APC banks on divine intervention in Rivers poll

By: Okoro Chinedu 2014-12-29 13:26
Lagos - The Rivers State Chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is hopeful divine intervention would enable the party retain power in the state in next year’s governorship election.

Dr Dakuku Adol Peterside, will represent the party in the eagerly-anticipated poll to succeed Chibuike Amaechi.

“We have no doubts at all that while we play our own part as humans, Almighty God himself will lead the fight for Dr Peterside’s emergence as the next Governor of our dear Rivers State,” Rivers APC Chairman, Dr Davies Ibiamu Ikanya, said in a statement from Port Harcourt.

“What Dr Peterside did on Sunday, December 21, by dedicating his gubernatorial candidature at the Dr. Obi Wali International Conference Centre in Port Harcourt to God Almighty in the midst of top clergymen, politicians and other stakeholders is unprecedented in the annals of electioneering campaigns in Nigeria. It is a unique demonstration of his strong belief in God’s ability to fight for him,” he added.

Dakuku claimed the dedication was already “working wonders” as could be seen in the “huge success recorded during the official flag-off of APC’s State-wide governorship campaign the next day at Port Harcourt.”

“This election is now simply between the Devil and Almighty God, who is leading APC’s campaign. The choice between the good people of Rivers State is between light and darkness. It is because of the seriousness we attach to the emancipation and development of Rivers State that we are presenting the very best in the person of Dr Dakuku Peterside to continue the great works which our visionary leader, Chibuike Amaechi, will stop in 2015,” he added.

– CAJ News

- CAJ News

No South Africans on missing plane - govt

Johannesburg - The South African government is not aware of any South Africans on the AirAsia plane which went missing at the weekend, the international relations department said on Monday.

"We have not been alerted to any South Africans on that plane," spokesperson Clayson Monyela said.

AP reported AirAsia Flight QZ8501 vanished on Sunday morning in airspace thick with storm clouds on its way from Surabaya, Indonesia, to Singapore.

After the search expanded on Monday, Jakarta's Air Force base commander Rear Marshal Dwi Putranto said an Australian Orion aircraft had detected "suspicious" objects near Nangka island, about 160km south-west of Pangkalan Bun, near central Kalimantan, or 1 120km from where contact with the plane was lost.

It was not clear whether the objects were part of the missing plane, he said.

Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla has since confirmed that the objects were not part of the missing AirAsia plane.

"It has been checked and no sufficient evidence was found to confirm what was reported," Kalla told a press conference at Surabaya airport from where the ill-fated plane departed.

Earlier on Monday, Indonesia search and rescue chief Henry Bambang Soelistyo said it seemed certain the plane had crashed.

The last communication from the cockpit to air traffic control was a request by one of the pilots to increase altitude from 9 754m to 11 582m because of the rough weather.

Air traffic control was not able to immediately grant the request because another plane was in the airspace, said Bambang Tjahjono, director of the state-owned company in charge of air traffic control.

By the time clearance could be given, Flight QZ8501 had disappeared, Tjahjono said, AP reported.
SAPA

Enyeama Makes African Footballer of the Year Top 3 Shortlist

Super Eagles Captain, Vincent Enyeama, has made the final top 3 short-list for the CAF African Player of the Year Award.

Apart from starring for Nigeria at the World Cup, the 32-year-old was impressive in a Lille side that finished third in Ligue 1 last season, helping the club to the UEFA Champions League preliminary stages.
Enyeama kept 21 clean sheets in the last league season.

Current holder; Yaya Toure and Gabon’s Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang are the other two contenders for Africa’s biggest individual honours.

The winner will be unveiled on January 8 in Lagos.

The Super Eagles captain had earlier failed to win the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) organised African Footballer of the Year Award, having been shortlisted among players to vie for its 2014 edition.
Algeria and Porto forward, Yacine Brahimi won the BBC honours.

Orits Wiliki: “I Married My Kid Sister, My Mother’s Last Born”

  

In what is considered a taboo in almost every culture in the world, veteran reggae superstar, Orits Wiliki claims with pride.

The veteran singer who celebrated his 30 years on stage as a musician in Lagos opened up to Punch the secret behind his marriage to popular actress and singer, Becky.
He said: –
“I married my kid sister – my mother’s last born. We are as close siblings can be. That is why we have stayed together for this long.”

