Sahara Reporters Latest News Tuesday 3rd September 2019
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 03/09/19
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E2%80%98fisayo-soyombo target=_blank>South Africans Are Killing Nigerians, Buhari Is Laughing With Their President By ‘Fisayo Soyombo
‘Fisayo Soyombo
‘Fisayo Soyombo
Last Tuesday, the United States announced a hike in the cost of visa application for Nigerians. The US Consulate in Nigeria didn’t mince words in explaining the move: The total cost for a US citizen to obtain a visa to Nigeria was higher than the total cost for a Nigerian to obtain a comparable visa to the United States. The imbalance had to be corrected. It’s a policy that can be rationalised.
If a country’s citizens are not inferior to another’s, their visa application to that country should not be costlier than the other way. It is the least a country could do for its citizens. In this specific case, the US had apprised Nigerian authorities of the disparity in visa fees. Well, the Interior Ministry set up a committee and, as with many things Nigerian, that was the end of the matter. That’s such a shame. What was more mortifying was the ministry’s lowering of the Nigerian visa application fee for US citizens within 24 hours of the US Consulate’s protests – a move US authorities were clearly unimpressed with. Gaping hole exposed: Nigeria’s diplomatic relations are far more woeful than we’ve been imagining.
No need to cast a cross-continental gaze at the US. Over ‘here’, in South Africa, Nigerians are being slaughtered like rams almost every week, and it is the brazenness that astounds the most. Last week, there was a headline, ‘Another Nigerian killed in South Africa’. If you read the papers three of four weeks before, you would have seen the same headline, ‘Another Nigerian Killed in South Africa’. In the previous week, you would also have spotted ‘Another Nigerian killed in South Africa’. Dig deeper to the preceding two weeks and you would have found that same headline, ‘Another Nigerian killed in South Africa’. Every now and then, there’s always a Nigerian, and another one, to be murdered by South Africans. A lot can be said of the insouciance of the South African Government, but beyond the usual tokenistic state utterances, the Nigerian Government has never truly been riled up by the relentless killing of its citizens in almost all corners of South Africa.
In the last three years, and up until July 2019, some 127 Nigerians had been killed in South Africa, 13 of them masterminded by the Police. Between January and June 2019 alone, 10 Nigerians were killed in that country. In the latest installation of the killings a few days ago, Pius Abiaziem, a native of Imo State, was having breakfast in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa when he was picked up among many by eight policemen, some of them masked, and taken to his home where he was extra-judicially murdered. Unknown to them, his sister-in-law was taping proceedings with her phone. Now, their crime can no longer be hidden.
Since the audio became public, Godwin Adama, Nigeria’s Consul-General to South Africa, has been talking about sending a note verbale to Pretoria. Ideally, the gruesomeness of the murder and track record of South African killers should have forced President Muhammadu Buhari to step in. A meeting with Cyril Ramaphosa is scheduled for Pretoria in October, but Buhari had a premature opportunity in Japan, where he, Ramaphosa and numerous African leaders attended last week’s Tokyo International Conference on African Development. Guess what our President was doing? Smiling away with Ramaphosa! At least that is what the cameras of his own photographers and the social media handles of his image makers told us. If the two presidents were any serious about resolving the persistent killings, that meeting ought to have been frank and sombre, fully empathetic towards the feelings of dozens of mourning Nigerian families. Importantly, Buhari didn’t demand for the coming October meeting; Ramaphosa invited him!
Hike in US visa fee and killing of Nigerians in South Africa, what is the correlation? Responsible governments don’t joke with the welfare of their citizens. That is what the US Consulate in Nigeria proved to us; that is what the US Government would have done if its citizens were being wasted in South Africa or any other country. And beyond lowering the corresponding visa fee of Americans, Nigeria can learn to for once send a strong enough-is-enough message to South Africa. Instead of a smiley Buhari and Ramaphosa, what the media should have been reporting by now is a diplomatic row between Abuja and Pretoria.
