Sahara Reporters Latest News Today Saturday 11th January 2020
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 11/01/20
Read also
Armed Bandits Kill Nigerian Air Force Official In Kaduna
Armed bandits have attacked and killed a Nigerian Air Force personnel at Ungwan Yako on the Kaduna-Birnin Gwari Road, Kaduna State.Aircraftman, Mukhtar Ibrahim, was killed after sustaining injuries in the attack.A statement issued by NAF Director of Public Relations and Information, Air Commodore Ibikunle Daramola, on Friday said, “Unfortunately, one NAF personnel paid the supreme price in the process while some sustained varying degrees of injury.“The deceased airman, Mukhtar Ibrahim, is scheduled to be buried today in accordance with Islamic rites while the injured personnel are currently receiving treatment at the NAF Hospital in Kaduna.”Daramola said the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, on behalf of all officers, airmen, airwomen and civilian staff of the NAF, commiserate with the family of the fallen hero.
Military
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
Nigerian Author, Chukwuemeka Ike, Dies At 88
Chukwuemeka Ike, one of Nigeria’s most read novelists, has died.Ike died on Thursday in Anambra State at the age of 88.The writer achieved acclaim for his works such as Toads for Supper, his first work published in 1965, The Naked Gods (1970), The Potter’s Wheel (1973), Sunset at Dawn (1976), Expo ’77 (1980), The Bottled Leopard (1985), Our Children Are Coming (1990) among others.He served as an academic in various roles including as a registrar at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, and a visiting professor at the University of Jos.He also served as the registrar of the West African Examination Council, the first Nigerian to hold that position.Until his death, he was the traditional ruler of Ndikelionwu community in Orumba, Anambra, a position he held since 2008.
News
OBITUARY
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
MEND Emissaries Visit Ex-President, Jonathan, Over Attack On His House, Demand Release Of Okah Brothers
Emissaries of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta on Friday visited former Nigerian President, Goodluck Jonathan, in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, over the attack on his house in the Otuoke area of the state on December 24, 2019 by some gunmen.
MEND, during the visit, commiserated with Jonathan over the incident, assuring the former president that the group was committed to peace in the region.
Recall that one soldier was killed and another injured when gunmen in a boat attacked the Otuoke home of the former Nigerian leader on Christmas Eve.
Condemning the incident in a statement by the group’s spokesperson, Jomo Gbomo, MEND said, “We sympathise with the former President and his family and reject violence and terror in the Niger Delta region.
“MEND reiterates its irrevocable commitment to peace and call on the Federal Government to initiate dialogue towards the release of the Okah brothers, Henry and Charles, as well as other individuals currently in prison and detention centres nationwide.
“Furthermore, MEND use this opportunity to pledge to work together with former President Jonathan towards bringing sustainable peace and development to the Niger Delta.”
While thanking the group for the visit, Jonathan advised against violence as a means of negotiation, calling for dialogue as a way forward.
Niger Delta
Politics
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
EXCLUSIVE: Officials Torture Inmates In Maiduguri Correctional Centre Over Refusal To Pay For Bed Space
SaharaReporters Media
Officials of Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre, Borno State, have been caught in a video subjecting inmates to inhuman treatments including torture for refusing to pay for the few government-provided beds at the facility.
The video sent to SaharaReporters by a reliable prison source, showed officials stripping inmates, who refused to rent the beds for a fee down to their shorts and placing them in a wooden stock known as pillory before leaving them in the courtyard throughout the night for the Harmattan to batter them.
According to findings by SaharaReporters, this inhumane practice is being perpetuated at the orders of Chief Warder of the correctional centre, Adamu Potiskum.
Potiskum is said to be the arrowhead of the extortion scheme against prisoners at the facility where impunity is now the order of the day.
As a result of being exposed to the harsh Harmattan weather all through the night, some of the affected inmates are said to be showing signs of hypothermia – a serious medical condition caused by extreme cold, according to Longman Dictionary. #PressPlay: Prison officials stripping inmates, who refused to rent the beds for a fee down to their shorts and placing them in a wooden stock known as pillory before leaving them in the courtyard throughout the night for the Harmattan to batter them. pic.twitter.com/dtaoPwLmdO— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) January 10, 2020
The video also shows the dilapidated state of the correctional centre in the heart of Maiduguri – the town which birthed Boko Haram insurgency – a guerrilla war that continue to claim lives and displace millions across Nigeria, Niger, Chad and Cameroon.