New power tariff for residential consumers to take effect in June 2015

The Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC has frozen the newly-approved tariff for residential consumers till June 2015.A statement issued on Thursday and signed by NERC’s Head of Media, Mr. Michael Faloseyi, said that the tariff was a review of the Multi Year Tariff Order, MYTO 2, to factor the losses that were now different.
It explained that the new price of gas was usually part of the minor review done every six months and that the review had raised the cost of distributing power supply nationwide by the 11 electricity distribution companies (Discos).
According to the statement, the tariff is expected to affect all electricity consumers.
“But because of the commitment that NERC to ensure that consumers are not further disposed to increased cost until there are improvements in supply, which we expect shortly, we have frozen the increment for six months for Residential consumers (R2).
“We approved an amendment to the MYTO tariff basically which means a new tariff order that continues with the existing framework but now shows a different figure for the remaining five year tariff structure,” it said.
It said with the commencement of MYTO 2.1, NERC would hold electricity distribution, transmission, generation companies and other market operators to the terms and conditions of their licences.
The statement said the measures were being put in place to ensure that the new owners fund their operations and improve electricity supply.
It said the rationale behind the adjustment was to shield ordinary Nigerians from possibility of rates shock that could have accompanied the review.

22 State Governments Still Owe Workers Over 3 Months Salaries – NLC

The Secretary General of the National Union of Textile Garment and Tailoring Workers of Nigeria (NUTGTWN), Comrade Issa Aremu, has decried the non-payment of workers’ salaries by 22 state governments in the country, saying the development is unacceptable.

In a statement he issued in Kaduna on Thursday, Aremu, who is also the vice president of the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, described the development as a wage theft, wage robbery and economic crime.
The NLC vice president noted that the same governors, who had failed to pay workers their salaries for more than three months, were able to come up with funds to pay their delegates during the just concluded party primary elections across the states.

He, therefore, urged governors of the affected states to devise the same means they used to source for funds to pay delegates, to settle the workers’ salaries without further delay.

He said: “We see that delay in payment of salaries as wage theft, wage robbery. It is actually an economic crime because Nigeria Labour law says thou shall pay the worker as and when due. In fact by 22nd of every month you must have paid the workers fully.

“We never heard of any delegate being owed a single penny during the primary elections, but they cannot get money to pay the workers. In fact, some of the delegates even bought new cars and properties after the primaries because the money they got in just few days is much more than what workers earn in many months”.

Comrade Aremu further noted that it was time for the Federal Government to review upward the national minimum wage in order to reflect with emerging economic challenges and also warned against any attempt by government to further impoverish the Nigerian workers with reduction in pay or loss of jobs on account of the recently announced austerity measure by the Federal government.

He also pointed out that the $65 per barrel of crude oil as captured in the 2015 budget confirmed that Nigeria is an oil dependent economy contrary to the claim by the Minister of Finance and Coordinating Minister for the Economy, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that the budget is projected on a non-oil revenue basis.
Instead, the labour leader believed that sustainable budgets were the ones based on revenue arising from real sector of the economy such as domestic manufacturing and exportation of finished goods.

Mr Aremu said that the National Assembly, while debating the budget proposal, should put policies that will grow the real sectors of the economy and also ensure that the Central Bank of Nigeria lowers the interest rate and stop the free fall of the Naira which will undermine purchasing power of working class Nigerians.
He also asked the National Assembly to make sure the budget captured practical measures on reducing cost of governance, which must begin with drastic reduction of pay and allowances of the Executive and Legislature.

Police arrest 3 armed robbery suspects in Edo

2014-12-27 08:09
Benin - The Edo Police Commandhas arrested three armed robbery suspects along Uwa Street, in the Oredo Local Government Area of the state.

A statement signed by the Edo Police Public Relations Officer, Mr Joseph Edoigiawerie, said the trio are Samson Obi, Terry Ekokota and Esther James.

It said they ‎were arrested by the command at their hideout, following a tip-off.
"A search conducted on them led to the recovery of two locally-made guns, two live cartridges and some charms from the suspects,’’ the statement said.

The suspected armed robbers were also said to have confessed that they were planning an operation before they were apprehended.

Meanwhile, the command has recovered one locally-made single-barrel gun, 13 live cartridges, one Army camouflage cap and three wraps of weeds, suspected to be Indian hemp.

The statement said the items were recovered from the vehicle of two fleeing suspects.
The suspects, both male, were said to have abandoned the car on sighting some officers of the command, who were on a routine patrol in the Oluku area of Benin.

"The policemen on routine patrol at Oluku were informed about the suspicious movements of two men seated in a Cordoba car with registration number AG 678 AKA‎,’’ Edoigiawerie said in the statement.
The state police command, while appreciating the public for providing useful information to it, however said in the statement that efforts "are in progress to fish out the fleeing suspects’’.

- NAN