Netanyahu Goes For 5th Term, As Opposition Concedes Defeat In Israeli Elections

April 10, 2019

Israel Prime Minister, Benyamin Netanyahu

Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu has won the election to come back for the fifth term even as the main opposition party conceded defeat in the country’s elections.

The Prime Minister has however given an indication to forge a coalition that has the potential to be the most religious and far-right government in the country’s history.

Leaders of the Blue and White party, headed by former military chief, Benny Gantz, made the concession announcement as it appeared there was no way it could secure the 61-seat majority it needs in Israel’s 120-seat Knesset to form a government.

“We didn’t win this time,” said Yair Lapid, a Blue and White leader. “I respect the voters’ decision.”

He vowed that the party would come back fighting in the next election. Speaking after him, Gantz said he would serve Israelis whether or not that’s from within government.

“It’s just my first day in the next 10 years that I plan to serve the Israeli public,” he said. “The war is not over.”

Netanyahu’s Likud Party and Blue and White are both on track to win 35 seats in Israel’s Knesset, or Parliament, with about 97 per cent of the votes tallied.

Netanyahu appears to have a clear path to a majority coalition, with his natural partners on the right of the political spectrum projected to win 65 seats.

US President Donald Trump, who spoke to the Prime Minister by phone, said that it might be “a little early” but said it looked like Netanyahu had “won it in a good fashion.”

“The fact that Bibi won, I think we’ll see some pretty good action in terms of peace,” said Trump, using Netanyahu’s nickname. “Everybody said you can’t have peace in the Middle East with Israel and the Palestinians. I think we have a better chance with Bibi having won.”

But others disagreed, pointing to the likely make-up of his coalition and his campaign promise to annex parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Professional Body Metes Out Punishment On Medical Doctor For Negligence

Editorial staff

April 10, 2019

The Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria (MDCN) has meted out punishment on a Medical Doctor, Nasiru Ibrahim for professional negligence. He was punished and barred from practicing for three months for failing to promptly transfuse blood, as appropriate, for the management of a pregnant woman, Hassana Salihu at Al-Noor Clinic and Maternity, Angwon Rogo, Jos, Plateau State.

The Council blamed the doctor for conducting himself “infamously in a professional respect contrary to Rules 29.4a, 29.4h,and 31 of the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria,2008 Edition, and punishable under Section 16 ( 1) (a) and (2) of the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Act, CAP M8 LFN, 2004 (as amended).”

Dr. Nasiru Ibrahim, who was charged on four count at the MDCN Tribunal, was found to have committed the professional offence, leading to the death of the woman, on January 3^rd2015.

Chairman of the Tribunal, Professor Abba Hassan, read the count to the doctor thus:

COUNT ONE: ‘’That you Dr. Umor Nasiru Ibrahim, registered medical practitioner, practicing as such on 3st January, 2015 or thereabouts at Al-Noor Clinic and Maternity, Angwon Rogo, Jos, Plateau State, while managing one Hassana Salihu ( F ), now deceased, as a pregnant woman under your care, were grossly negligent in her management when you failed to promptly attend to her and ensure that she was transfused with blood, as appropriate for the management of her condition, thereby, conducted yourself infamously in a professional respect contrary to Rules 29.4a, 29.4h,and 31 of the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria,2008 Edition, and punishable under Section 16 ( 1) (a) and (2) of the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Act, CAP M8 LFN, 2004 (as amended)”.

COUNT TWO: That you Dr. Umar Nasiru Ibrahim, registered medical practitioner, practicing as such on 31st January, 2015 or thereabouts at AI-Noor Clinic and Maternity, Angwan Rogo, Jos, Plateau State, while managing one Hassana Salihu (F), now deceased, as a pregnant woman under your core, conducted yourself infamously in a professional respect when you knowingly enabled untrained an unregistered persons to attend to her contrary to Rules 39.2a of the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria,2008 Edition, and punishable under Section 16 ( 1) (a) and (2) of the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Act, CAP M8 LFN, 2004 (as amended).

COUNT THREE: That you Dr. Umar Nasiru Ibrahim, registered medical practitioner, practicing as such on 31st January, 2015 or thereabouts at AI-Noor Clinic and Maternity, Angwon Rogo, Jos, Plateau State, and while in full time employment in the Public Service, as the Medical Director, at the National Obstetric Fistula Centre, Ningi, Bouchi State, provided in-hospitol care to one Hassana Salihu (F), now deceased, as a pregnant woman under your care, in your private hospital, thereby, conducted yourself infamousty in a professional respect contrary to Rules 49.1c of the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria,2008 Edition, and . punishable under Section 16 (1) (a) and (2) of the Medical and Dental Practitioners’ Act, CAP M8 LFN, 2004 {as amended).

