Sahara Reporters Latest News Wednesday 31st July 2019

Sahara Reporters Latest News Wednesday 31st July 2019

Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 31/07/19

target=_blank>Borno Community Laments Govt Neglect As Red Cross Committee Provides Relief To Displaced Families

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has provided emergency relief items to 4,300 households in Monguno, Borno.
The families were victims of the insurgency who recently fled their homes after attacks by bandits and Boko Haram insurgency.
Sadiq Baba Ahmed, ICRC’s Economic Security Field Officer in Monguno, in a statement, said the families left their homes leaving everything behind them adding that there are currently more than a dozen of internally displaced persons (IDP) camps in Monguno town – all of which are overstretched.
He said, “We’ve supported a total number of 4,392 families with mats, blankets, clothes, solar lamps, cooking equipment and hygiene kits among others, to allow them to cover their basic needs.
“Since December 2018, we have witnessed a huge influx of IDPs, mostly from Kukawa Local Government. These people have been forced out of their homes due to the hostilities and are in a dire situation.”
Musa Haruna, a community leader in Fulatari Camp, lamented the neglect by the Nigerian government and the National Emergency Management Agency.
He said those displaced from their homes have been roaming on the streets with no place to reside.
“For months, our people have been subjected to a lot of suffering, most of them without a single mat to put their heads on,” Haruna said.
Haruna received relief materials for 1,500 households living Fulatari Camp, Borno.
The ICRC also said it is in the process of constructing 2000 family shelters in some of the camps and is supporting clinics in Monguno.

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target=_blank>UK Prime Minister Appoints Nigerian As Junior Minister

Kemi Badenotch, a British of Nigerian extraction, has been selected into the cabinet of the new United Kingdom Prime Minister, Boris Johnson.
Mrs Badenotch was born Kemi Olufunto Adegoke in January 1980 in Wimbledon UK.
She spent her early life in Lagos, Nigeria and the United States of America, before settling in the UK at age 16.
Kemi Adegoke married Anglo-Irish Hamish Badenotch in 2012.
The former foreign secretary and mayor of London who has promised to take the United Kingdom out of the European Union without a deal if necessary, appointed the 39-year old Computer Systems Engineering graduate turn politician to be the parliamentary Undersecretary of State for Children and Families.
Badenotch voted for the UK to leave the EU in the 2016 Brexit vote, which aligns her with Johnson’s agenda.
“I’m humbled to have been appointed a junior minister at the DfE. A huge privilege to be able to serve and make a positive difference on a number of issues close to my heart!
“I look forward to working with the ministerial team and everyone at @educationgovuk,” she said on her Twitter page.
Badenotch said she would be looking forward to work across party lines as she steps into her new position.
“I look forward to working not just with @Conservatives colleagues but cross-party,” she said.
Badenotch is the first woman to represent the constituency of Saffron Walden, a position she first held in June 2017.

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target=_blank>Imperative Of An Anti-Corruption Court In Nigeria By Peter Claver Oparah

