Ex- Katsina Perm Sec Jailed for Fraud - EFCC

A former Permanent Secretary in the administration of former governor of Katsina State, Ibrahim Shehu Shema, Yusuf Sule Saulawa was today December 29, 2017 convicted by Justice Sanusi Tukur of the Katsina State High Court of one count of Obtaining by False Pretense.

The convict fraudulently obtained the sum of N2,500,000 ( Two Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira Only) from the complainant while he was a Permanent Secretary attached to the office of the Deputy Governor of Katsina State on the pretext that the Office would award the complainant a contract for the supply of fertilizer to all the Local Government Areas in Katsina State.

Saulawa claimed that the money was for the purchase of bidding documents. It was further alleged that after obtaining the money, the convict cut all contacts with the complainant.

In the course of prosecution, EFCC counsel Sa'ad Hanafi Sa'ad called three witnesses and tendered many exhibits.

After both parties closed their case on the 3rd of October, 2017, final written addresses were adopted and the case was subsequently adjourned to December 29 for judgement.

In his judgement, Justice Tukur said he was convinced that the prosecution had proved the case beyond reasonable doubt and pronounced the accused guilty as charged.

Saulawa was accordingly convicted and sentenced to seven years imprisonment without option of fine.

Media & Publicity
29 December, 2017

WAEC will be 100% technology driven in 2018 – HNO

The West African Examinations Council (WAEC) says it will sensitise and train its workforce on key areas of technology deployment in order to improve its operations in 2018.

The council’s Head, National Office (HNO), Mr Olu Adenipekun disclosed this in an interview with the News reporter on Saturday in Lagos.

According to him, the council has organised series of retreats for both management staff and the workforce in preparatory to deploy technology in its operations.

“We have worked hard in sensitising the workforce of the council and prepare their minds because it is one thing for one to strive to do something.

“But if the people that drives the system are not attuned psychologically, to doing that all such efforts will be fruitless.

“So, we want to prepare our psyche on the need to sharpen our tools in preparation to move over to a 100 per cent technologically driven WAEC and of course we have done that and we are going full blast,’’ he said.

The HNO noted that already, the council’s budget for 2018 had been fully designed to support the introduction of technology into the various aspects of its operation in Nigeria.

He explained that the move would put WAEC at the level it was expected to be in the comity of examination bodies worldwide.

“Members of staff of the council must be able to go beyond being a staff of the ICT Department. Even if one is a messenger, one should be able to ask how he can deploy technology to carry out his duties and this applies to all other operational components of council.

“So, this is an era where we are looking at 2018 as a year where we will be deploying technology in all facets of our operations, not just in conducting examination, processing of results and printing of certificates but in all areas of our operations,’’ the HNO said.

On the possibility of introducing Computer Based Test (CBT) platform for its examination, Adenipekun said that the CBT was not an examination mode that was limited to any particular examination body. 

Just like insurgency fund, $1bn should also be voted for Ogoni clean-up - Wike

Nyesom Wike, Rivers state governor, says the $1 billion approved by governors reportedly for the fight against insurgency is illegal.

He said this on Friday while speaking with state house correspondents after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja.

Wike said while the fight against insurgency remains vital, such an approval is against the law.

He said the same amount should also be approved for the Ogoni clean-up and other issues in the Niger Delta.

“For me it (the fund) is illegal,” he said.

“However, we are talking about fighting insurgence and no right thinking individual will say that he will not support the government to fight insurgency.

“But on the other hand, I believe that we have been talking about the environmental issues in the Niger Delta particularly in Ogoni land, I believe that we can also take the same money from the excess crude account to fund the problem in Ogoni land and other Niger Delta areas. That is my position.”

The governor said contrary to insinuations, his relationship with Buhari “cordial”.

He said he had come to update the president on Rivers state security.

“I’m happy with the discussion and I believe that something has to be done about (security) it. Nothing political, just security issue that affects the state and things that may lead to the breakdown of law and order,” the governor said.

“We talked on security challenges and he received me very well. We don’t have any bad relationship, I come here when he asked me to come.”

Although Godwin Obaseki, governor of Edo state, had announced that the $1 billion was to be used for the fight against insurgency, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo later said it is for security purposes in all states and not just in the north-east. - Cable Nigeria

Mohamed Elneny taunts Sanchez amid Arsenal rift rumours

Elneny has teased Arsenal team-mate Alexis Sanchez over Chile's failure to qualify for the World Cup, as rumours circulate of a dressing-room row involving the unsettled forward.

