Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun is worried over what she called consistent drop in revenue collected by Nigeria Customs Service. The minister, who spoke during a one-day inspection of Customs facilities at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, also faulted the absence of modern container scanning equipment at the nation’s airports, seaports and land borders. According to Kemi Adeosun, one of the major means of detecting contraband goods at these borders is through the deployment of container scanners. She attributed the lacklustre performance over the year by the Customs to the use of outdated equipment even as she promised to upgrade the equipment for the purpose of Increasing efficiency Adeosun, who was accompanied by the Comptroller General of Customs, retired Colonel Hammed Alli, reiterated the determination of the current administration to boost revenue through the provision of enabling tools and equipment that will aid the various revenue agencies. According to her, the use of obsolete equipment negatively impacts revenue collected by the agency and promotes inefficiency. This was even as Colonel Alli said that the equipment needed for the nation’s international airports would cost N20 Billion. He said the Customs Command will soon meet with the minister to discuss the funding requirement of Customs in detail and expressed confidence that with the support of the minister, the problem will soon be over. [myad]
Republican Presidential hopeful in the American 2016 Presidential election, Donald Trump was attacked today in Ohio even as the grand rally in Chicago has been postponed.
Report reaching us indicated that Secret Service agents had to join Donald Trump on stage during his rally in Ohio, only a day after he canceled an event over safety concerns.
Shortly after mocking a protester who was being escorted out of the event in Dayton, Ohio, four Secret Service agents jumped onto the stage and surrounded Trump as someone appeared to be trying to reach the stage.
“I was ready for him, but it’s much easier if the cops do it, don’t we agree?” Trump said to the cheering crowd.
Trump earlier told the crowd the protests that forced him to postpone a rally in Chicago on Friday was a “planned attack” that “came out of nowhere.”
Trump said more than 25,000 people were registered for the rally at University of Illinois at Chicago Pavilion Friday. Protests quickly broke out among some of those in attendance as they waited for Trump to speak.
“They were pouring into the arena,” Trump said. “All of a sudden, a planned attack just came out of nowhere.”
Trump said the protests were “very professionally done” and placed some blame on Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, saying some of the protesters were his supporters.
“Sanders should really get up and say to his people, ‘stop,'” he said.
Sanders defended his supporters while speaking in Chicago on Saturday.
“What our supporters are responding to is a candidate who has in fact in many ways encouraged violence,” he said.
Trump said he hadn’t wanted to cancel the Chicago event but did so over safety concerns.
“We dealt with law enforcement at every level,” Trump said. “It was determined that if we go in, it could cause really bad, bad vibes.”
The Chicago Police Department said it had sufficient officers to handle any issues at the rally. Interim Chicago Police Superintendent John Escalante said the Trump campaign hadn’t consulted with the department before calling off the event.
The clashes between protesters and his supporters, which Trump called “disgraceful,” led to five arrests and two police officers being injured.
Earlier in the day, Trump blamed “thugs” who denied him his First Amendment rights at the rally.
Before Trump spoke in Dayton on Saturday, Ohio Governor John Kasich said the real estate mogul had created a “toxic environment.”
“There is no place for this,” he said. “There is no place for a national leader to prey on the fears of the people who live in our country.”
Florida Senator Marco Rubio sounded frustrated when asked if he would support Trump if he was the party’s presidential nominee.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I already talked about the fact that [Hillary] Clinton will be terrible for this country the fact that you are even asking me that question — I intend to support the Republican nominee, but it’s getting harder every day.”
Trump has courted criticism for remarks appearing to encourage violence against the protesters who have increasingly been disrupting his rallies. In St. Louis on Friday, he mocked those who interrupted his speech and were removed by police, telling them to “go get a job” and one to “go back to mommy.”
“These are people that are destroying our country,” he said at the time, adding, “You know part of the problem and part of the reason it takes so long is no one wants to hurt each other anymore and they’re being politically correct the way they take them out so it takes a little longer.”
After his rally in Chicago was called off, Trump told Fox News the protesters there weren’t directing their anger at him.
“This has a lot to do with jobs,” Trump said. “It has a lot to do with the incompetent running of a country.” [myad]
The whereabouts of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe are currently a mystery as concern is growing in Zimbabwe after a 92 year-old man was reported missing after claiming on Monday he was traveling to India. The missing person’s name: Robert Mugabe.