CJN Tanko before the Senate

In the spirit of the anti-corruption drive of the Buhari regime and given the way and manner this drive has gone to fumigate the public finance sector of governance, especially at the federal level thereby freeing humongous resources that were hitherto fleeced by operatives of government, there is this wish writ large in the minds of Nigerians that the Buhari government should institutionalize the fight against corruption so that it will survive his regime when he finishes his current and final term in 2023. Embedded in this desire is the need to make the fight against corruption an institutional act that does not depend on the whims and caprices of the regimes that will succeed Buhari to carry out but make it a compulsive component of governance in Nigeria.
Yes, the Buhari regime has not only shown the will and desire to give this ennui a direct fight, it had done so much in the past four years to re-direct governance far away from the sordid and decrepit form that prevailed before he came in 2015. History will give it to Buhari that his is the very first regime in Nigeria’s independent history to take a holistic battle against corruption, especially governmental corruption which reduced Nigeria to rubbles before he came and exerted such tremendous toll on the Nigerian institutions such that Nigeria was already a failed state where every infrastructure crumbled, insecurity reigned supreme, poverty, disease and want ravaged-no thanks to internecine corruption that assailed all sectors. Graciously, since Buhari came, corruption has taken such hit that public fund that was reduced to a free-looting cesspit before he came had been so capped through the application of diverse policies such that little or no leakages occur in the system.
The capping of huge corruption well-heads has led to massive investment in the country’s infrastructural base that suffered such terrible abandonment before 2015. Nigerian infrastructural sectors are receiving such lease of life that they never enjoyed even when Nigeria was harvesting an oil boom that ended up looted. So, in such positive attention to infrastructure, huge social investment, tremendous recovery of mileages in every sector of governance through judicious use of state resources, Nigerians demand for a rooting of the war against corruption, which had hitherto mopped up resources that would have given Nigeria a huge leap in the comity of nations. Nigerians want President Buhari and the 9th National Assembly to work to make the battle against corruption an institutional provision that will ensure we don’t walk back to such dung pit Buhari’s regime is lifting us from. The demand for such institutionalization finds expression in the desire by Nigerians that an Anti-Corruption Court be set up through the instrumentality of legislation to ensure no coming regime takes us back to the kind of byzantine freeloading we experienced before Buhari came.
Of course, the anti-corruption agencies and policies of the regime are blazing everywhere in Nigeria. They are taking captives by the day. These institutions are moving from one length of the country to the other. They are moving from one sector of governance to the other and nabbing violators of the new regime against corruption. But most of the successes recorded by these agencies and policies are frustrated at the regular courts where multifarious factors that shackle the justice system in Nigeria work to nullify efforts to punish violators of the anti-corruption battle and stultify the noble intents of the war against corruption. Some of these impeding factors include the huge work load of the regular courts, which sees them overburden with so many litigations on virtually every issue under the sun. With this, anti-corruption cases have suffered from unending litigations, which often frustrate the efforts of these agencies and even when justice is gotten, it is often belated and vitiates the important role they should play in quickly punishing offenders.
Again, it is well known that the quality of justice in Nigerian judiciary is very poor as most judicial decisions are often products of transactory compromise that defeats the essence of justice. Of course, the Nigerian judiciary smells from corrupt influences that see judges marketing justice to the highest bidder in often shameful manners that de-markets any effort to tame corruption. Having survived the most extensive fight back by those that were injured by the fight against corruption (and you bet they form a sizeable majority of Nigeria’s population given the pervasive nature of corruption before 2015), and having secured a second term in power, President Buhari owes it to posterity to institutionalize this war and ensure our country doesn’t regress to the parlous state corruption navigated us into before he came.
But an anti-corruption court, of the type Nigerians are demanding, is one that will handle only cases of corruption and expeditiously give justice. Nigerians demand courts that will not be weighed down by civil and political cases and in such manner, have enough time to attend to the myriad of cases that bother on corruption alone. Again, Nigerians expect that new judges that have passed some tests of personal character and integrity need to be appointed as judges in this envisaged court so as to discharge justice with no regard to who gets affected. Nigerians expect that in constituting the anti-corruption courts, rigorous tests and even public examination of the quality of judges that should people the tribunal should be carried out-very different from the appointment process of regular judges and different criteria of operation, more enhanced remuneration be approved for these judges. Even where regular judges are appointed to these courts, they would be made to undergo such tests before being appointed to the anti-corruption courts. There is the feeling that if recruitment and promotion in the envisaged court follow the pattern of the existing regular courts, the aim might get defeated in the long run as justice would be sold as is happening in the regular courts presently. That way, the fight against corruption would be rendered a huge joke; indeed, a huge anti-climax. Again, there is a clamour that appointments to the anti-corruption courts should be done at the very highest level of the judiciary.
So, in having this expectation, Nigerians expect President Buhari to send an executive bill to the National Assembly for the establishment of this court and its enshrinement in our legal system because the country has a peculiar corruption problem that needs a specialized solution. Nigerians equally expect the 9thSenate to act expeditiously on the bill and pass it into law so that the huge number of anti-corruption cases; most of which have lasted for years in our regular courts, could be quickly attended to. A fight against corruption does not end in investigating, arresting and instituting cases against offenders but in quickly dispensing justice so that offenders are punished and litigation is brought to an end in record time. Today, what happens is that the zeal of the anti-corruption agencies is effectively stymied in the courts where judges act in cahoots with suspects to frustrate justice and give offenders freer leases of life. Because of the susceptibility of corrupt influence on our judiciary, accused offenders use the courts to frustrate the fight against corruption and they do this either with compromising the judges to offer them routes for escape or by employing the elastic role time plays in such cases to frustrate even the anti-corruption agencies in prosecuting them. All these stand to be taken care of by this Special Anti-Corruption Court that is expected to be peopled by judges of proven integrity and the quick attention cases would get in such courts.
It behooves the President to work with the present NASS to get to work on this very important imperative of our current battle to cleanse the country from such rots that had supervised the demolition of a country brimming with rich natural and human resources and rendering it a huge wasteland till the present regime came and elected to take on the unchallenged bull and cleanse the Augean stable. History will encrypt the name of this government in indelible gold if it attends to this need.

