Yesterday’s murder of Olaniyan Damilola, a Level 400 student of the Lagos State University [LASU] by suspected cult members may turn into another endless maze for the police as witnesses fail to volunteer information.
Sources within the police force say the body of the student, who was also known in showbiz circles as Damino Damoche, was deposited at a Badagry morgue after it was removed from the scene of the crime in front of the university’s Ojo Campus gate.
The source also disclosed that the family of the deceased has asked to be allowed to take away his body, but that the request has not yet been granted.
Following Damilola’s shooting yesterday, some members of his Eiye Confraternity threatened to retaliate.
“Many must fall for this,” one of them threatened after bidding the victim a safe ‘flying’.
Eyewitness accounts suggest that the final year student was killed with three gun shots; two to his head and one into his ribs blasting through his left hand in what seems to be a reprisal attack by a rival cult on the LASU campus.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Declaring, “I am not a dictator,” President Barack Obama urged Americans on Friday to help him pressure Republicans to help halt painful automatic government spending cuts. Obama acknowledged that the $85 billion "sequestration" would not be the end of the world, but warned that it would slow the tepid recovery and cost jobs.
"This is not going to be an apocalypse, I think, as people have said," the president underlined. "It's just dumb. And it's going to hurt. It's going to hurt individual people, and it's going to hurt the economy overall."
Obama spoke in the White House briefing room shortly after meeting with Republican House Speaker John Boehner, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The talks failed to prevent the cuts from going into effect by midnight, as scheduled.
"If Congress comes to its senses a week from now, a month from now, three months from now, then there's a lot of open running room there for us to grow our economy much more quickly," Obama said.
Apparently stung by criticisms that he has overhyped the possible damage from sequestration for political gain, Obama pointed to government workers—notably the janitors who mop the Capitol floors—who will get a pay cut, as well as small businesses that rely on dwindling government contracts, and warned of a "ripple effect" through the broader economy, reports The Ticket.
"I don’t anticipate a huge financial crisis, but people are going to be hurt," the president said. "We’re not making that up, that’s not a scare tactic."
Obama said some Republicans have privately signaled they would accept tax revenue increases as part of a compromise to replace sequestration, while some Democrats agree with his calls to overhaul Medicare.
“So there is a caucus of common sense up on Capitol Hill, it’s just it’s a silent group right now,” the president said. “In the coming days and in the coming weeks, I’m going to keep on reaching out to them.”
“I am prepared to do hard things and to push my Democratic friends to do hard things. But what I can’t do is ask middle-class families, ask seniors, ask students to bear the entire burden of deficit reduction," he said. "It's not fair, it's not right."
Obama said Republican leaders like Boehner face resistance to a grand bargain from rank-and-file GOP lawmakers who like to “paint horns on my head.”
Obama, pressed by a reporter on how much responsibility he bears for the standoff, tried to turn the tables: “What more do you think I should do?”
"I know that this has been some of the conventional wisdom that's been floating around Washington that somehow, even though most people agree that I'm being reasonable, that most people agree I'm presenting a fair deal, the fact that they [Republicans] don't take it means that I should somehow do a Jedi mind-meld with these folks and convince them to do what's right," he said. (His "Jedi mind-meld" drew swift derision on Twitter, chiefly from conservatives, for mixing the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises.)
Obama has accused Republicans of refusing to raise "a dime's worth" of new tax revenues by closing loopholes that chiefly benefit the wealthiest Americans and rich corporations in order to reduce the deficit. Republicans have countered that revenues raised that way should not go to pay for government spending but to lower tax rates, which they say will create jobs.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The Coalition Against Corrupt Leaders (CACOL) has censured the Nigerian National Petroleum (NNPC) and a subsidiary of the corporation, Pipeline and Products Marketing Company (PPMC) for the move to sell off M. T. Tuma, an oil vessel owned by PPMC, after over $60million has allegedly been wasted on its maintenance.
The House of Representatives yesterday raised alarm over the plan. In a motion sponsored by Mudashiru Akinlabi, it was revealed that the vessel left the shores of Nigeria in 2007 for a routine dry docking which was to last three months but was abandoned for almost six years, at a cost to the nation of about $5million. The vessel found its way back into the country in May 2012 without the maintenance job being done properly, and incurred about $60million in demurrage and other port charges.