Reports have emerged suggesting members of the Arsenal team criticised Sanchez's attitude following a 1-0 Premier League win at Burnley last month, allegedly prompting an angry response from the former Barcelona star.

Some players appeared reluctant to join the 29-year-old to celebrate his goals in a 3-2 victory at Crystal Palace on Thursday.

Elneny, though, seems unconcerned by the uncertainty surrounding the attacker, judging by his mischievous social media output. 

The Egypt international posted a picture of himself on Twitter on Saturday, and wrote: "Who will come with me [to] Russia?"

He tagged Arsenal's Germany, France and Spain internationals, before writing "sorry my friend Sanchez There is no place for you"

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If claims regarding the apparently frosty state of affairs among certain members of the Gunners squad are accurate, it remains to be seen if Sanchez will see the funny side of Elneny's gag.

A proposed transfer for Sanchez to Manchester City fell through in August and he continues to be linked with a move away from the Emirates Stadium. -

No Spurs rejection over Kane - Morata

Alvaro Morata has dismissed Mauricio Pochettino's claims he rejected a move to Tottenham two years ago because he did not want to play second fiddle to Harry Kane.

After Morata joined Chelsea from Real Madrid for £70m in July, Pochettino revealed he had a conversation with the striker about joining Spurs "two years ago or more".

"Morata talked about myself, in the media he said 'Mauricio called me'. That was two years ago or more," Pochettino said in August. "He said to me: 'Why do you want me if you have Harry Kane?'"

However, in an exclusive interview with Sky Sports, Morata said that Kane's presence in the Spurs team played no factor in a move which failed to materialise.

"No it's not true," Morata said. "I spoke with him and he said he wanted both [of us] to play together, but there was no chance to come to Tottenham.

"For sure I would like to play with Kane, he's a big player, one of the best strikers in the world, but in this moment when I spoke with him (Pochettino) there was no chance to leave Real Madrid."

Morata has gone on to settle quickly at Chelsea, adapting to both the demands of the Premier League and the pressure of replacing Diego Costa.

While the 25-year-old says Costa offered him no specific advice when moving to Stamford Bridge, the two remain good friends when catching up on international duty.

"He is a very good player and a good man too. I'm Diego's friend and when I came here I knew that is was a big responsibility to replace him, but I've tried to do well," Morata added.

"Always when we are together in the Spanish team, we talk about football and life. We talk about everything and I always say thanks to Diego."

Morata has certainly filled Costa's boots when it comes to goalscoring prowess at Chelsea, netting 12 goals in all competitions this season.

Of the 10 league goals to his name, six have come with his head, though Morata still believes there is room for improvement as he continues to adapt to English football.

"It's a good thing in England, and important for a striker to be good in the air. But I think I can do better with the head and the feet," Morata said.

"In Spain or Italy the game is not like this, but here there are many crosses and it's better for this.

"But I can score more goals. I had many chances in the Premier League and Champions League and I need to improve. It's my first year here but I think I can do better and I need to do that.

"Always I can improve something. I'm not perfect, if there's one thing that I can improve then I try to look for that and work every day to do so." - Sky Sports

Courts rules on South Africa president’s impeachment proceedings

South Africa’s top court says that parliament failed to comply with its duties in holding President Jacob Zuma accountable over a public funding case.

The was case brought by opposition groups who wanted parliament to be compelled to begin impeachment of Zuma for allegedly using tax-payers money to upgrade his private home, Nkandla.

About $15m (£11.1m) in state money was spent.

Zuma, 75, who denies the allegation and a number of others, is expected to remain president until general elections in 2019.

The ruling said parliament must now set out rules for impeachment proceedings.

Constitutional Court Judge Chris Jafta said: “We conclude that the assembly did not hold the president to account.

“The assembly must put in place a mechanism that could be used for the removal of the president from office.”

The court insisted it could not intervene on how parliament determined the mechanism and that it had no power to order an impeachment

The court ruling was by majority. Dissenting Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said the ruling was a clear case of “judicial overreach”.

Another 134 Nigerians escape from Libya

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) and the European Union (EU) have evacuated 134 more Nigerians from Libya.

Mr Ibrahim Farinloye, spokesperson for the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), South-West Zone, confirmed the development to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lagos.

