Sahara Reporters Latest News Today Friday 27th August 2021
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 27/08/21
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BREAKING: Bandits Release Tegina School Pupils In Niger State After Three Months
Gun-wielding bandits have finally released students abducted three months ago from an Islamic school in north-central Nigerian state of Niger, two parents told Reuters on Thursday.
Around 136 school children were taken from the school in Tegina town in May but on Monday the school’s owner said that six had died of illness.
PR Nigeria
The releases were confirmed by an official who asked not to be named because the government planned to issue a statement once they have the children.
One parent, Mallam Saidu Tegina, said by phone the students had been released.
He did not confirm how many students were released.
Armed groups carrying out kidnapping for ransom are blamed for a series of raids on schools in northern Nigeria in recent months, abducting more than 1,000 students since December.
Abubakar Garba Alhasan, whose seven children are held by the gang, said the students were on their way to the capital city in Minna. “They are released now,” he said.
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Family Alleges Foul Play In Nigerian Pastor’s Death As Wife Plots To Flee Country Before Burial
The family of Apostle Joseph Dominic Agboli, the founder of The Victorious Army Ministries International, Acme Road, Ogba, Lagos State, has alleged a foul play in the death of the cleric.
Agboli died last Wednesday at the age of 58 after a brief illness.
SaharaReporters learnt that the cleric was not able to preach on the pulpit on Sunday in the church as he was said to be sick.
However, a top source in the Pastor’s family alleged that his wife might have been the source of his death adding that she had hatched a plot to flee from Nigeria before the burial.
The source claims the pastor’s wife, Blessing, had a boyfriend she had been seeing and already purchased a house in Canada where she planned to move to with her children.
She was also said to have received donations from well-wishers to the tune of N17million to fly Agboli abroad despite his demise.
The source said, “She has bought a property in Canada and she is trying to move with her children (who are currently in London) to relocate to Canada since they all have dual citizenship.
“She is collecting funds of N17million for flying him abroad knowing fully well he’s dead. She knew about the death before now but she’s playing so smart.
“She sacked all the domestic staff just immediately before the man passed on. All the reliable and loyal people around him, she chased them away with her attitude, including Baba Agboli’s family.
“The woman has a boyfriend she is secretly dating and she has two children from different fathers before marrying Papa Agboli and she did that with the help of a well-grounded charm and even when her children came for holiday, Papa Agboli didn’t see them because they all went clubbing with their boyfriends.”
The church has, however, confirmed the death of Agboli on the pastor’s Facebook page, with his obituary displayed.
“Glory to God, It’s with a heavy heart, but unreserved submission to the will of God that the Victorious Army Ministries International announces the departure unto Glory of God’s servant, the Apostle, Joseph Dominic Agboli, who slept in the Lord on Wednesday, August 25th, 2021.
“Our confidence and joy is that he is, without doubt, resting in glory with Jesus, the Author and finisher of his faith.
“He is survived by a wife and five children. Funeral rites will be communicated in due time. Shalom.”
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Court Restores Uche Secondus As PDP National Chairman
Justice Nusirat. I. Umar, a vacation judge of the Kebbi State High Court on Thursday, ordered Prince Uche Secondus to return to his position as the National Chairman.
Giving the order in a suit brought before her in Birnin Kebbi, the state capital in a case, KB/AC/M. 170/2021, Justice Umar said she was satisfied after reading the affidavit of the respondents, that an interim order should be granted on the purported suspension of Prince Secondus pending the determination of the case.
“An order of this Honourable court granting leave to the first respondent (Uche Secondus) to continue exercising all the constitutional powers of the office of Chairman of PDP (second defendant ) as enshrined in both 1999 Constitution of Nigeria as amended and the Peoples Democratic Party’s constitution pending the hearing and final determination of applicant’s motion on notice,” she ruled.
Three concerned members of the party, Yahaya Usman , Abubakar Mohammed and Bashar Suleman are the claimants/Applicant in the case while Prince Secondus and the PDP are the defendants/Respondents
Secondus and the PDP are first and second respondents respectively in the suit brought before the court by three claimants and members of the party; Yahaya Usman, Abubakar Mohammed and Bashar Suleman.
