A Nigerian Air Force aircraft, Dornier-228, on Saturday crashed into a house at Ribadu Military, Kaduna, killing all passengers on board, the Air Force has confirmed.
In a statement issued by Air Force spokesperson, Dele Alonge, an Air Commodore, the crash occurred around 6:45am minutes after it had taken off from the Kaduna Military Airfield on its way to Abuja.
“Bodies of the passengers have been recovered and fire fighters are already at the crash site to curtail fire from spreading to other buildings within the vicinity,” the statement read, adding that the Chief of Air Staff, Sadique Abubakar, an Air Marshall, had aborted his trip to Port Harcourt in order to visit the scene of the crash.
Among the crew was the Air Officer Commanding Training Command, Alikali Mamu, an Air Vice Marshall. An investigation, according to Alonge, has been launched to determine the cause of the crash.
Meanwhile, we can authoritatively report that the crash happened in the officers’ quarters of the cantonment.
According to a soldier, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the incident happened close to the Military Police Guardroom near the main entrance to the barracks.
“I was heading to the Mammy Market very early this morning when I heard the sound of the crash,” the soldier said, adding that there was nobody in the house where the plane fell on it.
The Department of State Services, DSS, says it has uncovered a spying network mounted at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja.
The Service added that it has initiated moves to step up security at the various airports to address the new challenge.
In a statement issued on Saturday by its spokesman, Tony Opuiyo, the DSS said it arrested a 14-year old boy from Kogi State, Sulaiymon Abdulrahman, who was accused of monitoring travellers’ movements, passenger screening, boarding procedures and other processes at the departure and arrival halls of the airport.
It explained that on August 24, 2015, the agency, with support from the airports security unit arrested Abdulrahman who later confessed that he infiltrated the airport with the assistance of one Dauda Sadiq, who is now at large.
Abdulrahman told security operatives that Sadiq instructed him to spy on the airport and pass on the relevant information about travellers’ movement, boarding procedures and other processes at the airport to him.
“With this knowledge, the service is working closely with major aviation stakeholders, especially the Aviation Security Department, to forestall any possible attack and to ensure adequate security at the airports. This is aside other measures which have been put in place to ensure protection of lives and property across the country,” the DSS stated.
It said investigations were still ongoing but urged members of the public to remain security conscious whenever they visit any airport.
An Egyptian court on Saturday sentenced three Al Jazeera journalists to three years in prison.
While two of the reporters, Mohamed Fahmy and Baher Mohamed were present for the proceedings, the third, Australian Al Jazeera journalist Peter Greste, who was initially freed in February 2015, was sentenced in absentia.
The journalists were charged with aiding a terrorist organization, a clear reference to the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned in the country after the army overthrew President Mohamed Morsy amid mass protests against his rule in 2013.
The journalists have always insisted that they were just doing their jobs, covering all sides of the stories in Egypt.
An obviously upset Al Jazeera Media Network’s acting director general, Mostefa Souag has condemned the verdict, saying it defied logic and common sense and followed a heavily politicized and unfair trial process.
“Today’s verdict is yet another deliberate attack on press freedom. It is a dark day for the Egyptian judiciary; rather than defend liberties and a free and fair media they have compromised their independence for political reasons.”
Saturday’s ruling means Fahmy and Mohamed will return to prison where they have been detained.
All three were convicted last year on charges that included conspiring with the Brotherhood, spreading false news and endangering national security, but they have maintained their innocence.
The three appealed their convictions and in January their attorneys announced that Egypt’s highest court had granted them a retrial.
A Cameroonian journalist based in Lagos, Nigeria, Simon Ateba, been arrested in Cameroon by soldiers on allegations of espionage.
The Cameroonian authorities are believed to be accusing him of spying for the Boko Haram insurgency group that has waged a relentless war in North east Nigeria for the past six years.
Ateba, who until recently worked for The News Magazine in Lagos, was conducting an investigation on the condition of Nigerian refugees in Cameroon and Chad when he was arrested on Friday. He slept the night in detention.
The investigation is part of the Nigerian Investigative Reporting Project, NIRP, an initiative of the International Centre for Investigative Reporting, ICIR, supported by Ford Foundation.
Ateba got a grant for the investigation from the ICIR and left Abuja on Sunday but was arrested yesterday afternoon at a Nigerian refugees’ camp in Makolo in Cameroon’s far north region as he tried to leave the camp.
According to Dayo Aiyetan, the executive director of the ICIR, who has been in contact with the arrested journalist in the cell where he is being held, Ateba said he is being accused of spying for the dreaded Boko Haram insurgency group.
