School Proprietor, 3 Others Arraigned In Kano Over Sodomy Scandal

Kano State Police command on Thursday arraigned the proprietor of Hassan Gwarzo College, Professor Ibrahim Ayagi, and three others following a sodomy scandal that rocked the college recently.

 
The Herald Nigeria 
 
Their arraignment comes on the heels of an investigation ordered by the Kano State government.  The investigation was led by a high-powered Commission of Inquiry headed by a renowned academic.  Following the inquiry, the school was temporarily closed for nearly three months.

Dr. Ayagi and three others were arraigned on an 8-count charge of criminal conspiracy, negligence, abetment, failure to provide information, and joint action among others.

In his submission, counsel to the accused, Barrister Abdulrazak Bagwai, told the court that he was vehemently opposed to the arraignment of his client given that it was occurring prior to the date fixed for the arraignment.

According to him, his clients were subjected to ill-treatment by the police despite the fact that the court had restrained the police from re-arresting his clients given that they were granted bail.  Mr. Bagwai went on to ask that the court delay any arraignment until February 29, 2016, the date fixed by the court for the continuation of the hearing.

Disputing the claim made by Mr. Bagwai, the Police Prosecution counsel, Barrister S. O. Akwe, said there was never a time the accused persons were shabbily treated or unilaterally arrested.  The prosecution counsel stressed that the accused could testify to the polite manner they received at the hands of the police during the investigation.

Mr. Akwe also said that the reason for the early arraignment was to draw the court’s attention to an additional charge being made against Dr. Ayagi.

After this heated exchange between the defense and prosecution’s counsels, the presiding Judge, Chief Magistrate Aminu Kabara ruled that the date for the continuation of the hearing of the case would remain as February 29.

The arraignment comes a day after the State government announced that the college should be immediately re-opened.

The State Commissioner of Information, Youths, Sports, and Culture, Muhammad Garba, disclosed the decision while briefing journalists on the outcome of the executive council meeting held at the government house.

He said that the State government withdrew the whopping N40 million paid for the Senior Secondary School (SSS) 3 students of the school to sit for Senior Secondary School Examination (SSCE) examinations at some private schools following its closure some months ago.

"This evening, after tabling issues at the executive council meeting, the State government has directed that with immediate effect, Hassan Gwarzo Secondary School should be re-opened following the sodomy allegation at the school," Mr. Garba said.

The State Commissioner went on to say that that the state government has resolved to issue measures and guidelines to the school management. The State government would make sure the school management abides by should they wish to continue teaching at the institution.

He further said that the government has directed the school management to provide adequate security measures in order to create a conducive atmosphere of learning for the students.

He assured those present that while the school has been re-opened investigations by the Nigeria Police Force and State Security Service (SSS) would continue until the mystery behind the alleged incident is unravelled.

BREAKING: Olisa Metuh Freed After Meeting Bail Conditions

The Publicity Secretary for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh, was released on bail from Kuje Prison on Thursday.

 
Olisa Metuh freed after meeting bail conditions 
 
His release followed his meeting the bail conditions set by the courts hearing his case.
The Director of New Media for the PDP, Deji Adeyanju, tweeted a photo of himself and Mr. Metuh moments after the latter’s release from Kuje.

The Economist Magazine Calls Jonathan ‘An Ineffectual Buffoon,’ And That Buhari Killing Industry

The enormously influential weekly magazine, The Economist, headquartered in the United Kingdom, described the former Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan as an “ineffectual buffoon” during this week’s print article titled Crude Tactics.

 
Muhammadu Buhari and President Goodluck Jonathan 
 
The publication of this article comes during Mr. Jonathan’s global tour. Earlier this week he spoke in Geneva, Switzerland to members of the press club. Last week Mr. Jonathan visited the United States where he met with supporters and attend the Presidential Precinct which was held in Virginia.

According to The Economist, the Buhari “government has cracked down on corruption, which had flourished under the previous president, Goodluck Jonathan, an ineffectual buffoon who let politicians and their cronies fill their pockets with impunity.”

The remainder of the article focuses on the struggles of the Nigerian economy, which they argue stems mainly from the drop in price of oil and ineffective monetary policies. The article noted that economic growth in Nigeria for 2015 was about 3 percent, half that of 2014, and that the stock market has also halved in value since 2014.

The Economist noted that President Buhari’s challenges, which include security concerns from Boko Haram, mirror the same he inherited when he removed the former government in the 1908s in a coup. “The problems are almost identical,” the magazine wrote.