Farinloye said the new batch of returnees arrived at the Cargo Wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos on Friday at 10.20 p.m.

He said the Nigerians returned aboard a BURAQ Airlines Boeing 737-800 aircraft with Registration Number 5A-DMG.

According to him, the returnees comprise 10 adult females, 123 adult males and one infant, including a medical case.

He said they were also received by officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS), the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) and the Police.

Farinloye said their return had brought the number of Nigerians repatriated from Libya in 2017 to 6,806.

“The project of the repatriation is the programme of IOM with the funding for reintegration at the local level provided by EU.

“IOM paid for their accommodation to stay overnight before proceeding to their various destinations,” he added.

Blame Passing, Social Media Automated Mumus – The New Year Gift To A Nation By Wole Soyinka

In the accustomed tradition, I wish the nation less misery in the coming year. A genuine Happy New Year Greeting is probably too extravagant a wish.

The accompanying news clipping from June,1977 came into my hands quite fortuitously. It is forty years old. It captures the unenviable enigma that is the Nigerian nation. It is however a masterful end-of-year image to take into the coming year, not only for the individual now at the helm of government, General Buhari, but for a people surely credited with the most astounding degree of patience and forbearance on the African continent – except of course among themselves, when they turn into predatory fiends. When many of us are blissfully departed, an updated rendition of this same clipping – with a change of cast here and there – will undoubtedly be reproduced in the media, with the same alibis, the same in-built panacea of blame passing.

Let this be called to our collective memory. Even before the current edition of the fuel crisis, other challenges, requiring immediate fix, had begun to monopolize national attention, relegating to the sidelines the outcry for a fundamental and holistic approach to the wearisome cycle of citizen trauma. This has been expressed most recently, and near universally in the word  “Restructuring”, defined straightforwardly as a drastic overhaul of Nigerian articles of co-existence in a more rational, equitable and decentralized manner. Such an overhaul, the re-positioning of the relationship between the parts and the whole offers, it has been strongly argued, prospects of a closer governance awareness of, and responsiveness to citizen entitlement. An overhaul that will near totally eliminate the frequent spasms of systemic malfunctioning that are in-built into the present protocols of national association.

I recently ran the gauntlet of petroleum queues through three conveniently situated cities – Lagos, Abeokuta and Ibadan – deliberately, this Friday. Even with ‘unorthodox’ aids of passage, this was no task for the faint-hearted. Just getting past fueling stations was traumatizing, an obstacle race through seething, frustrated masses of humanity, only to find ourselves on vast stretches of emptied roads pleading for occupation. As for obtaining the petroleum in the first place – the less said the better. I suspect that this government has permitted itself to be fooled by the peace of those empty streets, but also by the orderly, patient, long-suffering queues that are admittedly prevalent in the city centers. It is time the reporting monitors of government move to city peripheries and sometimes even some other inner urban sectors, such as Ikeja and Maryland from time to time to see, and listen! Pronouncements – such as the 1977 above - again re-echoing by rote in 2017– are a delusion at best, a formula that derides public intelligence. Buying time. Passing blame. Yes of course, the current affliction must be remedied, and fast, but is there a dimension to it that must be brought to the fore, simultaneously and forcefully? This had better be the framework for solving even a shortage that virtually paralyzed the nation.

Just to think laterally for a moment - what became of the initiatives by some states nearly two decades ago – Lagos most prominently - to decentralize power, and thus empower states to generate and distribute their own energy requirements? Frustrated and eventually sabotaged in the most cynical manner from the Federal center! The similarity today is frightening – for nearly four days on that earlier occasion, the nation was blacked out near entirely. We know that one survival tactic of governments is to keep their citizens in the dark over decisions that affect their lives but, this was literal! And yet each such crisis, plus lesser ones, merely reiterate again and again that this national contraption, as it now stands, is simply  – dysfunctional!.  What this demands is that, in the process of alleviating the immediate pressing misery, we do not permit ourselves to be manipulated yet again into forgetting the MAIN issue whose ramifications exact penalties such as petroleum seizures and national power outage. These are only two handy, being recent symptoms - there are several others, but this is not intended to be a catalog of woes. Sufficient to draw attention to the Yoruba saying that goes: Won ni, Amukun, eru e wo. Oun ni, at’isale ni. Translation: Some voices alerted the K-Legged porter to the dangerous tilt of the load on his head. His response was - Thank you, but the problem actually resides in the legs.