Explaining how he was arrested, the journalist said that he had spoken to the Governor of Maroua, the minister of communication, the army spokesman and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, before proceeding to the refugee camp in Makolo. He was arrested as he tried to leave the camp.
He said that he believed that he would be moved to Yaoundé, the Cameroonian capital, where he would be handed over to the secret police on allegations of spying for Boko Haram.
Ateba said that he has been fairly treated in detention but has not been given food or water since Friday afternoon when he was arrested. He added that he was beaten by the rain while on his way to the camp and had been feeling feverish since last night but had not been allowed to get drugs to treat himself
Attempts by the ICIR to contact the Cameroonian communications minister and the governor of Maroua have been unsuccessful as call to their mobile numbers did not go through.
Assistant Inspector General of Police Mbu Joseph Mbu is among 19 AIGs redeployed on Friday by the Inspector General of Police, Solomon Arase, just as 49 Commissioners were also moved around.
According to a statement issued by Abayomi Shogunle, Deputy Force Public Relations Officer, the redeployments were caused by vacancies created by postings and retirements of senior officers.
Mbu, who courted so much controversy in the past, including a running battle with former governor of Rivers state, Rotimi Amaechi, manhandling of the Bring Back Our Girls Group and detention of a journalist for referring to him as “controversial”, before his posting as AIG Zone 2, Lagos, is now the Commandant, Police Staff College, Jos.
The AIGs that will oversee the security in the 12 zones across the country are Tambari Mohammed, AIG Zone 1, Kano; Bala Hassan, AIG Zone 2, Lagos, Mohammed Abubakar, AIG Zone 3, Yola; Yahaya Ardo, AIG Zone 4, Makurdi; Musa Daura, AIG Zone 5, Benin; Adisa Baba Bolanta, AIG Zone 6, Calabar; Bala Magaji Nasarawa, AIG Zone 7, Abuja; Lawal Tanko, AIG Zone 8, Lokoja; Usman Gwary, AIG Zone 9, Umuahia; Mohammed Gana, AIG Zone 10, Sokoto; Helen Kalafite Adeyemi, AIG Zone 11, Oshogbo and; Johnson Ogunsakin, AIG Zone 12, Bauchi.
Adenrele Shinaba will head the Nigeria Police Academy in Kano while Yerima Irimiya heads the Force maritime division. Edgar Nanakumo will be in charge of Works at the Force Headquarters in Abuja and Olufemi Adenaike will be in charge of Training and Development also at the headquarters. James Caulcrick has been named second-in-command of the Force Criminal Intelligence and Investigations Department, Abuja.
Thirty-seven of the 49 commissioners will be in charge of security in the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, while others will head some departments both within and outside Abuja, including Special Fraud Unit, Intelligence, INTERPOL, Police Pension, etc.
In another development, the Nigeria Police Force has its first female spokesperson with the appointment of Olabisi Alofe Kolawole, an Acting Assistant Commissioner of Police, to take over from Emmanuel Ojukwu, who has been deployed to Kogi state as Commissioner of Police.
Kolawole, who until her latest appointment was the Force Gender Adviser, holds a Bachelors degree in Law from Ogun State University and a Masters degree in Police Leadership and Management from the University of Leicester.
She has served in various capacities both in and outside the country, including United Missions in East Timor, Kosovo, Liberia, etc. and is part of the investigating team assisting the International Criminal Court in the investigations of sexual and gender-based violence.
President Muhammadu Buhari has said that the diversification of the nation’s economy remains a top priority for his administration, especially in the face of dwindling revenue from oil.
Buhari, who spoke at the Presidential Villa while receiving the new Ambassador of Saudi Arabia to Nigeria, Fahad Abdullah Sefyan, said the development of the oil sector was one template of economic recovery that his government was working on at present.
“For more than 30 years, Nigeria has depended on oil as its major source of revenue at the expense of agriculture and the non-oil sector which could be the mainstay of our economy. As oil exporting countries facing similar challenges due to the down turn in the international price of crude oil, we should be working closer together,” he noted, referring to Nigeria’s partnership with Saudi Arabia.
The President called for a more beneficial economic tie with Saudi Arabia, noting that such partnership would signal the dawn of a new era for both nations and their allies.
He promised that his administration would ensure that all pending agreements on trade and economic relations with other countries were speedily concluded and signed.
Buhari equally thanked Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Sudan for their cooperation with Nigeria in its ongoing war against terrorism.
The Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, on Thursday, asked the federal government and private establishments to improve the salaries and working conditions of its members across the nation.