Recall that SaharaReporters had in 2019 published two stories detailing how little boys were sodomised and female inmates sexually abused by prison officials at the Maiduguri Maximum Security Custodial Centre.
The report forced the authorities to set up a panel to investigate the matter and punish all those found culpable
Inmates, who spoke out against their ill treatment and sexual molestation at the time were warned to keep quiet or risk further punishment.
Fearing a transfer from the facility that has since become a gold mine for him, Potiskum on his part threatened to expose senior prison officials behind the pregnancy of a female convict and dehumanisation of other inmates if moved away from the place.
SaharaReporters gathered that his threat worked and he has since been left to head the facility.
Spokesperson for the Nigerian Correctional Services, Mr Francis Enobore, was yet to respond to a text message by our correspondent over the matter as at the time of filing this story.
Human Rights
Exclusive
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
DPR Seals Seven Gas Stations In Rivers
The Department of Petroleum Resources has sealed seven Liquefied Petroleum Gas stations and shut down 10 filling stations operating illegally and under-dispensing petroleum products in Rivers State.
Speaking with journalists shortly after sealing the gas outlets, Operations Controller of Port Harcourt DPR Zonal Office, Bassey Nkanga, said the agency has commenced a clampdown on illegal operators and dealers of cooking gas across the state.
He said the illegal dealers have been engaged in recent past on the need to adopt legal means and apply safety precautions in their activities but that they had refused to heed the appeals.
He further explained that the department has engaged the LPG plant owners not to sell gas to retailers that do not possess valid licenses to avoid ugly incidents such as the recent explosion in Kaduna.
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
JUST IN: Resident Doctors Begin Indefinite Strike Over Non-payment Of Salaries In Ondo
The Association of Resident Doctors, Ondo State Medical Teaching Hospital, Akure, on Friday embarked on indefinite strike over non-payment of their outstanding salaries and allowances.
The doctors, who poured out to the streets to express their grievances, blocked the state hospital gates for several hours and accused the administration of Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of not taking their welfare seriously.
They expressed disappointment over government’s inability to pay their salaries despite their commitment to work.
Leader of the protesting doctors, Taiwo Olagbe, who spoke with SaharaReporters, said the medical practitioners have no option than to embark on the indefinite strike.
He said, “We have been working and attending to patients with empty stomachs while the state government refuse to pay us our salaries and allowances.
“It is unacceptable to work for six months without getting paid by the state government.
“It is on the basis of this that we have resolved to embark on the strike action.”
Commissioner for Health in the state, Wahab Adegbenro, could not be reach on his telephone lines when contacted by our correspondent.
But a source in the Ministry of Health in the state confirmed to SaharaReporters that the commissioner was aware of the protest.
“The commissioner has been briefed concerning the protest and would be addressing the issues raised by the doctors soon,” the source said.
PUBLIC HEALTH
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
E2%80%93okolie-man-unlawfully-detained-dss-using-sim-card Thoughts Of Suicide Is Only Thing On My Mind –Okolie, Man Unlawfully Detained By DSS For Using SIM Card Previously Owned By President Buhari’s Daughter
Days after he was released by the Department of State Services after being arrested and detained unlawfully for 10 weeks for using a SIM card previously owned by President Muhammadu Buhari’s daughter, Hanan, Anthony Okolie has told SaharaReporters that it has been difficult overcoming thoughts of suicide.
According to the Asaba, Delta State-based young businessman, while people around have tried to cheer him up and make him put the setback behind him, it has been difficult for him not to think of taking his own life going by the crisis his bitter experience at the hands of the DSS had plunged him into.
Apart from currently battling with a N5m debt and having a sick mother to attend to, being jilted by his fiancée with whom he was planning marriage with had combined to aggravate his worry and make his life a living hell.
Persons, who invested in a fish farm scheme that he had set up before his arrest have been on his neck to pay back their money following the collapse of the business while he was in detention.