The article concluded by saying that the economic crunch Nigeria is currently feeling “is one that Nigeria has been through before—under the then youthful Mr. Buhari. Then, as now, he refused to let the market set the value of the currency. Instead he shut out imports, causing the legal import trade to fall by almost 50% and killing much of Nigeria’s nascent industry in the process.”

“Today, as in the 1980s, the president is making a bad situation worse,” according to the Economist.

Dasukigate: How We Laundered Money for Metuh -Witnesses

More witnesses were presented by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, January 28, 2016 before Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja to testify in the ongoing case of alleged money laundering involving the National Spokesperson of the People’s Democratic Party,PDP, Olisa Metuh and his company, Destra Investment Limited.

 
Olisa Metuh Brought To Court In Cuffs

 
Metuh is being tried for allegedly receiving N400 million (four hundred million naira) from former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd), who is also being tried for laundering $2.1 billion.
At the last sitting, January 27, 2016, Eno Mfon Efiong, a staff of Diamond Bank Plc and an account officer of the defendant, who testified as the 4th prosecution witness confirmed to the court, a credit transaction from the Office of the National Security Adviser into Destra Investment Limited account.

At the resumed hearing today, counsel to EFCC, Sylvanus Tahir presented Yomi Badejo-Okusanya, a Public Relations consultant and Kabiru Ibrahim, a Bureau De Change Operator who testified as 5th and 6th prosecution witness respectively.

Badejo-Okusanya, while being led in evidence, told the court that, he was paid a total sum of N77m (seventy-seven million naira) by the 2nd defendant, Destra Investment Limited, to carry out media campaigns for PDP.

Documents in support of his claim including documents containing evidence of payments for different placements of advertorials of PDP in various media were tendered and admitted as exhibits.
Testifying, Ibrahim (PW6)  told the court that, he was given the sum of $1m (one million dollars) to change and pay into the account of Destra Investment Limited, a sum whose naira equivalent amounted to N103m (one hundred and three million naira).

Thereafter, Justice Abang adjourned to February 4, 2016 for continuation of trial.
Wilson Uwujaren
Head, Media & Publicity
28th January 2016

Boko Haram: Jonathan sheds light on African polity at Geneva

The former president of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, has revealed secrets of how he tackled Boko Haram insurgency in the northeast of Nigeria, while he was still at the helms of affairs.

Jonathan said that one of his greatest tools for fighting the war against against the sect, was education. He made the disclosure while addressing a press conference at the Geneva Press Club on Wednesday, January 27.

The former commander-in chief gave details of his post presidential focus and touched on some of the roles his administration played in key areas of the Nigerian and West Africa polity.

Ex-president Jonathan honoured in Switzerland.

The speech which laid particular emphasis on security and education can be read below:
Though this event is billed as a press conference on a Better Security and Education for West Africa, for the sake of time, I will focus on my experience in government which gave me a practical demonstration of how education impacts on security.

I will thereafter touch on my post presidential focus which is on advancing democracy and good governance in Africa and increasing access to opportunity for wealth generation in Africa.

If you peruse the official UNESCO literacy rates by country, what you will find is that all of the top ten most literate nations in the world are at peace, while almost all of the top 10 least literate nations in the world are in a state of either outright war or general insecurity.

Lower education levels are linked to poverty and poverty is one of the chief causative factors of crime whether it is terrorism or militancy or felonies.With this at the back of my mind, I began the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation beginning with my very first budget as president in 2011. My policy was to fight insecurity in the immediate term using counter insurgency strategies and the military and for the long term I fought it using education as a tool.

As I have always believed, if we do not spend billions educating our youths today, we will spend it fighting insecurity tomorrow. And you do not have to spend on education just because of insecurity. It is also the prudent thing to do.

Nigeria, or any African nation for that matter, can never become wealthy by selling more minerals or raw materials such as oil. Our wealth as a nation is between the ears of our people.

It is no coincidence that the northeast epicenter of terrorism in Nigeria is also the region with the highest rate of illiteracy and the least developed part of Nigeria.

In Nigeria, the federal government actually does not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education, but I  could not in good conscience stomach a situation where 52.4% of males in the northeastern region of Nigeria have no formal Western education.

The figure is even worse when you take into account the states most affected by the insurgency.
83.3% of male population in Yobe state have no formal Western education. In Borno state it is 63.6%.
Bearing this in mind is it a coincidence that the Boko Haram insurgency is strongest in these two states?
So even though we did not have a responsibility for primary and secondary education going by the way the Nigerian federation works, I felt that where I had ability, I also had responsibility even if the constitution said it was not my responsibility.

