Nigerian secret police in the Department of States Services (DSS) has insisted that it had secured a court order giving it authority to detain the Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, Ifeanyi Ubah, in its custody for at least 14 days.

The DSS counsel, Peter Oluremodu, who appeared before Justice Idris today, Friday, at the Federal High Court in Lagos with a notice of objection to the order to produce Ubah in court, said Ubah was being detained on the orders of Justice Y. Haliru of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

The lawyer said the order was lawfully obtained in compliance with the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015.

Ubah’s lawyer, Mr. Ajibola Oluyede, urged Justice Idris to hold that the DSS violated his order by not producing Ubah.

Ubah had described his arrest as an attempt to blackmail him.

The oil magnate said that the claim by the DSS that he was involved in theft of petrol kept by the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, in his tank farm in Lagos was wrong accusation.

DSS last Friday, picked up Ubah over his connection with the missing petroleum product, valued at over N11bn.

It said that Ubah’s action amounted to economic sabotage, with “capacity to negatively impact on national economy.” [myad]

A member of the House of Representatives, Nicholas Ossai (Delta-PDP), has lamented that the N125 billion appropriated for the National Assembly is not adequate to carry out its functions effectively and efficiently.

Ossai, who spoke in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) today, Friday in Abuja, insisted that the legislators need more funds to discharge their duties.

The National Assembly had, on yesterday, Thursday published its 2017 budget of N125 billion, which was higher than the N115 billion approved in 2016.

Ossai, however, said that the additional N10 billion inserted in the budget would strengthen oversight functions by members of the National Assembly.

“This is necessary so that Nigerians will have the impact and value creation of what has been budgeted.

“Nigerians are not looking at that, we are looking at the National Assembly as 360 members of House of Representatives and 109 Senators; calculate it with the money that has been budgeted without looking at other aspects.

“We are not looking at other agencies under the National Assembly like the Public Complaints Commission, National Institute for Legislative Studies, the National Assembly Service Commission and supporting staff.

“The committees are carrying out national functions in line with Section 88 of the Constitution to expose corruption.

“That committees not only expose corruption, but block leakages; definitely, we need a lot of money to address these issues.

“To the best of my knowledge, that money is not enough to address the issues of carrying out the national functions of the national assembly,” Ossai claimed.

Meanwhile, a legislative aide told NAN on ground of anonymity that they were being owed Duty Travel Allowance (DTA) amounting to N1.3 billion.

“We have been owed since 2015 and the management informed us that the allowance was not captured in the 2016 budget.

“With this development, we are aware of what is appropriated for legislative aides in the 2017 budget, we are now sure the money is there and there will be no room for excuses anymore.

“The DTA for an individual is N75, 000 and about 3, 000 aides are being owed.”

A breakdown of the 2017 estimates shows that N23.7 billion would go to personnel cost, N85.8 billion for overhead and N14. 9 billion to finance capital projects.

The National Assembly Management has N14.9 billion with the Senate taking N31.3 billion and the House of Representatives N49 billion, while the National Assembly Service Commission gets N2.4 billion.

The budget provides N9.6 billion for legislative aides, while the Senate Public Accounts Committee takes N118.9 million and that of Reps N142.7 million.

N12.5 billion has been earmarked for general services, N4.3 billion for the National Assembly Legislative Institute and N391.3 million was earmarked for service wide vote. [myad]

“Whatever noise we are hearing now is either by those who are yet to be cleared or those who have benefited from the system of inefficiency in the past.

“Anyone who has been certified cleared has been paid salary. To prove our point, we published the names and amounts paid to all workers, ministries, departments and agencies in the state’s website, www.kogistate.gov.ng.”

The governor of Kogi state, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who made these clarifications through his media aide, Gbenga Olorunpomi in a chat with news men in Abuja today, Thursday, insisted that no civil servant is being owed salary and that the government had paid the salaries of all workers cleared by the recently concluded civil servants verification exercise.

“This government came to power at the time civil servants were on strike; the issue that led to the strike was that of the salaries owed to the workers for many months.

“At that time, all schools in the state were shut down; the government of Governor Yahaya Bello then decided that the only way to tackle this was to do total civil service verification. In the process, we found out that the state had plenty issues; about 83,000 personnel were withdrawing salaries from the state and this is a state that is barely 25 years old.

“So, there was need to do an audit to find out how we got to the situation where there were more senior than junior level civil servants; it was lopsided, the issues necessitated the civil service reform which is part of the five cardinal programmes of the government.”

Olorunpomi said that the exercise had been completed and the state now has a civil service that the government can manage, saying: “all persons that were cleared by whatever committee that was set up at the time were paid. We got our bailout fund to do this. We used the resources that came in from FAAC allocation and we have been paying salaries since then.”

It will be recalled that medical doctors iin the service of the state government have embarked on strike action on the excuse that they have not been paid their salaries for months, with man of them threatening to resign their appointments with the state government. [myad]

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has been treatins him like his brother and son.

“I feel very much at home in Katsina. Moreso because this is the State of the President who has taken me as a brother; in fact, the President has taken me as a son in the way he treats me,” Osinbajo said.

Osinbajo was quoted by his media aide, Laolu Akande, as having made the statement at the palace of the Emir of Katsina,  Alhaji Abdulmumin Usman, when he paid him royal visit today, Thursday.

Akande quoted the acting President as saying that the amount of responsibilities which President Buhari has given him “shows that he seriously believes we can live together as brothers.

“I pray the Lord will preserve our President to continue to lead as the nation has voted him to do. He seriously believes in Nigeria unity”

President Buhari handed over to Osinbajo last Sunday shortly before travelled to the UK for further medical check-ups. [myad]