Sahara Reporters Latest News Friday 1st November 2019
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 01/11/19
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E2%80%9Clying-fallow%E2%80%9D-our-office-%E2%80%93efcc-source EXCLUSIVE: Petition Against Tinubu “Lying Fallow” In Our Office –EFCC Source
A petition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to investigate two bullion vans allegedly stashed with cash driving into the residence of the National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, at Burdillion, Ikoyi, Lagos, on the eve of the February 2019 presidential election, is currently “lying fallow” at the office of the anti-graft agency, a reliable source in the commission has told SaharaReporters.
The source, who disclosed that the petition is “just hanging somewhere”, added that there is no effort or desire by the leadership of the commission to consider the petition for its merit or lack of it at the moment.
Rights activist, Deji Adeyanju, had filed a formal petition demanding an investigation into the bullion vans in Tinubu’s house following claims by the commission that it could not act without a formal petition over the issue.
Adeyanju’s petition dated October 25, 2019, was addressed to the Acting Chairman of the anti-graft agency, Ibrahim Magu.
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Tinubu’s Bullion Van: EFCC Requests Petitions Following Call To Investigate Buhari’s Ally
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In the petition, he had reminded the commission of ?Section 7 (1) (b) of the EFCC Establishment Act, 2004, which empowered it to investigate properties of any person whose lifestyle and extent of the properties are not justified by his source of income.
Adeyanju urged the anti-graft agency to accord the petition priority and begin an investigation into the appearance of those bullion vans in Tinubu’s house on the eve of the election.
But five days after the petition was received by the EFCC, SaharaReporters has now learnt that the commission has no interest in pursuing the investigation.
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Deji Adeyanju Files Petition Against Tinubu Over Bullion Vans Allegedly Stashed With Cash
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The source said, “There is a petition but it is just somewhere lying fallow. Maybe tomorrow it will be picked up but right now, there is nothing on it.”
Tinubu had moments after the bullion vans were seen entering his house told journalists that he can spend his wealth as he pleases, adding that he could dole out cash if he wanted to so long as it was not for vote inducement.
The All Progressives Congress had also dismissed the petition, demanding evidence to prove that the money was meant to induce voters.
The APC said, “Let them come up with the proof. The man is a private citizen and he has been out of government for the past 12 years.
“If he has decided to spend his money on his party, how is that a problem? Let them come up with a proof that somebody’s money is missing.”
The Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act (2003) law of Nigeria does not quite agree with the argument of the APC, however.
Section 1 (a) of the act clearly states that a private citizen can only have a maximum N5m at hand.
Following its failure to enforce this law against the high and mighty in the society, many Nigerians have accused the EFCC of selective prosecution.
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Lawmaker Urges NEMA To Intervene In Flood-Ravaged Communities In Bayelsa
NEMA rescue operation from previous flooding in Nigeria
NEMA rescue operation from previous flooding in Nigeria
Lawmaker representing Brass-Nembe Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Israel Sunny-Goli, has officially applied to the National Emergency Management Agency to urgently send relief materials to flood-affected communities in the area.
In a letter addressed to the Director-General of NEMA, Mustapha Yunusa Maihaja, Sunny-Goli pointed out that about 20 communities in Oluasiri, Okoroma and Akassa clans have been ravaged by this year’s flood.
The letter reads in part, “I write to notify you that about 20 coastal communities in my constituency have been submerged by this year’s devastating flood.
“Consequently, most residents have been dislodged from their homes and are also facing the attendant socio-economic effects of the displacement.
“Some of the affected communities are Isere Ama, Fikoru Ama, Alagoa Ama, Otuma Ama, Tengele Ama, Ben Ama, Ijaw Kiri, Etuke Kiri, Kari Kiri, Amieseikiri, Wenike Kiri, Dumoebikuma Ama and Monibo Kiri all in Oluasiri Clan of Nembe Local Government Area.”
The lawmaker equally urged members of his constituency to remain calm and wait for NEMA and other federal government support.
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Ex-Katsina State Governor, Shema, Denies Owning Any Apartment In Kano
Former Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shehu
Former Katsina State Governor Ibrahim Shehu
Ex-governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shema, has denied having any asset to his name in Kano State.
Shema, who has been enmeshed in a corruption case since 2017, said this in reaction to the recent ‘Klepto Tour’ conducted by the Human and Environmental Development Agenda to houses claimed to be owned by him.
In a statement by Head of Ibrahim Shehu Shema Media Team, Oluwabusola Olawale, it was also stated that while no asset belonging to Shema has been forfeited to the government, the ex-governor had no asset in Kano.
The statement reads partly, “While we are not ready to join issues with the fictitious and discredited organisation called HEDA, we will like to state categorically that no asset belonging to Shema has finally been forfeited to the government, all cases are pending before the court of competent jurisdiction where Shema is fully prepared to defend his legitimately acquired and duly declared assets.