The veteran Zimbabwean leader, who has been in power for 36 years and is the world’s oldest serving head of state, was reported to have left the country on Monday to attend the World Culture Festival in New Delhi, which kicks off in the Indian capital on Friday.
Since then, however, his whereabouts have become something of a mystery. Mugabe canceled his visit to the festival on Wednesday; with his spokesman George Charamba citing “substantial inadequacies in protocol and security arrangements” and saying that Mugabe would return home in “a couple of days.”
Yet the president does not appear to have returned to Zimbabwe, with speculation that Mugabe may have traveled to Singapore, where he is reported to have previously received medical treatment.
U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by Wikileaks in 2011 claimed that Mugabe was suffering from prostate cancer, though it is not known whether the president still suffers from the disease.
Zimbabwe’s higher education Jonathan Moyo took to Twitter to defend the president’s cancellation of the trip but only added to the mystery by indicating that, while Mugabe did not go to India, he was not in Zimbabwe either. [myad]
If someone tells me to live with him (former President Olusegun Obasanjo) and promises me a room full of money, I would decline.
These were the words of Oluremi Obasanjo, the first wife of the first wife of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a mother of six. She spoke in an interview at her Lagos residence on her life and ordeal as a former first lady.
Below are excerpts from the interview:
You once wrote an autobiography, detailing your life with former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In that book, you described him in unflattering terms. What went wrong in your marriage?
I had to remove a lot of things on the advice of the publishers because they were very bad. I decided to speak out again because I want the world to know the kind of person that Obasanjo is. Up until now, a lot of people do not know that Obasanjo is not a normal father, or a family man. Some people say that it is because he is a soldier, but I know so many soldiers who fought the war and I see how well they take care of their families. So the fact that he is a soldier is not an excuse. He has been very brutish and selfish from the beginning. He has the belief that because his children bear his name, which means they have taken something from him and he has done them a favour. If any of his children does well, he would tell people that it is because of him that the child is doing well.
But that is usually the case in this part of the world…(cuts in)
I do not have any problem if a father takes pride in the fact that his child is doing well. But it is not right when you do not give that child any credit for striving to succeed. Everything should not only be about you. He believes that any of his children that does well did so because of him and not their own efforts. That is a very selfish way of thinking.
Are you implying that he did not take part in the children’s upbringing, especially as regards their education?
He claims that whatever his children are today, they owe it to him, because he believes that none of his children can be intelligent without him. The house where he lives now was designed and supervised by my son, Dr Segun Obasanjo, and what he gave him was less than one tenth of his professional fees. When people asked him why he did that, he said that he was the one that trained Segun in school; therefore he deserved what he was paid. I would want the world to ask Obasanjo if he knew how any of my children went to nursery school. They should ask him if he cared when they were in primary and secondary school.
Nigerians should ask him how many times he ever visited them throughout their schooling years and ask him how much he paid for their tuition. Even the Segun he is talking about, ask him how much he paid for his tuition at Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, Zaria. After my children finished their first degrees, I could not afford to send them abroad for their second degrees because it was too expensive. Because of that, they all had to take up jobs to enable them to pay for their schooling abroad. When Iyabo, my first daughter got admission abroad for her second degree, she sent her father a list of the financial requirements for her school, but he cut the required amount into two and was only able to give half of it. Obasanjo gleefully paid school fees for his relatives’ children, but found it difficult to take care of his own kids.
Are you saying in clear terms that Obasanjo did not play any roles in the education of his children?
He played some roles, but that he did it as if he was doing his children a favour. He did not see taking care of the kids as his duty. Before he was able to do anything for his children, I would have gone to Ota to inform him that his children’s fees needed to be taken care of. Most times, when I went, he would angrily tell me that he did not have any money and I would leave. When Segun won two awards in his school, because he graduated with a first class, I told Obasanjo about it and asked whether he would come for his convocation, but he told me he didn’t have the time. I then told him to fund my trip to Zaria so that I could attend, and he told me to go, that he would refund the money. But when I came back and asked him for it, he told me off and said I could go to hell.
What made Obasanjo behave that way to you and the kids? Is it that you had issues with him and he decided to take it out on your children, or is it just his nature?
