Sahara Reporters Latest News Friday 2nd August 2019

Sahara Reporters Latest News Friday 2nd August 2019

Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 02/08/19

target=_blank>Five Million Nigerians Lifted Out Of Poverty In My First Term, Buhari Claims

President Muhammadu Buhari has said that his previous administration lifted five million Nigerians out of extreme poverty, TheCable reports.
Nigeria has been ranked by the World Poverty Clock as the nation with the poorest people in the world. Poverty remains at 33.1% in the country.
President Buhari spoke at the opening of the Global Youth Employment Forum of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) in Abuja on Thursday.
Represented by Boss Mustapha, secretary to the federal government, Buhari said this was achieved through the National Social Investment Programme (N-SIP).
“We note at this point that the issue of youth unemployment has assumed a global significance, and on the front burner of development discourse,” he said.
“The government of Nigeria understands the need to focus attention on youth empowerment by creating the enabling environment for job opportunities and capacity building.
“The present administration from the onset, invested in our people, one of the key goals of the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, which is the national development blueprint from the period of 2017 to 2020.
“The implementation of the plan also has the flagship programme such as the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).
“It has yielded some measurable outcomes in the form of increased school enrolment and the creation of more jobs.
The President said the programme created opportunities for Nigerians and lifted them out of extreme poverty.
“One of the key components of the NSIP is the N-Power Programme and its sub-components has led to the creation of job opportunities in different sectors of the economy for young persons.
“For example, in the past three years, the programme has yielded over 2 million direct and indirect employment opportunities and has lifted over 5 million Nigerians out of extreme poverty,” he said.

Economy

Politics

News

AddThis

Original Author

SaharaReporters, New York

Disable advertisements

target=_blank>How To Fight CBN’s Forex Restriction On Milk Importation By Kolapo Olapoju

We live in dangerous times where the social media, despite its numerous benefit is used to sell wild ideologies, selfish doctrines/agendas, shape dangerous mindsets, erroneous thought processes and perpetuate ignorance.
Given all these, one needs to have a proper understanding of an issue before choosing to contribute, oppose or champion, else one would look like a fool in the long run.
When the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) announced its plan to restrict forex for the importation of milk, all hell was let loose on ‘Twitter Nigeria’. The hashtag #MilkBanPolicy was soon created, with Oby Ezekwesili, a former minister of education, at the forefront of the opposition to the policy. In the course of leading the discourse with deafening tweets, many Nigerians on the micro-blogging platform got the erroneous belief that the CBN had banned importation of milk for good.
The alarmist tweets of Ezekwesili and co made matters worse by bringing the suspended RUGA initiative into the picture, promoting a narrative which had the objective of linking the forex cut to mass resistance to a policy that was meant to allow pastoralists to have settlements in states across the country.
At this point, the majority of Nigerians commenting on the CBN’s milk policy were damn sure milk importation had been banned.
What the policy is actually about?
Sensing the danger of being tagged anti-people and its policy meeting the same fate as RUGA, the CBN jumped into the Twitter ring of verbal jabs to educate the populace on the merits of the plan.
Reminding Nigerians what any properly educated person should know, the CBN said it has no power to place restrictions on importation. “All we will do is to restrict the sale of forex for the importation of milk from the Nigerian foreign exchange market,” the apex bank said.
The CBN said for the purpose of “backward integration to conserve foreign exchange”, create jobs and boost investments in local milk production, it approached some milk importers and enjoined them to take advantage of low-interest loans that will help them build infrastructure to begin the production of milk locally but the “vast majority of the importers” responded with “imperial contempt”.
At this point, what a serious people — save for perpetual critics — should have done is to demand that the CBN further clarify the terms of the loans, name, and shame the so-called importers who are not interested in helping local production. But amidst the screams of RUGA, sanity took a hike, went for a swim in the receding Lake Chad and permanently drowned in the sand dunes that are fast taking over.
Although the CBN also insisted that it is “technically and commercially possible to breed the cows that produce milk in Nigeria”, the critics maintained that the policy is part of the alleged Fulanisation agenda of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration. Not many mentioned that perhaps it was for this same reason that Aliko Dangote told Bloomberg in 2017 that he will own 50,000 cows by 2019, in a bid to produce 500 million liters of milk per year.
Opponents of the policy had a field day preying on the fear they had instilled in the minds of Nigerians about the RUGA settlement plan, such that saner and objective arguments about the milk matter were drowned in the cacophony of fret-filled Twitterers.
How to fight the policy
Rather than poke holes in the policy so that the CBN maybe motivated to do some more thinking and consultation, possibly review and rejig the ‘darn thing’, the critics wore the armor of ‘condemn all Buhari government policies’ and charged to the battlefield to tweet-war.
Given that Nigeria’s dairy output and demand are estimated at 700,000 metric tonnes and 1,300,000 metric tonnes respectively, with a supply gap of about 600,000 metric tonnes — one would have expected the all-knowing, economic savvy critics to call on the CBN to sit on the forex restriction until the aforementioned gap is near, if not completely, closed.
In clarifying its stance on the policy, the CBN had said it is not oblivious of the fact that the restriction “may hurt some business interests”. Considering that the end result and ripple effect of this “hurt” will be short and medium-term increased price of milk, the critics could have attacked the policy from this angle.
Another important point that should have been chorused is whether the breeds of livestock predominant in Nigeria require genetic improvement for milk production, and if they do, what should be done.
But because we are more of criers than thinkers, — which is why our leaders often get away with ineptitude and impunity – we’d rather scream blue murder than poke holes.
One helpful tweet put out by Ezekwesili read: “#MilkBanPolicy happens, to avoid scarcity which prices milk up and out of the reach of the poor, Nigeria needs to immediately TRIPLE current production of milk.”
If only many critics had tailored their tweets along with this line – of solutions – the ignorance and hysteria being bandied about on the policy would have been greatly reduced.
Irrespective of the noise and lack of understanding of it, the CBN’s milk policy is like selling your generator because you have bought a prepaid meter. Since the prepaid meter is useless without electricity, you will still need your generator until constant electricity can be guaranteed. Common sense.