The providential image above sums up a defining moment for both individual and collective self-assessment, places in question the ability of a nation to profit from past experience. Vast resources, yes, but proved unmanageable under its present structural arrangements. As the tussle for the next round of power gets hotter in the coming year, the electorate will again be manipulated into losing sight of the BASE ISSUE. Its noisome claque in the meantime, the automated mumus of social media, practiced in sterile deflection and trivialization of critical issues, unwittingly join hands with government to indulge in blame passing and name calling – both sides with different targets. From the anguished cry of Charley Boy’s Our Mummu Done Do! to expositions from academics such as Professor Makinde’s recent intervention, the public is subjected daily to a relentless barrage of awareness, underlined in urgency. Nobody listens. One wonders if many people read. And certainly, very few retain or relate – until of course the next crisis. The labor movement declares that it awaits a guarantee of the ‘people’s backing’ before it embarks on any critical intervention. Understandably. There is more than enough of the opium of blame passing on tap to lull mummus into that deep coma from which – give it a little more time – there can only be a rude awakening.

Sooner than later, but not as soon as pledged, the fuel crisis will pass. And then, of course, we shall await the next round of shortages, then a recommencement of blame passing.  What will be the commodity this time – food perhaps? Maybe even potable water? In a nation of plenty, nothing is beyond eventual shortage – except, of course, the commonplace endowment of pre-emptive planning and methodical execution. Forty years after, the same language of re-assurance? “There is something rotten in the state of Naija!”

 

Wole SOYINKA

Meghan Markle's dad 'hurt' after Prince Harry claims royals are 'the family she never had'

Meghan Markle’s father was left “extremely hurt” after Prince Harry said the royals were like “the family she never had”.

The American actress’ brother Thomas Markle Jnr, 51, from Oregon said his father had “made sure she had what she needed to be successful”.

He told the Daily Mail that Thomas Markle Snr had “dedicated the majority of his time” to Ms Markle who announced her engagement to Prince Harry last month.

The comments came after the young royal said, while editing BBC Radio 4, that his 36-year-old fiancée had a “fantastic” Christmas at Sandringham.

He added of the former Suits star who was the first unmarried partner to join the Queen for the festivities: “She's done an absolutely amazing job. She's getting in there and it's the family I suppose that she's never had.”

Mr Markle Jnr told the Daily Mail: “Obviously, she had a family. She was very privileged. She got everything she ever wanted. We did the best that we could in terms of getting together for holidays and whatnot.

“My father will be extremely hurt, actually.

“He dedicated the majority of all his time and everything to her. He made sure she had what she needed to be successful and get to where she's at today.”

On Thursday, Ms Markle’s estranged half-sister hit out at Prince Harry's claims and said on Twitter: “Actually she has a large family who were always there with her and for her.”

Samantha Grant, who has previously spoken about her “rift” with Ms Markle, took to Twitter to slam the comments, even tweeting Kensington Palace in a separate message.

She added: “Our household was very normal and when dad and Doria divorced, we all made it so it was like she had two houses.

“No one was estranged, she was just too busy.”

Ms Grant, who uses the name Markle on Twitter, continued: “Meg’s family (our family) is complete with sister, brother, aunts, uncles, cousins, and the glue of our family, our amazing completely self-sacrificing father.

“She always had this family… marrying merely extends it.”

Ms Grant has previously attracted criticism over claims she is “cashing in” on her new stardom after revealing she is writing a book offering intimate insights about Ms Markle’s upbringing.

In November the royal couple announced they were to marry in May next year following a 16-month romance which blossomed when they met through mutual friends.

Ms Markle is reportedly close to both her parents, Thomas Markle and Doria, who said their daughter’s relationship with Harry was a “source of great joy” to them.

Her parents divorced when she was young but the Suits actress has frequently written about the love and support they have given her.

Following the engagement announcement, Ms Markle's parents said: "We are incredibly happy for Meghan and Harry. Our daughter has always been a kind and loving person.

"To see her union with Harry, who shares the same qualities, is a source of great joy for us as parents.

"We wish them a lifetime of happiness and are very excited for their future together."

The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh were said to be delighted for the couple and, in a break with royal tradition, American actress Ms Markle became the first fiancée to spend Christmas with the royals before marriage. - Evening Standard