Recall that Justice O. Gbasam of the Degema Judicial Division vacation court, sitting in Port Harcourt, Rivers State had granted an interim injunction restraining Secondus from parading himself as chairman and member of the PDP.
This was sequel to the consideration of an ex parte application in suit No: PHC/2183/CS/2021 filed by Ibeabuchi Alex, Dennis Amadi, Emmanuel Stephen and Umezirike Onucha against Secondus and the PDP.
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E2%80%99s-lawyers-remove-shoes-eyeglasses Lawless Department Of State Services Orders Nnamdi Kanu’s Lawyers To Remove Shoes, Eyeglasses, Others During Visit
Nnamdi Kanu
Operatives of the Department of State Services have extended their lawlessness to the legal representatives of Nnamdi Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, as the secret policemen subjected the counsels to inhuman treatment.
Ifeanyi Ejiofor, the lead counsel to the separatist revealed this in an update to SaharaReporters on Thursday following the lawyers’ routine visit to the IPOB leader.
Nnamdi Kanu
Ejiofor stated that the DSS men forced the legal team members to remove their shoes, glasses, thereby offering them slippers after searching them like hardened offenders.
Though he reiterated that the encounter was successful as Kanu was motivated as ever, he condemned the treatment of the lawyers as both dehumanising and embarrassing.
He said in a statement, “The routine visit to our client, Nnamdi Kanu, was conducted today, and it went successfully.
“Our client, Nnamdi Kanu, specifically requested for his kind regards and compliments to be conveyed to millions of his teeming supporters and well-wishers. He is deeply appreciative of your unwavering solidarity/support. He didn’t hesitate in requesting that you all continue to pray without season, because it is positively impacting.
“However, today’s visit witnessed a fundamental change in the hitherto procedures conventionally adopted for conducting the visit.
“We were initially unperturbed by the method now introduced by the DSS, but we feel compelled in the prevailing circumstance to make public our strange experience which borders on the improper treatment of lawyers in the course of conducting a court-ordered visit to their client who is undergoing trial.
“Lawyers on this visit were searched in a manner akin to a situation where hardened criminals are being searched for possible incriminating substance and object.
“They were traumatised not only because they were inhumanly treated as criminals on investigation, but the lawyers were further dehumanised after this embarrassing and unwarranted frisking, by being allowed to wear only slippers, after being divested of their shoes, reading glasses and writing materials, to visit their client.”
The legal practitioner, however, said the Kanu’s lawyers would not condone such demeaning experience in the subsequent visits, adding that it was unpardonable and intolerable.
He urged Kanu’s supporters to be steadfast, focused, peaceful and law-abiding not minding the humiliating experience they faced.
“Though, it readily called for immediate intervention of the Court seized of the matter because it is our right as clearly backed up by the Order of the Court, to visit Our Client on these specified dates and times, but subjecting lawyers to inhuman treatment in the course of conducting a legitimate visit is what we consider unjustified and unacceptable.
“We cannot be subjected to any form of intimidation/harassment during subsequent visits to Our Client, because the alien style is only targeted at imputing fear in us, which action we shall resist within the confines of extant laws.
“We shall get this infraction addressed by the Court in the fullness of time, as processes incidental thereto has been promptly initiated.”
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E2%80%99s-office BREAKING: Channels TV Journalists Leave Nigerian Broadcasting Commission’s Office
The presenters of a breakfast show “Sunrise Daily” on Channels Television, Chambalain Usor and Kayode Okikiolu, as well as Maope Ogun, have left the National Broadcasting Commission’s office in Abuja after being queried by the commission.
The crew were seen on Thursday leaving the corporate head office of the commission located inside the Presidential Villa at about 6:30pm.
The journalists were in high spirits after the meeting and thanked Nigerians for their support.
