Nigeria News
Bayelsa battles rumour mongers
The government of oil rich Nigerian state of Bayelsa decided something needed to be done, to stamp out the spreading of rumours. So billboards have been erected around town and a committee has been named.
The campaign against rumour mongering is now underway in the home state of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan.
“What rumours are they scared of?” said Simon Goladi, a 34-year-old sociology student walking near one of the anti-rumour billboards in the state capital Yenagoa. “It’s just a waste of resources.”
an anti rumour bill board in Bayelsa state
While it may seem odd that the state, located in the country’s oil-producing Niger Delta region and with an impoverished population, has decided to spend energy and resources on stopping rumours, there is precedent.
The previous Bayelsa governor had a special assistant on propaganda and rumour management, his spokesman Doifie Ola said. Current Governor Henry Seriake Dickson has opted for a 13-member committee, called the Public Information Management Committee.
•Governor Henry Seriake Dickson
“That points to the fact that rumours were a problem,” Tarinyo Akono, a member of the committee who also works for the state information ministry, said of the previous government’s decision to have an adviser on rumours.
“It’s also important to check this thing because in the long run the problem might overwhelm the people.”
So far the most visible signs of the campaign have been billboards depicting actors pretending to pass rumours to each other and urging residents to “say no to rumour mongers.”
They have been erected at main intersections and phone numbers are listed for residents to call “when in doubt.” Akono specified that the numbers were to allow residents to verify whether information being passed on to them was true, however no one was answering at any of the three numbers earlier this week.
Niger Delta activist Anyakwee Nsirimovu of the Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law condemned the campaign, saying he believed it was simply meant to protect the governor from criticism as well as hand out government positions to allies – a well-worn practice in Nigeria, where deeply rooted corruption has kept meaningful development out of reach in many cases.
“They want to, through the backdoor, introduce censorship,” he said.
Bayelsa’s governor is no stranger to criticism over alleged patronage. He faced an uproar last year when the wife of the president, a political ally, was granted a top government post.
But Akono says the anti-rumour campaign is both legitimate and important.
Rumours are capable of breaking up marriages or causing false information to spread about violence that can lead to shops closing, he said.
He insists that no one will be arrested for spreading rumours and that the campaign is merely meant to persuade people to resist the temptation to dish dirt.
Asked if there was something specific that prompted the campaign, he gave examples of rumours spreading about the governor himself.
In September when Dickson was out of town, a rumour spread that he had suffered health problems and become physically paralysed, said Akono. Another time earlier this year, a rumour spread that a court had overturned his election in 2012 polls, he said.
“Meanwhile, there was no iota of truth in all of these things,” he said. “Business people also get scared. If not checked, it could also result in some of the contractors running away from the state.”
But considering those examples, did that mean the effort was mainly aimed at protecting the governor?
“No, I’m just giving you instances,” said Akono. “There are other instances.”
Opinions around town were difficult to gauge.
While sociology student Goladi said he felt it was all a waste of time, another resident working at a nearby automotive spare parts shop agreed with the campaign and even went further, arguing that people should be arrested for spreading false rumours.
“The former state governor, they said he changed into lady’s clothes,” said Tony Tochukwu, 26, referring to another former Bayelsa governor. “It’s not good. It’s false.”
There were widespread allegations in in the local press that the ex-governor he was referring to dressed as a woman to disguise himself when he fled Britain after being charged with money laundering. It has never been confirmed and the ex-governor later denied it.
The cost of the anti-rumour campaign is not yet clear. Akono said the budget is still being put together, though he specified that his position did not include a salary.
However, committee members would likely receive allowances to cover their expenses, he said.
“Nobody’s limiting criticism,” he said. “Criticism is different from falsehood. If there is a politician who is not doing well, I can come out and say, ‘my brother, you are not doing well.’ That is different than spreading rumours.”
.Reported by M.J.Smith of the AFP
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The Kano State Government on Saturday said it has transferred 1,098 ‘almajiris’ to different states of the country.
The commissioner for local government, Murtala Garo, disclosed this while presenting a report before the state’s task force on COVID-19 at the government house, Kano.
Almajiris are children who are supposed to be learning Islamic studies while living with their Islamic teachers. Majority of them, however, end up begging on the streets of Northern Nigeria. They constitute a large number of Nigeria’s over 10 million out-of-school children.
Mr Garo said the Kano government transported 419 almajiris to Katsina, 524 to Jigawa and 155 to Kaduna. He said all of them tested negative for coronavirus before leaving the Kano State.
Despite the coronavirus test done in Kano for the almajiris, the Jigawa government earlier said it would quarantine for two weeks all the almajiris that recently arrived from Kano.
Mr Garo said another 100 almajiris scheduled to be taken to Bauchi State also tested negative to COVID-19.
In a remark, Governor Abdullahi Ganduje said the COVID-19 situation in Kano was getting worse. He appealed for a collaborative effort to curtail the spread of the virus in the state.