Kolapo Olapoju
Journalist, Writer, Communicator

Opinion

AddThis

Original Author

Kolapo Olapoju

Disable advertisements

target=_blank>JUST IN: Soldiers Allegedly Rape AAUA Student At Checkpoint

AAUA

A female undergraduate of Adekunle Ajasin University Akungba Akoko, Ondo State was allegedly raped by some soldiers stationed at the military checkpoint in Ikare Akoko, Akoko North-East Local Government Area of the state, SaharaReporters has learnt.
The student, a 300-level in the department of Religious and African Studies, was allegedly harassed, molested and raped inside a post close to the military checkpoint.
One of the sources said the victim was raped while returning from the campus.
He revealed that one of the soldiers simply identified as “Lance Corporal Sunday” has been arrested and also detained by the 32 Artillery Brigade.
“We were travelling from Akungba in a minibus when the armed soldiers flagged us down at their checkpoint on Ikare road.
“Immediately, one of them searched our vehicle and loads and saw the lady (victim) and asked her to come down from the vehicle.
“While this was going on, there was silence inside the bus and when the lady came down, she was accosted to the military post.
“They later told others to move on while they held the lady hostage and out of fear, we had to leave the soldiers and the victim.
“An hour later, we began to suspect why they held the lady in a journey of fifteen minutes because nothing incriminating was on her. We later found out she was raped by the soldiers.”
He added that the student had been taken to the Ondo State Specialist Hospital in Ikare for treatments.
Olawale Oguntause, the chief medical director of the government hospital, confirmed that the rape victim was brought to the facility.
Oguntuase, however, refused to confirm or deny if the female victim was raped.
“As I am speaking to you, I can only tell you that the lady was brought to the hospital over a rape case. But the results of the medical examination carried out on her is not yet ready,” he told SaharaReporters.
Victor Akinpelumi, the university’s spokesperson, said an investigation had been launched into the incident.
“The university has set up a panel to look into the matter,” he said.
A resident of Ikare, Ibrahim Ayodele, said he saw some enraged students when they came to report at the station.
“The incident is true because I saw the students in Ikare Police Station where they came to report the case. Many of them were angry and even threatened to protest the rape case by shutting down the road,” he said.
A police source in Ikare confirmed the rape case in a telephone chat.
He said some friends of the victim visited the station on Wednesday around 7 pm to lodge a complaint.
“Some students came and report the case here and we have started our investigation but we are taking the case to our headquarters in Akure.
“The victim even came with them to the station and mentioned the main culprit who masterminded the rape among the soldiers,” he said.
Femi Joseph, spokesperson for the Ondo State Police Command, said he had not been brief on the case.
Abubakar Zakari, the commandant of the 32 Artillery Brigade, said the rape allegation was a “blackmail” on his officers who are all manning the military checkpoint in Ikare.