Speaking on behalf of CACOL, its Executive Chairman, Debo Adeniran, urged President Goodluck Jonathan to address the endemic corruption pervading the Nigerian oil sector.
“It is very unfortunate that the NNPC could hold the whole country to ransom without caution from any quarters,” he said. “It is high time President Goodluck Jonathan put down his feet to address the rot that is bedeviling our oil sector. Many reports by various committees have revealed that NNPC is a cesspit of corruption in this country.”
He regretted that many contracts and millions have gone down the drain towards the required work on the said vessel without any such work actually being done, and with no heads rolling, only for the NNPC now to put up the vessel up for sale to further fatten the accounts of some government officials and their cronies.
Commending the House of Representatives for its move to investigate the allegations, CACOL urged the committee saddled with the investigation to beam its searchlight on the individuals and companies that have participated directly or indirectly in the frittering exercise and hand the report over to the anti-graft agencies for appropriate prosecution.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The judge presiding over the sentencing of Henry Okah in the Johannesburg High Court, Neels Claassen has postponed the case again to the 18th, 19th, and 20th of March.
Although the judge had said he would not allow any other postponement, he said he had to do this in order to give Mr. Okah’s new legal team time to get used to the notes left by the old legal team.
The new team led by Gerrit Miller requested for the time following the withdrawal of the former team led by Lucky Multulanla.
The prosecution described the request as a ploy to delay the delivery of justice but Judge Claassen went ahead to grant the plea because, as he said, he didn’t want to force the new team.
If the hearing had held today, witnesses from Nigeria and the United States would have testified in a bid to mitigate the sentencing of terror suspect, Henry Okah following the request of his former attorney, Mr. Multulanla at his last appearance on the 1st of February, to give witnesses time to get to South Africa to testify.
Mr. Okah intended calling at least five people to testify.
He was found guilty in January of 13 counts of terrorism, including engaging in terrorist activities, conspiracy to engage in terrorist activities, and delivering, placing, and detonating an explosive device.
The charges related to two car bombs in Abuja, Nigeria, in which 12 people were killed and 36 injured on October 1, 2010, the anniversary of the Nigeria’s independence, and another two explosions in the southern Nigerian city of Warri, earlier in March 2010.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The recent brutal extrajudicial murder of four students of Nasarawa State University who were protesting the acute lack of water and power outage in the university is condemnable. It is reported that the restive students were killed by military personnel on routine duties in the state. They intervened to ensure the protest did not impede free vehicular movement and thwart whatever may lead to disturbance of public peace.
This sad incident questions the desirability of using the military for policing. It does not suggest progress in our collective quest for an egalitarian society, where human rights are not whimsically violated. Rather it reinforces the impression that inch by inch, Nigeria is sliding into a state of lawlessness.
In fact, it raises many questions. What is the value of human life in our society? Whose responsibility is it to maintain civil order and public peace when students are rioting? What is the rule of engagement governing the use of force in domestic operations? Should security operatives be allowed to use firearms on anyone who appears unarmed?
Historically, universities are revered havens of solace and bacons of illumination in landscapes enshrouded in disillusion and popular apathy. When political actors by their lacklustre performances plunge nations to the pit of odium and lawlessness, the strategic interventions of universities lift such nations to realms of civil order and economic progress. Also, universities help to cultivate and elevate the spirit of eternal vigilance, rational dissent, lawful protest and popular agitation for policy measures that best guarantee the good life. They ingrain the principles of civilised mode of life in students and strengthen the ethical framework of state-citizen interactions.
Hence, it is popularly assumed that university students have attained an enviable degree of intellectual and ethical sophistication that would make them the envy of Aristotle. Their words and deeds have lent credence to this assumption. Indeed, over the years, Nigerian students have played leading roles in the crusade for a better society where the rule of law prevails and the ammenities for a civilised life are commonplace.
In playing this role, they have suffered many vicious assaults from law enforcement agents, particularly during the authoritarian era of military goof-offs. It is antithetic to democratic ethos that the spirit of lawful protest should be repressed with brute force. It is irrational to fight students with bullets. For their weapons of contestations are mainly ideological and aim at securing the universal common good.