COUNT FOUR: That you Dr. Umar Nasiru Ibrahim, registered medical practitioner, practicing as such on 31st January, 2015 or thereabouts at Al-Noor Clinic and Maternity, Angwon Rogo, Jos, Plateau State, while attending to one Hassana Salihu (F), now deceased, practiced and held yourself out as a specialist obstetrician and gynecologist without having registered an additional qualification in obstetrics and gynaecology with the Medical and Dental Council/ of Nigeria, thereby conducting yourself infamously in a professional respect contrary to Rules 15 and 27 of the Code of Medical Ethics in Nigeria 2008 Edition.’’

After a painstaking deliberation on the affidavits and facts and documents, the panel reached the conclusion that a prima facie case had been established against the respondent.

Professor Hassan said: “from the affidavits, oral evidence adduced, the documents tendered and admitted in evidence, this Honourable Tribunal finds as follows: That the respondent failed to attend promptly to the deceased who required urgent medical attention.

“That the respondent failed to do anything which ought reasonably to have been done under the prevailing circumstance for the good of the deceased

“That the respondent knowingly enabled an untrained, inexperienced person to attend to the deceased who was in child birth

“That as a consultant, the respondent offered in-hospitaI care to the deceased in his private clinic while in full time employment in the public service.”

On the basis of the above findings, the Chairman said: “The Tribunal holds that the allegations made against the Respondent have been proved as required by law.

“The Prosecution has been able to show that the Respondent’s conduct in his professional capacity constitutes infamous behaviour, professional negligence, and unethical conduct which resulted in the death of the deceased. Pursuant to Rule 31 of The Code of Medical EThics in Nigeria, 2008 Edition, The Honourable Tribunal hereby finds the Respondent (Dr Umar Nasiru Ibrahim) guilty of gross professional negligence in all the three counts.

Pele Discharged From Paris Hospital, Returns To Brazil

Editorial staff

April 10, 2019

The world football legend, Pele, has been discharged from Paris hospital where he was admitted and treated for severe urinary infection.

Report said that the 78 year old world football champion left the airport on a wheelchair and was flown to his native Brazil yesterday, Tuesday. He was earlier in the week, taken to a hospital in Sao Paulo, where he was placed under observation.

Pele, the only footballer to win three World Cups (1958, 1962 and 1970), has suffered from increasingly fragile health in recent years.

In 2014, he was hospitalized in intensive care for another urinary tract infection, for which he had to undergo dialysis.

Source: AFP

INEC Boss Proposes 3 Year Imprisonment, N500,000 Fine For Vote-Buying Offenders

Editorial staff

April 10, 2019

Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmoud Yakubu has proposed a fine of five hundred thousand naira or three years imprisonment or both for persons convicted of vote buying and selling.

Professor Yakubu said that the adoption of the measure would in a greater way curb the menace. The INEC boss, who spoke today, Wednesday, at the 9th Forum of the Anti-Corruption Situation Room, organized by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) in Abuja, decried the embarrassment the commission has had to face from international community.

Represented at the event by the INEC National Commissioner and chairman, Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye, Professor Yakubu called on the National Assembly to evolve new legislations to curb the ugly trend.

The chairman also appealed to the parliament to expedite action on the Electoral Offences Commission Bill, underscoring the need for a separate agency to be given the responsibility of investigating and prosecuting electoral offences and offenders.

“The National Assembly should isolate vote buying and selling and properly define it, its varieties and ingredients and make it a separate item in the Electoral Act and provide sanction for violation.

“The punishment for vote buying should be increased and made stiffer to act as deterrent to buyers and sellers. Those that commit the offence of buying and selling should be made to pay a fine of N500,000 or be subjected to three years imprisonment or both.

“Restriction on the use of smart phones in the polling units should be imputed into the Electoral Act and violators should be liable on conviction to find of N500,000 or three years imprisonment or both.”

Don’t Take Loan From China, IMF Cautions Nigeria, Others

Editorial staff

April 10, 2019

The International Monetary Fund has cautioned Nigeria and other developing countries from taking loans from China due to unfavourable loan conditions.

The Financial Counsellor and Director of the Monetary and Capital Markets Department of the IMF, Tobias Adrian, said this on Wednesday during the launch of the Global Financial Stability Report for April 2019 at the IMF/World Bank meetings in Washington D.C.

“Capital flows, which includes capital flows from China, are, of course, important for development.

“On the other hand, what is very important in lending arrangements are the terms of the loans and we urge countries to make sure that when they borrow from abroad, the terms are favourable.

“In particular, we recommend that loans to countries should conform with Paris Club arrangements and that is not always the case of loans from China,” Adrian said.

On Nigeria’s rising debt levels, Adrian said that the IMF was not overly concerned, as it would allow the country to invest more in developing critical infrastructure.