When prodded by journalists if they would report back to the commission, they said the regulatory body had asked them to go and that they would get back to them.PHOTONEWS: @channelstv Crew Leave NBC Office After Summon Over Ortom, Naval Officer’s Interviews pic.twitter.com/5RyJ1qjLCZ— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) August 26, 2021
Meanwhile, human rights’ activist, Omoyele Sowore, and the National President, Nigerian Union of Journalists, Chris Isiguzor, were also at the commission in solidarity with the journalists and in defence of free speech.
On his part, the NUJ President said he was at the commission to get the details of the matter.
He said, “We came here and we met with the NBC Director-General and our colleagues. They are just having a meeting and after that, all of them will go. There is no cause for alarm.”
He said it was a conference discussion and nothing to worry about.
Recall that the NBC had on Tuesday in a letter signed by the commission’s Director-General, Balarabe Shehu Ilelah, summoned the television station following the utterances made by some guests brought to the programme on Wednesday.
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DOCUMENT: Nigerian Broadcasting Commission Queries Channels TV Over Interview With Governor Ortom
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They included the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, and a former Nigerian Navy officer, Commodore Kunle Olawunmi (retd.).
Olawunmi had said Boko Haram terrorists mentioned names of current governors, senators and Aso Rock officials as sponsors during interrogation by the military authorities.
He, however, said President Muhammadu Buhari’s government failed to demonstrate the necessary political will to go after the high-profile politicians for reasons best known to it.
Olawunmi, a professor of Global Security Studies, said he was a member of the Intelligence Brief at Defence Headquarters during the leadership of the then Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Abayomi Olonisakin (retd.)
According to him, the government had not been able to prosecute the sponsors because it was allegedly partisan.
He added that the Department of State Services had tremendous information on terrorists but they could not do anything except by the body language of the Commander-In-Chief.
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Hushpuppi: Inspector-General Of Police Panel Submits Report On DCP Abba Kyari After Three Weeks
The probe panel set up by the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, has turned in its report on the alleged indictment of the erstwhile Head of the Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), DCP Abba Kyari, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
Kyari is being probed for his alleged links with serial internet fraudster, Ramon Abbas, aka Hushpuppi, who has pleaded guilty in the United States.
The report was submitted by the chairman of the SIP, DIG Joseph Egbunike, at the Force Headquarters, Abuja on Thursday, 26th August 2021, CP Frank Mba, the Force Public Relations Officer revealed.
Joseph noted that the report presented contained the case file of the probe, evidence, and findings as well as testimonies from DCP Abba Kyari and other persons and groups linked to the matter.
“DIG Egbunike, while presenting the report, appreciated the IGP for the confidence reposed on him and the members of the Panel to conduct the probe.
“He noted that the panel commenced investigations immediately it was inaugurated on August 2, 2021 and the report submitted is an outcome of a painstaking, transparent and exhaustive investigative process.
“He further revealed that the report presented contained the case file of the probe, evidence, and findings as well as testimonies from DCP Abba Kyari and other persons and groups linked to the matter.
“The IGP, who commended the Panel for the work done, stated that the essence of the probe was to carry out discrete investigations into the allegation levied against the Officer to enable the Force leadership be appropriately guided in its decision-making processes.
“The IGP assured that a careful and expeditious review of the recommendations would be undertaken by the Force Management Team and thereafter forwarded to appropriate quarters for necessary actions.
“He reiterated as always, the commitment of the Force to justice for all.”
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Enslaved 21-year-old, Glory Okolie Drags Nigerian Government To ECOWAS Court
Glory Okolie, a 21-year-old young woman arrested and enslaved by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) in Imo State has filed a lawsuit against the Nigerian government at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice in Abuja over her unlawful detention.
The police had arrested Okolie for allegedly being friends with a suspected member of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).
She was later transferred to Abuja, despite efforts by her family members to secure his release.
After 66 days in detention, the police, in a statement on Sunday, said she was arrested for alleged membership of IPOB and for working with one Benjamin Uzoma Emojiri to attack officers and stations in Imo.
Her detention stirred public outcry as many Nigerians, including civil society organisations, have called for her release.
