Unknown gunmen yesterday assassinated the Ughelli branch chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) in Delta state, Barrister Austin Icheghe.
The assassination was one in the series of killings rocking Ughelli metropolises in the Ughelli North Local Government Area of the State
The incident, it was gathered, happened at about 9 pm at the 14 Ekredjebor residence of the victim in the presence of his immediate family.
A niece of the deceased, Egunor Uviesa told newsmen that her uncle was shot in front of his apartment while alighting from his vehicle at the close of work.
“As soon as he came down from his vehicle, they accosted him, and shot him on the head with the bullet damaging part of his face. He was immediately rushed to a private clinic here in Ughelli were he was confirmed dead.”
Meanwhile, the Executive Director, Center for the Vulnerable and the Underprivileged, (CENTREP), Barrister Oghenejabor Ikimi has condemned the incident, describing it as barbaric even as he wondered why anyone would want to sentence a lawyer to death.
“The killing of the NBA chairman brings to mind the incessant killings in Ughelli which is on the increase in recent times. We are tired of cases of unresolved murders and assassinations nationwide.
“A year ago, two lawyers in the State were murdered by unknown gunmen on their way to court and the police are yet to arrest the culprits till date. We are calling on the State Commission of Police and his men to wake up and checkmate these killings because we are tired of these killings.” [myad]
When I arrived home from office early in the week and told my wife that the N20 Billion which the former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), the then Sanusi Lamido Sanusi insisted was missing from the government vaults and for which he was sent on suspension was said to have been traced to Zenith Bank Plc, she screamed: “it is a lie!” In quick succession, I told her that General Muhammadu Buhari’s certificate which the Nigerian Army declared missing during the campaign for the 2015 election had been found, she exclaimed again: “it is a lie!” It is not impossible that any other sane person that hears about the incredible news would react the same way, especially so soon after the election which the victim of the so-called certificate-gate, General Buhari won and long after the victim of executive brigandage, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi ascended the throne of his ancestors as Emir of Kano. With these two unfortunate incidences, in addition to many others that might be in the offing, one is even hard put to ask a question: what type of country is Nigeria? Or, in other words, what type of leaders have Nigeria been saddled with all this while? Or, more appropriately, what type of system is Nigeria operating that breeds this kind of weird leadership?
Corruption and impunity have so permeated the society that no one, not even our leaders are ashamed of the bizarre nature of what they are doing. For, is it not a shame that just a few days after General Buhari won the election, the leadership came through the backdoor to announce that the N20 Billion has been found? One imagines if it was President Goodluck Jonathan that won the election: it is most likely that no one would have come up with the truth: that the money is there somewhere intact. And on top of it all, such falsehood and criminality would have thrown the integrity of the now Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II into jeopardy. The N20 Billion would have ended up in private pockets! It is unfortunate that unnecessary religious, ethnic or regional and class sentiments have been played up for long, by the outgoing government, so much that many Nigerians were hoodwinked to think that the government enemies were made up of certain group belonging to other religious, ethnic or regional and class blocs. Indeed, when the issue of missing money from the account of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) was first mooted out by Sanusi Lamido, I was one of those who believed that there was element of truth in the allegation. My point of recourse was the fact that Sanusi Lamido had, before then, proved to be a gentleman who was committed to clean business of running the Nigerian financial resources: if you take a look at how he sanitized the banking sector and other financial institutions, you may understand my mood then. Indeed, if President Jonathan had been on the same page with my thought and he was honest about pursuing the truth, he probably would have allowed Sanusi Lamido to carry on with investigation or asked an independent body to do the investigation. But, because, as always, the forces that were in charge were so powerful, they led the President to throw the baby away with the bath tube.
Often times when you are on the side of the truth, especially in this kind of country, you are branded as ‘opposition’ and get treated with a lot of scorns. But, like the Bible says: “Truth will always set you free.”
While it is not too late for President Jonathan to render public apology to the present Emir of Kano who he so derided, downgraded and disgraced out of office as CBN governor and to appropriately punish whoever was or were behind this national shame, the same would also be said of the falsehood that was woven around the secondary school certificate of General Buhari, all in the name of politics.
The Nigeria Army, which Buhari served for years and rose through the ranks to become a Major-General, owes him public apology for not just embarrassing him, but driving the integrity of the force into the political mud, forgetting that power, on this earth is ephemeral and transient.
No one would have imagined that the men and women in uniform could have descended so low, obviously for the pot of porridge. Too bad this happened in Nigeria of our time. [myad]
As the 2015 elections approached, PDP spin doctors had good reasons to place Benue State firmly under the grip of the biggest party in Africa.
