The Nation Newspaper

Category: News Update

  • Nigeria not ripe for state police – Maku

    Nigeria not ripe for state police – Maku

    The Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, said on Tuesday that Nigeria was not ripe for state police.

    Some governors have continued to clamour for state police, using the argument that the step would empower them, as chief executives of their states, to effectively secure their domains.

    But Maku, who led the national good governance tour team, currently in Plateau, to a visit to the Police Staff College, in the outskirts of Jos, said that the nation lacked adequate facilities to handle that.

    He said the nation’s police force was doing well in spite of the enormous challenges, stressing that advocates of state police had never looked at the area of training.

    “Training is key to success, unfortunately those asking for state police have not looked at that area, “the News Agency of Nigeria quoted the minister as saying during the visit.

    He rejected incessant allegations of corruption slapped on the police by members of the public, and declared that there was no human institution that may not host some bad eggs from within it.

    In his remarks, the Commandant of the college, Mr. Bala Hassan, said that 53 intervention projects were being carried out in the institution.

    He expressed optimism that the projects would address the challenges of the 36-year old college.

     

  • Man sentenced to 14 days imprisonment for beating wife

    An Agege Customary Court on Tuesday sentenced a 39-year-old man to 14 days imprisonment for contempt, following his disobedience to the court order to maintain the peace with his estrange wife.

    “The court hereby sentences you, Ibukun Oluwadamilare, to 14 days imprisonment for contempt of court for beating up your wife.

    “I believe that if you get there, you will learn one or two lessons and you will control your temper thereafter,’’ the Court President, Mr. Emmanuel Sokunle, said.

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the court, had at the last hearing, ordered the couple in the divorce suit to maintain the peace.

    However, the wife, the petitioner in the suit, informed the court a day later that the respondent beat her, in spite of the order.

    The petitioner, Adesewa, 33, had filed the suit in September, asking the court to dissolve her 12-year-old marriage to Oluwadamilare over battering and threat to life.

    Adesewa, who lives at No. 18b, Kayode Joseph St., Powerline, Oke- Ira, Ogba, told the court: “My husband had wanted to make love to me in the presence of our children but I refused.

    “He then beat me mercilessly to the extent of removing one of my teeth. If my husband has money, he won’t give me and the children.

    “He prefers to go to the club and declare surplus and when the money is finished, he comes home to steal my money,” she alleged.

    The mother of three children, aged between five and 10 years, also added that her husband often malign her before their children by making unsubstantiated allegation that she was promiscuous.

    “We live in one room but my husband won’t wait till midnight when our children will be asleep before drawing my pants.

    “My husband started going to a white garment church in April, and so, brings home different colours of candle.

    “He left the church we were both going because he accused me of going out with our pastor and I am fed up with all of his behaviour,” she said.

     

  • Benin president’s doctor, niece arrested over ‘poison plot’

    Benin president’s doctor, niece arrested over ‘poison plot’

    Benin authorities arrested the niece and personal doctor of President Boni Yayi, claiming they had tried to poison him at the behest of an angered businessman, the country’s state prosecutor said.

    Doctor Ibrahim Mama Cisse, the president’s niece Zouberath Kora, and former trade minister Soumanou Moudjaidou were arrested on Sunday, while cotton magnate Patrice Talon – the suspected ringleader of the poison plot – is on the run, Justin Gbenameto told reporters late on Monday.

    “The prosecution has requested that they should be charged with conspiracy and attempted murder,” Gbenameto said, adding the attempt to poison Yayi occurred on October 17 while he was visiting Brussels.

    Gbenameto said Moudjaidou is believed to have brought the poison into the country, where he gave it to Cisse to be switched with his regular medication.

    Kora was meant to have administered it, but the plot was discovered after she told a family member about the plan, he said.

    Talon – who lost a lucrative port and customs reform contract in the cotton exporting country earlier this year – offered $2 million each to Cisse, Kora and Moudjaidou for their roles, Gbenameto said.

    Reuters says Yayi, 60, a former banker, became president in 2006 and survived an assassination attempt in 2007 when gunmen ambushed his convoy.

    He won re-election in March last year following a disputed presidential election.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Shell undecided on a force majeure

    Shell undecided on a force majeure

    Shell cannot yet say when a force majeure on exports of Nigeria’s Bonny and Forcados crude that has cut about 20 percent of its exports will be lifted, after a stoppage caused by theft and flooding in the Niger Delta, the company said on Tuesday.

    Shell, the biggest oil operator in Nigeria, reported on Monday it had declared force majeure on the crude grades on Friday afternoon, after damage caused by oil thieves and flooding affecting a third party supplier it did not identify, Reuters reports.

    Bonny Light and Forcados are two of Nigeria’s most important oil grades and in October accounted for 427,000 barrels per day, about a fifth of the country’s total exports of 2.048 million bpd.

    A force majeure allows a company to suspend contractual obligations in the face of unexpected events.

    The outages underscore the scale of the problem of oil theft, or “bunkering,” as it is known in Nigeria, to which officials say up to 20 percent of its oil is lost.

    It would also be the first confirmed evidence of an impact on oil output by the worst flooding Nigeria has experienced in five decades.

    The Niger River burst its banks last month, submerging stretches of the oil rich region in flood waters.

    “Shell cannot yet say at this time when the force majeure will be lifted,” Shell spokesman Precious Okolobo said by telephone, declining to give further details.

     

  • Nigeria will hold licensing round by year-end – Alison-Madueke

    Nigeria will hold licensing round by year-end – Alison-Madueke

    Nigeria will hold an oil exploration bidding round before the end of the year, while licence renewal talks with Shell and Chevron over existing onshore fields are in their final stages, the minister of petroleum, told Reuters on Tuesday.