In the fundamental rights suit filed on August 24, Okolie asked the court to mandate the Nigerian government to pay the sum of N100 billion as “general and punitive” damages for “infringing” on her fundamental human rights.
She also asked the court to mandate the government to pay N50 million for “recklessness, bias, malice, failure to perform its statutory duty when the respondent’s officers infringed on her rights.”
“A DECLARATION of this honourable court, that the act of the Respondent in detaining the 1st applicant from the 13th June 2021 till date, without an order of any court permitting same, is a violation of the 1st Applicant’s right to fair hearing and Personal Liberty as enshrined in articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Chapter A9 LFN, 2004,” part of the court documents seen by SaharaReporters read.
“A DECLARATION of this honourable court, that the act of the respondent in detaining the 1st applicant from the 13th June 2021, and beyond 71 (seventy one) days till date ,without an order of any court permitting same, is a violation of the 1st Applicant’s right to fair hearing and Personal Liberty as enshrined in articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Chapter A9 LFN, 2004.
“A DECLARATION that the beating/slapping, torturing, physical assault and verbal/vulgar abuse of the Applicant by the 1st Respondent and the respondents IGP IRT officers, without the applicant committing any crime known to law whatsoever, is illegal, unconstitutional and amounts to a violation of the 1st Applicant’s right to fair hearing and Personal Liberty as enshrined in articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Chapter A9 LFN, 2004.
“A DECLARATION that the usage of the Applicant by the respondent IGP IRT officers by sexually assaulting the 1st applicant, usage of the 1st applicant to wash the respondent officers clothes and usage of the applicant to cook for the respondents IGP IRT officers ,even when the applicant was in the illegal custody of the respondent, and without the applicant committing any crime known to law whatsoever, is illegal, unconstitutional and amounts to a violation of the Applicant’s right to fair hearing and Personal Liberty as enshrined in Section 35 & 36 of the Constitution of Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and articles 1, 3, 4, 5, 6 & 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Chapter A9 LFN, 2004.”
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SHAME: Nigeria’s Ruling All Progressives Congress Welcomes Ex-Minister, Stella Oduah Into Party Despite Ongoing N9.4billion Fraud Trial
Stella Oduah
Former Minister of Aviation and serving senator, Stella Oduah, has defected to the All Progressives Congress (APC) from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Oduah, who represents Anambra North, was received into the fold of the ruling party at a brief ceremony held in Abuja on Thursday.
Stella Oduah
Mai Mala Buni, the National Chairman of the APC caretaker committee; Ovie Omo-Agege, deputy senate president; Atiku Bagudu, chairman of the Progressives Governors Forum (PGF), and Hope Uzodimma, Imo governor, were present at the event.
SaharaReporters had exclusively reported in April that Oduah’s trial by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission over a N9.4billion fraud may gradually be scuttled going by her secret plot with the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
SaharaReporters had learnt that the trial of Oduah which was supposed to go on in February 22 could not proceed because the co-defendants with the minister failed to appear before Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja.
The judge had given the prosecution additional weeks and slated April 19, but the case of the former minister again did not come up on Monday as scheduled.
It was gathered that Oduah met with Lawan and Malami to douse her case with the EFCC.
“February 22 has passed but she was not arraigned. April 19 has also passed. She is working very hard using Senate President and AGF to either scuttle arraignment or frustrate the trial. Alternatively, they are planning to water down the trial through the prosecution via the EFCC chairman.
“Another way is through the prosecutor, Dr Hassan Liman, a close friend of Lawan and the AGF,” a source had revealed to SaharaReporters.
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N5bn Scandal: How AGF Malami, Senate President Are Frustrating Stella Oduah’s Trial
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SaharaReporters had reported on February 22 that the EFCC had earlier planned to re-arraign Oduah over fraud totalling over N9.4billion on that same day but her co-defendants failed to show up in court as part of the plot.
Odua was scheduled to be arraigned on a 25-count charge of money laundering alongside Gloria Odita, Nwobu Emmanuel Nnamdi, Chukuma Irene Chinyere, Global Offshore and Marine Limited, Crystal Television Limited, Sobora International Limited and the China Civil Engineering Construction Company Limited.
