The National Security Adviser, Colonel Sambo Dasuki (rtd.) has said that the Presidency had no hand in the last week’s bomb attack on the convoy of a former military leader, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd).
Dasuki spoke while fielding questions from State House correspondents today after the Council of State meeting during which the issue of the attack on Buhari came up for discussion.
He said that as far back as February, leader of the Boko Haram sect, Shekau, had threatened Buhari and some others, calling them infidels that must be dealt with.
“We said something about the attack on Buhari and Sheik Dahiru Bauchi. There was a threat as far back as February this year issued by Shekau, calling them infidels by name and position saying that they were in trouble and they were going to see.
“Well, the government was not responsible, and if you say that the government was responsible in the case of General Buhari, why don’t you say the same in the case of Sheik Dahiru Bauchi?
“We said it not because we had facts but because it is what sells the paper. That is the most unfortunate thing. And we want to say that it was not only General Buhari, there were others mentioned too.” [myad]
Suleiman Abba, until yesterday, the Assistant Inspector-General (AIG) in charge of Zone 7, Abuja, has emerged as the new Inspector-General of Police. He succeeds Mohammed Dikko Abubakar, who completed the maximum allowed 35 years of service yesterday.
Though no official statement has come from either the Presidency or the Police Headquarters, the outgoing Inspector General told newsmen in the Villa this evening that Abba is a competent officer to take over from him as “I go home to rest.”
Abubakar led the new IGP to see President Jonathan privately shortly after the Council of State meeting.
When confronted, Abba declined comment as he crawled quietly into his car and drove off.
Abba was said to have been selected yesterday, in Abuja after a marathon meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and the Police council, made up of the 36 state governors and the Chairman of the Police Service Commission, Mike Mbama Okiro (IGP, rtd).
It was gathered that the authority settled for AIG Abba following convincing arguments that the leadership of the nation’s security forces will be concentrated in a particular zone of the country should the new IG be appointed from the list of names earlier submitted to the President.
It was gathered that President Jonathan was also under pressure by the North, who insisted that appointing the next IGP from the South-South geopolitical zone would be counter-productive, especially with the security challenges facing the nation.
They were said to have argued that with the Chief of Army Staff, Lt General K. T. J. Minimah from South-South, Police Service Commission Chairman, Okiro from the South-South, an IGP from same zone would have been interpreted to mean deliberate ploy to use security forces to clamp down on the opposition expected from the North in the 2015 elections.
Five senior officers were said to have been considered as the new IGP and they include one Deputy Inspector General of Police from South-South, another DIG from North West, and three AIG’s, from North West, South –South and North Central zones. During debates at the meeting for a new police boss, a group argued that Abba’s appointment will amount to favouring a particular zone since he is from the zone as his predecessor as well as former IGP Hafiz Ringim. Another group, however, countered that during the administration of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former IGP Tafa Balogun and the Chief of Air Staff then came from the same zone. Eventually, everybody agreed on the choice of AIG Suleiman Abba as the new IGP.
Abba had served as the Commissioner of Police in charge Rivers State, Deputy Force Sec, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Deputy Force Sec), Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of State CID, FCT Police Command.
He was also ADC to Mrs. Abacha during the tenure of General Sani Abacha as military head state. The incumbent IGP Mohammed Dahiru Abubakar, whose tenure expires tomorrow, July 31, 2014, was appointed the 16th indigenous IGP in January 2012.
President Jonathan feels comfortable with the AIG zone 7, Suleiman Abba, having worked with him in Abuja for almost two years now.
Abba is an alumnus of the Nigerian Institute of Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPPS), Kuru, reports claim.
Nigeria’s Minister of Sports, Dr. Tanmmy Danagogo has vowed to deal with any coach or official who encourage athletes to use drugs or any banned substance in sports in the country. Dr. Danagogo in his first official reaction to the drug failure of miss Chika Amalaha, in Glasgow, Scotland, said he would introduce the use of MRI as condition for double checking the status of athletes before any major competition. “I will ensure the use of MRI scanning devices amongst others, as routine checks on our age-grade players, and pre-competition drug-test regime on athletes generally.” The minister made it clear that severe consequences await “any official and coache who is found to encourage or condone cheating of any kind.” He stressed that such officials would face severe sanctions. “The reported first sample drug-test failure of our female weightlifter is very embarrassing and I feel so saddened although I am still convinced that the 16 year old Amalaha is innocent and hopes that she doesn’t fail the ‘confirmation test. “Nevertheless, I will use my office as Sports Minister to enshrine tenets of integrity and fair competition in our sports, especially as it concerns the youths.” [myad]
President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf has declared a state of emergency on Ebola disease to enable the government take a more robust approach to deal with the outbreak. She also declared tomorrow, Friday, a work-free day to enable health workers in the country to disinfect and chlorinate all public facilities.
