BOKO HARAM FIGHT ! LOOTING VENTURE !! Soldiers take cover in homes as Boko Haram grows stronger — now operates with drones

Nigerian soldiers fighting Boko Haram in Borno are losing motivation and struggling to match the insurgents’ might, according to the New York Times.

The NYTimes said in a new report that contrary to the claims of the Nigerian government and the military that Boko Haram has been degraded, the insurgents’ power is growing in parts of the north-east.

They are said to operate with more sophisticated weapons including improved drones while soldiers struggle to keep up with “obsolete weapons and ineffectual strategy”.

DEGRADED OR MOTIVATED?

Nigerian authorities have continued to say the war against Boko Haram which has lasted a decade, has been largely successful.

President Muhammadu Buhari restated that claim four days ago when he said the insurgents have been degraded even though he admitted they still have “remnants”.

But the report quoted various sources as saying the military is demoralised and “on the defensive”.

“Some soldiers have complained they haven’t had a home leave in three years. Their weapons and vehicles have fallen into disrepair,” it said.

“(But) Boko Haram militants are still roaming the countryside with impunity. Their fighters now have more sophisticated drones than the military and are well-armed after successful raids on military brigades, according to local politicians and security analysts.”

‘SOLDIERS RUN FOR DEAR LIFE’

Although the military often says Boko Haram is not in control of any major territory, the newspaper said it learnt the insurgents control four of the 10 zones in northern Borno state.

They are also said to be pulling off “almost-daily” attacks in various parts of the north-east particularly in Borno, while the soldiers are often said to run and take cover.

The report said: “Some soldiers have fled in the face of attacks rather than staying to fight, according to accounts from residents.”

“Abubakar, 13, said he was coming home from school in the town of Gubio in late August when he saw several soldiers racing through the village. “Run for your lives,” they were screaming as they fled, he said. Boko Haram is coming!”

“The boy, whom The NYTimes is not identifying for security reasons, said he watched as soldiers stripped off their uniforms and changed into everyday clothes. They parked their army truck under a tree, piled into a civilian car and sped away.”

Another woman from Gubio spoke of how four terrified soldiers “joined her family in hiding, and five more hid in her neighbor’s house”.

“She said they kept silent inside for two days as militants ransacked the town and loudly bragged about how easy it was to seize,” the report said of a particular attack in which three people were reportedly killed.

There are also complaints of the “old and ineffectual strategy” being used by the military to sustain the fight against the insurgents including the operation of “super camps” recently introduced.

“But some officials call the super camps an outright retreat,” the report said, quoting a government official as saying “soldiers were merely barricading themselves inside super camps (while) Boko Haram fighters are raiding the gear the soldiers are leaving behind as they abandon their posts for the camps”.

Sagir Musa, army spokesman, did not immediately respond to TheCable’s enquiry for comments on the report.

But the New York Times quoted A. K. Karma, a major who is among the officials at Bama super camp, as denying claims that Boko Haram has remained motivated.
“We have one or two problem attacks by Boko Haram, but that doesn’t mean they have a grand offensive,” he said.

- THECABLE

Chelsea: Mourinho sends message to Frank Lampard

Former Chelsea manager, Jose Mourinho has backed the club’s current coach, Frank Lampard to succeed at Stamford Bridge.

He also advised Lampard to “grow up with the level of experiences” in a bid to kick-start his Blues managerial career.

The Portuguse stated this ahead of Chelsea’s Premier League clash with Wolves on Saturday.

“One thing is the player, another thing is the manager [Lampard],” Mourinho was quoted by Metro UK as saying.

“The player, I don’t think any Chelsea fan will disagree with me if I say is one of the top five most important players of Chelsea history, and probably some will say not top five, maybe top three.

“Another thing is his managerial career, one year of experience in Derby where he showed good qualities and now he has Chelsea in his hands.

“‘He plays for big things. He plays Champions League, he played a European Super Cup, he had already big matches in his hands, and he has to grow up with the level of experiences, which I believe he can because he has huge experience.

“I cannot separate from the fact that football has been always in his life. He was born son of a player, he grew up [nephew] of a football manager, he became a player, he became a top player… I think he has all the conditions to succeed,” he added.

- DAILY POST

I met him naked – Agbor narrates experience with movie marketer

Nigerian actress, Queeneth Agbor, has revealed that a movie marketer once tried to sleep with her before offering her a movie role.

 The Calabar-born entertainer didn’t mention his name but stated that the incident happened when she was a beginner in the industry.

“My unforgettable experience in Nollywood happened when I just got into the industry as a greenhorn. The marketer invited me to come and get a script. When I got to the place, I discovered it was a hotel and I was the only one there. I actually saw the scripts.