One of the counts in the charge reads, “That you, Stella Adaeze Oduah, whilst being the Minister of Aviation, Federal Republic of Nigeria and Gloria Odita whilst being the Company Secretary to Sea Petroleum & Gas Company Ltd (SPGC), and an aide to the former Minister of Aviation on or about the 12th day of February, 2014 at Abuja within the Abuja Judicial Division of this Honourable Court used your positions to transfer the sum of N1, 629,250,000 from 1-Sec Security Nig. Ltd account No. 2021756955 with First Bank Plc to Global Offshore and Marine Ltd account No. 2022977296 also domiciled with First Bank Plc, which money you reasonably ought to have known forms part of the proceeds of an unlawful act and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15(2) (6) of the Money Laundering (Prohibition) Act 2011 (As Amended) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the same Act.”
When the case was mentioned, the prosecuting counsel, Dr Hassan Liman, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, informed the court that the commission tried every means possible but was unable to serve the fifth and sixth defendants with the court processes.
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EXPOSED: Stella Oduah Plots With Senate President, AGF To Scuttle Her Ongoing N9.4billion Fraud Trial
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He therefore applied for an additional 14 days to serve them.
Justice Ekwo granted his prayer and adjourned till April 19, 2021, for arraignment.
SaharaReporters had on February 9 reported that Oduah would be arraigned for alleged financial impropriety totalling more than N9.4billion fraud.
SaharaReporters had in September 2017 uncovered how Oduah bought a $1.2million home in London, disguising it in the robes of a foreign-registered company in an effort to avoid detection.
The transaction, which had been kept secret, was blown open when Mrs. Oduah decided to rent out the house and engaged the services of a shady real estate company, Daniel Ford and Company Ltd, for that purpose.
SaharaReporters had also reported in February 2018 that the EFCC had commenced investigation of Oduah, over her involvement in the N9.4billion contract for supply of security equipment to 22 airports across the country.
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Stolen Crown, Failed Coronation And The Other Sultan, Azu Ishiekwene
Azu Ishiekwene
Last week, while the eyes of the world were on Afghanistan, a fellow in one of Nigeria’s most tradition-bound states attempted the royal equivalent of a military coup.
The leader of the Shua Arab in Edo, Idris Adanno, in a curious, latter-day rediscovery of his linguistic and cultural identity, arranged for his own coronation as the “Sultan” of the Shua Arab in Edo. It was a sign of displeasure, if not rebellion, against the current practice of lumping together all leaders of Hausa communities as “Sarkin.”
Azu Ishiekwene
When the epistemology of northern traditional institutions would be written, however, it will be recorded that while Sanusi Lamido Sanusi II, the deposed emir of Kano, thought it more profound and reverential to be called and addressed simply as “Sarkin Kano”, a certain Adanno thought the title had become too debased and common that he needed a higher, more exclusive order of preferment. He wanted to be called sultan instead.
Meanwhile, at about the same time, Adanno’s distant cousins in Warri, in an extraordinary display of villainous audacity, stole the crown of the Olu, perhaps preferring to have their own coronation in Rogue Island.
That’s a matter for another day.
Adanno’s coup failed, but what he lost from his failed attempt, he gained in equal measure of fame and notoriety. Since the matter has been laid to rest, at least for now, my intention is not to prolong his misadventure but to share the story of another sultan whose life should inspire not only sultan wannabes, but also others who aspire to a throne.
The other Sultan, Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, didn’t ascend the throne by subterfuge. And for nearly 15 years, he has kept his place without resorting to guile.
Our paths first crossed when I was Executive Director of Publications in PUNCH. He had just been appointed Sultan after the tragic death of his brother, Muhammadu Maccido, in the 2006 ADC air crash in which 93 persons were killed.
Apart from his brother, Brigadier Abubakar (as he then was) also lost his nephew, Senator Gbadamasi Maccido, in that crash. It seemed that tragedy had not only struck without notice, it had also come with its own chair and shelter.
