Buhari Sympathizes With Nigerian Editors Over Loss Of Deputy President In Auto Crash

June 30, 2019

President Muhammadu Buhari has expressed sympathy over death of the Deputy President of Nigerian Guild of Editors (NGE), and immediate past Managing Director of Kano State Broadcasting Corporation, Malam Umar Sa’id Tudun Wada.

In a statement in Abuja today, June 30, the President described late Tudun Wada as a gentleman and thoroughbred professional who lived up to the standard of professionalism.

“Journalism is service to humanity because it serves as a watchdog of society by holding leaders accountable for their actions. I am proud that the late Tudun Wada played his role very well, with an unblemished career.

“Let me use this opportunity to extend my sincere condolences to the Guild of Editors, Kano State Government and family of Tudun Wada. May Allah grant them fortitude to bear the loss, and reward the deceased with aljanna.’’

Umar Tudun Wada died today, June 30 afternoon in road accident outside Kano city. He was returning to the city from an engagement in Abuja when the crash happened around Kura town, about 25 kilometres from Kano.

In a career that spanned close to 40 years, Mr Tudunwada worked in television and radio both locally and with international broadcasters.

He started his journalism career as a News Assistant with the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA) in 1980. He left in 1983 to join the then City Television (CTV) owned by the Kano State Government.

Tudun Wada was in the team that pioneered the first private broadcaster in the northern part of Nigeria, Freedom Radio in early 2000s.

He worked with the Hausa services of the Radio Deutsche-Welle (Voice of Germany) and Voice of America (VOA).

Umar Tudun Wada ended his sojourn at VOA, which he joined in 2006, in 2009 to take up the position as the General Manager of Freedom Radio.

He later transferred his services to the Radio Dandal Kura in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, before he was appointed as the managing director of Radio Kano by Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.

He left the position on June 4.

Tudun Wad also served as media aide at various times to governors Ibrahim Shekarau and Rabiu Kwankwaso, in Kano State. In May, he was returned as the elected deputy president (North) of the Nigerian Guild of Editors.

Meanwhile, Governor Umar Abdullahi Ganduje has said Tudun Wada’s death is a great loss that leaves a wide vacuum in the media practice in the state and the country as a whole.

“Not only his families, the state and the media profession would forever remember him as an Icon who left when we all needed him the most.”

The statement by Ganduje’s Chef Press Secretary, Abba Anwar, described Tudun Wada as “a complete gentleman whose clean character shaped many promising media men an women in the state and beyond.

“With Umar Sa’id Tudunwada, media ethics were carefully adhered to and other practitioners copied character and characteristics of a rare gem.”

He urged other practising journalists to copy “from the exceptional professional life of Tudunwada for meaningful development of the profession.”

Ruga Settlements Not For Only Fulani Herders – Presidency

Editorial staff

June 30, 2019

The Presidency has made it clear that plan by the federal government to establish Ruga settlements across the country would not be for the use of only Fulani herdsmen but all those in animal husbandry business.

The presidency which lamented the unnecessary controversy the issue of Ruga settlements, which is a plan to stop roaming of cattle herders with the attendant clashes with farmers, described the comments by some people as unhelpful.

A statement today, June 30 by the senior special assistant to the President on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, explained that Ruga settlements are meant to settle migrant pastoral families and other animal farmers.

“Not just cattle herders will be settled in an organized place, with provision of necessary and adequate basic amenities such as schools, hospitals, road networks, vet clinics, markets and manufacturing entities that will process and add value to meats and animal products.

“Beneficiaries will include all persons in animal husbandry, not only Fulani herders.”

He said that the Federal Government is planning this in order to curb open grazing of animals that continue to pose security threats to farmers and herders.

“The overall benefit to the nation includes a drastic reduction in conflicts between herders and farmers, a boost in animal protection complete with a value chain that will increase the quality and hygiene of livestock in terms of beef and milk production, increased quality of feeding and access to animal care and private sector participation in commercial pasture production by way of investments.

“Other gains are job creation, access to credit facilities, security for pastoral families and curtailment of cattle rustling.

“Stripped of the politics and howling that has attended the recent comments, there is no government plan to seize state land, colonize territory or impose Ruga on any part of the federation. Government has made it clear time and again that the programme is voluntary.

“So far, twelve states have applied to the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, making lands available for the take-off of the scheme in their states. This number is sufficient for the pilot scheme.

“Unfortunately, some state governments that have not signified interest in the scheme and, therefore, are not on the invitation list have been misleading people that the Federal Government is embarking on a scheme to take away their lands.

