Nigeria News
OPINION: It is too early to cry for Jude Agbaso – By Eze Uzochukwu
The truth is that when people do not know the purpose of a particular thing,they are likely to abuse it. Today you hear all kinds of abuses in the Imo State government because they do not know the purpose for which power and authority is given.
If the Imo State Deputy Governor Sir Jude Agbaso knew the purpose of government and governance, perhaps that singular knowledge would have guided him against serving selfish ends and fulfilling other peoples dream.
Perhaps if Sir Jude Agbaso new that one of the tenets of governance is to protect the innocent, he would not have readily became a tool in the hands of Governor Rochas Okorocha by heading a kangaroo panel that purportedly indicted an innocent man in the person of former Governor Ikedi Ohakim. Now the hunter has become the hunted. By not as much as allowing Ohakim the right of answering the so called allegations against him, Jude Agbaso became a metaphor for the abuse of the fundamental right of another person.
It is interesting to know that it was this same Jude Agbaso who as the then Imo State Commissioner for works refused to pay contractors for road works done after they where deceived to use their own funds to execute more than thirty percent of work. Many of the said contractors borrowed heavily from financial institutions while using their properties as collateral. Some of the contractors are today destroyed economically courtesy of Jude Agbaso. That gain is a metaphor for abuse of others by Jude Agbaso.
Sometimes we might be able to see the pointers of a lack of purpose in some people’s lives. Under his watch as the Deputy Governor, Jude Agbaso lost his Permanent Secretary to Kidnappers and till date nothing has been heard of him. Under his watch as deputy governor, Jude Agbaso lost his Director of Protocol who was brutally assassinated by hoodlums. Nobody heard Jude Agbaso stood up to vehemently condemn these atrocities. Here again Jude Agbaso became another metaphor for abuse of power.
Many people run our lives and our governments but do not know the purpose for which they run it. Many run our lives and do things that influence us without a clear sense of purpose. Jude Agbaso is one of them. When Jude Agbaso stood behind Rochas Okorocha in a public press interview and brim with smiles as Rochas defect to the new party APC, I again saw Jude Agbaso as a metaphor for abuse. This time abuse of his elder brother Chief Martin Agbaso the leader of APGA in Imo State. In effect, Jude Agbaso failed to understand and comprehend the ingredients of the alliance between his elder brother and the Governor. He abused the very foundation upon which his position as deputy governor was built and concretized.
It is too early to cry for Jude Agbaso, if at all we shall cry for him. For one, we shall first of all look at the characteristics of his stay in office. Was it characterized by integrity, uprightness, justice and elements of honesty? To begin with, where was Jude Agbaso when Rochas Okorocha moved the permanent site of the Imo State University to Ogboko his home town against the spirit of the three zonal campus structure of the University? He kept silence even as his own senatorial zone was deprived. If not for other well meaning citizens who forced the reversal of the decision, Rochas would have gotten away with it, to the detriment of Owerri zone where Jude Agbaso comes from.
Where was Jude Agbaso when the relief materials donated to the recent victims of flood disaster in the State were diverted and sold by top government officials in the black market? Today the victims of the flood, covering three local government areas are still living in penury and suffering. We can go on and on, but at the end of the day, the picture and image that emerges of a Jude Agbaso is that of a man who probably lacks in integrity, justice and honesty.
It must not be forgotten that Sir Jude Agbaso was part of the Okorocha political train that totally wiped out and destroyed the middle class in Imo State. Jude Agbaso is not blameless, neither is he honest. The result of all these is that Rochas is a man alone. All who clamour around him are riding on a tigers back to their own inevitable destruction. They must watch out.
Even if we have to forgive Jude Agbaso in obedience to our biblical obligations, he must first of all confess his sins against the Imo people. He must confess because he was part of the sabotage and truncation of the political arrangement of Imo people that stands on a tripod of Orlu, Okigwe and Owerri.
The irony of been part of a buccaneer political criminal enterprise is that sooner or later they start fighting themselves. Of all those who stood with Rochas on that day when he was sworn in as the governor of Imo State, few are left with him today, and that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
When Imo people ask for due process in the operations of government, the shout of rescue mission rented the air from naysayers. Today we have seen what the rescue mission is all about with no clear spelling out of procedures and processes of accessing government contracts, and shrouded government expenditure pattern.
The lesson in all this is that we should all watch out for the wrong association in order to avoid destruction. Jude Agbaso an innocent entrepreneur was destroyed by his association with Rochas Okorocha. At the end Imo people were not able to see his ability, his performance, and his innate potentials and accomplishments. That is so bad for Jude Agbaso.
Written by: Prince Eze Ugochukwu
IMO STATE BLOGIMO STATE BLOG | IMO STATE BLOG
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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