Peter Claver Oparah
Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com

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target=_blank>Nigerians In Diaspora Urge Support For August 5 #RevolutionNow Protests

Nigerians in Diaspora, under the aegis of the Global Coalition for Security and Democracy in Nigeria (GCSDN), have called on all Nigerians to join the #RevolutionNow protests which would commence in Nigeria from August 5, 2019.
Frederick Odorige, speaking on behalf of the coalition, said for too long, the commonwealth of Nigerians had been sacrificed “on the evil altar of self-seeking politicians.”
Odorige expressed concerns over the many ills plaguing the country such as hardship, steady borrowing that has surpassed 24 trillion naira, continued killings by herdsmen, Boko Haram and kidnapping.
“Others include having 20 persons with corruption charges as federal legislators and inclusion of persons with graft cases in Buhari’s ministerial list, over 16 million children on the street, the corrupt and unverifiable distribution of $320m Abacha loot, the corrupt and unverifiable distribution of 500 billion naira ‘TraderMoni’ in the name of social investment fund; bogus earning by federal legislators and the executives, pension for ex-governors and their deputies while Nigeria continues to borrow for budget funding,” the group said.
Odorige stated that he was concerned about Nigerian youths’ welfare, adding that the youth do not seem to understand what is about to befall Nigeria as unemployment rate might jump to 33.5% in 2020 while it has also been projected by the United Nations that Nigeria would remain the poverty capital of the world beyond 2050.
He further condemned the actions of the current government which has supported unlawful detention of Nigerians against court orders.
Odorige went further to assure Nigerians that members of the movement equally feel their pains even though they are comfortable in foreign countries.
He promised that they would continue to put pressure on the international community to demand justice, respect for the rule of law and genuine fight against corruption in Nigeria.
He called on Nigerians to unite as no tribe can fight the battle for freedom alone.

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target=_blank>Okowa Knocks Orubebe Over Allegation of Marginalisation In Delta

Delta State Governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, on Tuesday reacted to statements credited to a former minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsdey Orubebe, which the governor said were capable of throwing the state into crisis.
A former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godsday Orubebe, had a few days ago accused Okowa of deliberately marginalising his Ijaw ethnic nationality in the allocation of projects and appointment.
The former minister also challenged the state governor to give a full account and details of how he spent N1.15 trillion the state received from the Federal Government as well as from its Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) in the last 50 months.
But reacting to Orubebe’s comments during the swearing-in of seventeen new commissioners at the event centre, Okowa urged political leaders to apply decorum in their utterances to avoid heating the polity.
The governor said Orubebe was angry because he refused to accept a commissioner nominee from the former minister.
He said, “I want him to give the account from his local government area and I urge him to tell us what he used his position to do for the people of Burutu.
“Unfortunately, one of our leaders has been insulting the office of the governor on the pages of newspapers and social media; unfortunately, this type of situation took place and I wish that the criticism was based on real facts.
“I do not think that the criticism was based on a mistake on my part because the fact that a leader makes a request to appoint a commissioner and it is turned down is not enough for such a leader to go to the newspaper or social media to criticize the government of Delta State.
“More so, when such a leader by all standards and from all available information in the state cannot be said to have contributed enough to say the kind of things that was said in the newspapers. Only yesterday, my attention was drawn to the fact that he asked the government to account for the monies we have received in the last four years and I think that Deltans appreciate what we have done within the limits of the resources we have and I am aware that in Burutu Local Government alone, a lot has been done and will still be done.
“Just a few weeks ago the vice president of this country was in Burutu to inaugurate the Obotobo 1, Obotobo 2 to Sekebolo to Yokri Road which is a 20.76km road for which our people were happy.
“Political leaders are expected to show some level of decorum in whatever they say or do. I am not the kind of man that wants to be dragged into arguments with our leaders because I have a lot of respect for them, but it is important to put things in the right perspective.”
While congratulating the newly sworn-in seventeen commissioners, the governor urged them “not to succumb to such negative emotions as complaining, grumbling and murmuring”, as his administration would strive to ensure that all who have laboured in the past and especially during the last electioneering campaigns would be rewarded one way or the other.