Fighting for a principled course does not in any way justify hooliganism. There are good reasons to assume that we have failed to learn from the tragic errors of the past. So we unforgivably repeat them. Violence triggers violence. With the benefit of hindsight, the military should not be involved in any operation mandated to nib student rampage in the bud.
Even when circumstances conspire to make their intervention inevitable, as it is alleged that the military personnel were not deployed to foil the unrest, but were on routine duties in the state, it is expected that they evince an exemplary degree of civility. The seemingly unguided exuberance of the restive students does not justify this criminal wastage of lives.
It is fair to deduce from this ugly trend that human life in Nigeria is no longer sacrosanct, particularly, in the eyes of security operatives. It suggests they have no modicum of fellow feelings. Did they think about the untold sufferings their murderous acts will inflict on the parents of the students, their siblings, friends, fellow students and on our national psyche?
The popular impression that the military is robotised to wreck violence on civilians in times of social unrest does not augur well for democracy and state building. They stand to gain nothing by conveying the notion that the Nigerian state sanctions violence against her citizenry. There is a saying in local parlance that best captures this notion: “Soja no dey hear go come, na only go e dey hear.” This is an auspicious moment for them to make the logic of this saying outmoded, by principled conducts and housecleaning. Professionalism must be their watchword. Misguided elements among them should be brought to book.
Nigeria is scandalised in the comity of nations. No thanks to our long track record of extrajudicial murders. Tragic incidents like this tend to validate John Campbell’s much-canvassed pessimistic perspectives about Nigeria. John Campbell, a former American Ambassador to Nigeria in his seminal book “Nigeria: Dancing on the Brink” argues that Nigeria’s strategic importance in the sub-region and her capacity to partner with the United States is overstated and should be reviewed.
Campbell’s claim is largely premised on the fact that political misrule fuels escalating internal violence. It is also hinged on the pervasive disrespect and devaluation of human life. To buttress his claim, he noted that Mike Okiro, as acting Inspector General of Police in mid-November 2007, joyfully announced to the world that 785 “suspected armed robbers” have been killed by the police within three months.
The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke highlighted the scale of the problem when in mid-December 2012; he disclosed that 7,198 extrajudicial killings occurred in the past four years. This figure translates to about five persons killed daily by policemen across the nation.
Killings of this nature have many implications on our national life. It has clearly eroded the confidence of citizenry in the security agencies. They are seen more as instruments of repression and less as state agents devoted to the protection of our territorial integrity, lives and properties. This ebbing confidence has triggered a general sense of insecurity in Nigeria. It puts a clog on the wheels of democratic consolidation and economic progress. Doesn’t it, in part, explain why industries are relocating to neighbouring nations?
Again, killing of this nature highlights the weakness and near-collapse of our public institutions. Weak government institutions are synonymous with anti-people policies and practices. The extrajudicial murder of the four students is a consequence of poor governance. Nothing practically and vehemently questions the acclaimed merits of democracy as a system of popular participation in government like when its institutional drivers are not well-oriented toward securing the common good. It breeds a sense of alienation and frosty state-citizen relations.
In this era of global capitalism, we risk harnessing its potential to transform Nigeria from a socio-economic basket case to a prosperous egalitarian society, where human rights are accorded the importance they deserve. No savvy foreign investor is likely to invest where extrajudicial killings are norm. Stated pointedly, our business environment is becoming less attractive to global investors, because we brazenly violate fundamental human rights and the perpetrators are not held accountable.
It seems extrajudicial executions and tortures to extract confession from suspects are commonplace because, the Nigerian Police is under-resourced, under-staffed and under-trained. These impede their capacity to satisfactorily investigate cases. Therefore, to end these atrocious acts of police brutality their capacity for criminal investigation should be enhanced through robust funding and capacity development. These measures will make systematic forensic investigation a norm in Nigeria.
Furthermore, the flawed “rules for guidance in use of firearms by the police” should be amended to reflect the humane spirit of the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials.
The timeworn Police Order No. 237, which permits the usage of firearms when a policeman cannot “by any other means” arrest or re-arrest a suspect or convict of an offence punishable by death or at least seven years’ imprisonment should be done away with as it provides justification for atrocious extrajudicial murders. In addition, torture and extrajudicial killings must be criminalized.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Numerous motorists in Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, have described the park and pay policy recently introduced by the Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA) as a form of extortion. “It’s as if the government wants to rob average motorists of their hard-earned income and to further impoverish them,” one critic said.