Mr Ganduje, who commended residents for complying with the lockdown imposed in the state, said the decision was taken to halt the spread of the virus.
Kano State, as of Saturday night, has 77 coronavirus cases, according to the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control.
The decision to transfer the Kano almajiris is part of the agreement reached between Northern governors that almajiris in each state be transferred to their states of origin.
However, even before the latest agreement by the governors, the Kano government had been transferring almajiris to other states and neighbouring countries after it banned street begging in the state, most populous in Northern Nigeria.
Despite the transfers, however, no concrete step has been taken to ensure such children do not return to Kano streets as there is freedom of movement across Nigeria although interstate travel was recently banned to check the spread of the coronavirus.
Sourced From: Premium Times Nigeria
By Ugochukwu Alaribe
Operatives of the Abia State Vigilante Service, AVS, popularly known as ‘Bakassi Boys’ have arrested 24 market women hidden in a container truck, at Ekwereazu Ngwa, the boundary community between Abia and Akwa Ibom states.
The market women, said to be from Akwa Ibom State, were on their way to Aba, when they were arrested with the truck driver and two of his conductors for violating the lockdown order by the state government.
Driver of the truck, Moses Asuquo, claimed he was going to Aba to purchase stock fish, but decided to assist the market women, because they were stranded.
A vigilante source told Sunday Vanguard that the vehicle was impounded while the market women were sent back to Akwa Ibom State.
Commissioner for Home Land Security, Prince Dan Okoli, who confirmed the incident, said that smuggling of people into the state poses great threat to the state government’s efforts to contain the spread of COVID- 19.
Sourced From: Vanguard News
Operatives of the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID), Yaba of the Lagos State police command have arrested one Mrs Nene Steve for allegedly killing her maid, Joy Adole
The maid was allegedly beaten to death by Nene for requesting for her salary at their residence located at 18, Ogundola Street, Bariga area in Lagos.
Narrating the incident, Philips Ejeh, an elder brother to the deceased said that he was sad when they informed him that his sister was beaten to death.
He explained that the deceased was an indigene of Benue State brought to Lagos through an agent and started working with her as a maid in January 2020.
‘’She reported that her boss refused to pay her and anytime she asked for her salary she will start beating her.
She was making an attempt to leave the place but due to the total lockdown she remained there until Sunday when her boss said she caught her stealing noodles and this led to her serious beating and death,’’ Ejeh said.
He called on Lagos State Government and well- meaning people in the country to help them in getting justice for the victim.
The police spokesman, Bala Elkana, stated that the woman and her husband came to Bariga Police Station to a report that their house girl had committed suicide.
Detectives were said to have visited the house and suspected foul play with the position of the rope and bruises all over the body which confirmed that the girl had been tortured to death and the boss decided to hang up the girl to make it look like suicide.
He said: “The police moved on with their investigation and found a lot of sign of violence on her body that she has been tortured before a rope was put on her neck.’’
He added that the police removed the corpse and deposited it in the mortuary for autopsy to further ascertain the cause of the death.
Elkana said the matter has been transferred from Bariga police station to Panti for further investigation while the couple have been arrested and will be charged to court.
Ostensibly alarmed by the latest killings of dozens of soldiers by Boko Haram insurgents, President Muhammadu Buhari has summoned an urgent meeting of Service Chiefs to find ways to stop the trend.
He has also dispatched the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan Ali, to the neighbouring Republic of Chad for an urgent meeting with President Idris Deby and his defence counterpart.
Knowledgeable sources said in Abuja on Friday that the president is worried by on the deterioration of security situation on the Nigeria – Chad Border that has led to the recently increased Boko Haram terrorism in the area.
The sources which did not want to be named in Abuja said: “Nigeria has a Chad problem in the Multi-National Joint Task Force (MNJTF) put together to secure the Lake Chad basin areas and repeal the Boko Haram terrorist attacks against all the countries neighbouring the Lake.”
The sources noted that Chad is believed to be having their own internal security challenges and this has reportedly led to their pulling away their own troops manning their own border around Lake Chad, saying: “That lacuna is being exploited by the Boko Haram terrorists, who go in and out of Nigeria, Niger and Cameroon to launch terrorist acts. This is a clear illustration of the fact that terrorism is beyond national borders.”
When contacted, the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, confirmed that the Defence Minister is going to Chad but said he is unaware of the purpose.
Meanwhile, the military authorities are said to be in the process of identifying the families of the latest victims with a view to making contact with them.
Credible sources revealed that it is the reason the president is yet to make any pronouncement on the matter.
“The President has called an urgent meeting with the Service Chiefs, as well as the fact that families of the latest victims of the Boko Haram are being identified and contacts made before a government pronouncement on the tragic attacks. This, it is understood, is the reason for the silence of the government over the incident,” the source said.
Sourced From: Tribune
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