THE Hisbah Board in Kano State has secured the conviction of 55 persons for the alcohol consumption during Ramadan.
The Director-General, Abba Sufi, told reporters yesterday in Kano that the convicts were apprehended last week, following raids of their hideouts.
He said they were sentenced to four months imprisonment without an option of fine.
According to him, 50 of the convicts are married men; the remaining are women.
The mother of former Niger State Governor Abdulkadir Kure, Hajiya Hauwa Kulu Salihu, died yesterday. She was 85.
She was buried in her hometown, Lapai, at 3:30pm after a five-minute prayer led by the Chief Imam of Lapai, Sheik Bashir Mohammed, at the palace of Emir of Lapai, Alhaji Umar Tafida Bago.
Former military president Gen Ibrahim Babangida, former Head of State Gen Abdulsalami Abubakar and Governor Mu’azu Babangida Aliyu joined sympathisers at the prayers before the body was interred.
Also present were the Etsu Nupe, Alhaji Yahaya Abubakar, the Emirs of Suleja and Agaie, a delegation from the All Progressives Congress (APC) led by Senator Ibrahim Musa, Abubakar Magaji, Abubakar Sani Bello and David Umaru.
She is survived by three children.
Sacked Adamawa State Governor Murtala Nyako has described his impeachment by the House of Assembly as illegal.
He vowed yesterday to challenge the process in court to reclaim his mandate.
Nyako, who spoke through his Director of Press and Public Affairs, Ahmad Sajoh, said divine justice would soon be done.
He said: “Everything they have done is illegal. They have contravened the Constitution; they have violated court order. Their motto is that if they don’t subdue, they will destroy.
“They have done their worst, they can’t go beyond this. But there is divine justice waiting for all in the end. Can anyone run away from divine justice?
“They have done it. We are people of faith. Without the leave of Allah, they cannot do it. Sometimes, Allah gives and takes power. Sometimes, Allah chooses the most difficult path to take power but at the end of the day a pleasant era will come.
“Allah’s will has been done but we are challenging the process in the court. This is not only for the sake of reclaiming the mandate but for the sake of posterity.”
Earlier, in a statement, the former administration said it was wrong for the House of Assembly to consider the resignation letter of former Deputy Governor Bala Ngilari.
The statement said: “Our attention has been drawn to the purported resignation of the Deputy Governor of Adamawa State, Barr. Bala James Ngillari, which was supposedly read on the floor of the State House of Assembly
“We wish to state categorically that Section 306 (5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as Amended requires that the deputy governor resigns not to the House of Assembly but to the governor.
“As at the time the supposed resignation was said to have been tendered in the House, Murtala H. Nyako was the Governor of Adamawa State.
“This clarification is necessary to avert another subversion of the Constitution since the other processes relating to the impeachment saga have all been in contravention of the Constitution and the Law.
“We wish to observe that continued abuse of the constitution and the laws of the land may spell doom for our democracy.”
HETor Tiv, Alfred Akawe Torkula, has come under fire for purportedly selecting four governorship aspirants on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP).
Last week, the monarch and his council of chiefs reportedly selected four aspirants to reduce acrimony and help the Tiv aspiration to succeed Governor Gabriel Suswam next year.
Some groups have condemned the action, saying it was not the Tor Tiv’s place to select aspirants; others have said what the monarch did was just to advice the aspirants.
Chairman, MINDA PDP Governorship Aspirants Forum Prof Daniel Ker, in a statement, said there was no time any aspirant from MINDA, a Tiv group in four local governments (Makurdi, Guma, Gwer and Gwer West), was screened and selected as it was widely reported.
Ker, a former Benue State University (BSU) Vice Chancellor, said the meeting with traditional rulers from MINDA, MINDA Elders Forum and the Tor Tiv was on the need for peace and harmony among the aspirants and supporters.
He said: “It is totally unacceptable that our meeting with the Tor Tiv and his council of chiefs could be named a screening and selection exercise.”
He dismissed the rumours and described them as untrue and urged the public to wait for the PDP primaries.
“We agreed to submit ourselves to such efforts and modalities initiated by the monarch so as to streamline and moderate our participation in the race.”
The Senate Minority Leader, George Akume, condemned the Tor Tiv for turning his palace into the PDP secretariat.
The senator said the Tiv traditional stool has been bastardised in the name of politics, when the issues of Fulani attacks on Tiv people does not bother the Tiv monarch.
The former governor said the Tor Tiv is father to all Tiv people and advised him to play the role of a father instead of a politician.