I have never had it easy with him. Life with him was very tough and unbearable, but I had to endure because of my six children. I remember he wrote a book entitled My Command, and he acknowledged me in the book as having stood by him, keeping the home front. When he was launching the book in Ibadan, the late Chief Bola Ige, who had read the acknowledgement, asked him why the woman who he said stood by him and kept the home front was not standing by his side at the launch. Bola Ige said this because it was the late Stella that was with him at that launch. No woman can live well with Obasanjo, and even the late Stella people are talking about was always beaten by him while they were in Aso Rock. I couldn’t live with him anymore, and as it is, if someone tells me to live with him and promises me a room full of money, I would decline.
At what stage in your marriage did you start noticing these traits that you talk about, because for you to have accepted his marriage proposal, something must have attracted him to you?
I have always been a very quiet person and I was nicknamed ‘gentle’, so I believe that it was what made him want to marry me, because he felt that he could control me. In the first seven years of our marriage, I did whatever he told me to do without asking questions. If he told me to sit at a place without speaking to anyone, I would do it without asking questions. But as the years went by, I realized that whatever he tells you to do is usually for his own selfish interest and benefit and I stopped being foolish. He can never tell you to do anything that would serve your own interest. I continued living with him hoping that things would get better, but rather than improve, things got worse. Before his tenure as head of state ended, we were already separated. I was living in Ikoyi, while he was living in Dodan Baracks, because he felt I was not good enough to be at his side as head of state.
After his tenure, he told me that we should relocate from Lagos to Abeokuta, but I didn’t want it. Already, I wanted a final separation, and I saw his desire for relocation as a good opportunity for me to stay far away from him. When I refused, one of his friends who was a doctor asked him why he was begging me to go to Abeokuta with him. He then advised Obasanjo to take any of the women who had children for him. So he took the late Stella and one other woman called Mabel to Abeokuta because they each had a child for him. So both of them lived there with him, and he took them around to wherever he went. Stella later outshined Mabel to become the first lady. [myad]
Police in Kumasi, Ghana have broken off four member female armed robbery gang and arrested them shortly after they allegedly robbed a taxi driver of what he earned in the day.
Three of the gang members were said to have been picked up by police in the metropolis after police interrogation smoked out their location from the first member, who was arrested just after the robbery.
The four have been identified as Agnes Darkoaa, a.k.a Maame Yaa or Last Killer, Ernestina Amponsah a.k.a. Akosua Frimpomaa, Mavis Addo a.k.a. Maame Konadu and Sally Sarpong a.k.a. Maame Serwaa. The four are reported to have robbed the taxi driver in Kumasi Wednesday night.
According to the police the suspects at about 11:30pm on Wednesday hired the taxi driver, Kwadwo Obeng who was in charge of a Toyota Echo Taxi cab with registration number AW 6005-12. They hired him from Asafo roundabout and asked him to take them to Afful Nkwanta in Kumasi. At Afful Nkwanta, the driver was re-directed to New Oxford International School behind Anwiam Clinic near the NDC Regional Office where Agnes Darkoaa who was in the front passenger seat pulled a knife. She was said to have turned off the engine, removed the ignition key and ordered the driver to surrender all valuables on him including cash sales.
The three accomplices were said to have assisted in ransacking the pockets of the victim and robbed him of an unspecified amount of daily sales and a Huawei mobile phone. The driver was said to have raised an alarm and a three male congregational members ran after the then fleeing female robbers and managed to arrest Sally Sarpong.
A police patrol team led by the investigator on duty later traced the three accomplices to Ahinsan Methodist Church area also in Kumasi in another taxi escaping and they were subsequently rounded up. A search on them led to the retrieval of GhȻ88 apart from GhȻ57 retrieved from Sally Sarpong, summing up a total cash exhibit of G GhȻ145.