It was under this cloud of misery that Abubakar became the 20th Sultan of Sokoto. His friend, poet and current Chairman of the Editorial Board of The Nation, Sam Omatseye, told me at the time that the new Sultan, Abubakar III, wanted to meet with a few journalists in Lagos and had personally asked if I could attend.
I was confused and unsettled. As of then, I had been a journalist for 18 years, travelled and interviewed fairly extensively, but maintained a somewhat self-imposed prejudice for traditional institutions, royalty and monarchs. I thought them too conservative, backward and even anachronistic.
Out of curiosity, however, I suspended my prejudice and attended the meeting, somewhere in Ikoyi. Without his layers of robes, scarves, sashes and other sartorial accoutrements, the Sultan looked very ordinary, almost like the guy next door.
But it was not only seeing this Sultan without the hood that struck me. He was direct and without airs. He called many of the guests by first names and cracked jokes about their newspapers or their recent columns.
He shared his personal phone numbers with all those who asked and took their numbers in turn, paying attention to his guests in such a personal way as if nothing else mattered. I left the place wondering if I had been mistaken or if the evening’s meeting was only a performance, a charm offensive.
It’s close to 20 years now and Abubakar III has barely changed from the Sultan I met that solitary evening in Lagos. He still keeps his old phone number, answers his calls in person and returns his messages.
And he is still very direct and unambiguous about the matters of the day, too. You would think that religion would be one of his weakest points.
The Sultan, direct descendant of Uthman dan Fodio, pre-eminent traditional ruler in Northern Nigeria, head of the council of traditional rulers, and spiritual head of all Muslims in the country might, ordinarily, be expected to dissemble in matters of religion.
When mad men under the franchise of Boko Haram or their affiliates maim, murder, rape and destroy in the name of Allah, claiming that if they die, a bevy of brides awaits them at the entrance of paradise, you might expect the spiritual curator of the religion to either keep quiet or admonish such fanatics behind closed doors. At least in the religious cauldron that Nigeria has turned out to be.
But that’s not the Sultan that Abubakar III is – or has been. He tells the mad men in plain language, which he repeated in a recent meeting I had with him, that, “They’ll go straight to hell!” And he says so publicly, too. That no one can kill in Allah’s name and hope to find shelter in paradise.
Abubakar III has done more for inter-faith unity and understanding than any Muslim spiritual leader I’ve known for a long, long time. In his capacity as co-chairman of the Nigeria Inter-Religious Council, he has worked tirelessly, drawing on his extensive network with other faith councils across the world, to repair, heal and bind broken bonds and also roll back religious intolerance and extremism.
Even in the current mayhem in Jos in which scores have been murdered in attacks and reprisal attacks while the original cause of the madness is completely lost and the line between antagonist and protagonist blurred beyond recognition, the Sultan’s voice of restraint can still be heard.
He’s not a closet moderniser which, come to think of it, I find somewhat ironic given the antecedents of his ancestry and the conservative bastion of his throne.
When, sounding like Peter Tosh, he said to me recently that “justice is a precondition for peace”, he could possibly have been speaking about the tragic mismanagement of the country’s diversity by the government of President Muhammadu Buhari.
In light of the current flare up of ethnic and religious tensions in the country, it’s hard to imagine a more appropriate aphorism than Peter Tosh’s.
He has spoken out for education for the child – girl or boy – reminding fools who despise education in the name of Islam and their enablers in high places that the caliphate itself was founded on education and enlightenment.
Two years ago, when the government was sleepwalking on court orders, including an order for the release from detention of publisher and activist, Omoyele Sowore, the Sultan said, publicly, that disobedience of court orders was “a recipe for chaos and disaster.” And he said so when the inter-religious council visited Buhari in Aso Rock.
In the aftermath of the targeting of warehouses where government crooks across the country had wickedly stored COVID-19 palliatives, the Sultan reminded the government of the familiar inscription on the back of many lorries in the day: “A hungry man is an angry man!” He challenged the government to tackle the rising inflation and the high cost of living and to stop making excuses.