Earlier this year, Canada rowed with China over the type of citizen a Nigerian would describe as a ‘common criminal’. Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, the Canadian, had been originally sentenced to 15 years in prison in China for drug smuggling. He appealed this judgement, only to see the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court in China’s Liaoning province upgrade it to a death sentence. The suspicion was that the shocking judgement was politically motivated, owing to the December 2018 arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei Technologies, in Vancouver on a US extradition warrant – an action China responded to by detaining Michael Kovrig, a Canadian diplomat, and Michael Spavor, a Canadian consultant, in Beinjing on allegation of endangering state security. The execution order on Schellenberg prompted strong reprimand from Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, while the Canadian Foreign Ministry updated its travel advisory for China, warning citizens about “the risk of arbitrary enforcement of local laws”.
But here in Nigeria, our President is forbidden from speaking on such matters. Buhari hasn’t personally spoken; Foreign Ministry doesn’t even know the significance of a travel alert much less consider issuing one. If anyone makes too much noise over it, the President’s noisemakers would scream ‘Buhari can’t speak every time; that’s why he has aides.’ But it’s life we’re discussing here; and to almost totally leave the crusade to Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairman of Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (whose commitment to the course, by the way, is indubitable), is to thoroughly undermine the sanctity of human life. If Trudeau could go that mile for a Canadian drug convict, why can’t Buhari do more than laugh with Ramaphosa, for Nigerians who have committed no crime? Maybe we are too harsh on Buhari; a President who can’t even secure the lives of his people at home, how does one begin to ask him to secure the lives of those abroad?
Soyombo, former Editor of the TheCable, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) and Sahara Reporters, tweets @fisayosoyombo
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target=_blank>Militant Group Threatens To Blow Up Oil Installations If Supervision Of NDDC Is Taken From Niger Delta Ministry
Niger Delta militants
Niger Delta militants
AFP/Getty Images
A militant group, Reformed Niger Delta Avengers, has threatened to blow up oil installations in the region if the supervision of the Niger Delta Development Commission is taken away from the Niger Delta Ministry.
The group in a statement on Monday, warned that any attempt by the Federal Government to change the status-quo, will be met with stiff resistance regardless of the negative impact on the economy of the country.
Signed by ‘General Commanding Officer’, Johnmark Ezon-Ebi, the statement said that RNDA will not watch while other regions control activities of the NDDC.
It read, “Let it be put on record that if the NDDC is removed from the supervision of the Niger Delta Ministry to the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, we will carry out collateral damage on all available oil installations and facilities across the length and breadth of the Niger Delta region.
“We have warned and there will be no going back as enough is enough with playing politics and power tussle with the development of the region.
“If this callous, inhuman, devilish and heartless arrangement is not put to an end, the RNDA should not be held responsible for anything that happens.”
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E2%80%99s-image-%E2%80%93ncp target=_blank>Arrest Of Opposing Voices, Damaging To Nigeria’s Image –NCP
The National Conscience Party has warned President Muhammadu Buhari to dissuade from the continued arrest of persons opposing his administration.
The NCP said this in a communiqué issued at the end of a meeting of its National Executive Council in Abuja.
The party argued that Buhari’s administration had been arresting people whose struggle and actions led to the emergence of his government.
The NCP said, “This trend shows lack of tolerance on the part of Buhari’s government for any person or group opposed to any of its anti-people policies.
“We therefore demand the unconditional release of Agba Jalingo, Omoyele Sowore and others. An injury to one, is an injury to all.
“The continued arrest of opposing voices is damaging to the image of Nigeria and our democracy.”
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target=_blank>We Helped End Apartheid In South Africa, So Stop Xenophobia, Oby Ezekwesili Tells Buhari
Former Minister of Education and co-convener of the Bring Back Our Girls Movement, Oby Ezekwesili, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari to take decisive measures to end attacks against Nigerians in South Africa.