Under the policy, an average motorist in Abuja is to pay parking fees of N14,300 each month, and ultimately N171,600 in a year as parking fees.
Photos taken at different times shows the dubious means employed by the FCT administration to extort motorists at the federal capital Abuja.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Unknown gunmen last night in Kaduna State attacked a government-owned secondary school in a community near the troubled town of Zonkwa, in Zangon Kataf Local Government area.
A security operative who confirmed this to Codewit gave the name of the school as GSS Fadan Kaje. The gunmen started shooting sporadically upon arrival, the source said, as they advanced towards one of the hostels, resulting in many confused students, and hundreds of them trying to flee to safety. Nobody was reported to have been killed, and armed soldiers, on arriving at the scene, chased into the bush after the escaping gunmen.
It would be recalled that last weekend, six persons were killed in the area by unknown assailants. Many of the victims who were injured in the attack are still receiving medical attention.
On Monday, Governor Yero, in a highly-protected convoy, visited the area and comforted the victims. He promised that the perpetrators of the attacks would be found and punished.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The kidnapping of six passengers on the Benin-Ore road on Wednesday seems to be the product of connivance between officials of the transport company and the kidnappers, some of the passengers now say.
To worsen matters, the police, rather than undertake an investigation, simply encouraged panicking families to pay ransoms.
The vehicle, which is on the fleet of the Warri-based transportation company, Greener Line, was seized near Okada village on the expressway. The passengers were released only after family members paid their abductors.
But one of the passengers who contacted SaharaReporters and wants to remain anonymous said the Toyota Sienna car ever came in contact with any form of obstruction on the highway, contrary to the stories being peddled by Greener Line.
The passengers said they had their suspicions, as the vehicle started moving unusually slowly after it departed Benin on the way to Lagos. They were then abruptly abducted somewhere after Okada village in Edo State, as the kidnappers who emerged from the bush, intercepted the car. They described the kidnapping as easy because the driver of the vehicle could have easily sped off from the scene.
Equally curious, the driver and one particular passenger were quickly set free while the victims were told to contact their families for ransom payment. Greener Line, however, did not offer any help or even contact the families of the abducted passengers, falsely claiming that the bus did not have a manifest.
Our source stated that when the kidnappers made contact with the families, one mother called Greener Line and spoke with the manager who simply said, “People are disturbing me,” and then switched off his phone.
Some family members then went to Greener Line’s Warri motor park location and requested for the manifest in order to make a formal report to the police, but they refused to give her one, insisting they did not have one.
The source stated that the Nigerian police also did nothing to help the victims, tacitly encouraging them to pay whatever ransom the kidnappers demanded.
When SaharaReporters contacted the operations manager of Greener Line, Joseph Osawe, he stated that the company could not rule out the possibility that some members of his staff may have connived with the kidnappers.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Japanese voters are brutally impatient, in a good way, and can sack any non-performing government with little or no remorse. It is on record that seven different prime ministers, from two prominent political parties, have governed the island nation in the past twelve years, beginning with Junichiro Koizumi, who managed to hang on to power the longest (for about six years) to Shinzo Abe (1 year in office but now re-elected for another term in last year's general elections), Yasuo Fukuda (1 year), Taro Aso (1 year), Yukio Hatoyama (8 months), Naoto Kan (1 year, 3 months) and Yoshiko Noda (1 year, 3 months).
It is interesting to note that all these prime ministers were democratically elected and removed from office through national elections. Their offences for being voted out of office are similar to those condoned and, in some annoying circumstances, encouraged by the Nigerian electorate. But whenever there are allegations of mismanagement, corruption, cluelessness or ineptitude, Japanese voters would strike like Shango—the god of thunder—sending the non-performing leaders back to their personal homes.
It is possible to postulate one or two theories while trying to interpret this trend of behavior in Japanese voters. It can be readily assumed that living in an advanced country, Japanese are likely to be more politically aware than the average Nigerian and there may be minimal or no election auctioneering, where people thoughtlessly sell their votes for money or personal aggrandizement. The truth is that only a few Japanese, due mainly to their workaholic lifestyle, pay attention to politics and governance. You hardly can see thousands of Japanese attending political rallies, even when it is the incumbent mayor or governor or prime minister campaigning. Most Japanese do not know or care to familiarize themselves with the manifestoes of political parties.