In a nationwide broadcast late Wednesday, Sirleaf also ordered the closure of all the schools in the West African country in an attempt to address the spread of the deadly Ebola Virus Disease (EVD).
“I hereby proclaim a State of Public Emergency to enable us take a more robust approach to deal with the Ebola outbreak,” Reuters quoted him as saying in a speech late on Wednesday, adding that the measures would initially last between 60 and 90 days.
The President went on to present a National Action Plan against Ebola that would try to contain the spread of the disease. Her office said she was not only worried about taking care of those afflicted, but would focus of the goal of preventing new cases.
As part of the plan, government officials will no longer be allowed to travel unless it is “absolutely necessary and critical” and all non-essential staff — to be determined by the minister or head of an agency — have been placed on 30-day compulsory leave.
Sirleaf revealed that the Liberian government had provided an initial contribution of $5 million for the commencement of immediate implementation of the plan.
She also suspended her participation at the US-Africa Leaders Summit in Washington DC next week, and thus sent the Vice President, Joseph Boakai and a handful of officials to attend the summit on her behalf.
Last week, Liberia closed it borders with neighbouring countries, only leaving a border entry points open. The nation’s bureau of immigration and naturalisation will intensify supervision and control of the border areas in conjunction with health authorities, to ensure strict adherence to announced preventive measures, including preliminary testing for fever.
“Other measures, without exceptions are that all schools are ordered closed pending further directive from the ministry of education,” she said.
“All markets at border areas, including Foya, Bo Waterside and Ganta, are hereby ordered closed until further notice.
“As previously directed, video clubs and entertainment centres must have improved sanitation, including facilities for the washing of hands prior to entering and exiting as well as to reducing opening hours, and the number of individuals permitted to enter those facilities. All citizens are seriously advised to avoid public amusement and entertainment centres.
“When these measures are instituted, only health care workers will be permitted to move in and out of those areas. Food and other medical support will be provided to those communities and affected individuals.
“The ministry of health and relevant agencies are also to consider the cremation of all victims of the deadly Ebola virus. This measure is intended to avoid tampering with the dead and contaminating water sources.”
At about the same time of Sirleaf’s address, President of Sierra Leone, Ernest Bai Koroma, was declaring a state of emergency for Ebola and cancelled his participation at the US-Africa Leaders Summit. [myad]
Against the background of the discordant calls from across Nigeria on citizens living in parts of the country outside their states to go back to their states of origin, President Goodluck Jonathan has rallied governors and past leaders of the country to look at how they can stem the disintegration. It is on record that the United States of America predicted over a year ago that Nigeria will disintegrate in 2015. Calls from various ethnic groups across the country, on their people in other parts of the country to return home or people ordering people from other parts of the country to return to their states of origin appear to be pointing to such disintegration. At an emrgency Council of State meeting held today at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, President Jonathan, the governors of 36 states and past leaders of the country resolved to ask states that are thinking of deporting none indigines from their states or registering them for any purpose to stop it immediately. “Anyone with sense of history would recall that Nigeria civil war began in similar manner,” the Council lamented. The leaders frowned at calls by ethnic groups on their people either to return home from states that are not their home states or ordering people to leave their states. The meeting was attended by most of the governors and or deputy governors, former leaders like forme President Shehu Shagari, former military President General Ibrahim Babangida, former Heads of State, General Abdulsalami, General Yakubu Gowon, Ernest Shonekan as well as the National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki and other security chiefs. Briefing newsmen shortly after the meeting, the governors of Akwa Ibom State, Godswill Akpabio, Niger state, Babangida Aliyu, Enugu state, Sulivan Chime and Col. Dasuki said the leaders were worried by the dangerous development in the polity. They said that the leaders have asked governors to stop not only the registration or deportation of Nigerians from any part of the country but expressed disgust at the concept of indigeneship in the Nigerian political set up. They said that a committee was set up at the meeting to fashion out the modality for Nigeria to attain true unity even before 2015. The committee, headed by governor Akpabio of Akwa Ibom state, has two months to submit its report to the government. Othe members of the committee are governor Babangida of Niger state, governor Ibrahim Dankwambo of Gombe state, governor Aliyu Magatakarda Wammako of Sokoto and governor Olusegun Mimiko of Ondo state. Some of the things the committee is expected to look into, the governors said, would include the issue of discriminatory school fees and contract appointments into civil service for none indegines in some states. [myad]
President Goodluck Jonathan has made it clear that no amount of terrorit attacks in the country will intimidate his government in providing education to the citizenry. The President expressed this determination in a statement by his special adviser on media and publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, in reation to the Wednesday bomb blasts at the Aminu Kano College of Islamic and Legal Studies and Tuesday attacks on two mosques in Potiskum, Yobe State. The President directed the Armed Forces, Police and other national security agencies to further enhance security around educational facilities in states prone to terrorist attacks. “No amount of intimidation and violence would stampede the government into abandoning its goal of giving education a new lease of life and opening up access to all young Nigerians who wish to improve themselves.” President Jonathan deplored the continue terrorist assault on Kano and condemned the repeated targeting of worshipers as well as innocent students who are the nation’s future. According to him, “the callous attacks on soft targets fully affirm that the terrorists are nothing but bloodthirsty adherents of a warped and retrogressive ideology.” [myad]
The Israeli/Hamas conflict has raged on with Israel mobilizing more than 16,000 more troops according to Israeli military spokesman.