“At the moment, funding conditions in economies such as Nigeria and other sub-Saharan African countries are very favourable but that may change at some point,” he said.

The April 2019 Global Financial Stability Report finds that in spite of significant variability over the past two quarters, financial conditions remained accommodative.

As a result, financial vulnerabilities have continued to build in the sovereign, corporate, and non bank financial sectors in several systemically important countries, leading to elevated medium-term risks.

Also, the IMF in the April 2019 Fiscal Monitor Report urged Nigeria to increase Value Added Tax, increase and expand the coverage of excise duties.

The IMF commended the country’s latest Strategic Revenue Growth Initiative, which looks at a comprehensive approach to tax reform.

Source: NAN

I Swear I Did Not Spend $30,000 To Stop Inauguration Of Buhari – Atiku

Editorial staff

April 10, 2019

The Presidential candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the just concluded election in Nigeria, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has sworn that he did not spend $30,000 to hire an American lobby group to persuade the United States Congress to stop the inauguration of President Muhammadu Buhari.

The defeated Presidential candidate, in a statement today, Wednesday by his media aide, Paul Ibe, described the allegation instigated by the Buhari campaign organization as a total fabrication.

He insisted that his court case has become their biggest burden because it exposes their integrity as a sham, and instead of defending their stolen mandate in court, they are now using fake news to divert public attention from the historic electoral heist they have committed against Nigerians.

Atiku stressed that no amount of diversionary propaganda and fake news campaign by the All Progressives Congress (APC) would stop him from continuing the court action he started to reclaim the stolen mandate.

He said that the latest dirty propaganda didn’t come as a surprise because lying has so far become their only bragging rights of competence.

“Lying has become a culture to the APC administration and therefore, we are not surprised by their latest diversionary allegations.

“Since Atiku resisted pressure not to go to court, the APC has been behaving like a cat on hot bricks because the outcome of the 2019 elections has exposed and shattered the facade of their dubious integrity.

“The APC are behaving nervously like a thief living under the fear of being exposed and shamed. They are now using fake news against Atiku instead of focusing on defending themselves in the court.

“For a party that has broken the worst record in election rigging, the APC doesn’t have any iota of integrity to be taken seriously by anybody.”

Meanwhile, Atiku has also disassociated himself from 2019 election posters being circulated in Abuja.

He said that the campaign season is over and the tainted electoral victory by the incumbent is being challenged in court.

“Our attention has been drawn to posters of His Excellency Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party in the 2019 election being circulated in Abuja.

“We disassociate the former Vice President of Nigeria from the said posters in circulation.

“We refuse to be distracted, which is exactly the objective of our opponents, but to remain focused on diligently pursuing our election petition with a view to retrieving the stolen mandate.

Buhari Orders Return To Old Cattle Routes To Resolve Herders/Farmers Clashes

Greenbarge Reporters

April 9, 2019

President Muhmmadu Buhari has directed the minister of agriculture, Audu Ogbe to look at the gazette of the first republic to get the cattle routes and get the grazing routes and re-establish them as a way of resolving the incessant clashes between farmers and herdsmen in some parts of the country.

The President, in an interactive session today, Tuesday with Nigerians that are residence in Dubai as part of his official engagement in that country said: I told Audu Ogbeh, the minister of agriculture to look at the gazette of the first republic to get the cattle routes and get the grazing routes and re-establish them so that we can reduce this incidence some you here know the efforts we are making.

Buhari, who said that his government next level is to consolidate whatever it had done, stressed that to be able to do so, his government had to secure the country first.

He recalled that original Nigerian cattle rearers used to carry only sticks and machetes to cut foliage for the cattle.

He insisted that those cattle rearers with weapons like AK47 are strange to Nigeria, even as he admitted that one can hardly identify the difference between cattle rearers from Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Nigeria Chad, Cameroon and other cattle herders.

“They look the same but I was accused of not doing anything about those operating locally. I took the governor on this and this is one of the reasons he left our party for another party. “Because I told him the cattle rearers and settlers problem in Nigeria is older than myself not to talk of him.”

INEC Fixes Kogi Governorship Poll For November 2

April 9, 2019

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed November 2, 2019, for the conduct of governorship elections in Kogi State.

The governorship election in Bayelsa States will also hold the same day.

INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman for Voter Education and Information, Festus Okoye, announced this in a statement today, Tuesday.

Details later.

Source: Punch.

Presidency: Atiku Seeks American Assistant To Claim His “Mandate”

Editorial staff

April 9, 2019

Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, is currently seeking the assistant of the United States of America for support towards reclaiming his “mandate” in the February 23, 2019 Presidential election.

