 |
| Lagos Third Mainland bridge re-opens. Photo Abeeb Ogunbadejo |
Wednesday, 31 October 2012
Tuesday, 30 October 2012
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Wednesday, 24 October 2012
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
 |
| Senior Special Assistant to Governor Babatunde Fashola on Transport Education, Dr. Mariam Masha interacting with Batch 3 officers of the Lagos State Traffic Management Authority (LASTMA) and Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) during the ongoing Career Evaluation Training Programme for Law Enforcement Officers at the Public Service Staff Development Centre, Magodo, Lagos. |
Monday, 22 October 2012
Wednesday, 17 October 2012
Tuesday, 16 October 2012
Monday, 15 October 2012
Sunday, 14 October 2012
Friday, 12 October 2012
Thursday, 11 October 2012
OIL SUBSIDY SCAM: Capital Oil Boss, Uba Remanded 
Published on Octobe11 by pmnews A
Tinubu, Lagos Chief Magistrate’s Court this afternoon ordered that
Capital Oil boss, Patrick Ifeanyi Uba and four others, Nsikan Usoro, 35,
Chibuzor Ogbuokiri, 48, Goodfrey Okorie, 41, and Orji Joseph Anayo, 46,
alleged to have been involved in oil subsidy scam, be remanded in
police custody until the next 14 days.
Ifeanyi Uba, Capital Oil boss.
In his affidavit, the deponent alleged that the suspects as senior company executives of Capital Oil and Gas Limited, fraudulently and with intention to defraud, obtained a total sum of N43.291 billion from the Federal Government of Nigeria by falsely pretending that it imported and sold 538.7 million litres of petroleum during the 2011 fiscal year through 26 transactions.
Considering the huge amount of money the suspects allegedly defrauded the government, Asuquo argued that they should not be released at this stage of investigation because they could stall or interfere with police investigation.
He added that they can also escape from the country.
Counsel to the five defendants, Dr. Joseph Nwobike, SAN, citing several authorities especially Section 264(5) of the constitution urged the court to admit his clients to bail.
In his ruling, the presiding Magistrate, Onwumi Martins, while adjourning the matter till 30 October, 2012 said there is no formal charge before him but what was before him was an application for remand.
Therefore, he said the counsel can file an application for bail, if he so wished.
Consequently, he ordered that the defendants be remanded in police custody for the next 14 days.
Ifeanyi Uba’s company, Capital Oil and Gas was one of the oil marketers indicted by the Presidential Committee on Verification and Reconciliation of Fuel subsidy headed by Mr. Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede.
The Special Fraud Unit, SFU, arrested the defendants on Tuesday while investigation into their alleged involvement in the scam is ongoing.
A formal charge will be brought against the defendants at the completion of police investigation.
Wednesday, 10 October 2012
Monday, 8 October 2012
 |
| . PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONTHAN (R) ASSISTED BY VICE PRESIDENT NAMADI SAMBO (L) IN DECORATING THE CHIEF OF AIR STAFF, AIR VICE MARSHAL ALEX BADEH WITH HIS NEW RANK OF AIR MARSHAL IN ABUJA. |
 |
| PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONTHAN (R) ASSISTED BY VICE PRESIDENT NAMADI SAMBO (L) IN DECORATING THE CHIEF OF NAVAL STAFF, REAR ADMIRAL DELE EZEOBA WITH HIS NEW RANK OF VICE ADMIRAL IN ABUJA |
 |
| PRESIDENT GOODLUCK JONTHAN (R) ASSISTED BY VICE PRESIDENT NAMADI SAMBO (L) IN DECORATING THE CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF, VICE ADMIRAL OLA IBRAHIM WITH HIS NEW RANK OF ADMIRAL IN ABUJA. |
Awo replies Achebe from the grave
by Ade Adesomoju
Awolowo and Achebe
| credits:
| credits:
Although
Chief Obafemi Awolowo is not alive to respond to allegations levelled
against him by renown novelist, Chinua Achebe, an interview he granted
during a town hall meeting in Abeokuta, Ogun State in 1983 could as
well pass for a defence.
Fielding questions from members of a
panel and the audience, Awolowo explained his policies as the Federal
Commissioner of Finance during the Nigerian civil war.
The town hall meeting which was part of
his electioneering as the Unity Party of Nigeria presidential candidate
in 1983, lasted for 90 minutes. It was aired live by some radio
stations.
Awolowo, who was then 74 years old,
spoke on his roles in the civil war, especially the 20-pound policy,
the alleged use of starvation against the Igbo and the change of the
national currency.
He said those castigating him on the
basis of his roles in the civil war which began in 1967 and ended in
1970 were those who felt the only way to remain popular was by peddling
lies against him.
Achebe, in his wartime memoirs entitled, There Was A Country,
accused members of the Gen. Yakubu Gowon cabinet, particularly Awolowo,
of making “regrettable policies” aimed at deliberately reducing the
number of Igbos.
The novelist, whose most popular work, Things Fall Apart,
has been published in more than 50 languages, said Awolowo came up
with the starvation, 20-pound and currency policies with a view to
exterminating the Igbo.
According to Achebe, the late sage and former premier of the defunct Western Region, perceived the Igbo as his enemies.
However, Awolowo, in the interview said
contrary to the claim that he used starvation as a weapon against the
Igbo, the then Federal Government was actually sending food to
civilians in the war region.
He added that government stopped
sending food to the region when it was discovered that it ( food) was
being hijacked by Biafran soldiers, who in turn gave the food to their
“friends and collaborators”.
