Gunmen kill 27 in Plateau

Boko Haram Gunmen

The Chairman of Riyom Local Government in Plateau, Mrs Josephine Piyo, has said that 27 people died in an attack by gunmen on Bachi District of the area on Thursday.
She told a joint team of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) and the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) on visit to the area on Tuesday that the attackers torched 70 houses and left them in rubbles.
Represented by the Council Secretary, Mr. Alex Kundang, the chairman said the attack also led to the displacement of no fewer than 3,520 people from their homes.
She said those displaced were currently staying at different camps for Internally Displaced Persons in the area.
Piyo described the situation as pathetic and that urgent national attention was needed to address the situation as the attacks on Riyom people had become recurrent.
“The methods of the attacks are similar to that of Boko Haram in terms of approach and the weapon used,” she said.
The chairman appealed to the Federal Government to design a strategy to check the attacks in the manner it had tackled the Boko Haram insurgency.
Mr Eugene Melong, a senior official who led the NEMA North Central team on the assessment visit, expressed sadness over the incident.
“We are here with my team to carry out on the spot assessment, generate report and then send it to our headquarters to enable the government to render some assistance,” Melong said.
The Executive Secretary of SEMA, who was represented by its Director of Administration, Mr Biser Longnan said that the Plateau Government planned to assist the displaced persons.
Mr Dalyop Kanbut, the leader of displaced persons in Camp 1, located at Farinlaba Local Education Authority Primary School, Riyom, called for a lasting solution to the attacks.
He said the attacks had brought untold hardship to the people.
At Camp 2 located at Riyom Community Hall, Mr Sunday Baren said the people needed assistance, especially food and drugs.

Jonathan’s Claims To Rebuild Rumuwoji Mile One A Deceit  

 

President Goodluck Jonathan

Angry reaction has trailed the plan by the Federal Government to rebuild the Rumuwoji Mile One Market as announced yesterday by the President Goodluck Jonathan through Adamu Muazu, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, while handing over N250 million cheque and some relief materials to the traders who suffered fire disaster in December last year.
The Mayor of the Port Harcourt City Local Government Council, Nnamdi Nwuche, has pooh-poohed the announcement as a mere deceit by Jonathan to gain cheap popularity in a state that he had abandoned, and cannot lay claim to any tangible project his administration had executed despite garnering the highest votes in the Rivers during the Presidential election.
Nwuche gave his swift reaction in a statement in Port Harcourt a few hours after the announcement made by Muazu that rebuilding the Rumuwoji Mile One would be one of President Jonathan’s first priority project if he wins the second tenure in 2015. He brandished the statement by Mu’azu as a fake promissory note that is “unachievable and unrealisable.”
He said: “The PDP and Mr President knows that building and the running of local markets are the statutory duty of the local government councils as laid out in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria”.
The Port City Council boss whose council regulates the daily operation of the market announced that contrary to the impression the federal government has created thereby turning the grief of the hapless traders in a political campaign article, the Rivers State Government has mobilised the contactors to start the building of a new market.
“Governor Chibuike Amaechi has graciously approved the mobilization of contractors to commence work at the burnt market. Monier Construction Company, MCC, limited is one of the companies that were awarded the contract and the company would mobilize to site two week’s time,” Nwuche said.

Published on October 14, 2014 by

President Goodluck Jonathan

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has slammed the PDP-led Federal Government for its insulting and disingenuous explanation aimed at deceiving Nigerians over the US$9.3 million cash-for-arms deal that went awry in South Africa, saying everything about the deal is shady.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Tuesday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said the deal violates the foreign currency laws of Nigeria and South Africa, violates Nigeria’s Money Laundering law as well as the Public Procurement Act and makes a mess of the Federal Government’s cashless policy.

In addition, it said, all the circumstances surrounding the transaction were umbrageous, including the fact that the funds involved, though in cash, were neither declared before departure in Nigeria nor declared on arrival in South Africa.

”Based on these shady circumstances, one can safely conclude that the arms to be procured, if at all, were not meant for any Boko Haram fight as claimed by the government but perhaps a ploy to stockpile arms for the private militia of the PDP ahead of next year’s general elections.

”As we said in our earlier statements on this issue, the office of the NSA cannot and does not procure arms for the armed services. These services procure their own weapons. Therefore, it baffles that the office of the NSA issued the end-user certificate for the transactions. This is a shady deal,” APC said.

The party said in order to buttress its assertion that the whole deal is shady, there are questions that the Federal Government has bluntly refused to answer in connection with the ill-fated deal, including why a private plane was used for a supposedly-official deal when there are over 10 aircraft in the Presidential Fleet.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed

Nigerians are also eager to know why the money for the purchase of the arms was not transferred to the country’s Embassy in South Africa for onward transfer to the contractor, if indeed a contractor was used as claimed by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, or the money transferred directly to the contractor, and why the Nigerian government chose to deal with an arms contractor with questionable registration in South Africa.

”If indeed the transaction was clean and official, which representatives of the office of the NSA and the Chief of Defence Staff were on the dollar-ferrying plane? Who indeed was the arms meant for? And perhaps the most important information of all: Who and who were on the plane?,” it said.

APC said Nigerians are more interested in who was on the plane rather than who was not on it, hence the government should stop hiding behind ‘national security’ and come out to identify those on the plane.

