January 11, 2024
Governor of Borno State, Babagana Zulum, has set up a panel to broker peace in the perennial farmers/herders’ conflict that has claimed lives and property in the state.
According to him, the farmers/herders’ conflict over pastures and water points could be resolved through the constitution of a peace committee. Convening the peace committee, yesterday, in Gambouru/Ngala, Zulum disclosed: “Today’s inauguration of the committee was to foster peace and harmony among the warring farmers and pastoralists in the Lake Chad Basin.”
The governor said the committee was to investigate the causes of conflicts between farmers and herders in the state.
“You are to re-establish the defunct cattle routes and identify grazing reserves, which have not been adequately utilised,” he said, adding that the committee’s recommendations would guide the government in addressing the root of the conflict.
The committee led by Tijjani Guzamala, the Special Adviser-designate, comprises representatives of the police, Department of State Services (DSS), Emirate Councils, Miyetti Allah, Alhaya Association and the Governor’s Office. He noted that the peace deal was, however, reached after weeks of tension and uncertainty in the various communities in the basin.
While commending the warring parties, Zulum urged the farmers and herders to shun all acts that could lead to further conflict among them. The governor, therefore, assured that the government would take necessary measures to prevent further clashes between herders and farmers in the state.
January 11, 2024
The Bayelsa State Governor, Douye Diri, has criticised the Federal Government’s maritime protection policy of engaging private security firms to secure the maritime environment as against the Nigerian Navy.
He called on the Federal Government to review the security strategy, saying it was a policy decision the government would later regret to have adopted in its effort to secure economic assets in the nation’s territorial domain.
Diri stated this during a courtesy visit to him by the Chief of the Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Emmanuel Ogalla, at Government House in Yenagoa, on Monday.
The Nigerian Navy authorities has continually engaged in a war of words with the management of Tantita Security Services Limited, a private security outfit belonging to a former militant leader in the Niger Delta, Mr Government Ekpemupolo, a.k.a Tompolo, over security operations around the country’s oil assets since the Federal Government awarded a multi-billion naira pipeline surveillance contract to the firm.
Diri expressed concerns that the continued use of such unconventional security agents might cause greater security challenges shortly, and called for the strengthening of the Nigerian Navy to perform its constitutional responsibility.
January 11, 2024
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arraigned the former Minister of Power and Steel, Mr Olu Agunloye, before Justice Donatus Okorowo of the Federal High court, over allegations of fraud.
Mr Agunloye was brought before the court on Wednesday where he pleaded not guilty to the charges read against him.
The Judge ordered that he be remanded in Kuje Correctional center, pending when the bail would be granted.
The EFCC in December 2023, declared Agunloye wanted on an alleged case of forgery and corruption. In a communique shared by the Commission on X and its website, the former minister’s image was displayed with a message urging the public to provide information that could lead to his arrest.
Shortly after the EFCC’s alert, Agunloye was apprehended and detained.
The minister who served under President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government (1999-2003), was being quizzed in connection with the Mambilla hydro power project.
Obasanjo had accused him of fraudulently awarding the contract for the project without the Federal Executive Council (FEC) approval, an allegation which Agunloye denied rather claiming the former president was distorting facts.
Meanwhile, Agunloye’s travails has generated a lot of reactions from Nigerians. Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka while weighing-in on the matter, questioned the EFCC’s action.
In his statement titled – “In pursuit of justice, productivity, under the rule of law,” Soyinka argued that the practice of citizen detention at the whim of either religious blackmail or secular arrogation demands curtailment at source, most especially when exercised in defiance of the law, and the pronouncements of its agencies.
“The immediate provocation for these reflections is the ongoing predicament of a former Minister of Power, Dr. Olu Agunloye, currently detained by the EFCC, in total contempt of sense and justice, or indeed, basic humane considerations. We shall not go into the merit or demerits of the charges raised against him over a 16-year-old project that bears the name Mambilla. –that is the business of the law courts,” Soyinka wrote.
“Our concern at this moment is however only partially on the basis of individual fundamental human rights. Most fortuitously, the detention of any former public servant under circumstances such as Agunloye also provokes the question: how is public interest – such as the pursuit of justice – served by such an arbitrary exercise of power?’’
January 10, 2024
Former Vice-President and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the 2023 general elections, Atiku Abubakar, has commended President Bola Tinubu on the suspension of the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, Betta Edu.
In a statement released by his Special Assistant, Public Communication, Phrank Shaibu, on Tuesday, Atiku noted that the suspension of the minister was commendable but not enough.
Recall that President Bola Tinubu, on Monday, directed the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ola Olukoyede, to investigate all financial transactions involving the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation.
Edu came under criticism after a leaked memo on December 20, 2023, revealed that she directed the Accountant-General of the Federation, Oluwatoyin Madein, to transfer N585 million to a private account owned by one Oniyelu Bridget, who the ministry claimed currently serves as the Project Accountant, Grants for Vulnerable Groups.
The former Vice President noted that it was unfortunate that a programme that was designed to lift over 100 million Nigerians out of extreme poverty had allegedly become a cash cow for successive All Progressives Congress governments.
He said, “While Tinubu deserves commendation for suspending Edu, we believe this is a belated move. First, he had no business appointing her as a minister of such a sensitive ministry in the first place. Tinubu put politics ahead of competence, hence this scandal.
“What experience did Betta have in the development sector? How was Imaan Ibrahim, with her wealth of experience, overlooked? How did the Chief of Staff to the President, Femi Gbajabiamila, stand as Betta Edu’s referee during her clearance at the Senate?”
Atiku who called for reform of the ministry, alleged that it was not only Betta Edu that was involved in the transactions.
“Betta Edu should not be the fall guy. Others who have remotely and wickedly benefitted from money that was meant for poor Nigerians ought to be fished out, probed, and prosecuted too. It is demonic and tendentiously wicked to steal in the name of the poor.
“There is a need for the government to reform the humanitarian affairs ministry and other interventionist programmes that had become an ATM and POS for those in power,” he said.
He noted that the fact that the previous Humanitarian Affairs Minister, Sadiya Umar Farouq, is also being probed for N37bn fraud was evidence that immediate and urgent actions need to be taken to reform the ministry.
The statement added, “Even during the COVID-19 lockdown, Farouq continued to implement the school feeding programme. She ridiculously claimed that the food would be delivered to the students at home since schools were shut.
“Today, Betta Edu claims that over three million households got N20,000 each during the Yuletide. Sadly, there is no evidence of millions of Nigerians getting such money. This shows that money has just been going into private pockets.
“The scandal that we are contending with is not about Betta Edu, nor about Halima Shehu, or any other person for that matter.
“It is about a problem of systemic corruption through which the APC continues to bleed the treasury, ironically, asphyxiating the poor and vulnerable segment of the country, all in the name of caring for them.
“The APC has weaponised poverty and hunger to control the minds of the vulnerable masses, and it is even worse that they have devised a method to use poverty as an instrument of official corruption.”