A group, Aliegba Vanguard, said it was not the duty of the Tor Tiv to screen and select candidates but to uphold the custom of the Tiv people and promote peace and harmony.
The monarch’s chief press secretary, Godwin Ber, said the monarch was misunderstood. He denied that he did not screen nor select any candidate.
He said he stands for the peace and harmony of the Tiv people.
Governor Murtala Nyakowas impeached during an extraordinary session of the House held at the Assembly chambers.
The session reviewed the report of the seven-man panel which investigated allegations of misconduct against the governor.
Sixteen of the allegations levelled against the governor were upheld by the panel.
Speaker Ahmadu Fintiri called for a motion for the adoption of Deputy Governor Bala James Ngilari’s resignation letter.
After looking at the panel’s report, the members representing Gombi and Numan constituencies, Jerry Kumdisi and Kwamoti Laori, moved the motion for Nyako’s impeachment. Eighteen lawmakers signed. One of the signatories, Ishaq Bala, was absent.
The House passed a resolution directing the acting chief judge to swear in the speaker as the acting governor immediately.
The House said this is in pursuant to Section 191 (1) and (2) of the constitution.
Before the impeachment, soldiers and other security forces rode in armoured tanks on Yola streets. There was tension. Streets were barricaded.
William Hague has stood down as foreign secretary, but will stay in the cabinet as Leader of the Commons, Downing Street has said.
At least 12 men will leave their posts in the significant reshuffle, including Ken Clarke who is standing down.
Environment Secretary Owen Paterson is leaving the cabinet and is expected to be replaced by education minister Liz Truss.
Philip Hammond has accepted the role of foreign secretary.
Labour described the reshuffle as “the massacre of the moderates”.
Mr Hague is to leave Parliament at the 2015 general election after 26 years as MP for Richmond, North Yorkshire.
Senior ministers have told the BBC that the current defence secretary, Philip Hammond, will replace Mr Hague.
Prime Minister David Cameron said: “William Hague has been one of the leading lights of the Conservative Party for a generation, leading the party and serving in two cabinets.
“Not only has he been a first-class foreign secretary – he has also been a close confidant, a wise counsellor and a great friend.
“He will remain as first secretary of state and my de facto political deputy in the run up to the election – and it is great to know that he will be a core part of the team working to ensure an outright Conservative victory.”
Ken Clarke told Radio 4’s Today programme that he felt it was “time to step down”.
He said: “If you do work beyond the normal retirement age, I think actually you should prepare to decide you’re going to go before people are starting to scratch their head and think of reasons to get rid of you.”
Speaking on Mr Cameron’s latest changes, he said: “He doesn’t have many reshuffles which is a very good thing so ministers find out what their job is and then he wants a reshuffle, which looks like the sort of government he wants in the next Parliament.
“That’s what he’s done and guys like me who have done a few decades in government took the opportunity to retire.”
He added it was “superficial” for people to become obsessed with the gender balance of the cabinet and that Mr Cameron had made “enormous efforts” to get women in.
The death toll in Tuesday’s derailment on the Moscow metro now stands at 21, the Russian health ministry says.
Scores were injured, some seriously, when a packed commuter train braked abruptly between stations in the west of the city in the morning rush hour.
Some of those hurt were carried out of the tunnel on stretchers, with the most serious cases airlifted to hospital.
The cause of the crash – one of the worst incidents ever on the metro – is reported to be a power surge.
The train derailed between Slaviansky Boulevard and Park Pobedy (Victory Park) stations in the west of the city.
Some 50 people were in a serious condition, the Itar-Tass news agency reported, quoting a health official.
“The train slowed down abruptly, the lights went off, and then there was a spark of fire and smoke. We were blocked in,” one passenger told Russian TV.
Another, quoted by Reuters news agency, said: “We were trapped and only got out by some miracle. I thought it was the end. Many people were hurt, mostly in the front carriage because the cars ran into each other.” More than 1,100 people were evacuated
The packed commuter train was travelling from the north-west of Moscow to the city centre at the time of the crash.
The BBC’s Artyom Liss, in Moscow, says the tunnel where crash happened was built about 10 years ago.
Critics accuse the authorities of spending too much on extending the metro system, and not enough on maintenance, our correspondent says.
President Vladimir Putin, visiting Brazil, has ordered a criminal investigation into the accident.
Park Pobedy is the deepest metro station in Moscow, 84m (275ft) underground, which made the rescue operation particularly hard.
No foreigners were among the injured, the Interfax news agency said.