Every area of Okolie’s life had not been the same since his traumatising experience at the facility of DSS in Abuja.
“Each time I receive calls from any of the persons who invested in the fish farm, I feel like committing suicide because I have no means of paying the debt government put me into,” the young man said while speaking with our correspondent.
“I’m currently owing people lots of money, over N5m that people invested into the fish farm that perished while I was unlawfully arrested and detained.
“After the first few weeks in detention, I felt like committing suicide but there was no means for me to do that.
“I have been having emotional trauma and nightmares ever since the incident occurred.
See Also
Politics
DSS Detains Man Unlawfully For 10 Weeks After Purchasing MTN SIM Card Previously Used By President Buhari’s Daughter
0 Comments
4 Days Ago
“My mum became very ill and hypertensive as a result of my ordeal and she is in a very bad state now because I can no longer afford to purchase her drugs after my fish farm collapsed.
“My fiancée left me on grounds that she cannot marry a criminal even though we were already planning marriage before the incident,” he added painfully.
Narrating how he was bundled and ferried to Abuja by DSS operatives in leg and hand chains after being told that President Buhari wanted to see him, Okolie disclosed that he was subjected to all sorts of horrible treatment for committing no offence.
He told SaharaReporters that the SIM card in question was purchased by him in Asaba from an MTN outlet for N2,000, adding that he never committed any fraudulent act with it since December 2018 when he bought it.
Okolie said that though there were times he received strange calls on the mobile telephone number, he always told such persons that they were speaking with him and not President Buhari’s daughter, Hanan – the previous user of the number before it was recycled for sale by the network provider.
According to him, nobody from government had so far apologised to him despite the infringement of his rights and loss of his investment and main source of livelihood.
“I was seized like a criminal and subjected to threats by DSS officers and transferred to Abuja, chained in the legs and handcuffed from Asaba to their headquarters.
“After my statement, I abandoned in custody. They said I was making use of a SIM card previously used by Hanan Buhari, that I am a criminal and that the President wanted to see me.
“I bought the SIM card legally and committed no offence by so doing. It was however, surprising to see myself being detained for 10 weeks.
“I really regret being a Nigerian because in other countries, citizens cannot be unlawfully arrested and detained for 10 weeks without any concrete reason.
“I’ve switched off the lie ever since that bizarre incident because I’m still scared and don’t know what their next plan may be,” Okolie said.
SaharaReporters had on January 6 exclusively reported the young businessman’s ordeal, revealing how his rights had been abused by the secret police.
Human rights activists, Omoyele Sowore and Olawale Bakare, who were both unlawfully held by the DSS for months, brought Okolie’s plight to the attention of the world in separate posts on Twitter.
Following the report, Nigerians from far and near have continued to demand justice for Okolie and an apology from the DSS.
Legal practitioner, Tope Akinyode, has said that they will take up the matter and ensure the businessman is compensated for being unlawfully detained by the secret police.
He said, “In line with my discussion with Mr Okolie, we shall proceed to court to file a suit against the DSS and Hanan Buhari, demanding compensation for the breach of the victim’s fundamental human rights.”
Human Rights
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
Of Victors And Vanquished: Biafra, 50 Years After By Chido Onumah
January 15 marks the 50th anniversary of the end of the Nigerian Civil War and the official end of the short-lived Republic of Biafra. It is unlikely there will be any national event to mark the occasion other than the annual Remembrance Day ritual, which has become nothing but a cash cow for those involved in organising the ceremony. But the civil war was not only a defining moment for Nigeria, it has continued to define the country. As Prof Yakubu Ochefu notes in the introduction to the 2013 book, Nigeria is Negotiable, “The corporate existence of the country has been tested twice. It was formally broken once (1967-70) and pronounced broken once (April 1990). It took a horrible civil war to restore the entity when it was broken and an equally brutal attempted coup when it was pronounced.”
Fifty years after the end of the civil war, what lessons have we learnt as a nation? It appears not much. At the end of the war in January 1970, when the remnants of the Biafra high command signed the article of surrender, the victors, the “Federal forces” proclaimed, “No victors, No vanquished.” Unfortunately, 50 years after, it has become evident that the cheque of “No victors, No vanquished” issued in 1970 is not cashable. The debate is still raging whether the war was necessary and if the region that became known as Biafra had a moral right to secede.