“Mostly, these are state leaders that have no explanation to offer their people for continued non-payment of workers’ salaries. It is true that government at the centre has gazetted lands in all states of the federation but because the idea is not to force this programme on anyone, the government has limited the take-off to the dozen states with valid requests.

“We urge states to join the Federal Government at the centre in encouraging all sides to these conflicts to make efforts towards finding a peaceful resolution.

“As we seek a permanent solution to these unwanted conflicts, efforts must be made to ensure that no innocent person faces any kind of deprivation or loss of right and freedom under our laws.”

Yes, I Have Illegal Arms Deal With Nigerian Govt In 2013, 2014, Ex US Art Student Confesses

Editorial staff

June 29, 2019

A 58 year old former American art student, Ara Dolarian Jr., has pleaded guilty in federal court to having an illegal arms deal in 2013 and 2014 with the Nigerian government and is facing a one count charge of conspiracy to violate the American Arms Export Control Act.

Ara Dolarian faces a maximum of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine. He awaits sentencing.

Court documents show Dolarian, through his company Dolarian Capital Inc., was trying to sell high-explosive bombs, rockets, military-grade firearms and aircraft-mounted cannons from Eastern Europe and South Africa without approval from the U.S. State Department.

Federal prosecutors charged Dolarian with conspiracy, illegal arms dealing and money laundering. He was facing up 45 years in prison if he was found guilty on all the charges. But in a hearing on before U.S. District Judge, Lawrence J. O’Neill, Dolarian entered a guilty plea to conspiracy to violate the Arms Export Control Act.

The act provides the general rules for selling military grade weapons, including the requirement to be licensed by the State Department. Prosecutors allege Dolarian broke the rules by brokering a deal without approval from federal officials.

The Nigerian deal that included bombs, rockets and cannons was worth $8.6 million. Dolarian is alleged to have used some of the money to pay off federal and state tax debts. But as part his guilty plea, Dolarian will have to forfeit more than $6 million to the U.S. government.

For years, Dolarian quietly operated his Fresno-based company, Dolarian Capital Inc., out of a West Shaw Avenue office, until word of his exploits in the arms dealing world began to circulate.

In 2014, BuzzFeed wrote an article about Dolarian’s life as lucrative international arms dealer, selling everything from Soviet T-72 tanks to rocket launchers.

Dolarian’s expertise in arms dealing is a far cry from his humble beginnings in his hometown of Fresno. His mother, Rose Dolarian, was a peace activist and his father, Ara, was at one time chairman of the Art Department at Fresno State.

The younger Dolarian initially followed his father into the art world. He studied sculpture at the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine.

INEC Prepares For November Kogi, Bayelsa Guber Elections

Greenbarge Reporters

June 29, 2019

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has embarked on preparation for the November gubernatorial elections in Kogi and Bayelsa States.
The Commission has announced the recruitment, training and deployment of ad-hoc staff for the elections.
According to the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, who spoke at a policy dialogue on “Dynamics of delegation: Reforms in the recruitment, training and deployment of ad-hoc election personnel,” in Abuja the early preparation is to stem any form of mistakes.

Senate President Leads Federal Delegation To Africa Cup Of Nations In Egypt

Editorial staff

June 29, 2019

President of the Senate, Ahmed Lawan has been picked by President Muhammadu Buhari to lead a Federal Government delegation to the ongoing 2019 Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) finals in Egypt.

Also on the delegation are the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Femi Gbajabiamila, and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha.

Governors Ifeanyi Okowa and Babajide Sanwo-Olu, of Delta and Lagos States respectively, are equally to be part of the delegation.

There are also the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Governor, Godwin Emefiele, President of the Nigeria Olympic Committee (NOC), Habu Gumel, and a Representative of the Presidency; Captain Hosa Okunbo.

You Can’t Build Border Wall With $2.5 Billion, Judge: This Is Disgrace, President Trump

Greenbarge Reporters

June 29, 2019

Judge Haywood S. Gilliam, Jr. in Oakland acted in two lawsuits filed by California and by activists who contended that the money transfer was unlawful and that building the wall would pose environmental threats.

“All President Trump has succeeded in building is a constitutional crisis, threatening immediate harm to our state,” said California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, who led a 20-state coalition of attorneys general in one lawsuit.

Speaking at a press conference marking the end of the Group of 20 summit in Osaka, Japan, Trump called the decision “a disgrace.”

“So we’re immediately appealing it and we think we’ll win the appeal,” he went on to say.

“There was no reason that that should have happened. And a lot of wall is being built.”