Based on the fact that ethnicity is a serious issue in Benue politics, they counted on the staying power of David Mark, the career Senator to deliver the Idoma votes as he has always done since 1999. The Senate President was in this year’s election complemented by the powerful Minister of Interior, Abba Morro, who does no wrong in the eyes of the PDP and the presidency – not even when a horde of young men and women looking for jobs die under his watch – the Idoma vote was guaranteed. On the Tiv side, there was Gabriel Suswam, arguably the closest friend to President Goodluck Jonathan among the PDP governors. The party also counted on the goodwill of Dr. Nicholas Akise Ada, appointed as Minister of State just before the elections. A lot of hope was also placed on Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, former Senate President, Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher – former Minister and former Ambassador and former everything else. Also to be counted was Prof. Daniel Saror, former Vice Chancellor of ABU Zaria and a two time Senator. It was a parade of stars and heavy weights on the PDP side.
Religion is hardly an issue in the politics of Benue. It became an issue this year because the PDP wanted it to be. Benue is predominantly a Christian State, just like any of the states in the South East or South /South. PDP strategists tried their best to make political capital out of religion in this year’s election by portraying the All Progressives Congress as a party of Muslims who brought Boko Haram to Islamise Nigeria. This campaign was intensified with the emergence of General Buhari as the Presidential candidate of the APC and the pervasive clashes between sedentary farmers and Fulani cattlemen in the state. This added fuel to the campaign by PDP propagandist that the APC was waging a modern day Jihad against the Christian community in the state.
The odds were thus stacked against the opposition APC. Benue is rural, poverty ravaged, underindustrialised state with the only industry being the government. The government holds the bread and the knife and those who take the risk of challenging it must be ready to face the heat. The PDP governments, both at the Federal and State levels were quite aware of this and maximized the use of the carrot and stick.
The Benue State government decided to squeeze the opposition further by rubbing salt into the injury. At the local government elections of 2012, the government openly rigged the vote in its own favour. In the show of shame, the opposition did not win even a Councillorship seat in any of the 23 Local Councils in the state.
Consequently, members of the opposition had to survive in a system where all the three tiers of government were sharpened against them – the Federal, the State and the Local. The result was suffocating poverty and lack of stomach infrastructure for opposition members. Notable figures in their camp like Young Alhaji, the gubernatorial running mate of the ACN in the 2007 elections, Prof David Iyornem, Dr Iyorchia Ayu, Prof Daniel Saror, Hon Mzenda Iho, former Speaker Benue House of Assembly, Hon Aboho, member House of Representatives and many others could not stand the squeeze and fled to the ruling PDP.
On the face of it, the opposition was finished in Benue. Perhaps the lone man standing was Senator George Akume, former governor of the State and Minority Leader of the ACN and later APC in the Senate. In a system of bread and butter politics, the man could do very little to spread patronage around his followers and ensure loyalty to him and the cause he represented.
But PDP leaders in the state made two fundamental mistakes and things turned out the way they least expected:
One, they became pompous, reckless and power drunk. A leading figure of the party in the state is reported to have boasted that his mission to the state is to squeeze the people like a drunkard does with an empty can of beer and throw them into the dust bin. He was widely quoted in beer parlours and other rumour mills in the state.
Did the PDP government in the state hear this particular rumour which gained so much currency? If they did, there was nothing done to refute the claim that the premeditated policy of the state government was to impoverish and punish her citizens. Instead, as at the time of election, the state government had accumulated an unpaid salary bill of N15 billion. Another unpaid bill of N15 billion was owed pensioners. In a state where almost every body depends on government stipends for survival, the squeeze was getting deadly. This act of cruelty – believed to be deliberate – caused much anger against the government and the PDP.
Secondly, the PDP underestimated the political resolve and skills of Senator George Akume. It was a costly miscalculation. The man gave the PDP a bloody nose. It was on his shoulders that the APC sprang a surprise and carried the day in Benue. [myad]
Governor-elect for Kaduna state, Mallam Nasiru el-Rufai has made it clear that he would not spare those who caused electoral violence in the recently concluded elections in the state.
The governor-elect, who was handed his certificate of return at the INEC headquarters in the state capital along with his deputy, Mr. Bala Bantex, said that there would be no sacred cow in the proposed prosecution of those that were involved in electoral violence, adding that it would serve as deterrent to others and also to reinforce his government’s commitment to the rule of law.
El-Rufai thanked the people of Kaduna State for voting massively for the APC in the election even as he assured them that his government would hit the ground running immediately after their swearing in on May 29 in an effort to rebuild the state.
The Governor-elect explained that his administration would complete all ongoing projects initiated by the outgoing PDP government which has positive impact on the people of the state, while those of less importance would be reviewed.
Among those that attended the event were traditional rulers, civil society organizations, and members of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security. [myad]
Governor Abiola Ajimobi of Oyo State has narrated how his enemies who wanted him dead led him to vacate his official quarters in the government house and then relocated to his private residence in Ibadan, the state capital. According to him, his un-known political enemies directed a dangerous Yoruba Juju, called ebo at him.