Answers vary depending on who is responding. But one thing is certain. That war was preventable if only the government of the day led by Yakubu Gowon was intent on presiding over a country built on justice and equity. Here is Gowon—quoted in The Man Died, the prison notes of Nobel Laureate, Prof Wole Soyinka—not only appeasing the génocidaires but proclaiming a divine right to rule—a right that has become the refrain of the relics of the born-to-rule ideologues: “Fellow Northerners, Today, I want to direct this appeal specifically to you all…You all know that since the end of July, God, in His power, has entrusted the responsibility of this great country of ours, Nigeria, to the hands of another Northerner…Since January this year, when some soldiers put our country into confusion by killing our leaders, both political and military, the country has not recovered fully from that confusion. The sadness caused in people’s minds by the January event has led to troubles by civilians in the North in May, causing loss of lives. I receive complaint daily that up to now, Easterners living in the North are being killed and molested, their property looted. I am very unhappy about this. We would put a stop to these. It appears that it is going beyond reason to the point of recklessness and irresponsibility…” That was Gowon as head of state in October 1966, nine months before the civil war began in July 1967.
Fifty years after, those who still live with the victors’ mentality that because a people were “defeated” in a civil war, they should perpetually stay under have remained in control of the country. Looking back, it appears the vanquished have not paid the full price—whatever that is—for daring to test the supposedly divinely ordained and non-negotiable corporate existence of the country. A little example will suffice. On Sunday, September 29, 2019, I arrived the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport wearing a T-shirt with the inscription, “We Are All Biafrans,” the title of my book first published in May 2016, later updated, and republished in November 2018. I was arrested by officers of the State Security Service and detained for more than six hours, first at their office at the airport and later at their headquarters in the Aso Drive area of Abuja. The first question I was asked at the airport was, “You are a Biafran, how come you have a Nigerian passport?” I am not aware there is a sovereign nation called Biafra and I made that known to my interrogators.
That question was not altogether surprising but coming from what is supposed to be the nation’s elite intelligence agency, it struck me that we were in a deeper mess than I had imagined. We can play the ostrich as much as we want, but the truth is that the division that precipitated and characterised the civil war looms large. We will be deluding ourselves to think for once that the civil war is over. Everywhere you turn in Nigeria, the angst, fear and loathing that were the hallmark of the civil war impose themselves. Fifty years after the end of the civil war, we have expanded the scope of the vanquished. Our country is as divided, if not more divided, as it was at the beginning of the war in 1967.
Today, the chickens of impunity and injustice have come home to roost. Yesterday’s men, who supervised this tragedy in its infancy are today looking for an easy way out. In 1996, exactly three decades after he became head of state, Yakubu Gowon, with the permission of then murderous dictator, Sani Abacha, set up “Nigeria Prays” “to put an end to the various problems plaguing Nigeria.” I am not averse to prayers, but we cannot pray our way out of the current mess whose origin goes back to more than five decades. In what looked like a bitter homecoming, the other retired general, the billionaire businessman, Theophilus Danjuma, who was front and centre in Ibadan in July 1966 when Nigeria’s second coup took place, was in the ancient city again in December 2019. This time, in a sombre mood, he told a bewildered audience: “If I tell you what I know that is happening in Nigeria today, you will no longer sleep.” This catharsis which ought to be a mea culpa came on the heels of his earlier statement describing the Nigerian Army as an army of occupation. All I can say is, speak, general, speak! Say what you know. The country needs to reconcile its past with the present.
As part of the healing, on Monday, January 13, there will be a “Never Again” conference in Lagos to mark the 50th anniversary of the end of the civil war. Organised by Nzuko Umunna, a pan-Igbo socio-cultural group comprising Igbo professionals both at home and in the Diaspora and Ndigbo Lagos in collaboration with civil society organisations, the aim of the conference is to address the “seeming lack of political will towards a robust and focused interrogation of the civil war, its causes, and hard lessons.”