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target=_blank>Libel: Osoba Demands N3bn, Public Apology From Okurounmu

Ex-Ogun State Governor, Olusegun Osoba

Chief Olusegun Osoba, a former governor of Ogun State, has demanded N3 billion as damages from a chieftain of Afenifere, Senator Femi Okurounmu, over an alleged libellous statement published by two national newspapers.
Osoba’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), had sent a letter to the senator demanding a public apology to be published on the front pages of seven consecutive editions of both Daily Independent and The Sun newspapers, starting from Monday, July 29, 2019.
Osoba gave Okurounmu a 14-day ultimatum to comply with the demands or get sued for libel.
In the letter, Olanipekun said Okurounmu in the interviews maligned Osoba by claiming, among other things, that he (Osoba) got into trouble “in the early stage of the annulment of June 12 because he has been a close collaborator with (Ibrahim) Babangida who annulled the election.”
Osoba had, earlier in the month on his 80th birthday celebration, launched his memoir “Battlelines: Adventures In Journalism and Politics.” The former governor made some claims in the book which some people consider controversial.

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target=_blank>President Buhari’s Legal Team Stalls Defence Against Atiku

The counter-motion to challenge the application filed by President Muhammadu Buhari to dismiss the petition of Abiku Abubakar, the 2019 presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), was stalled due to late filing of the application.
President Buhari and the All Progressive Congress (APC) had filed an application seeking the dismissal of the petitions of Atiku and PDP.
The hearing on the counter-motion was scheduled for Tuesday when Atiku and his party ought to tell the court why their petition should not be dismissed.
But, during the hearing today, the proceeding could not go on because Atiku had failed to file the counter application early enough for the respondent-applicants to respond.
When the appeal, marked: SC/738/2019 was mentioned on Tuesday, Paul Erokoro (SAN) lead lawyer to Atiku, said he regretted that he filed a fresh “application this morning” for leave to bring supplementary records from the lower court.
Lawyers of the respondents, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Buhari and the APC, said they were just served with the application and needed time to examine it and react appropriately.

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E2%80%99s-land target=_blank>EXCLUSIVE: El-Rufai Ignores Court Order, Seizes Entrepreneur Umar Karage’s Land

Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and his aides have seized a land belonging to one Alhaji Muhammad Umar Karaje at Dankande Industrial Area, Kaduna, SaharaReporters can confirm.
Karaje bought the land from the late Alhaji Umaru Dikko in 2012 and completed due documentation required by the law.
In a letter to El-Rufai when he began encroaching on the land, Karage told the governor that he deliberately, “came to Nigeria in 2009 to search for a land big enough to accommodate my line of business (construction/agricultural and heavy equipment supply and distribution).”
He added in the letter that on December 9, 2014, after payment of N10 million, he was issued a statutory right of occupancy with the Kaduna State Land Survey and Country Planning. He has since paid ground rent on the undeveloped property.
A source who spoke to SaharaReporters on the matter said, “Shortly after, Governor El-Rufai and his adviser, Jimi Lawal, started to show interest in the land. This was followed by a permit restricting the legal owner of the land from developing it.
“A revocation notice was issued by the governor in April after which the state government took over the prime land.”
Shortly after the revocation notice was issued, Karaje approached a court which ruled that status quo be maintained.

