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Lagos appraises S/Court verdict on hospitality business

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The Lagos State Government on Wednesday said though it lost close to N4Billion in revenue to the illegal regulations of hotels in the State by the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC) in the last six years, last Friday’s judgement of the Supreme Court on the issue has now provided the State Government the opportunity to reposition the tourism industry.

The State Commissioner for Tourism and Inter-Governmental Relations, Mr Oladisun Holloway who stated this at a press briefing held at the Bagauda Kaltho Press Centre, Alausa to appraise the ruling which vested the control of Tourism and Hotel Regulation on States Houses of Assembly reiterated that the state would use the landmark judgement to reposition the tourism sector rather than focus on the revenue it would make from it.

Disun Holloway, middle,  explains a point.

Disun Holloway, middle, explains a point.

“I must stress that this whole thing isn’t meant to make money or how much the state will make. Specifically, our main interest is to structure the performance of the industry rather than how much we intend to gain”, he added.

While commending the judgement, the Commissioner explained that it would greatly help address the ambiguities and uncertainties in the hospitality industry and would boost investors’ confidence in the tourism sector”.

“It is my belief that the Supreme Court decision can only deepen the tenets of federalism and serve to eradicate the multiplicity of regulations within the sector. We shall however continue to partner with investors and other stakeholders in the development and standardization of the tourism and leisure services sector in the State”, he said.

According to Mr Holloway, the N4Billion represented the revenue that would have accrued to the state from hotel licensing, grading and other functions which the NTDC usurped since 2007.

“We stopped collecting funds from the NTDC or sharing funds with NTDC in July, 2007. And in Lagos for instance we believe that we have on the average about 3, 000 outlets. The big ones may be about 20, the mid-range and the smaller ones. But if we were to take an average of registration fee which is about N250, 000 in a year multiplied by 3, 000 and multiply that by 6, that is, the number of years that we stopped collecting fund from the NTDC, one will come up with about N3.75 billion. But again that isn’t the main focus to the state government”, the Commissioner said.

He informed that the state has also engaged many private organizations in leisure and resort development to fashion out a template for the rapid transformation of the tourism sector towards enhancing wealth generation and job creation opportunities for the benefit of the people, stakeholders and investors.

He appealed to the over 3000 hotels and other hospitality establishments yet to register with the state government to reconsider their stance because their compliance with the provisions of the Lagos State Licensing (Amended) Law 2010 is a requirement for operating in the state.

Holloway urged the NTDC to go back to its real function of managing tourist traffic in the country through effective information management and tourism promotion programmes.

It would be recalled that a panel of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, led by Justice Suleiman Galadima, had on Friday unanimously ruled that it was only State Houses of Assembly that could make laws on tourism or the licensing and grading of hotels and other hospitality establishments.

The court said the 1999 Constitution only empowered the National Assembly to regulate tourist traffic, “a term which does not include hotels grading and licensing“.

It validated both the Hotel Licencing Law of Lagos State (as amended), and Hotel Occupancy and Consumption Law, declaring as null and void the conflicting sections of the NTDC Act.

This was after the Lagos State Government and the Federal Government had approached the Courts over the question of proper authority to license and grade hospitality establishments.

While the Federal Government sought to pursue these functions through the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation (NTDC), Lagos State Government had always insisted that it was a usurpation of State functions and that the NTDC Law became null and void once the 1999 Constitution came into effect.

Also present during the briefing was the Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr Lateef Ibirogba

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Posted in Nigeria News. A DisNaija.Com network.

Source: PM News

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Kano Transfers Over 1,000 Almajiris To Different States Amidst COVID-19 Pandemic

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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

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COVID-19: ‘Bakassi Boys’ Foil Attempt To Smuggle 24 Women Into Abia In Container

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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

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Woman Kills Her Maid Over Salary Request

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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.

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Boko Haram Attacks: Buhari Summons Urgent Meeting Of Service Chiefs

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President Buhari and the Service Chiefs in a meeting. (File photo)

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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