File: President Buhari about to embark on a journey
President Muhammadu Buhari will travel to N’Djamena on Monday for the inauguration ceremony of President Idriss Deby of Chad.
President Deby won the presidential elections in his country in April.
Buhari will be accompanied on the one-day trip by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State and Governor Kashim Shettima of Borno State.
The President’s delegation will also include Baba Kaka Garba, Mohammed Tahir Monguno, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama and the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno.
The President will return to Abuja after the inauguration.
The kidnapped Lagos State Traditional Ruler, Oba Goriola Osenim who was abducted on July 16, has been rescued alive.
This was made known by the Lagos state Governor, Akinwumi Ambode in a series of tweets on Sunday.
According to the Governor, the Oniba of Iba Land is healthy and has returned to his palace.
Gunmen had stormed the palace of the Yoruba monarch around 11:30pm on July 16 and forcefully took him away, killing his guard and shooting one of his wives.
A combined team of different security agencies were immediately dispatched to effect his rescue.
Governor Ambode commended the Inspector General of Police’s Special Taskforce and all the security agencies for their efforts in securing the release of Oniba of Iba.
He added that “Two of the suspected kidnappers have been arrested & investigations are ongoing to fish out other criminal elements.
“We wish to assure Lagosians that security is our top priority, we’ll not relent in ensuring that Lagos remains safe,” the Governor said.
Ambode stated that “The kidnap of an Oba is a sacrilege in Yoruba land. We cherish our Yoruba tradition and will always uphold it.
“We will flush out militants and criminals who have been terrorizing our riverine communities.”
He expressed gratitude to all “our security agencies for the ongoing Operation Awatse which is yielding great result,” he said
Operation Awatse is the codename for the efforts by the Nigerian Navy in conjunction with other security agencies to rid Lagos State of Pipeline vandals and Militants
Governor Ambode also encouraged all Lagos state citizens “to remain vigilant and take advantage of our emergency numbers – 112 and 767.”
One of the completed Women Entrepreneurship Centres
Sokoto state government said it has released the sum of N155 million for the completion of the construction of women entrepreneurship development centres in the 23 local government areas of the state.
It said when completed, the centres will serve as research and training facilities with a view to empowering women, enlightening the public on gender-related issues and rehabilitation of patients.
A statement issued in Sokoto by Imam Imam, the spokesman to Governor Aminu Tambuwal, said the N780m model centres are expected to be put to use by the second quarter of 2017.
Specifically, the centers are designed to train women in sewing, knitting, catering services, as well as adult provision of education lessons.
Imam stated that “In recognition of the importance of women development centers in poverty eradication and economic development of women in Sokoto, Governor Tambuwal approved the payment of outstanding liabilities to contractors to enable them move back to site for successful completion of the centres.”
So far, all the centers in Sokoto East and Sokoto South Senatorial zones have been completed and handed over to the government.
However, construction work is still on going in the eight centers in Sokoto Central Senatorial zone.
Meanwhile, 100 women have benefited from grant of N50,000 each given by the Sokoto State Small and Medium Scale Enterprises Development Agency, SOSMEDA, under its conditional cash grant to extremely poor citizens across the state.
The funds were distributed in Sokoto by the state commissioner for women affairs, Kulu Sifawa and Director-General of SOSMEDA, Turai-Jummai Alhassan.
Eleven members of Operation Mesa, the internal security operation of 1 Division of the Nigerian Army and Air Force have been killed as they engaged in a fierce gun battle with a combined team of armed bandits and gun dealers in Niger State.
The Air Force lost two personnel, the army lost nine soldiers from 31 Artillery Brigade, including one officer, while two others are critically injured and another one is missing.
Army spokesperson, Sani Usman, in a statement issued on Saturday, said the military acted on surveillance and intelligence reports about the activities of the gangs in Kopa, Dagma and Gagaw villages of Bosso Local Government Area, Niger State, but as the troops made their way, the suspects opened fire from all three locations.
“The suspected gun runners and armed bandits also burnt down 4 operational vehicles and vandalized 2 others. Bandits also carted away 4 AK-47 rifles and one Fabrique Nationale (FN) rifle belonging to the deceased soldiers.