Knowing that terrorism thrives under such conditions my immediate goal was to increase the penetration of Western education in the region while at the same time making sure that the people of the region did not see it as a threat to their age old practices of itinerant Islamic education known as Almajiri.

For the first time in Nigeria’s history, the federal government which I led, set out to build 400 Almajiri schools with specialized curricula that combined Western and Islamic education. 160 of them had been completed before I left office.

I am also glad to state that when I emerged as President of Nigeria on May 6th 2010, there were nine states in the northern part of the country that did not have universities. By the time I left office on the 29th of May 2015, there was no Nigerian state without at least one federal  university.

Now the dearth of access to formal education over years created the ideal breeding ground for terror to thrive in parts of Nigeria but there are obviously other dimensions to the issue of insecurity in Nigeria and particularly terrorism.

You may recall that the fall of the Gaddafi regime in August 2011 led to a situation where sophisticated weapons fell into the hands of a number of non state actors with attendant increase in terrorism and instability in North and West Africa.

The administration I headed initiated partnership across West Africa to contain such instability in nations such as Mali, which I personally visited in furtherance of peace.

And with those countries contiguous to Nigeria, especially nations around the Lake Chad basin, we formed a coalition for the purpose of having a common front against terrorists through the revived Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF).

Those efforts continue till today and have in large part helped decimate the capacity of Boko Haram.
Another aspect of the anti terror war we waged in Nigeria that has not received enough attention is our effort to improve on our intelligence gathering capacity.

Prior to my administration, Nigeria’s intelligence architecture was designed largely around regime protection, but through much sustained effort we were able to build capacity such that our intelligence agencies were able to trace and apprehend the masterminds behind such notorious terror incidences as the Christmas day bombing of the St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, Niger state.

Other suspects were also traced and arrested including those behind the Nyanya and Kuje bombings.
Not only did we apprehend suspects, but we tried and convicted some of them including the ring leader of the Madalla bombing cell, Kabir Sokoto, who is right now serving a prison sentence.

But leadership is about the future. I am sure you have not come here to hear me talk about the way backward. You, like everyone else, want to hear about the way forward.

I am no longer in office, and I no longer have executive powers on a national level. However, I am more convinced now than ever about the nexus between education and security.

My foundation, The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, was formed to further democracy, good governance and wealth generation in Africa.

Of course, charity begins at home and for the future, what Nigeria needs is to focus on making education a priority.

Thankfully, the administration that succeeded mine in its first budget, appears to have seen wisdom in continuing the practice of giving education the highest sectoral allocation. This is commendable.
I feel that what people in my position, statesmen and former leaders, ought to be doing is to help build consensus all over Africa, to ensure that certain issues should not be politicized.

Education is one of those issues. If former African leaders can form themselves into an advisory group to gently impress on incumbent leaders the necessity of meeting the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) recommended allocation of 26% of a nations annual budget on education, I am certain that Africa will make geometric progress in meeting her millennium development goals and improving on every index of the human development index.

Data has shown that as spending on education increases, health and well being increases and incidences of maternal and infant mortality reduce.

In Nigeria for instance, average life expectancy had plateaued in the mid 40s for decades, but after 2011, when we began giving education the highest sectoral allocation, according to the United Nations, Nigeria enjoyed her highest increase in average life expectancy since records were kept. We moved from an average life expectancy of 47 years before 2011 to 54 years by 2015.

I had earlier told you about the connection between education and insecurity.
I believe that it is the job of former leaders and elder statesmen to convince executive and legislative branches across Africa to work together to achieve the UNESCO recommended percentage as a barest minimum.

I intend to offer my services, through The Goodluck Jonathan Foundation, for this purpose and I invite interested organizations to help us make this happen.

Ladies and gentlemen of the press, this, in a nutshell are some of my thoughts for a better security and education for Africa and I will now entertain your questions,” the statement reads.

The Vanguard reports that the conference was well attended, with an audience made up mostly of diplomats, policy makers and journalists.

In the same vein, GEJ has made some remarks regarding the ongoing $2.1 billion arms scandal thatis rocking Nigeria at present. The ex-president said he would not interfere with ongoing prosecutions, adding that his voice will be heard on the issue in due course.

Rivers judgment: PDP offers olive branch to APC

 – Rivers state PDP chairman, Mr Felix Obuah, told APC members that the door is opened for any of them to join the ruling party.
– Felix Obuah disclosed that Governor Nyesome Wike’s extension of hands of fellowship to the APC was borne out of open-mindedness and genuine love for all, irrespective of party affiliations.
– Rivers state chairman of the APC, Dr Davies Ikanya, disclosed that the party leadership received the Supreme Court judgment with mixed feelings.