Their political choices are practically based on what they could feel in the air: How is the economy doing? Is the incumbent government dangerously bent on increasing the sales tax from 5 to 10%? How will such an action affect the price of goods and services? Does the government in power have good educational and health programs? What are they doing about children? Are the current leaders leading the nation in the right direction, not creating political and territorial tension with China and other Asian neighbors? Are they making less dehumanizing political and oratorical gaffes? And when any Japanese government is found wanting in some of these and some other issues, it is doomed to get axed within months!
The political machinery of Japan is ordered in such a way that opposition parties can call for snap elections, mainly at the Lower House. And when the incumbent loses some seats, the geometry of power is dramatically rearranged and a new prime minister will have to be immediately installed. Incidentally, the uncertainty in the outcomes of past elections always put Japanese leaders on the edge of their seats.
Sometimes they pretend to appear populist, addressing their citizens’ needs directly and interacting with commoners in order to shore up supports for future elections. But this approach has not been working in the past decade. Leaders are basically chosen on their merit and the power to transform Japan’s slow-growing economy. So, Japanese voters have got no time to be emotional or sympathetic to the concerns of any inactive leader. They understood that there is more at stake than tolerating a do-nothing type of leadership.
Nigerians should truly understand that the only power they have to change things from what they are at the moment to what they want them to be is their suffrage. But if you misuse your voting privilege by selling your votes or being sentimental in voting for “hometown buddies” instead of qualified and trusted candidates, there will always be grave consequences. From now on, do not cry over the potholes that destroyed the car you bought from political bribes; be happy with your children attending schools with poor infrastructure and teachers who have lost interest in delivering quality education; be content with your hospitals that look like “death caves” and the expired medicine you are given by quack health dispensers; be happy about your unemployed kids, maybe two or three of them who will continue to live under your roof despite spending a fortune to train them at the universities.
Here is the remedy to all these problems you see around you: vote responsibly. The future of Nigeria is in your hands!
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Despite receiving a Junior Chambers International award for her "monumental leadership" the spokesperson of the Lagos police, Ngozi Braide, has been issued a query for fighting and attempting to stab a senior police officer, SaharaReporters has learned.
It was gathered from a reliable source at police headquarters in Ikeja that Miss Braide is undergoing interrogation for allegedly fighting with a Chief Superintendent of Police identified as Cynthia Ibeama.
"It is obvious that JCI who presented the award to Miss Braide last week did not know that she has a query to answer,” a police source said. The fight allegedly took place at the Lagos State Police Command on January 18 during the surprise visit of President Jonathan to the Police College, when there was disagreement between both officers who wanted to park in the same parking spot at the same time.
Police sources said a quarrel broke out and snowballed into a fierce fight. Policemen intervened and stopped the fight but Ms. Braide then went to her car and emerged with a knife with which she threatened to kill Ms. Ibeama
A police source who witnessed the incident said, "It was a big shame for a PPRO to fight. In this case she shows that she has no respect and she is not disciplined because she is a Deputy Superintendent of Police and the officer she fought with is her senior, a Chief Superintendent of Police. Ms Braide may be the PPRO but there is discipline and seniority in the Force and she should have respected the CSP; they fought to the extent that they tore their uniforms. Her breast was exposed and the policemen who had gathered had to cover her up. It was a show of shame and she even went to get a knife from her car to stab the CSP".
Police sources said Mr. Manko, the Lagos State commissioner of police is not happy over the incident but his hands are tied as the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, appointed Miss Braide to her position and may be let off the hook over the fighting incident because of her alleged closeness to him. The source pointed out that the fight with a senior officer is not the first time Braide has been involved in a controversy.
“Her boyfriend was arrested for fraud last year and the victims alleged that she used her office to aid her fraudulent boyfriend. That case is still under investigation and she is allowed to parade herself as the image maker. She feels she is untouchable because of her closeness to the IGP and we don't see anything coming out of her public fight," the police source said.
Ms. Braide has denied the fight story. This week, however, as reported by SaharaReporters yesterday, she was also involved in a scuffle in her office with a female PM News reporter.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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