“He offered me a drink but I declined because I was scared. Back then, we were told that if one insulted movie marketers, one’s career was practically over. 

“He entered the room and called me to come and get the script inside. I went in and met him stark naked. I was stunned and didn’t know what to do. However, I had to apply wisdom to defuse the situation. I went on my knees and started begging him. He asked if I was a baby. I had to lie to him that my fiancée, who sponsored me through acting school, had put something in my private part and if I had sex with him, both of us would die. He insulted me and sent me out of the room. Till date, the memory still flashes in my mind.”

Agbor also frowned at actresses calling themselves out on social media. “It is caused by idleness. If one is busy, I am not sure one would have the time to call another person out or create unnecessary drama. If you are thinking about a project, you would not have that time,” she told SATURDAY BEATS.

Speaking on one of the things fame has taken away from her, Agor said she could no longer negotiate prices at the market, “It’s so bad that I cannot haggle prices in the market in peace anymore. As one is bargaining, one would hear someone say, ‘Aunty, I am your fan’. One would just have to shamelessly pay the money whether one has it there or not.”

However, Agbor, who graduated in microbiology from the University of Calabar become known for her roles in Nollywood films such as Painful Kingdom with Olu Jacobs, Hooked with Francis Duru and The Movement.

- PM NEWS

FIRS: 23,141 tax defaulters owing N254 billion

The Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) says a total of 23,141 defaulters owe N254 billion in tax liabilities.

Babatunde Fowler, executive chairman of FIRS, disclosed this at the 49th annual accountant conference organised by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) in Abuja.

He said the agency is collaborating with commercial banks to ensure the recovery of defaulted taxes.

“FIRS in collaboration with the banks has started engaging in compliance measures with regard to the tax defaulters and their accounts,” he said.

“Failure to carry out this directive will result in the banks being sanctioned according to Section 31 subsection 1-3 and 32 respectively of the FIRS Act 2007.”

Fowler said out of 44,293 non-compliant companies, 3,976 already paid about N97.7 billion.

He said the agency recovered N88.59 billion after reaching an agreement with 3,797 out of 42,736 companies.

Under the tax substitution programme, the FIRS collects taxes from default payers by appointing banks and other financial institutions as collection agents.

Fowler said if the default continues, the agency will apply appropriate sanctions by delisting defaulting banks from the FIRS collection list.

In August, the agency listed 19,901 accounts that were yet to regularise their tax status.

Among the accounts published were Obasanjo Farms, Iyiola Omisore, Coldstone and Davido Music Worldwide (DMW).

- THECABLE

Nigeria has disintegrated already, 2023 election should not hold – Kalu

Dr. Kalu Idika Kalu, a former Finance Minister, at the weekend, said that Nigeria is already a disintegrated country but still being held together by a false sense of unity.

Kalu, a World Bank trained economist, urged on the Nigerian Government to postpone the 2023 elections to give way to address the myriads of problems facing the nation.

“We have already disintegrated; it is just that it is not so easy. We have this false sense of something holding us together,” he was quoted by the Sun.

“We have already disintegrated, by the time you are afraid to move around a city, you are afraid because there is lawlessness out there, you are also afraid because if something happens to you, you are on your own. It is not zero, but it’s not very far from zero.

“What I’m emphasising is that the enforcement of the law; if you are robbed, injured, if you are dispossessed and you know that there is somebody there whose duty is to bring remedy in some form, you will take the risk.

“What happens when you begin to suspect that if something happens to you, you don’t have a cover? At that point what is the difference between talking of disintegration; you are already disintegrated.

“It takes a lot to kill a country; you can never tell how long it took God to form all these things. Of course, He has the supreme power, he formed them in no time at all, but look at the earth, look at the trees, the rivers, the mountains, the structures, etc, it is not so easy to tear them apart, but because it is not so easy to tear them to pieces, you also get a false sense that maybe something is still holding us together.

“We are already in piece and pieces; we are already cut into different communities to a large extent. The point is, because of the gravity of the situation, no country should allow itself to get down, quite down well as we have gotten. Also look at Africa, with a few exceptions. Look at what is happening in South Africa.

“As a minister, I was in Angola and we had so much respect because of what we did, Nigeria was always counted among the frontline states, even though we were miles away from South Africa.

“In the fifties, we were sending lawyers to defend the Mao Mao leaders in East Africa, thereafter, we had lawyers, judges in high demands all over Africa and beyond in the international system.

“Highly respected Nigerians were there; we still do to some extent. By and large, we have lost about 80 per cent of what we had at the dawn of independence.