Militant attacks on Russia’s railways and transport networks have killed dozens of people in the past, but the emergencies ministry said there was no suspicion of such a cause in this case.
The Islamist insurgency Boko Haram in Nigeria killed no fewer 2,053 civilians in an estimated 95 attacks during the first half of 2014.
The figures are based on detailed analyses of media reports as well as field investigations. The killings and other abuses were part of widespread attacks on civilians in over 70 towns and villages in northeastern Nigeria, in the federal capital, Abuja, and elsewhere that are apparent crimes against humanity.
There has been a dramatic increase during 2014 in the numbers of casualties from bomb blasts, including several apparent suicide bombings.
Since January, at least 432 people have been reported killed in 14 blasts in crowded marketplaces, a brothel, a technical college, and, on two occasions, places where people were watching soccer matches.
Three of these attacks were in Maiduguri, the Borno state capital; two in Kano; two in Jos, the Plateau state capital; and three in Abuja, the federal capital.
The Abuja attacks may demonstrate a southward trend of Boko Haram operations, Human Rights Watch said.
“Boko Haram is effectively waging war on the people of northeastern Nigeria at a staggering human cost,” said Corinne Dufka, West Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “Atrocities committed as part of a widespread attack on civilians are crimes against humanity, for which those responsible need to be held to account.”
The bulk of the attacks and casualties credibly reported and investigated by Human Rights Watch took place in Borno State, the birthplace of Boko Haram, where 1,446 people died. Attacks killed 151 in Adamawa state and 143 civilians in Yobe state.
Human Rights Watch compiled the figures by analyzing credible local and international media reports, and the findings of human rights groups, as well as interviewing witnesses and victims of numerous attacks. The media reports generally quoted villagers, hospital and morgue workers, police and military officials, and local leaders who had observed, registered, counted or buried the dead. In the vast majority of cases, Boko Haram forces appeared to deliberately target civilians.
Since 2009, Jama’atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda’awati wal-Jihad, Nigeria’s Islamist insurgency popularly known as Boko Haram, has waged a violent campaign against the government to impose its authority under Sharia (Islamic) law. Widespread poverty, corruption, security force abuses, and longstanding impunity for a range of crimes have created a fertile ground in Nigeria for militant armed groups like Boko Haram.
The pace of attacks has dramatically intensified in remote villages since May 2013, when the federal government imposed a state of emergency in the northern states of Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe.
In many of the attacks Boko Haram gunmen fired on civilians, such as people gathered in busy marketplaces, places of worship, and residential neighborhoods. In three villages in Gwoza Local Government Area, Borno State, in early June, Boko Haram fighters impersonated military personnel to round up hundreds of villagers, then opened fire on them, media reports said. Two local chiefs from Attagara, one of the villages, told journalists they had buried 110 people killed in the attack.
On May 6, Boko Haram fighters allegedly killed 336 villagers in the twin towns of Gamboru-Ngala during an attack in which they used two armored personnel carriers they had stolen from the Nigerian military several months earlier. Residents reported that the villages had been burned to the ground.
Boko Haram’s kidnapping of 276 girls from a school in Chibok in April was not its only attack on schools in the northeast. In February, Boko Haram militants locked the doors to a boys’ dormitory of the Federal Government College of Buni Yadi, a secondary school near Damaturu, Yobe State and set the building on fire, killing 59.
Boko Haram forces have abducted and otherwise abused hundreds of women and girls during the attacks. Human Rights Watch will release a report in coming weeks on abuses by Boko Haram against girls and women, based on interviews with victims and witnesses in June. The report will also examine the deficiencies in the Nigerian government’s response to these abuses.
The killings and other abuses by Boko Haram appear to rise to the level of crimes against humanity. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, to which Nigeria is a party, defines crimes against humanity as various criminal offenses, including murder, torture and rape that are “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack.” Such crimes can be committed by a government or a non-state group. They must be widespread or systematic, but need not be both. “Widespread” refers to the scale of the acts or number of victims. A “systematic” attack indicates “a pattern or methodical plan.”
Since 2009, and increasingly since mid-2013, Boko Haram has carried out several hundred attacks against civilians and civilian structures in schools, marketplaces, and places of worship in villages, towns and even cities. The nature and frequency of the attacks indicate the actions of an organized movement. This is evidenced by the presence of convoys of trucks, motorbikes, and occasionally armored personnel carriers with well-armed gunmen; the fashion in which gunmen were seen deploying in and around the target or setting up checkpoints; and the planning required to infiltrate the cities in which attacks took place.