“To further confirm that HEDA was doing the bidding of those who are still being intimidated by the achievements of Shema while he was in office as governor, HEDA tagged asset that doesn’t belong to Shema to his name.
“We are stating it categorically for the benefit of the innocent public that Shema has no asset in Kano as claimed by HEDA.”
Justice Gabriel Kolawole of the Federal High Court in Abuja, had on November 1, 2017, ordered the temporary forfeiture of 13 properties belonging to Shema in different states across the country.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission in a 22-count charge of corruption and financial crimes, had asked the court to temporarily forfeit the assets pending conclusion of investigation.
SaharaReporters had in a report recounted how HEDA and some anti-corruption team visited some properties forfeited to the Nigerian Government in Kano and Rivers states.
The team visited properties belonging to a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, Shema and top individuals indicted in corruption charges.
Properties linked to Alison-Madueke was visited in Rivers State while another property linked to Shema in Kano State was also visited.
Shema is being accused of alleged misappropriation of the N10.8bn belonging to the state chapter of ALGON between 2007 and 2015.
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E2%80%99s-arrests-landmark-achievement-%E2%80%93magu Mompha, Lebanese Associate’s Arrests, Landmark Achievement –Magu
Acting EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu
Acting EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu
Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu, has described the recent arrest of an alleged Internet fraudster, Ismaila Mustapha widely known as Mompha, and his Lebanese accomplice, Hamza Koudeih, as a landmark achievement.
Recall that Mompha was arrested last week Tuesday by the anti-graft agency in Abuja for his alleged involvement in Internet-related fraud and money laundering.
Speaking during an interactive session with stakeholders at the Lagos Zonal Office of the commission on Thursday, Magu said actionable intelligence received from local and international law enforcement agencies had revealed that the suspects alongside their collaborators were high-valued targets in organized cyber syndicate network.
Magu said the arrest of Mompha and Hamza by operatives of the EFCC bore testimony to the commitment of the commission to the fight against Internet-related fraud, adding that “it is also a red alert to potential Internet fraudsters”.
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Plateau IDP’s Get Quit Notice By Host Months After Government Promised Resettlement
The Guardian Nigeria
Internally Displaced Persons in Jos, Plateau State, have been issued a quit notice by owner of the facility they currently occupy after the state government failed to resettle them more than a year after first arriving at the place.
The management of Nigeria Mining and Geosciences Society in a letter obtained by SaharaReporters on Thursday said its facility is deteriorating because of pressure created the IDP’s.
NMGS said that it needs to rehabilitate its building starting October 31, 2019.
The Plateau State governor, Simon Lalong, in 2018 promised to resettle the IDPs to their respective villages after they complained that their homes had been occupied by Fulani herdsmen.
The letter reads in part, “Sequel to our verbal discussion on October 22, 2019 on the need to move the IDPs from the NMGS Secretariat building in Jos, this is formally reiterating the decision of the council of the NMGS to you on this matter.
“It is hereby stated that the Nigerian Mining and Geosciences Society will embark on full rehabilitation of the building from October 31, 2019 as the council is not comfortable with the level of decay the building has suffered.
“This serves as official notice. Kindly treat with utmost urgency as the contractor had been mobilised for the job to commence at the said date.”
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E2%80%99s-impeachment-proceedings US House Of Reps To Vote On Donald Trump’s Impeachment Proceedings
The House of Representatives in the United States of America is set to vote on how the impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump should proceed.
The resolution to be voted on sets out a more public phase of the process and is not a ballot on whether or not to impeach the President, the BBC reports.
The measure also sets out the rights Trump’s lawyers would have.
This will be the first formal test of support for the inquiry in the Democratic-controlled House.
President Trump is accused of trying to pressure Ukraine into investigating unsubstantiated corruption claims against his political rival, Joe Biden, and his son, who worked with Ukrainian gas company, Burisma.
Trump denies wrongdoing and calls the impeachment inquiry a “witch hunt”.
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Group Urges INEC, Police, Army To Refrain From Interfering In Kogi, Bayelsa Elections
A group of Nigerians under the platform of Concerned Nigerians have asked the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Nigerian Police Force to refrain from intervening in scheduled elections in Kogi and Bayelsa states.
In a letter signed by Deji Adeyanju for Concerned Nigerians, Ariyo Dare Atoye for Coalition in Defence of Nigerian Democracy and Constitution on Thursday, the group said the mass deployment of soldiers and police for elections has continued to undermine democratic practices expected during elections.
The group said, “As we approach the Kogi and Bayelsa states gubernatorial elections, we believe it is paramount to remind the Nigerian Army that its involvement in the 2019 general elections left indelible scars and trauma in the hearts of most Nigerians.
