Editors
The Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, has commended the Nigerian Guild of Editors, NGE, for being part of the ongoing determined efforts to tackle the various challenges facing the country, especially in the area of the economy.
Speaking at the All Nigerian Editors Conference, ANEC, 2016 in Port Harcourt on Thursday, the Minister however urged the editors to do more by becoming the Champions of Change.
“Permit me to start my remarks by commending the Nigerian Guild of Editors for the well-thought-out theme for this 2016 Conference, which is ‘Economic Diversification: Agriculture as an option for a prosperous Nigeria’.
“As you are all very much aware, Agriculture is one of the sectors we have identified in our economic diversification programme, aimed at moving the country away from a mono-product, oil-based economy, under our Change Mantra.
”It is therefore delightful that you have chosen to deepen the discourse by the choice of your theme for this conference. Even more impressive is the fact that Editors have taken up the challenge of contributing their quota to the ongoing efforts by this Administration to revamp the economy and return Nigeria to the path of sustainable growth and development,” he said.
Mohammed however said the NGE in particular and the media in general must do more by becoming the Champions of Change
“What I am saying in essence is that while the media owes it as a duty to keep Nigerians well informed about the situation in the country, it must do so in context. We are not saying we should continue to lament about missed opportunities, the massive corruption or profligacy of the past, but is it is important for Nigerians to know where and when the rain started beating them, that no provision was made for any umbrella to shield them from the elements, and that indeed genuine efforts are now being made to turn things around.
“One of such efforts is the unprecedented massive investment in infrastructure – roads, railways, power, etc. Road Contractors have been mobilised to sites, many of them long abandoned. Any contractor who is not on site is waiting for the rains to stop, not due to lack of funds.
“The Administration has kick-started the programme to link all state capitals by rail. All these efforts are creating jobs and putting money in the pockets of Nigerians.
“We must give hope to our people, while also giving encouragement to those who are working non-stop to revamp our economy. In one country that failed to save for the rainy day like Nigeria did, citizens are now having to cross to neighbouring countries to get essential commodities.
“The only reason we have averted such fate here is the committed, honest and disciplined leadership provided by President Muhammadu Buhari, the prudent management of the little resources that are accruing to the country now, thanks to the Treasury Singles Account, the unrelenting war against corruption, the rooting out of ghost workers and the increasing emphasis on agriculture that is sure to massively reduce our scandalously-high food imports in a short while,” Mohammed said.
The Minister said Nigeria’s economy is hard hit by the fall in the price of crude oil because the country failed to save for the rainy day, coupled with the fact that the country did not invest in infrastructure.
“Nigeria has nothing to rely on to cushion the effects of the lost earnings. Many other oil producing countries and fellow OPEC members are faring better, because they saved for the rainy day.
“Saudi Arabia, with about one fifth of Nigeria’s population, has in foreign reserves about 600 billion dollars (which is 23 times what Nigeria has in foreign reserves). United Arab Emirates, with less than 10 million people, has 75 billion dollars in foreign reserves. Qatar, with 2.4 million people, has 36 billion dollars in foreign reserves. Even Angola, with just 24 million people, has about 25 billion dollars in foreign reserves.
“Here in Nigeria, with oil selling consistently for over 100 dollars a barrel for many years, we simply failed to save for the rainy day, with the result that a country with a population of over 170 million today has just 26 billion dollars in foreign reserves.
“To compound this, the fall in the price of crude is having a ripple effect: the scarcity of Forex, which has resulted from the oil price crash, means that industries are struggling to get Forex to import raw materials and machinery. With falling imports, the Customs Service, which is another source of revenue, is collecting less duties. Taxation is also affected, as industries with no forex to import can neither employ more people nor produce more goods. Then, Nigeria has had to fight an existential battle to root out Boko Haram in the North-east,” he said.