Governor Ajimobi who spoke in Ibadan during the eighth-day Fidau prayer for the late Chief Imam of Ibadanland, Sheikh Baosari Haruna, said that before the just-concluded elections, some desperate politicians did their best to send him out of Government House at all cost through many devilish means.
“They first came to you, Alfas (Muslim Scholars), for you to give them prayers that will send me out of office, but my own Alfa prayers superseded that of these desperate politicians. Every morning, I always go out on exercise. If you know the Government House very well, it has many interchange, popularly called `orita’, I see all kinds of sacrifices (ebo) placed in all these junctions.
“Worried by these developments, some of you my Alfas here advised me to move out of the Government House to render their evil plots useless.”
Ajimobi said that his reason for fleeing his official quarters is contrary to tales spread by opponents that he packed out of Government House because he was afraid of imminent defeat as no governor had ever been reelected for second term in the history of the state.
The governor said he had to leave “to thwart the evil plots of these desperate politicians”.
The governor, who is still basking in the euphoria of breaking the jinx of being the first governor to be elected for second term in the state, thanked all spiritual leaders in Oyo for their prayers for him and the state.
“It is only Allah who shamed my detractors through your prayers for me and those I made in Saudi Arabia where I had the privilege of entering inside the Kaabah,” he said.
The elated governor asked the Islamic scholars to select 10 of them that would join him to Saudi Arabia soon to perform the lesser Hajj ( Umrah) to thank Allah for His mercies on him and the state.
He thanked the people of Oyo State for once again reposing their confidence on him by voting him in as governor of the state for another four years. [myad]
A Nigerian, Buruji Kashamu, indicted in the United States for allegedly smuggling heroin, in a case that was the basis for the TV hit: “Orange Is The New Black,” has been elected a senator in Nigeria. Buruji Kashamu was little known before he returned home in 2003 from Britain, despite a U.S. extradition order, to become a major financier of President Goodluck Jonathan’s party.
Election results from the March 28 poll identified Kashamu as senator-elect in Ogun state even as his political opponents are challenging his victory in court, saying that the ballots were rigged.
Kashamu’s spokesman, Austin Oniyokor, said it was important to clarify there is not “any order for extradition by any court whether in Nigeria, or the U.K. or the U.S. or anywhere.”
Kashamu, 56, has said he is “a clean businessman” and that the 1998 indictment by a grand jury in the Northern District of Illinois for conspiracy to import and distribute heroin in the United States is a case of mistaken identity. He has said Chicago prosecutors really want the dead brother he closely resembles.
A British court refused a U.S. extradition request in 2003 over uncertainty about Kashamu’s identity, freeing him after five years in jail. He was found carrying $230,000 when he was arrested.
Last year, Chicago Judge Richard Posner refused a motion to dismiss Kashamu’s case. The September 2014 decision from the Court of Appeal 7th Circuit quoted the U.S. Justice Department as saying that “the prospects for extradition have recently improved” but noted that “Given Kashamu’s prominence … the probability of extradition may actually be low.”
A dozen people long ago pleaded guilty in the case including American Piper Kerman, whose memoir about her jail time became the Netflix hit “Orange Is The New Black.” Kerman’s book never identified Kashamu by name, but there is a West African drug kingpin whom she calls “Alhaji” — meaning one who has completed the haj or pilgrimage to Mecca. Kashamu was identified from a photo lineup as Alhaji by two conspirators, Posner’s judgment said.
It said that if Kashamu was the ringleader of the drug gang, he could face a sentence as heavy as life imprisonment and suggested that if he is innocent he should fly to Chicago to prove it in court.
In Nigeria, Kashamu won an order preventing the attorney general from extraditing him. He had argued that his political enemies were trying to hurt him with the threat of extradition. But an appeals court last year overturned that order.
President Jonathan’s perceived protection of Kashamu caused Olusegun Obasanjo, a former president, to warn that “drug barons … will buy candidates, parties and eventually buy power or be in power themselves.”
Kashamu is suing Obasanjo for libel for stating that he is a fugitive from U.S. justice. He had won a court order halting publication of Obasanjo’s autobiography but a judge this week rescinded it, saying Kashamu had misled the court. [myad]
Pastor Tunde Bakare embraces the President-elect, General Muhammadu Buhari when he paid him a congratulatory visit in Kaduna today, Thursday, 16 April 2015.
From L-R: Mr. Jimi Lawal; Governor-elect of Kaduna, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, President-elect General Muhammadu Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare during a congratulatory visit in Kaduna today. [myad]
President Goodluck Jonathan has called on world leaders and international institutions to give their fullest possible support to the incoming Administration of General Muhammadu Buhari of All Progressives Congress.