Atiku enlist the assistance of two high-powered Washington, D.C. lawyers, the presidential candidate is looking for help in his legal challenge after his election loss.

CRP report states that Abubakar has ties to those in Trump’s orbit, having hired political consultants like Riva Levinson, who worked with Paul Manafort, and Brian Ballard, a major Trump fundraiser. Like many other foreign leaders looking to bolster their standing with Trump, Abubakar stayed at the Trump International Hotel in Washington D.C.

Atiku Abubakar joins opposition politicians like Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó in turning to lobbyists to garner American support. According to a FARA filings accessed using the Center for Responsive Politics’ Foreign Lobby Watch, on March 24, former Justice Department official Bruce Fein and his firm Fein & DelValle PLLC registered as foreign agents on Abubakar’s behalf.

Fein, the associate deputy attorney general in Ronald Reagan’s administration and general counsel to the FCC, played a significant role in the repeal of the FCC’s “Fairness Doctrine.” He also later worked with then-Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) in drafting articles of impeachment against Bill Clinton.

Joining Fein in the effort is his partner at the firm, W. Bruce DelValle, who according to an online biography has a varied background tackling civil rights and constitutional law issues, litigating intellectual property and liability disputes, along with representing a number of sports and entertainment personalities.

The agreement notes that Lloyd Ukwu, who is described as “a Nigerian barrister and trusted confidant of Abubakar,” is assisting “in the operations of the U.S. Situation Room.” Ukwu is a critic of Buhari and is the founder of a group called We the People of Nigeria which claims to be an advocate for “free and fair elections.” Ukwu recently led a delegation to meet with a variety of government officials in the State Department, Congress and “delivered a letter to the acting United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Jonathan Cohen, in New York to ensure the success of the Nigerian elections.”

According to the filing, Fein will be paid $30,000 over a 90-day contract to provide “legal, consultancy and public advocacy services to encourage Congress and the Executive” to wait on recognizing a winner of the Nigerian election until after the legal challenge is “impartially and independently resolved.”

Another filing lays out how the influence campaign will be conducted. Lobbyists will meet with members of Congress and their staff to persuade them to pass resolutions in the House and Senate “to forebear from a final declaration and recognition of a winner” until after Abubakar’s appeals are decided fairly and independently. Additionally, the firm will “draft articles and op-ed pieces” about the issues surrounding the Nigerian election and appear on television and other media programs.

In the contract, Fein’s firm is explicit in promising to “obtain official recognition that you are the authentic President of Nigeria based on an accurate counting of legal ballots.” The goal of the effort is straightforwardly described as “to convince the United States that your presidency would open a fresh and new chapter in Nigerian politics.”

The filing also asserts that the lobbying effort will demonstrate that an Abubakar presidency is “the will of the People.” It warns that if Abubakar is denied a victory, problems like genocide, poverty, corruption and strife will “undoubtedly continue.”

Abubakar himself has a rocky legal history. A Senate subcommittee report on foreign corruption cited Abubakar as a case study regarding his transfer of millions of dollars into the U.S. through shell companies. He was never prosecuted. In 2009, the FBI alleged that Abubakar demanded bribes from former Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), who was convicted of corruption charges. At one point, Jefferson stored $90,000 in cash for Abubakar in his freezer.

The U.S. has long had close relations with Nigeria and is the country’s largest foreign investor. American troops work alongside the Nigerian military in an international effort against the Boko Haram terrorist organization. Additionally, the incumbent Buhari visited the White House and met with President Trump in 2018.

Atiku Abubakar, former Nigeria vice president of Nigeria, lost in the country’s February presidential election to incumbent President Muhammadu Buhari. However, Abubakar swiftly filed a legal suit challenging the election results due to allegations of voting irregularities and violence, according to a report by the Centre for Responsive Politics (CRP).

Again, Central Bank Boosts Forex Market with $210 Million

Editorial staff

April 9, 2019

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has again injected the sum of $210 million into the inter-bank Foreign Exchange Market in continuation of its sustenance of liquidity in that segment of the market.

Figures obtained from the CBN today, Tuesday, indicated that authorized dealers in the wholesale segment of the market were offered the sum of $100 million, while the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) segment received the sum of $55 million. Similarly, customers requiring foreign exchange for invisibles such as tuition fees, medical payments and Basic Travel Allowance (BTA), among others, were also allocated the sum of $55 million.

According to the bank’s spokesman, Isaac Okorafor reiterated the bank’s commitment to continue to boost interbank foreign exchange market to ensure liquidity and stability in the market.

It will be recalled that on April 5, the bank injected the sum of $247.8 million and CNY34.8 million into the RetailSecondary Market Intervention Sales (SMIS) segment.

Meanwhile, the Naira exchanged at an average of N360/$1 in the BDC segment of the market today, Tuesday.

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