Nigeria News
Probe me, not my aides, Obasanjo dares FG
The cold war between former President Olusegun Obasanjo and the Goodluck Jonathan Administration came again to the fore on Sunday at a thanksgiving service held in honour of a former Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili, in Abuja.
At the service that had many eminent Nigerians, including a former Head of the Service of the Federation, Steve Oronsaye, and ex-Attorney General of Federation and Minister of Justice, Kanu Agabi, in attendance, Obasanjo said if the Goodluck Jonathan administration was keen on probing his government, it should come after him instead of people that served under him.
He also flayed the plan by the Federal Government to set up a pipeline protection agency, saying it was another avenue for corruption.
But Obasanjo’s comments drew the ire of the Presidency which said no past administration, either past or present, should be afraid of probe. It also advised the former President to allow Jonathan to do his work.
The former leader had at the 50th birthday thanksgiving service for Ezekwesili, said, “I have always said this, whatever you want to blame in my government, blame me; don’t blame any of those people who assisted me. If there is any credit to dispense, we share it. But for anything you want to say is wrong, I was the one in charge and I was in charge.”
Obasanjo, whose comments were necessitated by the war of words between Ezekwesili, and the Presidency over the $ 67bn the Jonathan administration inherited from his government, said he had absolute trust in those that worked under him, especially as ministers.
Ezekwesili’s claim that the Federal Government squandered the sum was described by the Presidency as reckless.
Turning to the former Education minister, Obasanjo said he was sure nothing would be found against her because of her integrity and commitment to public service.
He said, “Actually those who wanted to probe you (Ezekwesili), you should have asked them to go ahead because if they are honest, they would find out that the government should give you money for what you have done for this country without stealing money.”
Obasanjo, who is the immediate past Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party Board of Trustees, then faced Oronsaye, Agabi, a former Central Bank of Nigeria Governor, Charles Soludo; and ex- Minister of Information, Frank Nweke Jnr., and said, “When I look at you, I thank God for making you available to serve in my administration, to serve Nigeria and serve God at the time you did.”
But he faulted Agabi’s earlier call at the service for the establishment of a National Commission for Integration, saying it was not necessary. According to him, the entire 1999 Constitution is for integration.
“What else do you need. You have a constitution that is intended to integrate the country. You have the Federal Character Commissiom for instance. What is that one meant to do? It is for integration. The entire constitution is all about integrating this country. If at all we failed to use it, it can even be said that we have breached the constitution. You don’t need a commission for integration,” Obasanjo added.
On the planned agency for pipeline protection, the former President said it would be another avenue for corruption.
“This (Sunday) morning, I was travelling from Abeokuta and I was listening to a radio station when I heard that they (government) are going to set up an agency for pipeline protection. Now, what are the police for? What are all the security agencies that we have doing? This is another chop chop.
For those advocating change in Nigeria, Obasanjo said they must be prepared to take insults.
“I just hope that we will get it right. We have no choice, we have to get it right. Let us decide individually that ‘I would do what I have to do to bring about change in Nigeria.’ If you do that, let me assure you, you will be called names; you will be abused; some people are hired to do that. But like Oby (Ezekwesili) say what you believe is right and stand by it.
But the Special Adviser to the President on Political Matters, Dr. Ahmed Gulak, responded to Obasanjo’s comments, saying that any administration could be probed.
Gulak, in an interview with one of Punch correspondents, argued that even the current administration was being probed regularly by the legislative arm of government.
He added, “ This administration and past administrations can be probed. Nobody should be afraid of probe.”
On Obasanjo’s description of the planned pipeline protection agency as another chop chop, Gulak said as an elderstatesman, Obasanjo should not just criticise government for its sake, but should proffer solutions if indeed he loves the country.
He said since Obasanjo was not the present President, he should allow the incumbent to concentrate on his job.
Gulak said, “The former President is entitled to his opinion; but he is not the President. He should allow the President to do his work. People should stop making derogatory statements about the President. There is only one President in the country today and we should all support him.
“People should not just be criticising government. As an elderstatesman, if he indeed loves this country, he should proffer solutions rather than criticising.”
Some aides of the former President- Hassan Lawal, Nasir el-Rufa, Femi Fani-Kayode, and Adeyanju Bodunde – are currently being tried for various offences.
While Lawal, a former Minister of Works, is being prosecuted for N75bn fraud, el-Rufai, an ex- Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, is facing trial for irregular land allocation and abuse of office.
Fani-Kayode, who is former Minister of Aviation, is facing trial for money laundering while and Bodunde, an special assistant to Obasanjo, was in 2011 arraigned for his alleged involvement in the $ 180m Harlibutton bribery scandal.
Ezekwesili had in her remarks, recalled how her parents moulded her by teaching her moral values. She said she could not understand why people would wanted to enjoy a life that they never worked for.
“I was born to parents who are from a humble family. My daddy was a man of uncompromising integrity. My daddy worked in Nigeria Ports Authority. He used to say to us that the NPA had become a centre of corruption. That was so many years ago. My mother talked my father out of public service because she was afraid for him.
“My mother used to go to what we call bend down boutiques in Tejuosho Market in Lagos to buy clothes for us. She knew what they called grade one okrika (used clothes). We did not have money. We were poor but rich in values. Those values shaped everything about me. From young age, good governance and accountability mattered to me,” she told the congregation.
Ezekwesil, who said she felt “a sense of completion of a certain phase in my life,” added that corruption in governance today might not allow a child of similar background to survive.
“In a relatively decent society, I got the kind of education that has taken me thus far. I was Minister of Education. A similarly poor child, who comes from the kind of family I came from when I was young would not have the kind of opportunities that I had in this same nation.
“We must therefore build a decent society that does not sow this terrible seed of inequality that I see around me today. When I see the children of drivers, the gardeners and I see that they will not have the kind of education and opportunities that I had, it pains me.”
On why she criticised the government recently, she replied that “democracy is incomplete without the engagement of citizens in the process. The demand for accountability and results is the right of citizens.”
In his homily, Rev. Dr. William Okoye, appealed to Nigerians to shun corruption and be contented.
According to him, any nation that places values on materialism is doomed.
“Life is not about material things that some of us are concerned about today. Life consists of far more than that. When people value money more than life and God, they can do anything. The life you live pursuing mundane things at the expense of God has no blessing and can’t save you.”
Punch
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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
Nigeria records 55 new COVID-19 infections, total now 165,110
Military, Police Ring Abuja to Forestall Boko Haram Attack
UFC: Usman gets N584m after beating Masvidal
Insecurity: Lagos bans occupation of abandoned buildings
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