Human Rights Watch and other national and international human rights groups have also documented abuses by the Nigerian Security Forces since 2009 as they responded to the attacks by Boko Haram.
These include excessive use of force, burning homes, physical abuse, and extrajudicial killings of those suspected of supporting Boko Haram. Amnesty International found that following a March 14 Boko Haram attack on Giwa Barracks that led to the escape of hundreds of detainees, the security forces executed hundreds of the unarmed recaptured detainees.
Security forces have rounded up hundreds of men and boys suspected of supporting Boko Haram, detained them in inhuman conditions and physically abused or killed them. Many others have been forcibly disappeared. The Nigerian government should account for the “disappeared” and ensure that all law enforcement operations are conducted in full accordance with international human rights standards.
“No matter how egregious the violence, Nigerian security forces engaged in operations against Boko Haram may not operate outside the law,” Dufka said. “The Nigerian government should recognize that it needs to protect its population both from Boko Haram and from abusive members of its own military and police.”
Members of the People Democratic Party (PDP) in the House of Representatives yesterday endorsed President Goodluck Jonathan to run for the 2015 election.
But Speaker Aminu Tambuwal was absent at the meeting.
Addressing State House correspondents at the Presidential Villa in Abuja after the meeting with the President, House Leader Mulikat Adeola-Akande said the caucus passed a vote of confidence on Jonathan.
She said: “We are the PDP Caucus of the House of Representatives. A meeting like this is not strange because we met with the President, who is our leader.
“We deliberated on issues affecting our party. The House Caucus, on our own, decided to pass a vote of confidence on Mr. President and also endorse him for second term.”
On whether or not the President accepted, she said: “We did the endorsement and we are urging him to run for second term.”
On Tambuwal’s absence, Adeola-Akande said: “I am sure when you see Mr Speaker, you will ask him. This is a PDP meeting. Obviously, he will have his reasons why he was not at the meeting.”
The House Leader said security issues were also discussed at the meeting and the government received kudos for efforts to restore peace in trouble spots of the country.
THE Managing Director of Cross Country Limited, Mr. Bube Okorodudu, was on Monday brought to the Lagos State High Court, Ikeja, by a team of policemen from the Zone II Police Command, where he reported himself on Friday, in compliance with a court order.
Justice Lateef Lawal-Akapo had on July 8, 2014 issued a bench warrant directing the police to produce Okorodudu in court on July 14, 2014, following a case instituted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against Cross Country over an alleged N82.8 million theft which his counsel, Mr. Godswill Mrakpor, has described as “spurious and a calculated attempt to embarrass, ridicule and intimidate his client”.
The EFCC alleged that they stole the money through the fraudulent sale of 17 units of Volkswagen transporter buses belonging to AG Moeller Ltd and one Adeloye Olukemi.
However, the trial could not go on because of the nationwide judicial workers’ strike.
A statement issued yesterday by his lawyer, Mr. Godswill Mrakpor, said: “While my client was out of the country on medical grounds, a bench warrant was issued against him directing the Nigeria Police to produce him in court. As an officer in the temple of justice and knowing my client to be a law abiding citizen, I advised him to return to the country and report himself to any police formation, in obedience to the court order.
“Hence, upon Mr. Okorodudu’s arrival in the country on Friday, 11th July, 2014, he reported himself at the Zone II Police Command where he was granted bail and asked to report back on Monday, so as to be taken to the court as ordered.
“Again, as an honourable man who has a lot of respect for the laws of the land, he turned himself in on Monday. A team of about eight policemen took him to the court to answer the summons as reported by the several newspapers on Tuesday, 15th July, 2014. But unfortunately, the court did not sit because of the ongoing judicial workers strike.”
Mrakpor stated that contrary to the impression being created out there, his client has no reason to disobey the court, adding: “He only travelled out of the country having received a well-considered legal advice that his presence was not yet required since there were two pending applications challenging the jurisdiction of the court.
“This is more so that this is a civil/business transaction in which AG Moeller Ltd gave a N140 million loan facility to Cross Country Ltd with an agreement that the beneficiary would pay back N228 million within 24 months. However, Cross Country Ltd was able to pay back N223 million in 30 months.
“Surprisingly, AG Moeller and its promoters wrote my clients claiming a balance of N213 million as default charges and others. When my clients challenged this with facts and figures, they turned round to petition the police alleging that the 40 units of Volkswagen buses that were procured with the facility were stolen by my clients.”