The war began with events following the kidnapping and killing of 3 Israeli teenagers added to ongoing Hamas rockets being fired into Northern Israeli.
A ceasefire was once negotiated and stubbornly Hamas rejected the terms arguing that Hamas was not consulted.
So far about 1,400 Palestinians (mostly civilians) have been killed while nearly 58 Israelis (mostly soldiers) have died. [myad]
A Nigerian, Isa Wali, has emerged as one of the winners of the 2014 McNulty Prize Laureates in the United States of America. He won in the empowerment initiative category.
This was announced today by the Aspen Institute and Institute Trustee, Anne Welsh McNulty at the seventh annual John P. McNulty Prize laureates.
The John P. McNulty Prize of $100,000 is given annually to honor the visionary work of a Fellow of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. The winner are chosen from the five laureates, and each of the other laureates will receive $10,000.
An international panel of judges, including former US Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright, international statesman, Olara Otunnu, and international development expert, Brizio Biondi-Morra, selected this year’s winner from among the laureates.
Winners, according to the Institute, are in a group of five extraordinary leaders who bring the spirit of innovation and excellence that characterized their success in the private sector to bear on some of the most intractable issues of our time. According to the President and Chief Executive Officer of the Aspen Institute, Walter Isaacson, the 2014 laureates are making a significant impact on their communities and across the globe, from educating women and girls in parts of northern Nigeria; to engaging Palestinian youth in civic participation and the democratic process; to providing youth alternatives to gangs in El Salvador through soccer programs and personal development; to uniting those affected by rare diseases into a powerful advocacy movement; to working with poor rural populations in South Africa to develop their own path to self-sufficiency. Bulugula, from South Africa also won the prize. He was former senior economist and asset manager, founder of the Bulungula Incubator and acted as a catalyst for rural communities to create sources of income, integrated new technologies, and demand the infrastructure and services they have a right to from the government, while maintaining traditional values and structures. [myad]
Britain, disturbed by the spread of the highly-contagious Ebola virus in West Africa, today, holds a top-level government emergency meeting.
International concern has in recent time, risen about the virus, which has killed 672 people in West Africa since February, after the first recorded case of the disease in Africa’s most populous country, Nigeria.
Although no cases of Ebola have been found in Britain, Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said that after the emergency meeting, London is considering extra precautions but was confident it could contain the disease if necessary.
“In terms of the UK, the issue is about the possibility of somebody who has contracted the disease in Africa getting sick here,” he said after the meeting, which health experts, scientists and other ministers attended.
“It is not about the disease spreading in the UK because frankly we have different standards of infection control procedure that would make that most unlikely.”
He said that ministers had discussed what additional measures Britain could take to contain the outbreak in West Africa, and what steps needed to be taken in case a British national in the area contracted the disease.
He did not specify what precautions were being considered.