The Huawei cellphone and a Samsung T-Mobile phone suspected to have been stolen were also retrieved from the suspects. [myad]
Let’s be honest with ourselves. When some baffling things happen, we question God, if not verbally, at least, in our hearts. But we pretend that we are not querying the Almighty. We say to ourselves: well, no man can question God. However, in the deep recesses of our inner man, we have questions. But since we don’t want to appear as interrogating God, we then keep quiet, saying “no man can query God.” It is in the light of that pretension (as if God does not know our very thoughts, even before they are formed in our hearts), that I situate the death of Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr James Ocholi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), his wife, Blessing, and their son, Joshua, in an auto crash last Sunday. It was a tragedy of monumental proportions, which brought up a lot of ifs: what if the family had decided against the fatal journey? What if the vehicle had refused to start, and they had aborted the trip? What if the Minister had developed a runny stomach, and so could not travel? What if the car key had got mysteriously missing? What if…? The questions would never really end, and we then lay them at the doorsteps of God: what if God had not allowed the crash to happen? And of course, He has the power to have prevented it. He is omnipotent. He has all powers. He is omniscient, knowing all things. When James Ocholi was born in November, 1960, God knew he would be recalled home on March 6, 2016. When he courted Blessing, married her, and they began to raise a family, God knew they would both die the same day, continuing their romance into eternity. Or did God not know? He must have known. But could He have stopped such tragedy from happening, thus saving us from sorrow, tears and blood? He could have. So, why didn’t He? Baffling. Confounding. Astonishing. Yes, I am asking questions, but let me pretend that they are questions of faith. The news of the decimation of the Ocholi family sent me into a very painful deja vu. Just last December, my sister, a professor of Dramatic Arts at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, had died in a gruesome accident on the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. Foluke Ogunleye died along with her brother-in-law, who had visited from America, and was being ferried to the airport in Lagos to catch a flight later that evening. Rather, what he boarded was an eternal flight. He went on a journey of no return on a famished road. When I heard about the Ocholis, I remembered the Adesinas, the Ogunleyes, and the pain we bore, and still bear. Don’t I still shed a silent tear when nobody is looking? Don’t I still sigh and shake my head mournfully whenever I remember my sister? Some broken hearts really never mend. And of course, the questions pop up again. What if…? James Ocholi was no ordinary, inconsequential man before God. He was a devout, humble man. He served God in many ways. He was an ordained reverend of the Salem Family Church, though he did not flaunt the title like a badge of honour. He rather let his faith speak through his works. Yes, faith without works is dead. But Ocholi combined faith and works. Those who knew him saw piety in him. They saw humility. They saw the unobtrusive, self-effacing nature of a man who knew God. A man who had been national secretary of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. When Ocholi was thrown out of his Sports Utility Vehicle on Kaduna-Abuja road last Sunday, and his body battered and mangled, it was no ordinary man that was being treated thus. It was a man of God, who was returning home to the God of man. His time was up, we console ourselves. Yes, his time may have been up, but couldn’t he have slept, and not woken up? If Heaven was so much in hurry to have Ocholi, his wife and son back, because they were needed to sing tenor, soprano and bass in the choir above, could they only have been recalled in such cruel circumstance? Cruel! I must watch my words. On Wednesday, at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, a special session of tributes had been held for Ocholi. Minister after Minister had spoken, recalling good things about the deceased and their departed colleague. Very moving and poignant. But the words that continued to resonate in my ears and mind came from Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh. He ended his oration by giving thanks and praises to God. He then declared:”God is too kind to do anything cruel.” Profound. Thoughtful. Illuminating. God is too kind to do anything cruel. But who killed the Ocholis? The Devil? He was not supposed to have such latitude over the people of God. On that same road that day, armed robbers must have driven through safely. Assassins must have passed. All sorts of malefactors would have travelled safely, so why did a godly family perish? Does the world now belong to the Evil One? Is mankind now helpless before Satan? Only he could have brought such cruelty to the Ocholis and their loved ones, since cruelty is his stock-in-trade. But then, the question again (don’t forget that it’s a question asked in faith o, lest anybody accuse me of anything): why did God allow such cruelty to humanity, to the Ocholi family, to the government, to the church, the body of Jesus Christ, of which the late Minister was an ordained reverend gentleman? Why? Who can claim to have all the answers? No man. The hidden things belong to God. In August 2013, my mother, and matriarch of the Adesina family had passed on, aged 75. Pastor Dayo Adewumi of my local church, Foursquare Gospel Church, had joined us to bid her a tearful farewell. All the seven Adesina children were inconsolable, but we nursed our wounds quietly. We were still trying to come to full terms with the loss of the woman we called Mama, when my sister died last December, aged 53. When Pastor Adewumi and his wife visited me in my Lagos home, where I was wailing like a wailing wailer, he prayed, and uttered something that was very instructive to me. He said:”Oh God, even as a pastor, this is rather too much for me to bear. Just about two years ago, I joined this family to bury their mother. All the children were there. Now, one of them has been taken away. This is rather shocking.” True. We go into shock when some unfathomable things happen to the people of God. We ask questions, not out of unbelief, not out of backsliding or lack of conviction. I now dub those posers as ‘questions of faith.’ When I ask them, I am not querying God or His omnipotence. I have seen Him at work in diverse ways, and can never doubt His power and presence. I am a captive of faith in God. A lawful captive. God has a right to hold me. I am His bondservant. I have seen His footprints in the storms, in the skies, on earth, everywhere. It is too late to stop believing. He is too kind to be cruel. Our Agric Minister, Chief Audu Ogbeh was right. Also right is the writer, Juliette Adam, who declared:”Death is the opening of a more subtle life. In the flower, it sets free the perfume;in the chrysalis, the butterfly; in man, the soul.” I mourn with the Ocholis. Only God can comfort them. As I condoled with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday in his office, and he told me about the steadfastness and dedication of the departed, I could see his pains. He told me that when Ocholi had wanted to be governor of Kogi State on the platform of the then Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), “I joined him to campaign in almost all the local government areas in the state.” Well, the strife is o’er, the battle done. James Ocholi is out of it all. I have questions. Questions of faith. But no matter what, I join the biblical Job in declaring:”Even if He slays me, I’ll trust in Him.” What about you? . Adesina is the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari. [myad]
The Federal Government has apologized to Nigerians for the hardship which the current nation-wide fuel scarcity has caused them. In a statement today in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said all efforts are being made to rectify the situation and ensure a gradual improvement in the power situation. “There will be a decent improvement in the power situation from this weekend, thanks to ongoing remedial efforts that will double the current power supply to 4,000WM. Getting back to the 5,074MW all-time high that was reached earlier will take a few more weeks.” Lai Mohammed said that at a time the routine maintenance by the Nigeria Gas Company has affected the supply of gas to power stations, forcing down power supply from an all-time high of 5,074 MW to about 4,000MW, a combination of unsavoury incidents further crashed the power supply to about half that figure. “The vandalization of the Forcados export pipelines forced oil companies to shut down, making it impossible for them to produce gas. Then, workers at the Ikeja Discos, who were protesting the disengagement of some of their colleagues after they failed the company’s competency test, apparently colluded with the National Transmission Station in Osogbo to shut down transmission. “Finally, the unfortunate strike by the unions at the NNPC, over the restructuring of the Corporation, shut down the Itarogun Power Station, the biggest in the country. Due to these factors, only 13 out of the 24 power stations in the country are currently functioning. It is this same kind of unsavoury situation that has affected fuel supply and subjected Nigerians to untold hardship.” The Minister strongly condemned the situation in which some Nigerians, under the guise of the various unions in the oil and gas sector or sheer vandalization, will continuously sabotage the country’s power infrastructure. “The bitter truth is that for as along as these groups of Nigerians continue to sabotage the power infrastructure, Nigerians cannot enjoy a decent level of power supply. We therefore admonish all Nigerians who may be agitating for their rights in whatever form to refrain from any action that will further hurt the same people they claim to be protecting.” [myad]
Governor Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State has lamented that 38 dead principals of schools and 15 retired teachers are still being paid salaries as substantive members of staff by the state government. The governor made the revelation in Asaba at an interactive session with the principals of schools in the state, blaming principals of such public secondary schools for feigning ignorance on the number of teachers who were dead, absconded or had retired but who were still being paid salaries in their schools. The governor, who expressed his disappointment at the development, said the position of the principal depicts integrity and authority, adding that that with the development, the integrity of the principals were now in doubt. “Investigations carried out by the government in Asaba and Agbor zones alone revealed that 28 strange names, 38 dead and 15 retired teachers were on the schools’ payroll. “As heads of the schools, principals will be held liable for any fraudulent activity discovered in their schools. “A principal is a position of authority and integrity and we should care about our conduct and as principals you should know the staff in your schools. “I know that no principal will claim not to be aware of such names in their schools, yet they allow government to pay such salaries. “This is fraudulent. “The level of connivance is high for the names to still be in the payroll. “Principals should know when persons are out of the system through retirement and death and pass such information to the relevant authority.” Okowa declared that it was fraudulent and criminal for somebody that died as far back as 2012 to still be in the payroll. He added that it was also fraudulent for any principal to continue to give returns to such persons in their nominal rolls. “I want to assure you that such fraudulent cases discovered will be appropriately dealt with and handed over to security agencies for prosecution.” Okowa solicited the support of the principals to root out such fraudulent acts from schools, adding that government could not afford such wastage in the face of dwindling resources. Okowa directed the principals to submit the nominal roll of their various schools to the office of the Head of Service. According to the governor, the roll should contain the names of their staff, including those who are dead, retired or absconded and whose names still appear in the payroll. Earlier in a welcome address, the Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Chiedu Ebie, said the meeting was held for the governor to address issues affecting the education sector. Ebie added that the meeting would also enable the government ensure that principals live up to the expectations in discharging their duties. [myad]
a former Executive Director of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Aminu Baba-Kusa has revealed how the sum of N2.2 Billion was spent on prayers against Boko Haram, during the regime of Goodluck Jonathan.