It noted that the harsh conditions under which most journalists work was responsible for the low productivity in the profession.
The NUJ President, Waheed Odusile, who made the plea during a side media chat at the 11th All Nigerian Editors Conference in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, said journalists as critical stakeholders in the Nigerian project deserve a better deal than they were currently getting.
“What we want from the government is a kind of enhancing the salary of journalists; let it start first with our members and colleagues in government media because the bulk of members are government employees.We do not like the way our members are being treated like other civil servants in the country; you and I know that journalists work round the clock; let the salary and other benefits go in line with the nature of the job we do,” Odusile remarked.
He added that journalists were nation builders, whose lives also needed to be built up by those who employ them
“Let the benefits reflect the work we are doing; if other professions are recognized, journalism should also be recognized in this country. Once we achieve better pay for journalist in the government media, we will move on to negotiate with the private media owners because we are doing a lot for national development,” he noted.
He said the union would continue to negotiate with the government and private news outfits to see ways in which the sordid state of the media profession could be improved upon.
This piece is not about former President Goodluck Jonathan, but it is important to focus on him to help us understand our current predicament. In June 2012, when the former president made his infamous “I don’t give a damn” comment during a presidential media chat, I knew immediately that it would define his presidency.
As it turned out, it was not only public asset declaration that the former president did not “give a damn” about. He did not “give a damn” about much of what happened under his watch as president of the federal republic.
Mr. Jonathan made other damning revelations during the media chat. He told a bewildered nation that he had gone to late President Umaru Yar’Adua to caution that, “We should not play to the hands of some people” (by openly declaring their assets), adding, “That is a matter of principle and I am not going to declare. It is not the president declaring his asset that will end Boko Haram.”
It is instructive that in 2007, as vice president, Mr Jonathan, after public outcry, declared his asset publicly following the example of his boss, the late President Yar’Adua.
In a December 2012 piece titled, “Memo to Doyin Okupe: What is President Jonathan hiding?” I responded to a press conference by Mr. Okupe, then Senior Special Assistant to President Jonathan on Public Affairs, in which he elaborated on what his boss was doing to fight corruption.
“The signing of the Freedom of Information Act into law by President Jonathan in May 2011 represents a watershed in the anti-corruption crusade in Nigeria,” Mr. Okupe noted.
“This piece of legislation, which had been virtually stalled by successive administrations since 1999, was signed into law by Mr. President to usher Nigeria into the league of countries where transparency in governance is entrenched and citizens are granted unfettered access to information about government activities.”
My response was to remind Mr. Okupe that in July 2011, two months after President Jonathan signed the FoIA, my organisation, the African Centre for Media & Information Literacy (AFRICMIL) wrote to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) requesting the details of President Jonathan’s asset declaration. We were rebuffed by the CCB.
Its chairman, Sam Saba, would later say at a public forum that there was nothing in the constitution that said the president had to declare his asset publicly.
I wondered what, for someone purported to be committed to fighting corruption, President Jonathan was hiding considering that he declared his asset as vice president in 2007 and that, in the intervening period (2007-2011), he did not do any other job (constitutionally, he was not allowed to) apart from being vice president, acting president, and president. So what had the president acquired in four years that he did not want Nigerians to know about?
It is also important to note that in a June 2012 interview with SaharaTV’s Rudolf Okonkwo, Dr. Reuben Abati, another aide of President Jonathan, had referred Nigerians interested in the president’s asset declaration “to check with the Code of Conduct Bureau office.”
The point I have laboured to make here is that beyond showing complete disinterest in addressing one of Nigeria’s major headache, corruption, Mr. Jonathan also undermined the very constitution he swore to uphold and there is a sense in which President Buhari may have unwittingly borrowed a page from Mr. Jonathan’s playbook.
Why do I say this? Here is what the laws of the country say on this issue: Paragraph 3, Part I of the Third Schedule of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria provides, among other things, that “the Bureau shall have power to: (a) receive declarations by public officers made under paragraph 12 of Part I of the Fifth Schedule to this Constitution; (b) examine the declarations in accordance with the requirements of the Code of Conduct or any law; (c) retain custody of such declarations and make them available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe.”
Section 1(1) of the Freedom of Information Act 2011 states that, “Notwithstanding anything contained in any other Act, Law or Regulation, the right of any person to access or request information, whether or not contained in any written form, which is in the custody or possession of any public official, agency or institution howsoever described, is hereby established.”
Clearly, the CCB is obligated to make asset declarations “available for inspection by any citizen of Nigeria on such terms and conditions as the National Assembly may prescribe.”