The party said irrespective of the feverish moves by the Federal Government, using less-than-sincere officials, to spin the whole shady deal and make it look clean and official, the truth is that even terrorists could not have been engaged in a shadier and more crooked deal to obtain weapons.

BERLIN (Reuters) - A U.N. medical official who caught Ebola while working in Liberia has died in the German hospital where he was being treated, the clinic in Leipzig said on Tuesday.

"The patient sick with Ebola fever died during the night in St. Georg Clinic in Leipzig. Despite intensive medical measures and maximum efforts by the medical team, the 56-year-old U.N. employee succumbed to the serious infectious disease," it said.

The medic, who has not been named, arrived last week and was the third Ebola patient to be treated in Germany.

It's been seven months since Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 simply vanished like Amelia Earhart's plane did over the Pacific Ocean in 1937. The latest official news update suggests Flight 370 made a left turn before spiraling into the Indian Ocean. However, one airline CEO is not convinced. Emirates Airlines' Sir Tim Clarke stops short in alleging a cover up in the planes disappearance, and offers this shocking theory: Malaysia Flight MH370 was not on autopilot and was likely under control of the pilot until the very end.

A crew member looks out an observation window aboard a Royal New Zealand Air Force (RNZAF) P3 Orion maratime search aircraft as it flies over the southern Indian Ocean looking for debris from missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370

Photo by Pool/Getty Images

According to an October 13 news update from The Independent on the missing airliner, Clarke is quoted as saying, "MH370 was, in my opinion, under control, probably until the very end.” Of course, Clarke's statements conflict with the current generally-accepted data analysis from the Australian transportation Safety Bureau (ATSB), which says 370 was flying by computer assistance and crashed after the Malaysia Boeing 777 ran out of fuel.

 President Goodluck Jonathan

The Special Adviser to President Goodluck Jonathan on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, has insisted that the President has not stolen any public funds since the beginning of his tenure.

Abati said on Sunday while responding to questions on the listing of President Jonathan as one of the richest African presidents, during a programme on Channels Television.

The presidential spokesperson, who earlier issued a statement on the matter, said the website which claimed that Jonathan was worth $100m, mischievously wanted to portray the President as corrupt.

Abati stated that President Jonathan had not stolen any public fund since he came into office and described him as an honest man.

He said, “What that Internet site and those copy-cat media houses tried to do was to give the impression that the President is corrupt. The site even said the leaders they had listed stole their people’s wealth. It’s absolutely untrue. President Jonathan has not stolen anybody’s wealth.

“He is a very honest and decent man. Those who know him knows that he is not in office to amass wealth but to serve Nigerians to the best of his ability and to leave a legacy that the present and the next generation would be proud of.”

In a response to demands by some Nigerians for the President to publicly declare his asset, Abati said Jonathan would not go against the law to declare his assets publicly.

He said, “President Jonathan has dutifully complied with regulations and has declared his assets, every year and at all occasions. If anyone wants to find out, President Jonathan does not have $100m either in cash or in assets.

“He has always declared his assets but the law does not require any public official to declare his asset publicly. The body that is in charge of declaration of assets is the Code of Conduct Bureau.

“The President has done what is required, anybody who is looking for information on his assets should know that the appropriate place to go is the Code of Conduct Bureau. You don’t expect the President to go against the law and do a public declaration.”

Abati noted that there was still a possibility that the President will go ahead and sue the website for libel.

He added that what the website did was not a retraction and said its management had also not apologised to the President.

“Before the statement that was issued went out, President Jonathan briefed his lawyers. It’s for the lawyers to take it from there,” Abati said.

 Governor Kayode Fayemi

Ekiti State Governor, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, has said he is ready to face any probe panel in order to defend the actions his administration.

Speaking with journalists on Sunday in Ado Ekiti, the governor said there was nothing unusual in an administration being called upon to defend the actions taken while in office.

He said, “I expect that I would be called upon to defend certain actions or clarify actions and explain what I have done in office. That is stewardship. Anyone who has served must be prepared to render an account of stewardship, but even before I am called, I mean I have almost 1,500-page handover note for the incoming administration and I am sure they would have enough to chew on.

“And if they are not satisfied, I am sure they can ask questions as long as the questions are asked in a manner that does not impugn my character which I hold very dearly. And there is no reason why they should not be free to ask questions. It is a legitimate expectation of any new government to ask questions about what has transpired.”

Fayemi also said the All Progressives Congress will maintain control of the Ekiti House of Assembly after he exited power on Thursday.

He said, “We were 24 (lawmakers) before; we are now 25 in the House. So, if we assume that the lone PDP member is likely to join us, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the 25 from our side would do an Adamawa overnight and cross over to the other side.”

The governor, who described the recent attacks on the state’s judiciary as an aberration, stressed that his administration embarked on fundamental development of institutions in Ekiti rather than engage in frivolous politicking.

“I’m a student of the Awo School, I cannot recall any time while growing up, in all my admiration of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, hearing that he was sitting by the road side eating ‘boli’ (roasted plantain) with some people in order to demonstrate how close to the grassroots he was and I never saw him ride on ‘okada’ (commercial motorcycle) because he wanted to prove that he was a grassroots person,” Fayemi said.

He further condemned the recent attacks on judiciary workers in the state, describing it as a “monumental travesty.”

He called on right-thinking persons to condemn attacks.

“Once brigandage and thuggery descend on any society, there is a problem. What we have seen in the courts in Ekiti is monumental travesty that really shouldn’t be supported by any right-thinking person,” he said.