“Reports by local and international observers documented how the deployment and involvement of the Nigerian Army in the elections led to widespread voter intimidation, voter apathy, and electoral violence.
“It is equally important to remind the Nigerian Army that it has been helped to ward off pressure being mounted by politicians to get involved in our elections, with several court judgments, which between 2003 and 2015 emphatically declared the deployment of soldiers during elections in Nigeria as completely unconstitutional and illegal.”
The group asked the Nigerian Army to jettison all plans to deploy soldiers for the forthcoming Kogi and Bayelsa states governorship elections in order to “mark a turning point for the army to regain the trust of Nigerians”.
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Close Your Minds To Having Fat Bank Accounts If You Want To Be A Judge, SERAP Tells NJC Members
The Executive Director, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, Adetokunbo Mumuni, has urged the National Judicial Council to keep their minds closed from owning fat bank accounts in the dispensation of their duties.
He said this while speaking at the public presentation of a report on the restriction of press freedom in Nigeria.
Adetokunbo emphasised the need for an unbiased judiciary in enforcing the rights of media practitioners in the country.
According to him, judges are duty-bound to give a substantial judgment to cases they are ruling on without fear and expectation of favour regardless of, who is involved.
He decried that in recent times, conditions for appointing judges had been made secret as against what used to be.
He said, “You must close your mind to having a fat account if you want to be a judge.
“A judge has the duty to pass on substantial justice. Let us look at those that have been appointed and see if they are rightfully supposed to be there.”
The panelists however, called for scrutinising the activities of the judiciary to not only push for press freedom but also ensure that qualified and non-corrupt individuals were made judges.
“The oath a judge takes is very vital, once a judge takes the oath and makes it very sacrosanct, we won’t have this type of problem.
“Let us scrutinise their activities and ensure that those who are supposed to man the office are rightfully there,” the panelists posited.
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Before Google Begins To Teach Nigerian Youth Their Languages By Olabisi Deji-Folutile
Olabisi Deji-Folutile
Olabisi Deji-Folutile
I have been following the ongoing debate on the origin and meaning of the word Yoruba, with Mr Femi Fani Kayode arguing that Yoruba was derived from the word Yariba, which means “shady and unreliable”.
According to him, the people called Yoruba today are Anago and their language, also Anago. He said the Fulani were the first to refer to the Yoruba as Yariba. To him, the Fulani used two demeaning and insulting words namely Nyamiri meaning “the fetcher of water” in reference to the people of the South-East and Yariba to describe the people of the South-West. He, therefore, concluded that he is not a Yoruba, but a son of Oduduwa.
Many Nigerians have contributed to this debate including a respected professor of history, Banji Akintoye. On his part, the historian is of the view that there are hundreds of years of history of the existence of the name Yorùbá in the history of the Yorùbá nation. Citing the works of several other scholars, he said Yoruba was first applied to the early Yorùbá traders who used to go and trade in the countries of the Upper Niger (roughly modern Mali). This submission notwithstanding, Fani-Kayode has held on to his assertion. He said the essence of the debate was to reject what is assumed to be an insulting label on Yoruba especially an insult that “has deep sinister, mystical and spiritual connotations”.
In as much as the ongoing debate is intellectually tasking, it may not be more than mere intellectual exercise. It is not certain, for example, if anything tangible could come out of it in terms of policy shift. The possibility of the Yoruba race answering Anago seems remote. I doubt if it could result in the review of Yoruba study materials or make Anago replace Yoruba in any official transaction either home or abroad.
Nonetheless, the debate has created room for the discourse of a disturbing trend in the Nigerian society. Nowadays, many young Nigerians rarely speak their indigenous languages. A lot of them also rely on Google to interpret Nigerian indigenous languages to them. This is worrisome! At the rate the country is going, Google may soon become Nigerian youths’ all-knowing teacher if we are not careful.
Just some few days back, one of President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughters, Zahra, confessed that she could barely speak Hausa, her native language. Really, she has not said anything new. It’s common knowledge that many youths of her age rarely speak their indigenous languages. They prefer to speak English.
Interestingly, as Nigerian youths are shunning their own native languages, Americans and other foreigners are coming to the nation’s universities to learn the indigenous languages. Many of them spend months in the country and are attached to Nigerian families as part of their immersion programme. By the time they are through, they don’t only speak Nigeria’s indigenous languages, they speak them in an undiluted manner.