The decisions are in line with Gilliam’s ruling last month that blocked work from beginning on two of the highest-priority projects — one spanning 74 kilometres in New Mexico and another covering 8 kilometres in Yuma, Arizona.

But the fight is far from over. The US 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to take up the same issue of using military money next week.

At issue is President Donald Trump’s February declaration of a national emergency so that he could divert NZ$9.9 billion from military and other sources to begin construction of the wall, which could have begun as early as Tuesday.

Trump declared the emergency after losing a fight with the Democratic-led House that led to a 35-day government shutdown.

The president identified NZ$5.3 billion from military construction funds, NZ$3.7 billion from Defence Department counterdrug activities and NZ$892 million from the Treasury Department’s asset forfeiture fund.

The judge yesterday didn’t rule on funding from the military construction and Treasury budgets.

In the second suit, brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Sierra Club and the Southern Border Communities Coalition, the judge determined that the use of the NZ$3.7 billion for two sectors of the wall was unlawful, although he rejected environmental arguments that wall construction would threaten species such as bighorn sheep.

Time To Collectively Defeat Terrorists, Bandits, Others Is Now, Buhari Tells ECOWAS

Greenbarge Reporters

June 29, 2019

President Muhammadu Buhari has called on Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to stand together now for the purpose of crushing terrorists, bandits and other criminals that have made life difficult for law abiding citizens of the member countries.

Addressing the 55th Ordinary Session of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) in Abuja, Nigeria today, June 29, Buhari said that the recurring incidents of inter-communal clashes, herders-farmers conflicts, banditry and terrorist attacks in African countries have consequences on the peaceful co-existence of the peoples as well as their livelihoods.

“This unrest also undermines all our efforts in achieving full regional integration.

It is, therefore, necessary that we act collectively to end this menace in the interest of regional stability and wellbeing of our people.”
President Buhari commended member States for their sustained commitment to the consolidation of the African integration as a Community.

“I acknowledge and commend the giant strides made by ECOWAS in this regard.

“I also commend our individual and collective efforts towards the promotion of good governance, peace, stability and socio-economic development in our sub-region. We must remain focused on our collective endeavour to make the sub-region an area of peace and security.

“This is an essential prerequisite if we are to attain the primary objective of our organization which is, to “promote cooperation and integration, leading to the establishment of an economic and monetary union in West Africa, in order to raise the living standards of its people and contribute to the progress and development of the African continent.”

Prof Abdulrasheed Emerges As New Vice Chancellor, UniAbuja

Greenbarge Reporters

June 28, 2019

Professor Abdulrasheed Na’Allah, currently Vice Chancellor of the Kwara State University has emerged from over 120 Professors that applied as Vice Chancellor of the University Abuja (UniAbuja) in the Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory.

The Chairman of the Governing Council of the University, Alhaji Sani Maikudi confirmed the emergence of Professor Abdulrasheed today, June 28, while presenting a letter of appointment to him. The new Vice Chancellor is an the outgoing Vice Chancellor of Kwara State University (KWASU) where his tenure ends in July 2019.

Born in 1962 in Ilorin, Kwara State, the scholar obtained a BA in English from the University of Ilorin in 1988, with a thesis “Dadakuada: the trends in the development of Ilorin traditional oral poetry,” and received M.A. Literature in English from the same university and in 1992.

In 1999, he received his PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada, and was subsequently professor and chair of African Studies at Western Illinois University before he became the Vice Chancellor of Kwara State University in Nigeria.

He is the author and co-author of numerous books, but some books of his that are most recent are Globalization, Oral Performance, and African Traditional Poetry (Palgrave Macmillan, March 2018), African Discourse in Islam, Oral Traditions, and Performance (Routledge, 2010) and Africanity, Islamicity, and Performativity: Identity in the House of Ilorin (Bayreuth African Studies, 2009), and edited a poetry book, Obama-Mentum: An Anthology of Transformational Poetry.

Professor Na’Allah has been nominated for and received numerous awards, including the Gold Key Recognition Award, University of Alberta Student Union, 1998; the Graduate Student Service Award, GSA, University of Alberta; The Alberta Heritage Charles S Noble Award for Student Leadership, 1998, the Province of Alberta, Canada; and the Black Achievements Award, Post-Secondary—Scholastic, 1998, the Black Achievement Awards Society of Alberta.