President Jonathan also called on all Nigerians to do their utmost best to help the incoming President succeed in leading the country to greater heights of accomplishment.
At separate audiences with the new ambassadors of France, Senegal and Ethiopia, President Jonathan appealed for patience, understanding and cooperation from all stakeholders in Nigeria, which, he said, General Buhari will need to move the country forward to great height, peace, security and progress.
Responding to the commendation of his exemplary concession of victory in the Presidential elections by the new ambassadors, President Jonathan said that he acted out of his abiding conviction that the unity, well-being and progress of Nigeria must supersede all personal ambitions.
“Democracy has to be nurtured to grow. Strong democratic institutions are the backbone and future of our democracy. They must be protected and nurtured. As for me, as a matter of principle, it is always the nation first.
“You need to have a nation before you can have an ambition. It should always be the nation first. You don’t have to scuttle national progress for personal ambition.
“Since I assumed duty, I have been involved in quelling political crisis in some African countries and I know what they passed through and what some are still going through. If you scuttle a system for personal ambition, it becomes a collective tragedy,’’ President Jonathan declared.
Speaking with the new French ambassador, Mr. Denis Guaer, President Jonathan appealed to France to extend the support and assistance it gave to his administration to General Buhari’s government.
“President Francois Hollande was our guest in Nigeria during the celebration of Nigeria’s centenary. He has been very supportive of the country in the fight against terrorism. I expect that the same warmth and goodwill will be extended to the incoming government. I expect that France will continue to work with the new administration, especially on issues of terrorism.
“The United Nations has been supportive as well. Our troops, supported by regional forces, have done very well in fighting the terrorists in recent times. What we need now is support to help our people get back their lives.”
The ambassadors commended President Jonathan for setting a record of humility, patriotism and courage in safeguarding the democratic process in Nigeria and Africa.
“Nigeria is not only an economic power in the world today, but also a great democratic example. And it is all by your effort, Mr. President. The last elections and your response was truly a great achievement and you will always be remembered for it,” the French ambassador told the President.
Mr. Guaer, the new Ambassador of Senegal, Mr. Baboucar Sambe and the new Ambassador of Ethiopia, Samia Zekaria Gutu who were at the Presidential Villa to present their letters of credence to President Jonathan, also assured him that they will do their best to strengthen relations between Nigeria and their countries during their tenure. [myad]
Nationwide strike embarked upon today by the Air Traffic Control workers has grounded domestic flights and rendered many passengers stranded in various nation’s airports.
The workers embarked on a six hour warning strike to draw attention of Nigerian Airspace Management Agency (NAMA) to non-resolution of welfare issues that were raised last year and will go on indefinite industrial action starting from Monday, April 20 if their welfare issues are not resolved. The airport authority has not yet made any official statement but the National President of the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers (NATCA), Victor Eyaru in a statement on Thursday said that today’s action will last six hours only as a warning sign.
“But it is in preparation for a major and total industrial action which will commence on Monday April 20, 2015, if relevant government bodies continue to treat air traffic controller issues with utmost levy or neglect.” The warning strike has led to the cancellation of many flights. [myad]
There are indications that a satellite television service provider DStv is facing contempt of court as a team of lawyers, led by Oluyinka Oyeniji brought to the notice of the court the fact that the organization has disobeyed the court over its ruling retraining it from increasing the prices of its services.
Other lawyers in the team are Osasuyi Adebayo, Mufutau Olajobi, Yemi Salman and Fola Oluwole for the applicants. The lawyers, in the class action suit brought against DStv today, informed the court that the satellite television service provider has gone ahead to give effect to its price increase contrary to the order given.
Justice Chukwujekwu Aneke of the Federal High Court, sitting in Lagos, had on April 2, 2015 made orders restraining DStv from giving effect or enforcing its planned increase in cost of the different classes of viewing or programmes pending the determination of the Motion on Notice for Interlocutory Injunction, which was adjourned till April 16, 2016.
But when the matter came up today, the team of lawyers told the court that DStv had breached the order by going ahead to enforce the price increase.
DStv is being represented by Moyo Onigbanjo (SAN) and M.K. Adesina among other lawyers.
Onigbanjo informed the court of his pending preliminary objection and application to set aside the orders of the court.
But Oyeniji objected and drew the attention of the court to his application for interlocutory injunction, adding that DSTV had disobeyed the orders of the court and that relevant applications for contempt proceedings had been filed.
The court then adjourned the matter till May 5, 2015 for the argument of the preliminary objection.
It is after that it will then take arguments on the motion for interlocutory injunction, which had earlier been scheduled for the day.
It would be recalled that the orders of injunction were stated to be pending before the said argument of the motion on notice. [myad]
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