The Nation Newspaper

Author: The Nation

  • NDLEA foils bid to export liquid methamphetamine

    NDLEA foils bid to export liquid methamphetamine

    The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has prevented the illegal shipment of liquid methamphetamine to South Africa. The methamphetamine weighing seven kilogrammes (7kg) was disguised as vegetable oil.

    Anti-narcotic officials made the discovery at the cargo section of the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Lagos during routine check.

    A clearing and forwarding agent who brought the consignment for shipment through a South African Airline flight has also been arrested by the agency.

    NDLEA Airport commander, Mr. Hamza Umar, said the discovery was the first seizure of liquid methamphetamine.

    “This is the first seizure of liquid methamphetamine. There were six containers in all but only two were found to be vegetable oil while the remaining four contained liquid methamphetamine. With the assistance of our forensic personnel, we were able to extract the crystallized methamphetamine which weighed 7kg,” Hamza stated.

    The suspect, a 31 year-old clearing and forwarding agent, Ugochukwu Okoroji accepted ownership of the drug in his confessional statement.

    “I have been working as a clearing and forwarding agent since 2008. Since 2003 when I came to Lagos, I have been struggling to make ends meet. I told the NDLEA officers before the examination that the consignment belongs to me. I felt bad when the drug was found and I was apprehended,” Ugochukwu explained.

    He lives in Lagos with his wife and four- month old baby. He hails from Owerri West Local Government Area of Imo State.

    The Chairman of the NDLEA, Ahmadu Giade, commended the agency personnel for the discovery.

    “This discovery is commendable. Drug barons may devise fresh plots but our superior counter-strategies will always void such moves. We shall continue to prevent illegal drug trade through effective drug law enforcement as well as anti-drug abuse advocacy campaigns,” Giade stated.

    The suspect will soon be charged to court.

     

  • PDP ‘undecided’ on Taraba, Anambra crises

    PDP ‘undecided’ on Taraba, Anambra crises

    The leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) appears to be undecided on how to address the festering political crises in Taraba and Anambra States.

    The PDP controlled Taraba is currently in crisis as a result of sharp divisions between the camps of ailing Governor Danbaba Suntai and Acting Governor, Garba Umar.

    Ailing Suntai was brought into the country in an apparent near vegetable state on August 25, after a 10-month medical sojourn abroad. On arrival, he had to be assisted off the chartered aircraft that brought him to Abuja.

    While his loyalists are insisting that he had resumed duty, the Taraba Assembly had mandated Umar to continue governing the state in acting capacity, they declared him unfit to continue as the state chief security officer.

    The Nigerian Constitution did not envisage the existence of Governor and Acting Governor administering a state at the same time.

    However, the newly inaugurated National Working Committee (NWC) of the party, at its meeting on Monday, did not discuss the Taraba problem, despite strident calls by stakeholders in the state for the national leadership of the party to make its position known on the crisis.

    Briefing journalists after a meeting, the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said the issue of Taraba did not come up at the meeting. The meeting was chaired by the National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Bamanga Tukur.

    “We did not discuss the issue of Taraba at the meeting because the matter was not listed on the agenda. I will raise the matter in our next meeting and feed you back on whatever position the party takes,” Metuh said.

    The spokesman also said the meeting did not discuss the problem in Anambra State, where two parallel candidates have emerged as PDP flag bearers for the November 16 governorship election in the state.

     

     

  • Jonathan mourns Peter Obe

    Jonathan mourns Peter Obe

    President Goodluck Jonathan on Monday commiserated with the family, friends and associates of ace photo-journalist, Peter Oyeyemi Obe who died on Sunday in Lagos at the age of 81.

    Mourning the late Obe, the President said that he will be long remembered as a thoroughbred professional who put his immense skills and talent to the best possible use in a very illustrious career that spanned many decades.

    In a statement issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati, the President maintained that the history of journalism in Nigeria will not be complete without an acknowledgement of Mr. Obe’s pioneering role in the development of photo-journalism in the country and his lucid documentation of the Nigerian Civil War and other profound events in the evolution of the nation.

    It reads: “As they mourn the legendary ace-photographer, President Jonathan enjoins his professional successors and other media practitioners to strive to emulate Peter Obe’s exemplary commitment, dedication and patriotism which were always apparent throughout his long and highly successful career.”

    “He prays that God Almighty will receive Obe’s gentle soul and grant him eternal rest. “

     

  • Nasarawa: How gunmen killed 50 persons – Lawmaker

    Nasarawa: How gunmen killed 50 persons – Lawmaker

    A member representing Kokona West Constituency in the Nasarawa State House of Assembly, Danlandi Jatau, on Monday recounted how over 50 persons were allegedly killed in his constituency by mercenaries.

    Jatau spoke at the resumed sitting of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry probing the killing of security personnel in Lakyo village, in the state.

    The Justice Joseph Fola Gbadeyan-led panel had adjourned for one week because of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) conference held in Calabar last week.

    Although Jatau’s memorandum earlier came up for hearing, it was adjourned twice following applications made by his counsel, Ovye Ezekiel Yakubu.

    Yakubu had told the panel that the lawmaker could not attend the sittings because he was indisposed.

    However, the commission had turned down the lawyer’s request that the lawmaker’s submission before the panel should be taken as having been read.

    It would be recalled that some Eggon communities and their counsels had withdrew from the sittings of the commission.

    They alleged irregularities in the conduct of the panel’s proceedings.

     

  • Five killed in Jos violence

    Five people have been reportedly killed in a fresh violence in Kuru, Jos, Plateau State.