Professor Na’Allah is the author and co-author of numerous books, including: coauthor with Ladan Sulaiman and Ahmad Sambo, Functional Literacy Primer in Hausa, sponsored by the European Economic Commission and Federal Government of Nigeria, 1992; coauthor, Instructors’ Guide to Functional Literacy Primer in Hausa, 1992; coauthor with Bayo Ogunjimi, Introduction to African Oral Literature (Oral Prose), University of Ilorin Press, 1991; author, Introduction to African Oral Literature (1994); and Editor, Ogoni’s Agonies: Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Crisis in Nigeria (Africa World Press, 1998).

He wrote the article on Kwame Anthony Appiah for The Oxford Encyclopedia of African Thought.

Central Bank Injects $242.04 Million, CNY 32.3 Million Into Retail SMIS

Editorial staff

June 28, 2019

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has injected the sum of $242.04 million into the retail Secondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) and CNY 32.3 million in the spot and short tenored forwards segment of the inter-bank foreign market.

The Bank’s Director, Corporate Communications Department, Isaac Okorafor, who made this known, said today, June 28, that the intervention was for requests in the agricultural and raw materials sectors, adding that the Chinese Yuan was for Renminbi-denominated Letters of Credit.

Okorafor expressed satisfaction with the stability of the foreign exchange which according to him, was largely due to sustained intervention by the bank.

He assured that the apex bank Management would remain committed to ensuring that all the sectors of the forex market continue to enjoy access to the needed foreign exchange.

He said that with improved inflow of foreign exchange, the exchange rate had remained stable around N360/$1 for the past 27 months.

It will be recalled that the bank on June 25, offered authorized dealers in the wholesale segment of the market the sum of $100million, while the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) and the invisibles segments each received the sum of $55 million.

Meanwhile, $1 exchanged for N361 at the Bureau de Change (BDC) segment of the foreign exchange market, while CNY1 exchanged at N55 today, June 28

France Burns, Temperatures Rises To 45C

Editorial staff

June 28, 2019

Meteorologists warned earlier this month that heatwaves could be a trend for summer in Europe this year due to high-pressure systems

France’s weather service has raised the heatwave alert as temperatures crossed the 45 Celsius threshold for the first time ever.

The weather service said that from orange to red in four southern departments, danger of heatwaves loom even as hundreds of schools have been closed and some end-of-year exams have been rescheduled.

In the Spanish city of Cordoba, a 17-year-old boy died yesterday, June 27 of heatstroke, according to authorities, while wildfires have ravaged nearly 10,000 acres across Catalonia — the blazes are said to be among the worst the region has seen in 20 years.

That was even as meteorology agency warned that temperatures could rise even further throughout the afternoon, adding: “we need to wait until the end of the day to know which town will hold the record as France’s hottest city.”

According to Metro France too, 45.1 Celsius was recorded in Villevieille, in the south-eastern Gard department at 2.59 pm CEST, beating a one-hour-old record of 44.3 Celsius in Carpentras, Provence.

The previous record was set at 44.1 Celsius during a heatwave in 2003.

French Prime Minister, Edouard Philippe has called on people to be responsible, warning that the heat encouraged people to take risks. He added that there had been “one drowning a day” during the heatwave.

A heatwave has struck the whole European continent this week.

According to Jonny Day from the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF), this is not the first example of such a phenomenon.

“In terms of the time of year and spatial pattern of warmth, the ongoing event in Europe is quite similar to the 2015 European heatwave, which most severely affected southern and central Europe, which set the all-time temperature records for Germany and Switzerland,” Day said, adding that we will need to wait until after the peak of this event to really know how severe it has been.

Europeans have been sweltering as temperatures reached between 35 and 40 degrees Celsius in most of France and Italy this week and they are potentially set to go as high as 40 Celsius in northern Spain. Forecasts showed temperatures much higher than average in Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic.

A hot air mass rising from North Africa has caused the mercury to soar.

Meteorologists warned earlier this month that heatwaves could be a trend for summer in Europe this year due to high-pressure systems.

Anca Brookshaw, an expert on seasonal prediction at ECMWF Copernicus explained this trend to Euronews: “The most recent seasonal prediction favours above-average temperatures over much of Europe, for the period July to September as a whole.

“While the seasonal average is not a perfect indicator of the risk of heatwaves (or of the severity of any such events), over Europe there is a direct correlation: seasons which include more heatwaves than usual are likely to record above-average seasonal means.”

The areas indicated as most at risk by this forecast are southwest Europe and the extreme eastern part of the continent.

According to the European Environment Agency, 2018 was among the three warmest years on record in Europe.

Euronews spoke to Dr Dim Como, an expert on climate change and extreme weather at Amsterdam University, who said: “Due to simple warming, due to global warming, these type of heat extremes are much more likely. So if you have the circulation that can bring heatwaves then heatwaves will be much more intense.”

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