Ezekwesili said Nigeria played a major part in fighting for freedom and ensuring an end to apartheid in South Africa and must therefore be treated with respect.
The former minister, who expressed her views on Twitter, said, “Dear President @CyrilRamaphosa and @GovernmentZA, the maiming and killing of citizens of Nigeria and other African countries in South Africa dishonours everything our collective fight for freedom was about.
“Even as children in primary school, we played our part. Please stop it.
“Dear President @MBuhari and @NigeriaGov, it is time to take decisive actions to protect our citizens in South Africa.
“The maiming and killings have gone on for too long without effective response. The bilateral relations with South Africa is troubled. It is time to be candid.”
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South Africa
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target=_blank>Street Trading: Rivers Commences Prosecution Of Offenders
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, has stated that mobile courts for the Task Force on Street Trading, Illegal Markets, and Motor Parks, will become operational as from September 2, 2019.
Addressing operatives of the agency at the Government House in Port Harcourt, the capital, on Sunday, Governor Wike said that magistrates would be deployed to the various locations on Monday for the mobile courts to function.
He said, “As from Monday, magistrates will sit at the various locations to prosecute offenders of the law banning street trading.
“Anyone that is found guilty will be sanctioned by the magistrates.”
He warned operatives of the task force against taking laws into their hands, adding that his administration will not tolerate the manhandling of offenders.
He added, “We don’t want to see any street traders anywhere in Port Harcourt. Your duty is to ensure that the streets are clean.”
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Small Business
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target=_blank>Jigawa Men Held By Lagos Task Force Demand N1bn Compensation
The 123 men from Jigawa State detained by the Lagos State Task Force on Environmental Sanitation and Special Offences are asking the Lagos State Government and Commissioner of Police to pay them N1bn for their unlawful treatment.
The men together with their motorcycles were arrested by the state’s security operatives and detained over the weekend as they made their way into Lagos from Jigawa State in the Northern part of Nigeria.
In the suit with number FHC/L/CS/1519 /19 filed by one Abdullahi Yakubu, the men are asking to be compensated for the harsh treatment they were subjected to.
They are also asking for the release of their motorcycles and other personal belongings allegedly still in the custody of the security agency.
Yakubu and others are challenging the government for profiling them without any evidence of criminality.
The men said their detention violated their rights as enshrined in constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
The suit by the men reads, “An order of this honourable court awarding the sum of N1bn payable by the respondents jointly and severally to the applicants as reparation.
“An order of this honourable court directing the respondents to tender unreserved public apology to the applicants.”
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target=_blank>First Bank Urges Police To Find Killers Of POS Operator In Ondo
The Management of First Bank PLC has called on the police to fish out those behind the killing of staff of one of its agencies in Ondo State, Adetutu Ibrahim.
The 30-year-old lady was killed by some gunmen last Wednesday at the Oke Ogba area of Akure, the state capital, where she operated a Point of Sale outlet.
In a Twitter post on Monday, the financial institution said, “We are in mourning and saddened by the death of a staff of one of the agencies working with us – Miss Adetutu Nofisat.
“Whilst we are looking to the authorities to investigate the situation and apprehend the culprits, our focus for now is on the families and loved ones left behind.
“We ask that you spare a moment to pray for the soul of the departed.”
The Ondo Police Command has already arrested three female suspects in connection to the crime.
Meanwhile, friends and family members of the deceased have initiated the hashtag #JusticeForAdetutu to pile pressure on the police to investigate the case and ensure justice.
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target=_blank>Activities of Transgenders Like Bobrisky Despicable, Says Women Group
The National Council for Women Societies has described transgender activities in the country as “despicable and offensive”.
The group made the comment in a statement signed by its National President NCWS, Gloria Shada.
Shada said that Nigerian women find the promotion of despicable conducts such as nudity and transgender activities as done by Bobrisky whose real name is Idris Okuneye, very offensive.