“The troops also killed 8 of the armed bandits and arrested 57 others. They also recovered large quantity of arms and ammunition,” the statement read.
Locally made pistols recovered by the Military
Some of the weapons recovered include three AK-47 rifles, 10 Local AK-47 Rifles, nine locally made pistols, six revolver guns, which fire 7.62mm ammunition, 45 Loaded Dane guns, 10 clubs and cudgels, 41 arrows, 18 bow cases, 122 cutlasses and machetes as well as 20 daggers.
“Other items recovered include 31 Axes, 63 rounds of 7.62 (Special) Ammunition, 10 Bajaj Motorcycles, Assorted Charms and Amulets, 2 Vehicles, 38 mobile telephone handsets, a wristwatch, 5 Identity Cards, Passport Photographs, Cash sum of N23,870.00k, 5 Japanese Yen and 35 different denominations of old Nigerian currency, 15 Catapults, 8 Torchlights, 2 Gun Powder bottles, 4 empty cases of Ammunition and 41 Cartridges.
The troops also seized a military Waist Belt and a pair of military Combat Boots,” the army added.
It said the suspects were responsible for supplying arms and ammunition to armed robbers terrorising people along the Minna-Bida road in the state, adding that the activities of the gun dealers affect security in parts of the Federal Capital Territory and Northwest of the country.
Despite calm returning to the affected areas, the army said it will continue its operation to ensure that other suspects are arrested and encouraged citizens to cooperate with it by remaining law abiding and volunteer information.
President Buhari and other dignitaries in a group photograph with the graduands
President Muhammadu Buhari has admitted that the task before his administration to make good his electoral promises and set the country on the way of prosperity is not an easy one, but added that his team was trusting in God to deliver.
President Buhari made the comments during the Graduation Ceremony of Course 24 of the National Defence College, Abuja where he was the Special Guest of Honour.
He said, “Let me assure you all that this administration is committed to bequeathing to this nation, a new orientation in leadership that will be service-driven and committed to the realisation of its promises to the electorates.
“We are however not under any illusions that this task is an easy one. But we have put our trust in God, knowing that with hard work and sound vision, we will triumph.”
The President expressed delight that in the last one year, through the hard work, dedication and sacrifices of the armed forces and security services, the scourge of terrorism as being orchestrated by Boko Haram insurgents has been largely contained.
“Let me state that this administration has been working assiduously in conjunction with our local and international partners, to rebuild damaged communities in North East part of our country,” he added.
He also said that he has mandated security agencies to, as a matter of urgency, bring to an end the incessant clashes between herdsmen and farmers, adding that his administration would not condone any act of criminality.
“On the matter of herdsmen/farmers clashes, I wish to state that this administration will not tolerate or condone acts of banditry and criminality, under any guise. As such, our security agencies have been mandated to deal with such acts decisively.
President Buhari also pledged his administration’s commitment to tackling the issues of underdevelopment and neglect in the Niger Delta area, which has resulted in the resurgence of militant activities and violence in the oil-rich region.
“This is a priority we have set before us and we intend to make appreciable gains in correcting the ills of the past in the Niger Delta by assuaging inherent grievances,” he said.
Buhari said Nigeria had made tremendous progress in the last one year towards taking her rightful position in the comity of nations.
He said, “International confidence in our country and its future is beginning to return, because of how we are slowly finding ways to solve our problems.
“The nation is beginning to have faith in the ability of our society’s institutional capacity to tackle our problems. But we must work doubly hard to restore our nation to higher glory.
“The Nigerian Armed Forces have proven to be equal to the task of maintaining our internal and external security.”
The President promised to continue to build on the progress in the coming years so as to ensure that Nigeria maintains the heights it had achieved, adding that it is a task that all Nigerians must resolve to do.
Buhari said Nigeria needs a philosophy of transparency and accountability in governance to tap the nation’s vast opportunities and eliminate corruption and poverty which remains the country’s main problems.
“Good governance must be based on a sound moral foundation, a philosophy of transparency, accountability and an ethic of effective implementation.
“Already, our unrelenting fight against criminality and corruption in governance is a clear testament that we intend to address these problems,” he said.
For the graduating military personnel, Buhari said he expected that they would all have made the most of their time on the course and be ready to join the ongoing process to change Nigeria for the better.
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.