“Taking all what I have just said, 2023 is just around the corner. If around the corner we have all these problems, the issue of presidency, I’m not just talking for the Igbo, but for any other group, it is better for us to push 2023 election forward and resolve our problems, even if we have to delay by one year or two years.

“Some will argue that we have had so many elections and we clap for ourselves. So many elections, but look at how the country is and we are still in courts, and at a level where it is believed that it is being negotiated not by judicial process, but by extra judicial processes, politics, and financial muscles, ethnic, and religious considerations. Addressing these problems is far more important issue than 2023.”

- DAILY POST

President Buhari has no capacity to clean up Nigeria – Bishop Adeleye

The Arch-Bishop, Cathedral Church of the Holy Trinity Anglican Communion, Niger Delta Province, Most Rev. Tunde Adeleye has said that the present administration has no capacity to clean the mess in the country.

Addressing a press conference in Calabar, Bishop Adeleye, who is also the Chairman of the Christian Council of Nigeria, South-South Zone said that Nigerians should not expect more from this government as the leadership had no capacity to change anything.

“Nigeria needs to be cleaned up but the people to clean it up are not born, it is not these people that can clean it up, not one of them can clean it up. The system is bad”, he said.

On the last Presidential election tribunal judgment, Arch-Bishop Adeleye regretted that he did not expect a different outcome from the tribunal.

“I did not expect anything from the tribunal. I would have been very surprised to hear anything different from what we heard. I’m not a lawyer but look at it, they said you don’t have to present your certificate before you are elected, but the system I am used to is properly organized, and orchestrated by norms and decorum.

“It’s not a place where you can come and rigmarole or magical display of law to say you don’t have to present your certificate,” he said.

He expressed displeasure with the xenophobic attack of Nigerians in South Africa, saying 70% of our youths have no future in the country and to reverse this trend, the leadership of the country had a responsibility to make the country right so that citizens of the country can stay back and contribute in developing the country.

He said Nigeria did not have the right understanding and projection of the threat posed by Xenophobia.

“Nigerian government did not respond early, I think they should have responded faster than how they did. They did not have a proper projection and failed to properly understand the dimension the matter was going, they did not imagine things will come to this and took things for granted.

“Make this place good, provide jobs, houses, and give Nigerians a future. 70% of Nigerians have no future. The political class have taken all, there is nothing again for the youths.

“Give them a future, give them jobs, give them what to do, make schools and hospitals ok, so that the country can be ok for the people to stay.

“Doctors have not stopped being on strike, lecturers are planning now to go on strike. Make the place ok for people to live in, make the roads good. If you travel on any road in Nigeria like I have done several times, its hell on earth”, he said.

He deplored the rising case of kidnapping, failing infrastructure, faltering economy and lack of basic amenities in the country as reasons people leave the country, stressing that presently in Nigeria, the only thing that moves the country is when a cow dies.

- DAILY POST

FEC approved increase in VAT to 7.5% — NOT 7.2% - Finance Minster

Zainab Ahmed, minister of finance, budget and national planning, says the federal executive council (FEC) approved an increase in value added tax (VAT) from 5% to 7.5% and not 7.2% which was announced earlier. 

On Wednesday, the minister told state house correspondents at the end of the cabinet meeting that the FEC approved the increase to 7.2%, which is now subject to an amendment of the VAT act of 1994 by the national assembly.

But in a statement on Friday, Yunus Abdullahi, spokesman of the minister, said the proposed increase was from 5% to 7.5% and is based on the recommendation of the presidential technical advisory committee.

He said on the committee are economists from public and private sectors with Bismack Rewane, managing director and chief executive officer of Financial Derivatives Company Limited, serving as its chairman.

Abdullahi said the committee, in its report, recommended the increase in the VAT rate from 5% to 7.5%, adding that the prevailing VAT rate in Nigeria was still about half the African average.

“The proposed increase is subject to legislative intervention by the National Assembly who will have to amend the Revenue Act to reflect the proposed increase,” the statement read.

Abdullahi said the VAT exempts food, medicines and other basic necessities, thereby reducing the economic burden on the poor.

“The existing VAT Act exempts the basic necessities such as food, medicines and education, which therefore minimises the impact on the poor and vulnerable segments of the Nigerian society from the burden thereof,” he said.

“The VAT increase, if correctly implemented, could bring in huge revenues, which would actually reduce the fiscal deficit burden.”

- THECABLE

Presidential Tribunal: Mustapha reveals those who robbed, took Atiku’s money

Mustapha Salihu, the National Vice Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Northwest, on Friday told the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the last election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, that he was deceived by scammers into believing that there was an INEC server used to transmit the results of the election.

He described the Presidential Election Petition tribunal’s verdict on Atiku’s suit as a victory for Nigeria and the Nigerian people and not for APC alone.