The money was said to have been obtained through the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA).
Baba-Kusa, in his statement of witness filed in the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), said the N2.2billion was spent on prayers to hasten the defeat of Boko Haram. The cash was released in two tranches of N1,450,000,000 and N750,000,000.
“I approached the former NSA and discussed Boko Haram problems and I suggested there is need for prayers and he considered and accepted in 2013 when he first came to office.
“I personally sponsored many people locally and some few to Saudi Arabia. Some monies were later paid into our companies, which we paid to some of the mallams.
“I then arranged to recover my personal expense which I put into our own businesses. “We have been spending a lot from our businesses and personal accounts. Money paid through UBA, First Bank and ECOBANK. For Acacia Holdings Limited(A/C 1017330319-UBA); ECOBANK(0122012650); and First Bank(Reliance Referral Hospitals Limited A/C 2022394057). The total amount is N2,200,000,000 from October 2014 to April 2015.”
“I used some of the mallams to organize in Abuja, Zaria, Kano, Sokoto, Maiduguri, Kaduna and Saudi Arabia covering 2013 to 2015. I give them funds as required from time to time, ranging from N500,000 to N30million, depending on their needs, traveling, sadaqat and others for local expenses and travels to Saudi Arabia for Umrah and Hajj.
“I reminded the NSA many times before payments were made. We grew up together with the former NSA with common friends in ABU.
“Most of the payments in cash were meant to give out cash to people that have been organizing prayers. Some transfers to Acacia to other banks were for logistics and also to some mallams in cash.
“The proposal made to the former NSA was not documented by him or myself. The verbal proposal to him was for prayers to overcome Boko Haram within the shortest possible time.
“The engagement for prayers by organising some people to be praying was not formally written down. There was no amount of money agreed on. I said to him, I will start organising, which he agreed and said he will see what he would give at a later time.
Baba-Kusa said he had an estimate of over N700million spent “from my own resources before I started to ask for money from him”. Some of these funds came from disposal of some of my land in Abuja. One in Maitama, one in Gudu and one in Guzape. The Maitama was a little over N200million; Guzape (N80m), Gudu(N18m), he told the EFCC.
But, according to him, he kept no records of the money he gave to individual Mallams organizing various groups. I requested for no acknowledgement from them when I gave money to them.”
He assured the EFCC that he would refund the said cash if he is able to dispose of his landed properties.
“I am making efforts to dispose of my properties in Abuja which would be over the total amount of N2.2billion. If the sales go through and the amount from the sales is made in full, I will make full payment.”
Baba Kusa is facing trial with a former National Security Adviser, retired Colonel Sambo Dasuki along with Acacia Holdings Limited and Reliance Referral Hospital Limited (owned by Baba-Kusa) and a former Director of Finance in ONSA, Shuaibu Salisu.
In the 19 charges against the five suspects, Baba-Kusa, Acacia Holdings Limited and Reliance Referral Hospital Limited are alleged to have “between October 2014 and April 2015 in Abuja agreed to do an illegal act to wit : dishonestly receiving property to wit: an aggregate sum of N2,200,000,000 being part of the funds in the accounts of the Office of National Security Adviser and that the same act was fine in pursuance of the agreement among you and you thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 97 of the Penal Code Act, Cap 532, Vol.4, LFN 2004.” [myad]
Nigerian Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki has hired 66 lawyers to defend him in an alleged corrupt case against him being handled by the Conde of Conduct Tribunal saying that he is battle ready to prove his innocence.