Awolowo said, “We were sending food
through the Red Cross, and CARITAS to them, but what happened was that
the vehicles carrying the food were always ambushed by soldiers.
“That’s what I discovered and the food
would then be taken to the soldiers to feed them, and so they were able
to continue to fight. And I said that was a very dangerous policy, we
didn’t intend the food for soldiers. But who will go behind the line to
stop the soldiers from ambushing the vehicles that were carrying the
food? And as long as soldiers were fed, the war will continue, and
who’ll continue to suffer?
“So I decided to stop sending the food there. In the process, the civilians would suffer, but the soldiers will suffer most.
“When you saw Ojukwu’s picture after the
war, did he look like someone who’s not well fed? But he was taking the
food which we sent to civilians, and so we stopped the food.”
On his reasons for changing currency,
Awolowo said it was to prevent Ojukwu, who is now late, from taking the
money allegedly stolen from the Central Bank of Nigeria by his soldiers
to buy arms abroad.
“We did that to prevent Ojukwu from
taking the money which his soldiers had stolen from our central bank to
take abroad to buy arms. We discovered he looted our Central bank in
Benin, he looted the one in Port Harcourt, looted the one in Calabar and
he was taking the currency notes abroad to sell to earn foreign
exchange to buy arms.
“So, I decided to change the currency,
and for your benefit, it can now be told the whole world,that only
Gowon knew the day before the change took place. I decided, only three
of us knew before then- Clement Isong, who was the CBN governor, Attah
and myself.”
Achebe had written in one of the
chapters of the memoirs published in the UK Guardian on Tuesday that the
policy was orchestrated “to stunt or even obliterate the economy of a
people.”
But Awolowo said the policy was what
government resorted to when depositors could not show proof of what
they had as deposits.
“All the banks’ books had been burnt,
and many of the people who had savings didn’t have their saving books or
their last statements of account,” he said.
Awolowo, who reiterated during the town
hall meeting that he was “a friend of the Igbo,” said he saved the
accrued revenue for the Eastern state during the period the war lasted
and gave it back to them at the rate of 990,000 pounds as monthly
subventions.
He said, “I didn’t go to the Executive
Council to ask for support, or for approval because I knew if I went to
the council at that time, the subvention would not be approved because
there were more enemies in the executive council for the Igbo than
friends.
“And since I wasn’t going to take a
percentage from what I was going to give them, and I knew I was doing
what was right, I wanted the Eastern state to survive. I kept on giving
the subvention of 990,000, almost a million, every month.”
He said he also ensured that the houses
owned by the Igbo in Lagos and on the other parts of the country not
affected by the war were kept for them.
He said, “I had an estate agent friend
who told me that one of them collected half a million pounds rent which
has been kept for him. All his rent were collected, but since we didn’t
seize their houses, he came back and collected half a million pounds.CREDIT// PUNCH NEWSPAPER
Thursday, 4 October 2012
Why I Joined Kidnapping Gang —Female Suspect
A 36-year old woman, Ngozi Onuonwu who was arrested in Lagos for her alleged involvement in kidnapping has opened up and said that frustration led her into it because she did not see any man to marry her.
The
remorseful Ngozi said if she had married like her mates she would not
have lived with her younger brother, Chibuzor who got her involved in
kidnapping.She narrated how the youths in her community at Umuleri in Anambra State engaged in a communal war with their neighboring community, Aguleri which lasted for several years.
She said many youths died and this affected many girls including her as they could not get married.
She said her fiancée died in the war and she did not get another man and so she had to move to Lagos and started living with Chibuzor.
When asked if Chibuzor was a victim of communal war, she said when peace returned to the two communities, the youths who participated in the fight were not de-mobilized.
The police in Lagos on Tuesday paraded Ngozi along with six other suspected members of her gang for allegedly kidnapping people in Lagos State southwest Nigeria.
The leader of the kidnapping gang operating in Festac, Lagos, Southwest Nigeria, Henry Emenike, 30, confessed that his gang made more than N20 million since they started kidnapping people in Lagos two months ago. Abia State-born Emenike made the revelation when he was paraded at the Police Headquarters, Ikeja, Lagos, Tuesday along with seven suspected members of his gang, including Ngozi.
The other members paraded with Emenike are Uche Ogbansi, 30, from Abia State, popularly known as Rasta; Emeka Obasi , 33, from Ebonyi State; Oliver Nwabueze, 30, from Imo State; a commercial motorcycle rider who allegedly provided his bike for their movement, Chibuzor Osuagwu, 29, also from Imo State and Ngozi.
Emenike told his interrogators that they successfully carried out more than four operations in Lagos where the victims’ families were made to pay various amount of money as ransom.
He said the last operation his gang carried out in Festac was foiled by the police and in the process the victim died.
He said he was in palm oil business in Abia state before he went into kidnapping.
Emenike said whenever they abducted a victim, they usually kept the victim in the care of Uche Ogbansi, popularly known as Rasta at Ago Palace Way, Okota, Lagos.
The suspects were arrested by the police at Festac and were brought to the command headquarters.
The Area Commander in charge of Festac, Mr. Dan Okoro, explained that the police trailed members of the gang before some of them were arrested while others are still at large.
He said that the gang was behind kidnapping incidents in Lagos, especially in Festac axis.
Okoro said the recent kidnapping that resulted in the killing of the victim, Odi Nwaeze, was carried out by the gang.
Published by PMNEWS
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)