She said, “It is regrettable and strange for Bobrisky to publicly declare that has 24 boy-friends in high places.
“Rise up to stop this evil before it destroys our children and the future of our nation.”
She said the activities of the cross-dresser is “alien” to our culture and should be stopped to preserve Nigeria’s cultural heritage.
Recall that the police in Lagos on Saturday shut a venue where a lavish birthday party was to be held for Bobrisky.
Bobrisky, who clocked 28 on Saturday, had slated the celebration for two locations in Lagos with one to hold and another for Sunday.
The event was supposed to have held at Pearls Gardens in Lekki Phase 1 and Paradise Boat Club, Victoria Island.
The incident came shortly after Director-General of the Nigerian Council for Arts and Culture, Otunba Segun Runsewe, warned Bobrisky to desist from engaging in acts that runs rubbishes Nigeria’s rich culture.
Runsewe had said, “Bobrisky is a national disgrace. He started by selling and using bleaching creams, now, he has grown boobs, bums and hips. “If a Bobrisky is doing well with his immoral lifestyle, how do you convince Nigerian youths to do the right thing? “If we don’t address Bobrisky as early as possible, he will form a team that will spread like wildfire.”
Lifestyle
S**
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target=_blank>Nigerians, Others Lose Over 50 Shops In Fresh South Africa Xenophobic Attack
Over 50 shops belonging to foreign nationals including Nigerians in South Africa were set ablaze in an overnight attack on foreigners by xenophobes in the country.
The attack, which occurred late on Sunday, saw a group of violent locals suspected to be Zulu hostel dwellers, besiege Jules Street in Malvern, Johannesburg and looting and burning businesses.
President, Nigerian Union South Africa, Adetola Olubajo, in a statement on Monday confirming the attack, said that the mob also looted several shops that were around the vicinity suspected to be owned by foreign nationals before they were later dispersed by police.
He said, “Fresh attacks, looting, and burning of properties belonging to foreign nationals started yesterday morning in Jeppestown area Johannesburg when a building was set alight by an angry mob.
“Three people were killed while another person is receiving treatment for inhaling the smoke.
“Over 50 shops and businesses were destroyed, looted and burnt down over the night.
“Also, some businesses owned by foreign nationals were looted in Germiston yesterday evening.
“An Internet café and computer accessories business owned by a Nigerian was among looted shops in Germiston.
“A car sales business owned by a Nigerian is also among several businesses set alight over the night.
“Though the police said that many people have been arrested in connection with the unnecessary attacks, the looting and burning of foreign own businesses continued till this morning.”
South Africa
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Stop Using Public Funds For Personal Cases, Supreme Court Tells Buhari
The Supreme Court has condemned President Muhammadu Buhari for using public funds to defend himself in personal litigations.
The apex court criticised Buhari for using lawyers paid by government during his election tribunal hearings.
The Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate during the 2019 election, Atiku Abubakar, are challenging Buhari’s victory at the election tribunal.
Also, Kalu Kalu, Labaran Ismail and Hassy El-Kuris, are challenging the candidacy of President Buhari as the flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress during that exercise.
The appellants claimed that President Buhari lied on oath in the form CF001 he submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Abdullahi Abubakar, a senior lawyer at the Ministry of Justice, has been appearing for Buhari at the tribunal.
Justice Mary Odili, while reading the unanimous ruling of the five-man panel of the Supreme Court, questioned Abubakar’s appearance for Buhari, who was sued as a private citizen and not in his capacity as President.
The judge said when Bill Clinton, a former President of the United States, was sued, he used his personal funds to defend himself in court.
Odili described the situation as a contravention of the provisions of the Code of Conduct for public officers.
The court said, “The representation of Mr Buhari by the Senior State Counsel of the Ministry of Justice in his personal capacity and not as Nigerian President, is inappropriate.”
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