This is even as he called on members of the public to disregard the antics of those he called “desperate and devilish elements over spurious and renewed attempts being made by forces behind his on-going trial.”
The lead counsel to the Senate President, Kanu Agabi, at the Tribunal sitting today, took about 10 minutes to read the long list of advocates and for them to acknowledge their presence at the Tribunal.
Senator Saraki is facing 13 counts of false declaration of assets relating to his time as governor of Kwara state. There was no immediate explanation about why so many lawyers were needed.
But the Senate President vowed that his lawyers are ready to defend his right and prove his innocence in court as the case began today, Friday.
And in a statement today by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Yusuph Olaniyonu, the Senate President said that there elements that have been trailing the movement of his associates and giving different interpretations to their actions, all in a bid to poison the minds of the public against him, and to muddy the waters before the commencement of the case.
Senator Saraki said that some elements have been heckling his key aides and associates, using some unidentified individuals who make phone calls to the phone numbers of the individuals close to him.
“We assure all Nigerians and other observers of the Nigerian situation to be rest assured that the Senate President is ready to have his day in court. His lawyers are ready to defend his right and prove his innocence,” the statement said.
“Using the same scare-mongering methods that these devious forces have employed since the commencement of the case last September, they have employed an on-line medium known for its shady and unethical reputation, SaharaReporters, and another national newspaper to peddle inaccurate information aimed at prejudicing the coming case and forcing the actors in the case to take certain predetermined decisions.”
The statement added: “We will like to recall that this same group of people, using the same set of media and style, has last year successfully forced a Federal High Court judge to withdraw from the case filed by Dr, Saraki at the early stage of the Code of Conduct case. They also blackmailed the Court of Appeal to abruptly postpone its judgment some minutes to the period scheduled for the delivery of the judgment. Similarly, they have waged a war of attrition against Supreme Court Judges shortly before the February 5 delivery of the Apex Court’s judgement on the appeal filed by the Senate President.” [myad]
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Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun is worried over what she called consistent drop in revenue collected by Nigeria Customs Service.
Ocholi: Too Late To Stop Believing, By Femi Adesina
However, in the deep recesses of our inner man, we have questions. But since we don’t want to appear as interrogating God, we then keep quiet, saying “no man can query God.”
It is in the light of that pretension (as if God does not know our very thoughts, even before they are formed in our hearts), that I situate the death of Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Mr James Ocholi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), his wife, Blessing, and their son, Joshua, in an auto crash last Sunday. It was a tragedy of monumental proportions, which brought up a lot of ifs: what if the family had decided against the fatal journey? What if the vehicle had refused to start, and they had aborted the trip? What if the Minister had developed a runny stomach, and so could not travel? What if the car key had got mysteriously missing? What if…? The questions would never really end, and we then lay them at the doorsteps of God: what if God had not allowed the crash to happen? And of course, He has the power to have prevented it. He is omnipotent. He has all powers. He is omniscient, knowing all things. When James Ocholi was born in November, 1960, God knew he would be recalled home on March 6, 2016. When he courted Blessing, married her, and they began to raise a family, God knew they would both die the same day, continuing their romance into eternity. Or did God not know? He must have known. But could He have stopped such tragedy from happening, thus saving us from sorrow, tears and blood? He could have. So, why didn’t He? Baffling. Confounding. Astonishing.
Yes, I am asking questions, but let me pretend that they are questions of faith. The news of the decimation of the Ocholi family sent me into a very painful deja vu. Just last December, my sister, a professor of Dramatic Arts at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, had died in a gruesome accident on the Lagos/Ibadan Expressway. Foluke Ogunleye died along with her brother-in-law, who had visited from America, and was being ferried to the airport in Lagos to catch a flight later that evening. Rather, what he boarded was an eternal flight. He went on a journey of no return on a famished road.
When I heard about the Ocholis, I remembered the Adesinas, the Ogunleyes, and the pain we bore, and still bear. Don’t I still shed a silent tear when nobody is looking? Don’t I still sigh and shake my head mournfully whenever I remember my sister? Some broken hearts really never mend. And of course, the questions pop up again. What if…?