Don’t get me wrong. It is really not a big deal for a foreigner to speak Nigerian indigenous language. After all, English is also a language that many Nigerians learned. Although our policy makers may argue that English is Nigeria’s second language, we know that English is not our mother tongue; we are not native speakers of the language. However, it becomes a big deal when we dump our language for others’ languages. In the case of other foreigners, they are only interested in learning our indigenous languages and adding them to theirs. They are not here because they want to abandon their languages for ours. You are not likely, for example, to find an English man dropping his language for German or French, dropping his for Spanish.
I remember an encounter I once had with a German as a student at the University of Lagos. I was to interview him but conducting the interview in English was a herculean task. He refused to speak English. He insisted that the interview must be conducted in German. I spent days pleading with him before he finally agreed to speak English. He was obviously proud of his heritage.
Unfortunately, in Nigeria, we are often chided for speaking our native languages. Right from primary school, pupils are made to believe that communicating in their local dialect is crude and wrong. Schools have laws that prohibit “speaking in vernacular”. Pupils are sometimes punished for conversing in their local languages. They pay fines for speaking their indigenous languages. Is it possible for a Chinese teacher to punish his/her pupil for speaking Chinese in class? Many Nigerians studying in countries where English is not the official language have had to learn the native languages of their host countries. To study in France, for example, a student must learn French, same for Spain, the student must first learn to speak Spanish. In like manner, a person aspiring to study in Russia would have to learn Russian.
Google translation is meant to help non speakers of a language to understand it. It is not something that native speakers rely on. But, here, everything has been turned upside down. Since Google is now the trusted teacher of Nigeria’s indigenous languages, trust the search engine, it teaches those that rely on it what it thinks is right. For instance, it doesn’t know the difference between words that have similar meanings. Hence, it can tell them “Obe (knife) in Yoruba, is the same thing as Obe (stew) since it has the same spelling. Even when there are intonation marks, many youths don’t know the difference. The other time, a young lady wanted to interpret a phrase “thing of pride,’’ and asked Google, which interpreted it as “Gberaga”, meaning to be proud. Imagine that. I doubt if a Chinese will rely on Google for interpretation of Chinese language.
The nation’s educational policy is not helping matters. You need a credit in English Language before you can gain admission to higher institution. It doesn’t matter what you are going there to study. We abandon our indigenous languages for another’s and at the end of the day, we are neither here nor there. Today, Nigeria is proud to have special language villages for French and Arabic and none for any of its indigenous languages.
As we have teachers that take delight in punishing students for speaking vernacular, there are also parents that think it is beneath their status for their children to speak their indigenous languages. Ironically, many of such parents don’t even know how to speak good English. Similarly, students would rather study English or any other foreign language than go for indigenous languages. They believe studying foreign languages is more financially rewarding.
The late Prof Babs Fafunwa was one of the scholars that believed in using indigenous language to teach pupils for easy assimilation. Some people could argue that there are schools in some parts of the country that employ local language in teaching and students still perform woefully. They may not be totally wrong. Many factors, however, contribute to failure in schools. For example, teaching in local language does not mean that a teacher should not understand what he/she is teaching. How many teachers in states where pupils fail woefully truly understand what they are teaching? Many of them are not even trained as teachers to start with.
Before Google becomes the sole instructor of young Nigerians on indigenous languages, it is imperative for stakeholders and policy makers to intensify efforts at promoting the nation’s local languages. The Lagos State House of Assembly conducts some of its sessions in indigenous language while Ekiti State government has adopted Yoruba as means of communication at official events. These steps are commendable.
Beyond this, government at all levels should encourage children to interact in their local languages in schools. Such time of interaction shouldn’t just be limited to the lesson periods of such languages. There is nothing to be ashamed of in speaking one’s local language. Stakeholders could organise writing competitions on local languages for students to boost their interest in these languages. The National Orientation Agency could also develop communication campaigns targeted at encouraging youths to speak their indigenous languages. Language is a vital means of identification. We can’t afford to lose this identity.
Olabisi Deji-Folutile is a member of the Nigerian Guild of Editors. Email bisideji@yahoo.co.uk
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Tragedy As Vehicle Crushes Motorcyclists To Death In Abuja
Tragedy struck on Thursday in Kubwa, a satellite town in Abuja, as motorcyclist popularly known as Okada was crushed to death by a Sports Utility Vehicle.
The incident, which occurred in the front of a branch of Deeper Life Bible Church, was said to have been caused by break failure on the part of the vehicle.
According to an eyewitness, the driver of the SUV swerved in the direction of the motorcycle and crushed the rider and passenger.
The rider was said to have died on the spot as a result of deep cuts on his head while the passenger was rushed to Kubwa General Hospital for urgent treatment.
Irked by the death of their colleague, a group of motorcyclists mobbed the driver of the vehicle in an attempt to lynch him.
However, the timely intervention of the police led to the rescue of the driver from the angry mob.
As of the time of filing this report, the situation was still tensed in the vicinity where the incident happened.
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