These terms and conditions are covered under the FoI bill assented to by the Clerk to the National Assembly on May 27, 2011.
Considering his avowed commitment to anti-corruption, I think President Buhari made a false start on the war by not making public his asset the very day he was sworn-in as president. He didn’t need to wait for anybody or group to make the request. He has to redeem himself, and quickly too, because this is an issue that will not go away, not minding the convoluted logic of Mr. Saba and his CCB and the equivocation of Mr. Femi Adesina, the Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity.
Two weeks ago, in an interview with the Punch, Mr. Saba said his agency had not commenced the verification of the asset of President Buhari and Vice President Osinbajo and that the CCB was waiting for the Presidency to tell it when it would be ready to commence the task.
“Even if the president’s asset is as huge as the country’s external reserve,” a friend noted, “why should it take so long to verify?” I thought the question was quite amusing if it were not such a serious matter.
Prior to Mr. Saba’s intervention, the Presidency had said that the president would only make his asset public after it had been verified by the CCB. Then came Mr. Adesina’s comment during an interview that the president did not say he would declare his asset publicly.
There is a feeling of déjà vu on the issue of public asset declaration. Is Adesina’s position a prelude to what we should expect? Let’s assume, for the purpose of argument, that the president did not say he would declare his asset publicly, could there be a better way to lead by example in the anti-corruption campaign than for the president to publicly declare his worth?
Of course, I know the worth of public asset declaration or asset declaration in Nigeria having served, about a decade ago, as head of the crime prevention unit of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Trust is, therefore, very important for President Buhari to win the war on corruption.
If the president’s minders can’t tell him, the truth is that there is simmering disquiet, even among staunch Buharists, over the issue of his public asset declaration. And the sooner he resolves it in accordance with popular expectation, the better for the mounting “wind of change.”
You can reach Chido Onumah via conumah@hotmail.com or follow him on Twitter @conumah
The Nigerian Ambassador to the United States, Adebowale Adefuye, has died in Washington after he suffered a heart attack, the www.icirnigeria.org can authoritatively report.
A driver at Nigerian Embassy in Washington DC said on Friday morning that Adefuye died on Thursday evening after he suffered a heart attack shortly after leaving the office. The ambassador was rushed to a hospital where he was confirmed dead.
The embassy staff said that arrangements were already being made to transport the ambassador’s body back to Nigeria.
Attempts to get Adefuye’s wife to give details of his demise were unsuccessful as calls made to her mobile phone in Washington did not go through.
A friend of the family who does not want to be named expressed shock at the ambassador’s death, saying that he still saw him two days ago.
The source, who said that Adefuye was in good health and spirit when he visited him in his office on Wednesday, revealed that the ambassador was planning to return home before the end of September having been notified by the foreign affairs ministry that his tour of duty comes to an end on August 31.
The ambassador, the source said, indicated that the ministry had given him a three week grace to tidy up his handing over before leaving office.
Adefuye, 68, was appointed Nigerian Ambassador to the US in 2010 by the Goodluck Jonathan administration.
Before then, he had been Nigerian ambassador to Jamaica. He had also worked with the Commonwealth as well as the Economic Community for West Africa, where he was an advisor before his appointment to Washington.
President Muhammadu Buhari has announced a new set of appointees with Babachir David Lawal named as Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, and Abba Kyari as Chief of Staff to the President.
Also announced were the appointments of former military administrator of Kaduna state, Hameed Ali as the Comptroller-General of Nigerian Customs Services and Kure Martin Abeshi as the new Comptroller-General of the Nigerian Immigration Service.
Other appointments announced Thursday include Ita Enang, Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate) and; Suleiman Kawu, Senior Special Assistant to the on National Assembly Matters (House of Representatives).
A statement issued by Femi Adesina, special adviser to the President on media and publicity, said that the appointments are with immediate effect.
Lawal, a 1979 Engineering graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, hails from Hong local government area in Adamawa and worked with Delta Steel Company, Aladja, Nigerian External Telecommunications Limited and Data Sciences Limited, etc. while the new Chief of Staff, Kyari, attended the University of Cambridge and the University of Warwick where he obtained a Bachelors and Masters degrees in Law and Sociology respectively before working with the New Nigeria Development Company, New Africa Holdings, African International Bank, United Bank for Africa, Unilever, etc.
Ali, a retired Colonel, holds a Bachelors and Master degrees in Criminology. In addition to being a former military administrator of Kaduna state from 1996 to 1998, he was also the President’s former chief of staff.
Abeshi, who hails from Nasarawa state, replaces former Comptroller-General of Immigration, David Parradang, who was suspended earlier in the week.