CRIME

Military

S**

News

AddThis

Original Author

SaharaReporters, New York

Disable advertisements

target=_blank>WSJ Report: Nigerian Army Denies Existence Of Secret Graveyard Where 1000 Soldiers Buried

The Nigerian Defence Headquarters has denied the existence of secret graveyards in the North-East.
The denial is coming after the Wall Street Journal published its claim of secret graveyards in Nigeria’s northeast area of operation.
Colonel Onyema Nwachukwu, Director, Defence Information, in a statement said, “This insinuation can only emanate from an uninformed position of the author of the said publication. It, therefore, becomes necessary to inform the public that the Armed Forces of Nigeria has a rich and solemn tradition for the interment of our fallen heroes.
“Therefore, it must be unambiguously clarified that the Armed Forces of Nigeria does not indulge in secret burials, as it is sacrilegious and profanity to extant ethos and traditions of the Nigerian military.
“In tandem with the traditions of the Armed Forces, fallen heroes are duly honoured and paid the last respect in befitting military funeral of international standard, featuring funeral parade, gravesite oration, solemn prayers for the repose of departed souls by Islamic and Christian clerics, as well as gun salutes, aside other military funeral rites.”

target=_blank>400-level UI Medical Student Dies In Hospital

Victor Ajidagba, a 400-Level student of the Department of Nursing, University of Ibadan, slumped and died while walking through the Department of Physiology on Wednesday.
Olatunji Oladejo confirmed the incident on Thursday, stating the university will investigate the cause of his death.
He said: “It’s unfortunate that Victor Ajidagba, a 400-level student of the Department of Nursing slumped and died yesterday night (Wednesday) despite efforts of doctors and nurses of UI medical centre, Jaja clinic and at the UCH.”
Ajidagba was rushed to the University Clinic, known as Jaja Clinic, but all attempts to resuscitate and stabilise him was unsuccessful.
According to students who witnessed the incident, the medical officers on duty fought hard to save his life by administering first-aid treatment but had to refer him to the University College Hospital (UCH), Oritamefa, Ibadan, when they discovered the severity of the case.
He was said to have been conveyed in the university ambulance where further treatment was administered on him.
Ajidagba later died in the hospital, despite efforts of the medical officers at the UCH.

Education

PUBLIC HEALTH

News

AddThis

Original Author

SaharaReporters, New York

Disable advertisements

target=_blank>Atiku Asks Buhari To Probe Secret Burial Of 1000 Soldiers By Boko Haram, ISWAP

Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar, has challenged President Muhammadu Buhari to probe the reported secret burial of 1,000 Nigerian soldiers killed by Boko Haram and ISWA, DailyPost reports.
A statement by Atiku on Thursday said the Wall Street Journal report on the matter was saddening and that the attempt to hide the true state of the war on terror was heartbreaking and shocking.
He said: “Heartbreak for the families and friends of those soldiers who, if the report is true, have lost their loved ones, without being allowed to bury them or even to have any sense of closure as regards their fate.
“Shocked that such a thing could happen under a democracy, such as Nigeria is supposed to be. I shudder to think that the cover-up of such an event of epic proportions can be true.
“The men and women of our armed forces are our first, second and last defence against domestic and foreign enemies and should be treated with love, respect, dignity and appreciation for the invaluable service they render to Nigeria.

E2%80%8B target=_blank>Nigeria Buries Soldiers At Night In Secret Cemetery?