The January 13 conference is aptly named “Never Again.” It is going to be a tall order because remembrance entails an appreciation of history, that is, where it exists. Today, there is no official history of the Nigerian Civil War, not even from the “victors.” Last year, I attended the public presentation of the book, Elections in Nigeria: The Long Road to Democracy by Prof Shehu Abdullahi. Both retired generals, Olusegun Obasanjo, a civil war commander, and Yakubu Gowon were at the event. Obasanjo joked about how his boss, Gowon, set up a high-powered committee at the end of the civil war in 1970 to write the history of the war. By the time Gowon was overthrown by Murtala Muhammed and his cohorts, which incidentally included Obasanjo, on July 29, 1975, not a single line had been written. The audience erupted in laughter. That is the tragedy of Nigeria!
Nigeria can still redeem itself. It has been 50 years since we proclaimed, “No Victors, No Vanquished.” It is time to truly end the war; and it is not just the war against Biafra, as Soyinka noted, but that against the millions of duped and dispossessed citizens. That is the only way we can avert another war!
Onumah is author of We Are All Biafrans, A Participant-Observer’s Interventions in a Country Sleepwalking to Disaster
Opinion
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
Chido Onumah
Disable advertisements
:
Boko Haram Terrorists Abduct Seven Travellers In Borno
Boko Haram terrorists have abducted seven travellers in Auno along the Maiduguri-Damaturu Highway, SaharaReporters can confirm.
On December 31, 2019, SaharaReporters authoritatively reported that the extremist group was planning to abduct travellers in Benishiek, Ngala, Auno, Mainok, Dikwa-monguno and Biu.
Despite the alert issued to the Nigerian Government, a source said the attack took place close to a military checkpoint in the area.
See Also
Insurgency
ALERT: ISWAP Planning To Abduct Travellers In Benishiek, Mainok, Other Borno Towns
0 Comments
1 Week Ago
The gunmen, who were reportedly dressed in military uniform, ambushed a Volkswagen golf car and a Toyota Hiace bus belonging to the Adamawa Sunshine Transport Company.
There is no word yet on the whereabouts of the abducted persons.
Boko Haram
Terrorism
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
E2%80%93shehu-sani I Cannot Be Silent When Lies Are Told Against Me –Shehu Sani
Senator-Elect Shehu Sani, Kaduna Central
Shehu Sani
The Nation, Nigeria
A former lawmaker representing Kaduna Central Senatorial District in National Assembly, Senator Shehu Sani, has spoken for the first time after he was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for alleged extortion of $20,000 from owner of ASD Motors, Sani Dauda.
Sani, who has spent 10 days in the custody, said the allegations of extortion levelled against him was baseless and unfounded.
The former lawmaker said he would not be silent and that the allegations were aimed at smearing his name and justifying his persecution.
He disclosed this in a statement on Thursday in Abuja.
Sani revealed that he has provided all necessary statement and facts regarding the allegation to the EFCC, challenging the anti-graft agency to prove its case against him.
He said, “Alhaji Sani Dauda and his hidden sponsors have not been able to provide any proof of their allegations.
“I’m unjustly incarcerated on the ground of an arranged two-page petition backed with no evidential or documentary proof.
“The bribe story is a heap of blatant lies and outright falsehood concocted and fabricated, using a front and the EFCC to premiere a state drama.
“ASD is a barely educated front for a state mission. Criminalising me or “framing me” will not silence me, bend me or compromise me.”
Sani explained further that he has never met with the Chief Justice of Nigeria or any judge or judges directly or indirectly to offer any form of gratification from Alhaji Sani Dauda.
He added, “They claim extortion and here they are closing my bank accounts, searching my houses and offices and demanding I declare my assets of which I have already done that at the CCB last year when I left the Senate.
“The extortion allegation is nothing but a wholesale falsehood, packaged in a phantom anti-graft facade to taint, stain and mute me. That shall never happen if I am alive.”
Earlier the EFCC had obtained an ex-parte order to keep Sani for a further 14 days while also urging Dauda to come forward to prove his allegations against the former lawmaker.
So far, the anti-graft agency is yet to announce if Dauda had come forward to shed more light into the matter or not.
Politics
News
AddThis
:
Original Author
:
SaharaReporters, New York
Disable advertisements
:
Read also
You can also check