    Details on cause of the violence are still sketchy at time of this report.

    Details later…

     

     

  • Atiku is indebted to PDP – Presidency

    Atiku is indebted to PDP – Presidency

    The Special Adviser to the President on Political Affairs, Ahmed Gulak, on Monday maintained that former vice president Atiku Abubakar is indebted to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and ought not to spearhead the “party’s factionalization”

    Atiku and seven aggrieved governors left the Eagles Square venue of the 2013 Special National Convention of the party on Saturday to form a parallel exco for the ”new PDP.”

    Speaking with State House correspondents in Abuja on Monday, the Presidential Aide said that Atiku should be grateful to the party for reabsorbing him and giving him waiver to contest the 2011 presidential primaries.

    According to him, Atiku is expected to protect the party at all times.

    He said: “Atiku as a politician, I was surprise because he is supposed to know more than another person that there is no party like PDP. He left PDP and went to the Action Congress of Nigeria and he came back to PDP, because he discovered that outside PDP there is no party.”

    “So he had to come back and he was even given the waiver to contest the presidential primaries in 2011. Atiku should be grateful to PDP. Atiku is indebted to PDP and the best way to continue to pay the debt is to protect PDP,” he added.

     

     

  • Talks to resolve PDP crisis deadlocked

    Talks to resolve PDP crisis deadlocked

    The meeting between President Goodluck Jonathan and 16 governors of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) held at the Presidential Villa on Sunday night to resolve the crisis rocking the party ended in deadlock.

    Seven governors including Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Rabiu Kwankwaso (Kano), Abdulafatah Ahmed (Kwara), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Aliyu Wammako (Sokoto), and Murtala Nyako (Adamawa) left the venue of Saturday’s Special National Convention of the party with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar to form a parallel exco for the “new PDP.”

    They announced the sack of the Bamanga Tukur- led executive committee and replaced them with Kawu Baraje as National Chairman, Olagunsoye Oyinlola as National Secretary and Dr. Sam Jaja, as Deputy National Chairman of the new PDP.

    Reading the Communiqué of the meeting convened to resolve the crisis at the early hours of Monday, the Chairman of the party’s Board of Trustees, Chief Tony Anenih, said that discussions at the meeting was smooth and encouraging.

    Anenih, who was flanked by President Jonathan on the right and Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso on the left, said that all the other aggrieved governors will attend another meeting scheduled for Tuesday.

    Out of the seven governors that left the convention to form a parallel party, only four of them attended the Sunday meeting. Those in attendance were – Aliyu, Wamakko, Nyako and Ahmed.

     

  • Settle in the interest of Taraba – APC

    Settle in the interest of Taraba – APC

    Leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Taraba State, Senator Joel Danlami Ikenya, on Monday advised Governor Danbaba Suntai and his deputy Alhaji Garba Umar to settle their political differences in the interest of Taraba people, for the state to move forward.

    Ikenya was governorship candidate on the platform of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in the April 2011 general election.

    He spoke to The Nation on Monday, while reacting to the political impasse in the state.

    Suntai returned into the state penultimate Sunday, after spending 10 months in Germany and the United States treating the injuries he sustained when a plane he flew crashed near Yola, Adamawa State on October 25 last year.

    His return to work polarised the state when he dissolved cabinet and his deputy countered it.

    Ikenya said the state is in crisis because those behind Suntai and Umar do not consider themselves as functionaries of one government.

    “If they consider themselves as one government, they would have settled their problem in the state quietly instead of dancing naked in the market square”, he said.

    He said Umar wants to take over so that he would secure an automatic ticket in the Peoples Democratic Party to contest the 2015 governorship election. While Suntai’s people particularly from the southern zone want him to continue so that he will relinquish power to them in 2015.

    He described players in the ensuing crisis as “desperate politicians who forget that power comes from God.”

     

  • Moses completes Liverpool move

    Moses completes Liverpool move

    …Happy with Anfield switch

    Super Eagles attacker, Victor Moses, has expressed excitement at joining up with Liverpool on transfer deadline day, goal.com reports.

    The Nigeria international made a late move to Anfield Road after falling down the pecking order at Chelsea since the return of Jose Mourinho to the side.

    Moses will spend a year in Liverpool without the option of a permanent deal, something which shows he might still have a future at Stamford Bridge.

    “Really excited to be joining Liverpool this season and can’t wait to make my debut now,” Moses tweeted with a photo of him holding up the club’s jersey on Monday.

    The 23-year-old is key to Nigeria’s plans for next year’s World Cup and will see this move to Liverpool as a means to guarantee playing time in preparation for Brazil.

     

     

     

  • CHAN: LOC ready for Eagles, others

    CHAN: LOC ready for Eagles, others

    Members of the Local Organising Committee for the third African Nations Championship (CHAN) said they are excited and ready to welcome Nigeria and the other participating Member Associations to South Africa.

    An elated LOC Chairperson, Chief Mwelo Nonkonyane was full of praise in congratulating the teams that have made it into the Final 16.

    “On behalf of the LOC board, SAFA and the rest of South Africa, we would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all the 15 teams that have made it through the stiff competition of the qualifying rounds.

    “The strong determination and tenacity displayed during the gruelling qualifying stages of the tournament guarantees us that we will without a doubt experience a mouth-watering and historical CHAN 2014.

    “We also want to give special congratulations to Mauritania who for the first time in the country’s history, has qualified for a continental cup competition, “futaa.com Nonkonyane was quoted as saying on caflonline.com.