Mercy Tamuno holds an image of her husband, Adah, a Nigerian soldier who comrades said was buried in an unmarked grave in Maiduguri
Mrs Tamuno in Abuja with her husband’s uniform
Nigeria’s military built this barrier to wall off what had been farmland on the northern edge of the base in Maiduguri. An expanding cemetery lies on the other side.jpeg
Sarah James, at left, with others living near the Maimalari barracks in Maiduguri. The women said they gave up land they had farmed for years to make way for the expansion of the base’s cemetery..jpeg

Mercy Tamuno holds an image of her husband, Adah, a Nigerian soldier who comrades said was buried in an unmarked grave in Maiduguri

Jonathan Torgovnik | Wall Street Journal

At the northern edge of this city’s sprawling military base, a vast field of churned soil conceals the hidden toll of a deadly offensive by the allies of Islamic State.
After dark, the bodies of soldiers are covertly transported from a mortuary that at times gets so crowded the corpses are delivered by truck, according to Nigerian soldiers, diplomats and a senior government official.
The bodies are laid by flashlight into trenches dug by infantrymen or local villagers paid a few dollars per shift.
“Several of my comrades were buried in unmarked graves at night,” said a soldier from the Maimalari barracks, where more than 1,000 soldiers are based.
“They are dying and being deleted from history.”
The secret graveyard at Maimalari isn’t the only one in Nigeria’s troubled northeast, the senior government official said.
The burials convey a picture at odds with a war Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari, a former general, has repeatedly claimed his army has won.
The reality is that Africa’s largest land force—a U.S. counterterrorism ally—is struggling against an insurgency that first flared a decade ago and is now rejuvenated by Islamic State and the return of fighters from Libya, Syria and Iraq.
The insurgents now control hundreds of square miles of territory across four countries around the Lake Chad basin, a crossroads of Africa where the U.S., U.K. and French militaries have bases or provide special-forces training. On Sunday, gunmen attacked a funeral on the outskirts of Maiduguri, killing at least 65 people, according to government officials.
“This group is one of the most effective, if not the most effective Islamic State contingent at the moment,” said Site Intelligence, a terrorism-monitoring group.
Nigeria’s government last summer stopped reporting the deaths of soldiers in its fight with Boko Haram insurgents and a splinter group that calls itself Islamic State West Africa Province, or ISWAP. Mr. Buhari was re-elected in February after a security-focused campaign in which he repeated that the Islamist insurgencies in Nigeria had been “technically defeated.”
But the sprawling secret graveyard in Maiduguri and an official cemetery at the base, the operational command for the northeastern front in Borno State, now hold the bodies of at least 1,000 soldiers killed since the terror groups began an offensive last summer, according to soldiers and military officials—some of whom estimated a far higher death toll.

Mrs Tamuno in Abuja with her husband’s uniform

Jonathan Torgovnik | Wall Street Journal

The Nigerian military and the presidency didn’t respond to requests for comment on the war, casualties and the secret cemeteries.
In November, Mercy Tamuno was told her husband, Adah, had been killed in an insurgent attack on an outpost in Cross Kauwa, a town about 100 miles north of Maiduguri. When she demanded to see where he was buried, she was taken to the official cemetery at Maimalari, where graves are marked with plywood headstones. There she was led to a spot marked with a plastic bottle with her husband’s name written on it.
“It was the only one marked in this way. I’m not sure it was his grave but that’s what the army told me,” Mrs. Tamuno said.
Two soldiers from Lance Cpl. Tamuno’s unit said he had been buried days earlier in the secret graveyard. The plastic bottle was prepared to appease his wife, they said.
“We know he was buried in the unmarked grave. There was no funeral,” one said.
As the secret cemetery at the Maimalari barracks grows, the military has expanded the site into neighboring fields. “The farmland has been fenced off so they can bury the forces,” said Sarah James, a 50-year-old farmer whose husband is a retired soldier.
Official secrecy and a weak economy have left Nigerian soldiers poorly equipped to fight. Soldiers who would ordinarily rotate out every few months have been on active operations for years. Morale is collapsing and discipline beginning to fray, soldiers and the senior government official said.
Videos reviewed by The Wall Street Journal show Nigerian troops doling out gruesome punishments to suspected jihadists. The videos, which show dismemberment and killing of suspects, suggested the troops were suffering from trauma and needed human-rights training, said David Otto, director of security firm Global Risk International.
Units that have suffered casualties and declining morale aren’t in a position to attack, and are instead defending poorly constructed bases in exposed areas against an increasingly well-equipped enemy.
“There is a systemic misrepresentation of the war that is having severe tactical and operational consequences,” said Chidi Nwaonu, a former soldier who now runs a security consulting firm, Vox Peccavi.
He said the bravery of troops was being undermined by poor decisions of senior commanders. “It’s part cock-up, part conspiracy,” he said.