James Ocholi was no ordinary, inconsequential man before God. He was a devout, humble man. He served God in many ways. He was an ordained reverend of the Salem Family Church, though he did not flaunt the title like a badge of honour. He rather let his faith speak through his works. Yes, faith without works is dead. But Ocholi combined faith and works. Those who knew him saw piety in him. They saw humility. They saw the unobtrusive, self-effacing nature of a man who knew God. A man who had been national secretary of the Full Gospel Businessmen’s Fellowship. When Ocholi was thrown out of his Sports Utility Vehicle on Kaduna-Abuja road last Sunday, and his body battered and mangled, it was no ordinary man that was being treated thus. It was a man of God, who was returning home to the God of man.
His time was up, we console ourselves. Yes, his time may have been up, but couldn’t he have slept, and not woken up? If Heaven was so much in hurry to have Ocholi, his wife and son back, because they were needed to sing tenor, soprano and bass in the choir above, could they only have been recalled in such cruel circumstance?
Cruel! I must watch my words. On Wednesday, at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, a special session of tributes had been held for Ocholi. Minister after Minister had spoken, recalling good things about the deceased and their departed colleague. Very moving and poignant. But the words that continued to resonate in my ears and mind came from Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh. He ended his oration by giving thanks and praises to God. He then declared:”God is too kind to do anything cruel.”
Profound. Thoughtful. Illuminating. God is too kind to do anything cruel. But who killed the Ocholis? The Devil? He was not supposed to have such latitude over the people of God. On that same road that day, armed robbers must have driven through safely. Assassins must have passed. All sorts of malefactors would have travelled safely, so why did a godly family perish? Does the world now belong to the Evil One? Is mankind now helpless before Satan? Only he could have brought such cruelty to the Ocholis and their loved ones, since cruelty is his stock-in-trade. But then, the question again (don’t forget that it’s a question asked in faith o, lest anybody accuse me of anything): why did God allow such cruelty to humanity, to the Ocholi family, to the government, to the church, the body of Jesus Christ, of which the late Minister was an ordained reverend gentleman? Why?
Who can claim to have all the answers? No man. The hidden things belong to God. In August 2013, my mother, and matriarch of the Adesina family had passed on, aged 75. Pastor Dayo Adewumi of my local church, Foursquare Gospel Church, had joined us to bid her a tearful farewell. All the seven Adesina children were inconsolable, but we nursed our wounds quietly. We were still trying to come to full terms with the loss of the woman we called Mama, when my sister died last December, aged 53. When Pastor Adewumi and his wife visited me in my Lagos home, where I was wailing like a wailing wailer, he prayed, and uttered something that was very instructive to me. He said:”Oh God, even as a pastor, this is rather too much for me to bear. Just about two years ago, I joined this family to bury their mother. All the children were there. Now, one of them has been taken away. This is rather shocking.”
True. We go into shock when some unfathomable things happen to the people of God. We ask questions, not out of unbelief, not out of backsliding or lack of conviction. I now dub those posers as ‘questions of faith.’ When I ask them, I am not querying God or His omnipotence. I have seen Him at work in diverse ways, and can never doubt His power and presence. I am a captive of faith in God. A lawful captive. God has a right to hold me. I am His bondservant. I have seen His footprints in the storms, in the skies, on earth, everywhere. It is too late to stop believing. He is too kind to be cruel. Our Agric Minister, Chief Audu Ogbeh was right. Also right is the writer, Juliette Adam, who declared:”Death is the opening of a more subtle life. In the flower, it sets free the perfume;in the chrysalis, the butterfly; in man, the soul.”
I mourn with the Ocholis. Only God can comfort them. As I condoled with President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday in his office, and he told me about the steadfastness and dedication of the departed, I could see his pains. He told me that when Ocholi had wanted to be governor of Kogi State on the platform of the then Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), “I joined him to campaign in almost all the local government areas in the state.” Well, the strife is o’er, the battle done. James Ocholi is out of it all. I have questions. Questions of faith. But no matter what, I join the biblical Job in declaring:”Even if He slays me, I’ll trust in Him.”
What about you?
. Adesina is the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari. [myad]