However, El-Rufai and Jimi, abusing state powers, disregarded the court restraint and deployed police to seal off the land.
El-Rufai is currently constructing a fencing around the land with police protection.
This is not the first time that El-Rufai and his special adviser, Jimi Lawal, have masterminded land grabbing in Kaduna State.
In June, he took over the land belonging to another Kaduna entrepreneur, Hajia Fatima Teidi, which was purchased by her late husband, General Teidi in 1989.

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target=_blank>17 Nigerians Arrested In Malaysia For Attacking Police Officers

The Malaysian Police have arrested 17 Nigerians and one Ugandan on Sunday night in connection with the attack on police personnel by a group of African men, while on duty at the Flora Damansara apartment in Petaling Jaya, Kuala Lumpur, last Thursday.
The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Bador, said the arrested people had not been found guilty but their arrest would facilitate investigation into the incident.
During the arrest, it was gathered that about four policemen from the Commercial Crime Investigation Department, Petaling Jaya district police headquarters (IPD) were attacked while trying to arrest a Nigerian man suspected of being involved in fraudulent activities.
The local media reported that the four policemen swung into action after they received an intelligent report about a suspect in a cheating case which the raid was conducted at the location at about 10.50pm.
“They observed the unit for a few minutes before they saw some movement inside the house. They knocked on the door and called for the occupants for a few minutes but there was no answer before they charged in,” he said.
After the search, five Africans were found in the house which includes three women and two men.
“The policemen showed their ID and introduced themselves as cops before asking the Africans for their identification documents. However, they refused to oblige and acted aggressively towards the police. When the police tried to calm the situation, a group of African men showed up at the house and screamed at the police to leave,” he said.
Police said the group become ready to attack and started throwing bottles, sticks and shoes at the policemen.
“During the tense moment, three of the policemen were pulled out while another one was pushed inside the house. The five suspects in the house took the advantage to escape during the scuffle. When one of the policemen tried to apprehend one of the suspects, he was hit with a desk drawer, stepped on and punched in the face,” the police said.
During the attack, at about 12.01 AM, one of the police officers called for more police men as they were unable to overpower the clash between them and the people causing all the Africans in that area to flee.
Inspector-General of Police Datuk Seri Abdul Hamid Bador confirmed that so far 18 people have been detained to assist investigations into the incident which was described as a violent and irresponsible act and Selangor Criminal Investigation Department, chief Fadzil Amat on her part said police would apply for a remand order on the eight Nigerian men at the Petaling Jaya Court today.

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Edo Assembly: Senate Orders Obaseki To Issue Fresh Proclamation

The Nigerian Senate on Tuesday ordered the Governor of Edo State, Godwin Obaseki, to issue a fresh proclamation for the inauguration of the state House of Assembly.
It will be recalled that Obaseki had boasted on Monday that he would not issue a fresh proclamation letter for the inauguration of the 7th Edo State House of Assembly.
Obaseki stated that the Nigerian Constitution 1999, as amended, mandated state governors to issue proclamation only once for the inauguration of their Houses of Assembly and that he had dutifully performed the function.
According to the Nation Newspaper, Obaseki made this statement while reacting to a publication in one of the national dailies that President Buhari directed him to issue a fresh proclamation.
He said, “We wish to state categorically that the story is false as there is no presidential directive to the Edo State Governor, Mr Godwin Obaseki, to issue a fresh proclamation.
“President Muhammadu Buhari that we know is a law-abiding leader who will not issue directives that contradict the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution.
“The publication is one of the many efforts by agents and hirelings sponsored by entrenched interests in the state whose stranglehold on the state’s resources has been displaced by the people-centric governance model of the Obaseki-led administration.
“We urge the public and all concerned to disregard the publication.”
Meanwhile, the upper chamber on Tuesday ordered the governor to issue a fresh proclamation for the inauguration of the state House of Assembly.

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