Nigeria’s military built this barrier to wall off what had been farmland on the northern edge of the base in Maiduguri. An expanding cemetery lies on the other side.jpeg

Jonathan Torgovnik | Wall Street Journal

The rapid rise of the Nigerian Islamic State spinoff, known as ISWAP, begins a new chapter for the jihadist movement after its defeat in Syria and Iraq, Nigerian and Western officials said. The group has an estimated 5,000 fighters who have established themselves in the borderlands around Lake Chad, where they are enmeshing themselves into communities, controlling trade routes, taxing the fishing industry and imposing an extremist brand of Islamic justice.
Islamic State commanders advised them to focus attacks on security forces, in contrast to Boko Haram, which has deployed hundreds of suicide bombers and shot to prominence in 2014 by kidnapping 276 schoolgirls. ISWAP usually attacks at night, when Nigerian air power is less effective.
President Trump has offered additional U.S. support for Nigeria’s military. U.S. experts are training Nigerian bomb squads and the U.S. in November awarded a $329 million contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. for 12 A-29 light attack aircraft for the Nigerian Air Force, with a completion target of 2024.
Western military officials say the Nigerian army is stretched so thin that its top brass are no longer talking seriously about defeating the insurgency, merely containing it.
In a video released by Islamic State in June, insurgents pose in front of seized tanks, armored personnel carriers and naval vessels, and warn government forces to repent “before we catch you.” The video shows militants killing four Nigerian soldiers by firing squad and another by rocket-propelled grenade.
Soldiers are barred from speaking to the media and some unit commanders don’t report deaths to preserve their scant budget allocations, soldiers and diplomats said. But news is starting to leak out through social media. After an attack in November on the army base in Metele, perched on the border with Niger and Chad, a five-minute video circulated among soldiers showing the aftermath. Over images of smoldering tanks and armored vehicles, a narrator laments the quality of military equipment the base was given.
“See the weapons they bring here. These are not working,” he says. “No less than 100-plus soldiers died here. Many are missing in action, they are nowhere to be found.”

Sarah James, at left, with others living near the Maimalari barracks in Maiduguri. The women said they gave up land they had farmed for years to make way for the expansion of the base’s cemetery..jpeg

Jonathan Torgovnik | Wall Street Journal

Nigeria’s military initially refused to comment on the attack. After questions from the senate, the military said 23 soldiers had been killed. It said false casualty figures and the sharing of inaccurate videos were boosting the “propaganda intent of the terrorists.”
When Timothy Olanrewaju, a journalist based in Maiduguri, couldn’t reach his brother, Sgt. Samuel Olanrewaju, for four months, commanders repeatedly assured him that his brother was well, stationed in a sensitive combat zone.
Mr. Olanrewaju learned of his brother’s fate when Islamic State published a video that showed his execution. Several hours later, he was still in shock, slumped on a mattress in his living room, struggling for words. “I couldn’t believe my eyes,” he said. “Why didn’t they tell me the truth?”
The military’s secrecy about casualties is so widespread it is unclear whether Nigeria’s political leaders are aware of the state of the conflict.
When President Buhari visited the Maiduguri base in November, commanders rushed to bury bodies that had collected at the morgue from the recent attack on the base in Metele and several others, according to several soldiers at the base. They moved the bodies from the morgue into the unmarked graves under cover of darkness.
“We could see the headlamps and the torches of the engineering division digging the graves,” said a soldier.
As commanders prepared the base for the president’s arrival, they also drafted in additional medical staff to treat the dozens of wounded soldiers in the base’s hospital wards.
The president arrived with a large group of reporters covering his re-election campaign. The former general had put security front and center.
As Mr. Buhari delivered a rousing address to the soldiers, some tried to disrupt him to register complaints about their conditions. Mr. Buhari pledged to his audience to “do everything within my powers to continue empowering you“ and vowed to improve the welfare of soldiers. “Please maintain your loyalty to the country,” he said.