    “We expect within the next couple of months a marginal bid round will be announced. We hope a major bid round will follow before the end of the year,” Diezani Alison-Madueke said.

    “Shell and Chevron (onshore licence renewals) are … in the final stages now, those will definitely be out before the end of the year,” she added.

    Exxon Mobil signed 20-year oil licence renewals on Nigerian onshore assets producing around 550,000 barrels per day in February but other oil majors are still negotiating terms with the government.

     

  • Parliamentary union: Nigeria, Uganda protest exclusion of members

    Parliamentary union: Nigeria, Uganda protest exclusion of members

    Nigeria and Uganda on Tuesday strongly protested against the exclusion of some member countries from the on-going Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly conference in Quebec, Canada.

    Our correspondent covering the conference reports that Senate President, Senator David Mark, who led Nigerian delegation to the event, expressed the displeasure of the country over the development.

    Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Emeka Ihedioha, who is also part of the Nigerian delegation, said that the exclusion of some member countries was unacceptable to the country.

    It was discovered that the Canadian Government refused to grant visa to some member countries and in some cases individual parliamentarians who wanted to attend the conference.

    African countries, including Mali and Uganda and Syria were mostly affected in the visa refusal.

    Mark, who spoke to journalists after the plenary session of the conference, said that Canada was given the hosting right over United Kingdom with the understanding that all member countries would be treated fairly.

    He said that they were disturbed to discover that some member countries were refused entry visa by the Canadian authorities.

    The development, he said, must be addressed in the interest of the union.

     

  • Nigeria to discuss with Cameroon on Bakassi – Mark

    Nigeria to discuss with Cameroon on Bakassi – Mark

    Senate President, Senator David Mark, on Tuesday declared that Nigeria will initiate discussion with Cameroon on the vexed issue of Bakassi.

    Mark stated this in a chat with journalists at the 127th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) conference in Quebec, Canada.

    The conference has the theme: “Citizenship, identity, linguistic and cultural diversity in a globalised world.”

    The Senate President said that Nigerian delegation would discuss with their Cameroonian counterparts at the conference to iron out knotty issues so as to create a forum for broader dialogue on the Bakassi issue.

    He said the discussion would focus on whether to revisit the International Court of Justice (ICJ) decision on Bakassi or to ensure that the rights of Nigerians who live in the oil rich peninsular are fully protected.

    The Senate President noted that the National Assembly recognised that there is a subsisting judicial decision on Bakassi.

    He insisted that once there is a judicial decision on any matter “you must be careful.”

    The judicial decision hanging over Bakassi, he said, made it imperative for Nigerian delegation at the IPU to open dialogue with their Cameroonian counterparts at the conference on the future of Bakassi.

    He said, “Bakassi is a different story entirely. For Bakassi, there is a judicial decision and once there is a judicial decision you must be careful.

    “Revisiting the judicial decision on Bakassi whether it will bring any more profit or whether we should ensure that Nigerians who are in Bakassi have their human rights fully protected and that they are not maltreated in any way by Cameroonians is one of the issues we will sit down and discuss with Cameroonian parliamentarians who are here too.”

    In his address at the conference, Mark told the Union of the need for parliaments world over to protect and guarantee minority interests.

    “The National Assembly of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is not just in total support of raising the stakes in management of diversities in a globalised world, we are already taking steps to ensure that every minority interest within the Nigerian State is well protected.

    “We are working to remove all obstacles that hinder unity and harmonious co-existence,” the Senate president said.

     

  • ‘Eight oko inmates yet to be captured’

    Eight inmates that escaped from the Oko Minimum Security Prison in Benin City are yet to be captured. The Nation gathered on Tuesday.

    The inmates escaped on August 19 after using explosives to blow up the toilet section of the prison.

    Authorities of the prison are yet to make public the identities of the escaped inmates who were on awaiting trial.

    The alleged offences of the inmates were not known but prison officials said they were notorious kidnappers.

    Some officials told the Nation that over congestion of the Oko prison might made it impossible for the authorities to identify the inmates on the run.

    When contacted for comments, the Public Relation Officer of the Benin Prison, Barr. Theresa Idiake, said they were still searching for the inmates.

     

  • Hajj: Saudi Arabia deports another seven female pilgrims

    Hajj: Saudi Arabia deports another seven female pilgrims

    Saudi Arabian Authorities on Tuesday deported another seven female pilgrims for alleged incomplete travelling documents, barely two days to the Arafat.

    The pilgrims arrived the country through the Malam Aminu Kano International Airport at about 4:30am aboard a Boeing 747 Kabo Aircraft.

    An Airport official told the News Agency of Nigeria on condition of anonymity that, the pilgrims were deported from Saudi Arabia for not having complete travelling documents.

    He said the identities of the pilgrims could not be ascertained immediately.

    Effort to contact the NAHCON officials in Kano failed as they were said to be in the Holy land for the Hajj.

    It could be recalled that two weeks ago, the Saudi authorities also deported about 20 Nigerian pilgrims through the same airport for similar offence.

     

  • Auto crash: NEMA recovers more bodies from river

    The National Emergency Management Agency announced on Tuesday it had recovered five more bodies from the commuter bus that plunged into the river on Ijebu-Ode-Ore expressway on October 19.

    Briefing journalists in Abeokuta, NEMA Public Relations Officer Ibrahim Farinloye, said so far, 18 bodies had been recovered, while three passengers survived.

    The News Agency of Nigeria reports that 12 bodies had earlier been recovered when the 36-seater bus was conveying 21 passengers on the fateful day.

    “All the remaining five bodies have been discovered this morning, bringing the total to 21 as Madam Christina Umwena, a survivor, revealed that 21 people were on board.

    “Families of the victims have been collecting the remains of their relations at the Ijebu-Ode General Hospital,” Farinloye said.