Rivers APC says it will leave Wike to God after the Supreme Court upheld his victory

Following the Supreme Court judgment, which upheld the election of Governor Nyesome Wike of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday, January 27, the state’s chapter of the party has offered olive branch to the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In a statement issued by the state’s chairman of the PDP, Mr Felix Obuah, he told the opposition party members that the door is opened for any of them to come into the state’s ruling party.
The Tribune reports that Obuah advised APC members in the state to accept and take advantage of Governor Wike’s call and invitation for collective efforts to push the state forward, noting that the governor was magnanimous in victory.

According to him, Wike’s extension of hands of fellowship to the APC was borne out of open-mindedness and genuine love for all, irrespective of party affiliations.

The chairman pointed out that the governor had a burning desire to transform the Rivers state from its primitive base of hazardous politics to that, directed by sound, progressive and patriotic statesmen.
He urged the party’s ward chairmen in the state to take advantage of Wike’s hand of fellowship by accepting APC members that are willing to defect and move the state forward.

Reacting to PDP’s offer, the state chairman of the APC, Dr Davies Ikanya, in a statement, disclosed that the party’s leadership received the Supreme Court judgment with mixed feelings. He insisted that the election was marred with violence, but assured that the party would neither applaud nor condemn the judgment.
Ikanya pointed out that, it was the violence that marred the elections that made the two lower courts to order rerun elections for 22 state House of Assembly seats out of 32, the three senatorial seats and 12 out of 13 House of Representatives seats.

“Ordinarily, such large-scale annulment should have logically led to upholding the annulment of the governorship election as pronounced by the Tribunal and the Appeal Court.

“While we are neither applauding nor condemning the decision of the apex court, we can only give thanks and adoration to God Almighty whose wisdom surpasses that of man,” he said.

However, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers state has alleged a plot by certain desperate politicians to eliminate its chairman, Bro Felix Obuah. This allegation was contained in a statement made by Obuah’s special adviser on media and publicity, Jerry Needam. The party alleged that the threat points to the direction of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

How ogogoro killed 2 people in Edo

– Two persons died after consuming locally brewed illicit gin, popularly called “ogogoro” in Ugieda, South Ibie, in Etsako West local government area of Edo state.
– The local ruler of the community, (Aidonigie of South Ibie), Alhaji Kelvin Danisi, disclosed that a ban would be placed on sales and consumption of the illicit gin.  
– The chairman of Etsako West local government council, Mr. Yesufu Busari, said the council would liaise with relevant stakeholders, especially dealers of the local gin, to enlighten the people on current happenings.

A display of various locally brewed gins

Months after several persons allegedly died in Ondo and Rivers states, after consuming locally brewed illicit gin, popularly called “ogogoro” two persons reportedly died on Tuesday, January 26 in Ugieda, South Ibie, in Etsako West local government area of Edo state, after consuming ogogoro.

Three other persons who also consumed the substance suspected to be contaminated, are said to be presently hospitalised and doctors are battling to save their lives.

Sources in the town had it that the five persons complained of unusual hotness and aches in their stomach after consuming the local dry gin.

An eye-witness, Mr Lukman Rilwan, who spoke to journalists on the incident, said: “After they have consumed the ogogoro, they began complaining of stomach ache. Unfortunately the two died while three are currently hospitalised at the hospital.”

Also commenting on the incident, the local ruler of the community, (Aidonigie of South Ibie), Alhaji Kelvin Danisi, disclosed that a ban would be placed on sales and consumption of the illicit gin.

“So we are doing everything to make sure that such things don’t happen again. I have already summoned a meeting of all those that are into sales of alcohol and we are going to place a ban on illicit gin,” the traditional ruler said.

 

Speaking in the same vein, the chairman of Etsako West local government council, Mr. Yesufu Busari, who also confirmed the incident, said he got report “that two people have died and three others are still critically ill at the hospital.”

Busari said the council would liaise with relevant stakeholders, especially dealers of the local gin, to educate and enlighten the people on current happenings. He appealed to people of the council to desist from consuming illicit gin.
 
Efforts to get comment from Edo state police command spokesman, DSP Abiodun Osifo, yielded no result as calls made to his cell phone went unanswered.

Ogogoro has caused more pains than relaxation for many as it would be recalled that a driver was few months ago arrested by police in Benin after he crushed his friend to death moments after they enjoyed locally distilled gin, popularly called “ogogoro.”

The incident happened on Monday, September 28 when the driver who worked for a private firm in the state visited his 80-year-old friend, Pa Eghobawaye, who was the oldest man in Nekpenekpen street, off First East Circular road in Edo.