Boko Haram

Insurgency

Military

Terrorism

News

AddThis

Original Author

Joe Parkinson | Wall Street Journal

Disable advertisements

target=_blank>Nigerian Inmate Dies in Ethiopian Prison, 150 More In Poor Condition

A Nigerian inmate at the Kaliti Prisons in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia has died after an undisclosed ailment, The Nation reports.
The deceased identified as Odemu Efe is an indigene of Warri, Delta State. Efe was among about 150 inmates of Nigerian descent at the prison facility.
It was learnt that he was detained on allegations of possession of hard drugs and money laundering.
Several inmates have fallen ill due to malnourishment as they are allegedly fed once a day with white rice, without sauce, all year round.
The deceased, according to a source, died on July 13 as a result of poor medication after he took ill.
It was also learnt that all efforts to draw the attention of Nigerian officials to his deteriorating condition failed.
A concerned Nigerian, Miss Chika Nwachukwu, accused Nigerian officials of showing lack of care for the welfare of the inmates in foreign lands.
She alleged that there was no commitment on the part of the home government to facilitate their repatriation even when the Ethiopian authorities were willing to release the inmates.
“As we speak, some inmates are very sick and they are not getting good medical attention. Nobody knows whether they will survive since Odemu died in similar
“The Federal Government should please activate the relevant ministries and agencies to bring succour to these citizens languishing in a foreign land by bringing them back home.
“Most of them are willing to be responsible for any cost incurred in the process, and they are also ready to face trial at home for the alleged offences for which they are being detained,” the source stated.
Nwachukwu appealed to the chairman of South-East Governors’ Forum and Governor of Ebonyi State, David Umahi, to mobilise stakeholders in the region to free the inmates, claiming that over 80 per cent of them are from the South East.
According to the source, the governments of other African countries including Kenya, Sudan and Eritrea, whose citizens were also trapped in the Kaliti prisons, asked their foreign missions in Ethiopia to set their nationals free.

CRIME

International

News

AddThis

Original Author

SaharaReporters, New York

Disable advertisements

target=_blank>Yahaya Bello After My Life, Kogi Deputy Governor Cries Out

Kogi State Deputy Governor, Simon Achuba, has alleged that the Governor Yahaya Bello is after his life and called on the police to save him.
According to P.M News, the deputy governor alleged on Thursday that Bello had sent gunmen to terminate his life, while calling on the Inspector General of Police, Department of State Services and the army to come to his aid.
Speaking with newsmen at his residence in Lokoja, Kogi State, Achuba said from all information at his disposal, the governor had mobilized gunmen to attack him.
“I want the police, DSS, IGP to know that if anything should happen to me, my family and aides, the governor should be held responsible,” he said in a report by Vanguard.
Achuba also wants President Muhammadu Buhari to beam his searchlight on the state.
Yahaya Bello has been at loggerheads with his deputy since the beginning of this year . The conflict reportedly led to the seizure of some of Achuba’s benefits.

CRIME

Politics

News

AddThis

Original Author

SaharaReporters, New York

Disable advertisements

NYSC: Sacked Adamawa Lawmaker Faults Court Ruling

Abdulrauf Modibbo, the Adamawa lawmaker sacked by the Supreme Court for not participating in the mandatory one-year National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), said he participated and completed the programme.
Modibbo said this while addressing journalists in Yola, the Adamawa State capital.
He also said his participation in the scheme should not have arisen as he did not enter into the election as a university graduate, the Nation newspaper reports.
“This is not the outcome we worked so hard for,” he said.
He added that he presented his secondary school certificate for the election which produced him as a House of Representatives member, with the knowledge that such qualification meets the requirement of anyone aspiring to that position.
Abdulrauf also said the issue about two primary school certificates and conflicting age specifications was untenable.
“My primary school headteacher invited by the court tendered all necessary information that would have proven my innocence,” he said.
He, however, accepted the apex court’s ruling in good faith, saying he was grateful to have led his people in the short time since the inauguration of the National Assembly in June.
“I have congratulated Jafar Ribadu and offered to work with him,” he said, referring to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in the last election who came next to him at the poll.

Politics

News

AddThis

Original Author

SaharaReporters, New York

Disable advertisements