I don’t know if it bothers him that the government is tone deaf or whether the government thinks, in fact, that he is a sufferable nuisance, in a manner of speaking.
But the world is not only listening, it’s also paying attention. Five years ago, the Sultan and his brother in the business of inter-faith engineering, John Onaiyekan Cardinal, were jointly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
The nomination was as good as winning, because it sent a clear message that the extraordinary work that both men are doing has not gone unnoticed – or unrewarded. A few years earlier, both had jointly shared the prize for the LEADERSHIP Person of the Year, proof that these prophets are worthy, home and abroad.
As the Sultan turned 65 on Tuesday, I struggled to figure out what might be responsible for his enigmatic path. Yes, he was a member of the 18th Regular Combatant Course of the Nigerian Defence Academy (the class of the former Chief of Army Staff Lt. General Azubuike Ihejirika), but he is not the first soldier to ascend a throne.
Perhaps, his extensive tour of duty in combatant and non-combatant positions, especially his deployment as defence adviser to Pakistan, with concurrent accreditation to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States, might have shaped his worldview also.
I can only guess. One thing I’m sure of, though, is that Muhammad Sa’ad Abubakar III, the 20th Sultan of Sokoto, has raised the bar so high that sultan wannabes will have to do more than think that buying a crown and improvising a coronation will fool the community. Neither a royal coup nor a royal heist would work.
Abubakar III has shown that it takes something fundamentally different. And long may he live!
Ishiekwene is Editor-In-Chief of LEADERSHIP
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E2%80%93-nigerian-woman How Lagos Police Humiliated, Kept Me In Cell With Suspects Seeking To Rape Me – Nigerian Woman
A young woman, Kelechi Joseph, who was a victim of a job scam in the Badore, Ajah area of Lagos State, has narrated her experience with police officers at the Ipaja Police Division.
The 20-year-old woman, who narrated her ordeal to a civic group, Advocates for Children and Vulnerable Persons, said she was invited to an audition for a role in a comedy skit at a hotel.
Upon arriving at the venue, she said she was lured to one of the rooms on the pretence of changing her clothes but she was almost gang-raped by two young men who were part of the team that had called her for an interview.
According to her, she was able to resist the young men who finally caved into extorting her a sum of N12,000 which they claimed would be used to pay for the hotel room.
The tables, however, turned after the lady got arrested by policemen at the Ipaja area and was detained for several days alongside her abusers and other men.
Joseph said, “I was introduced to one Agwasim Gabriel who claimed to be a Comedy Skit producer. I got a call from Gabriel to come over to a hotel called Wood West Hotel for a Comedy skit auditioning somewhere within Badore area, Ajah. When I got to the hotel, I saw a lot of girls in the hotel reception.
“I was called upon to come upstairs for my costume. When I went upstairs, unknown to me, it was a trap set up by Agwasim Gabriel and his accomplice. I was told to lay down on the bed so that they could have s** with me but I declined which resulted to severe beating.
“I tried to run out of the room but the door was locked. They forcefully collected N4,500 and forced me to transfer N7,500 from my account to their account. Gabriel and Rororibs Ayami Okora told me that the girls I saw at the lounge of the hotel experienced the same thing and they were cool with it.
“They told me if I dared mention what transpired in the hotel to anyone, they would stop at nothing to eliminate me.”
However, Joseph stated that she started receiving calls from two ladies who disguised as customers who wanted to purchase clothing items.
She added, “Unknown to me, these ladies work with Gabriel and Okora. I was arrested and detained for four days inside the same cell with men by Ipaja Ayobo police station.
“I learnt that Gabriel had reported at Ipaja police station claiming I and my soldier friends robbed him of 250,000, damaged his plasma TV, laptops and camera worth over N1million.
“The DPO ordered Gabriel and I to be detained overnight and to my surprise, Gabriel was released and I was left in the cell for four days among men. I was subjected to sweep the entire police station compound. I was also subjected to wash the police station toilets for four days.”
The issue had now been reported at the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Panti, Yaba with the detention of Gabriel while the investigation was ongoing.
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