Mustapha said that it was clear that there was no such server recognised by law anywhere.

The politician spoke to newsmen in Abuja at the end of a meeting of stakeholders of the party from Adamawa State.

According to him, those who made Atiku believe the claim of the existence of a server succeeded in scamming him.

He added, “Some people robbed them [PDP and Atiku], took their money, telling them there was INEC server somewhere when that was not true.

“Even though their lawyers did a good job trying to present their case, it was dismissed because there was no substance.

“We have now done away with the distractions and this government is going to deliver the dividends of democracy and the next level is assured.

“The outcome of the tribunal is something that was expected.

“All the grounds canvassed by the opposition are frivolous because you cannot say that an army general who served as a commanding officer, Head of State, Minister and President of Federal Republic of Nigeria for four years does not have credentials.”

- DAILY POST

UNILAG staff Meshioye dies in another SNIPER suicide

The University of Lagos has announced the death of one of its workers, Mr Sunday Gbenga Meshioye, aged 36.

In a statement issued on Friday night in Lagos, the university said the late Meshioye took his life, by ingesting a pesticide suspected to be snipper.

Until his death, Meshioye was a transport supervisor attached to the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences.

“It is indeed with a heavy heart that the management of the university announces the news of the untimely death of Sunday Meshioye.

“He was received as an emergency case at the Medical Centre of the university on Tuesday Sept. 10, where it was discovered and reported that he had ingested the pesticide, ‘Snipper’.

“He was administered first aid treatment before being conveyed in an ambulance to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Idi-Araba,” the university said.

The university said the deceased before his untimely death, had been scheduled for a session with the Counselling Unit of the university.

The university said this was after several reported cases of attempted suicide.

On Tuesday, the deceased appeared before a panel of enquiry set up in accordance with the extant rules of the university to investigate the cause of fire that gutted a bus in his custody, the university said.

“His painful decision to end his life came even before the panel had concluded its investigations, as it had only sat once.

“The Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Oluwatoyin Ogundipe, on behalf of the entire university community, commiserates with the family of the deceased and prays that God grant the family the fortitude to bear the loss, ” the institution said.

The vice-chancellor had in a bid to check the rampant cases of suicide among the youth, especially students, decentralised the counselling unit of the institution.

Ogundipe had told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in an interview in Lagos that taking the unit to other sections of the university aside the Students’ Affairs Department would facilitate access to counselling.

He said the unit was taken to the Faculty of Education, College of Medicine and other key sections of the university so that students who might be undergoing some form of stress could easily reach out for help by talking to someone.

“Suicide is never the best way out to life’s challenges, seek help, talk to someone about whatever it may be, ” Ogundipe counselled

- PM NEWS

India busts Nigerian-Afghan heroin cartel, 2 Nigerians arrested

India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has seized Afghan Heroin worth more than Rs 30 crore(about $4.2million) and arrested six persons, including two Nigerians who were part of an international drug smuggling syndicate, Asian News International(ANI) reported.

The NCB in a press release on Friday did not identify the arrested Nigerians.

They were arrested after an Afghan who was expecting heroin cargo in Delhi was arrested. He sang and led the NCB to the Nigerians.

The first Nigerian arrested was arrested in Vasant Kunj area and a search of his house led to the recovery of 6.02 kilograms of heroin.

The second Nigerian was arrested with 488 grams of heroin in the Uttam Nagar area.

“The street value in the International drug market of the total seized contraband is more than Rs 30 crores,” the release read.

“Sustained operation by Narcotics Control Bureau against drug menace with special emphasis on international drug syndicates has further achieved breakthrough resulting in busting an Afghan-Nigerian Heroin cartel which was being operated in New Delhi area,” the release read.

The NCB acted on a tip-off from a reliable source, that one Afghan national was coming to New Delhi from Kandahar, following which security was beefed up at the international airport.

“The alert NCB team also marked two more Afghan nationals whose movements were found suspicious. Though a search of their belongings yielded no contraband, but when they were subjected to medical examination, presence of foreign substance was revealed in their stomach. The three suspects were admitted to hospital and under medical supervision, a total of 253 pellets containing Afghan Heroin were recovered. The total weight of Heroin was found to be 1.8 kgs,” according to the release.

“This successful operation is a result of increased focus of NCB on international drug networks, especially Afghan heroin supply network, who are working in collaboration with Nigerian drug traffickers,” the release added.

The release added that India is a “transit country” for passing the drugs to other countries apart from being a market and therefore the syndicates are ceaselessly trying to smuggle heroin to India.

“Further investigation in coordination with foreign authorities is being conducted to identify other persons involved in the illicit drug syndicate,” the release added. (ANI)

- PM NEWS