Earlier this month, public health officials issued guidance to hospitals and doctors asking them to look out for possible cases in travellers returning from the affected countries. [myad]
Dele Giwa. Bagauda Kaltho. Enenche Akogwu. Zakariya Isa. Ikechukwu Udendu. Nansok Sallah. Bayo Ohu. These are the names of just a few of the brave Nigerian journalists who have lost their lives as a direct result of their line of work. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) a total of at least, 19 journalists have been killed in Nigeria since 1992 and countless others have been beaten, intimidated, kidnapped and held for questioning-many of who have since fled their homeland after repeated threats on their lives. On 01 July 2014, yet another casualty of the press was reported as Thomas Thomas, editor of the Global Concord Newspaper was handcuffed and thrown into a car by armed men in Uyo, Akwa Ibom state. Unyime Ekwere, chairman of the Global Concord’s editorial board, told CPJ that Thomas was being detained by the State Security Service in what is suspected to be retaliation for the publication’s recent criticism of alleged plans by the Akwa Ibom state government to assassinate traditional chiefs ahead of the 2015 general elections. During the past six weeks, The Nation, Daily Trust and Leadership newspapers have reported infractions, in which military personnel have confiscated or blocked the distribution of newspapers reportedly containing stories negative to the regime or military operations related security in the country. Repeated offenses against the press have only managed to undermine Nigeria’s long-fraught journey to peace, democracy and a better life for every Nigerian. Journalists remain the one entity capable of holding officials and organizations accountable to the ordinary Nigerians who are directly impacted by their actions. There are many perpetrators to the freedom and security of the press in Nigeria. The militant group, Boko Haram, considered a “predator of press freedom” by Reporters Without Borders, claimed responsibility for the 2011 death of Zakariya Isa and followed up the attack with statements that it will attack news organizations that misrepresent its activities. It followed through on that promise, with the murder of five Nigerians at the offices of This Day in April2012. Government entities are keen to support the narrative that most of these deaths and violations against journalists are merely journalists getting caught in the crossfire of Boko Haram violence, but a quick investigation into the locations and circumstances of these transgressions against the press would suggest otherwise. Although terrorist groups remain a primary culprit in the various offenses against the freedom, safety and integrity of the press, the recent escalation in anti-press violence has not only been at the hands of Boko Haram. According to the CPJ, the vast majority of journalists killed were, in fact,murdered in the interest of muting political dissidence. Furthermore, in 2012, there were 143 separate attacks on the press alone, of which only 16% were committed by terrorists. This speaks of organized and pervasive oppression of journalists beyond the threats and accidental “crossfire” killings surrounding the Boko Haram insurgency. In today’s Nigeria, members of the media are frequently arrested, detained and questioned without trial. In April 2013, two Leadership reporters were detained and interrogated by the police for unknown reasons. We are failing our brothers and sisters in the media and failing Nigeria in its plight towards just democratic governance. Journalists must be protected from harassment and violent attacks, and the perpetrators must be brought to justice. Since 2006, the murders of five journalists remain unsolved. This is a gross injustice to those in the media who serve our country as the eyes, ears and voice of the Nigerian citizens. The role of the Nigerian press according to the Nigerian Constitution, is to uphold the responsibility and accountability of the government to the people. The unfair and unjust treatment of the Nigerian media is an impediment to the growth of our democracy. To use money, coercion, threats and violence to sway the media is to abandon the principles of democracy. Without freedom of speech and expression, we regress into authoritarian rule because journalists are forced to practice self-censorship to protect themselves from threats of violence and detention. The members of the press are a vehicle for the dissemination of information and transparency and their work is a crucial part of our democratic society. We have the foundation for a flourishing media sector. Nigeria has independent newspapers and an active press corps. What we must put our efforts toward is establishing a culture of true press freedom that shields the journalists from terrorists, political conspiracies and other forms of intimidation, which only serve to derail trust, accountability and the democratic vision for freedom of expression, speech and thought. In cases of violence and murder, witnesses must be guaranteed protection and killers must be prosecuted and jailed when guilty for the crimes. The press should be a trusted participant in the advancement of our democracy and development of our nation, respected instead of being attacked and persecuted. With some guidance from our international friends, perhaps we can eradicate the element of fear from journalism, so journalists can observe and report the truth without risking their lives. The UN Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity is one such guide that can help develop a safe path forward. It emphasizes the importance of a robust legal system, establishing partnerships between stakeholders, raising awareness and creating safety initiatives at multiple levels of society. A harmonized effort of cooperation between the government, security forces, non-governmental and international organizations, media industry and its association, and the civil society at-large can create an environment in which the press can operate with the constitutional freedom it deserves. The President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Mr. Femi Adeshina, “pointed out that in order to move forward, the police and the media need to engage one another by setting up a partnership that must be cultivated, adding that there must be a new thinking with mutual respect between the two parties.” If government and security resources are diverted from controlling the media and detaining reporters who disagree with those in power, to protecting journalists in the field and addressing the violators of free speech in court, then the resulting free, fair and ethical system of journalism will strengthen the Nigerian democracy, economy and society.
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Dele Giwa. Bagauda Kaltho. Enenche Akogwu. Zakariya Isa. Ikechukwu Udendu.
