By Innocent Duru

Ohaneze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide has condemned recent attacks on security agents in the South East while calling on pro- Biafra groups to desist from making inflammatory statements.

In a statement signed by the President General, Mazi Okechukwu Isiguzoro and the Secretary General,  Mazi Okwu Nnabuike , the OYC said: ‘The recent Guerrilla revolution and attacks on security agents that led to the loss of lives of security agents, burning down of police stations, and looting of  their rifles is a ploy to complicate security issues in the South East and set ablaze the peaceful atmospheric nature of the East by men of the underworld.

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“This ugly situation must be nipped in the bud immediately by Igbos through collective surveillance and intelligence gathering by  all and sundry.  Igbo youths will never allow this criminality to be condoned in our land.

“Biafra agitators should desist from making inflammatory statements directing subjects to attack security agents in retaliation for the killing  of Igbos in Emene Enugu. We equally believe that Biafra agitators’ threats of violence against security forces was done out of anger and displeasure over the Enugu episode, but definitely this is a rare opportunity for those who made bogus calls and threats to retract their threats and show repentance, so that Igbos will jointly defend ourselves against possible invasion.”

By Okungbowa Aiwerie, Asaba

An unidentified middle-aged woman was  on Friday, crushed to death after a Lexus Jeep rammed into  her motorcycle along the New Sapele/Agbor Road opposite Ebedei Secondary, Adonishaka in Ukwuani LGA Delta State.

Three persons including a pastor with Winner’s Chapel ,simply identified as Pastor Ngbomini, survived the accident, it was learnt.

It was learnt a speeding Lexus Saloon car veered off its lane after a burst tyre and crushed the woman who was heading to Obiaruku on a motorcycle.

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The woman died on the spot, The Nation gathered.

It was learnt the driver of the Lexus fled the scene after the incide

By Simon Utebor, Yenagoa

The gale of defections rocking the All Progressives Congress continued on Friday as more core grassroots leaders and supporters of the party  defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)  ahead of the Bayelsa West Senatorial bye elections scheduled for October 31, 2020.

Hundreds of APC members from Ward 6 of Sagbama Local Government Area led by Hon Mentor Bob abandoned the APC for the PDP during a major protest rally at the Toru Orua country home of ex-Governor Dickson.

Mentor and the APC members were received by the PDP Senatorial candidate, Chief Dickson, a member of the party’s Board òf Trustees, Chief Remi Kuku,  the Senatorial Vice Chairman òf the Party, Hon Michael Magbisa, the member representing Sagbama Constituency in the State Assembly, Col. Bernard Kenebai, and other officials of the party.

The spokesman of the group of defectors, Mentor, said that the APC members were embittered by the brazen violation of the agreement on the rotation of the two National Assembly positions between Sagbama and Ekeremor Local Government Areas making up the district.

In his remarks, the senatorial candidate of the PDP, Chief Dickson, said while addressing the crowd that the APC candidate, Chief Peremobowei Ebebi, would not be able to win a ward in the forthcoming election.

Also, the people of Fatorugbene and Tamogbene Ward 7, In Ekeremor Local Government Area have declared total support for Chief Dickson during a solidarity visit.

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The team was led by a former Chairman of Ekeremor Local Government Area, Barr. Billy Toboye, former Special Adviser, on Domestic Matters to former President Goodluck Jonathan, Mr Obiriki, Hon. Pena Omuko, Hon. Julie Samuel Andy other stakeholders from the ward.

Toboye assured the former Governor of the unflinching support of the people and their votes during the election.

Our Reporter

Ijaw Elders Forum (IEF) has urged the members of the National Assembly from the Niger Delta region to reject in its entirety the proposed Water Resources Bill which has been generating concern across the country.

The appeal followed the resolution of the House of Representatives at its last plenary to take a second look at the bill with a view to fine-tuning it for general acceptability.

In a statement issued on Friday by its Secretary, Pastor Efiye Bribena, the forum described the bill as “the most audacious land-grabbing  scheme ever envisioned in human history,” declaring “it is obnoxious, provocative and evil.”

“It is with all sense of responsibility that the Ijaw Elders Forum categorically states its denunciation and rejection of the Water Resources Bill that is designed to seize the waterways and ancestral lands of the Ijaw people by the force of an evil, draconian and provocative law.

Chris Njoku, Owerri

FORMER governorship candidate of the All Progressives  Grand Alliance(APGA) in Imo State,  Chief Martins Agbaso, on Friday led 4,000 members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Owerri zone to Governor Hope Uzodimma.

The event which took place at the Government House, Owerri, saw  top stalwarts of the PDP denouncing  their membership of the party  before the governor.

Agbaso, while presenting the defectors to the governor also assured that more will soon join the fray of defectors to the APC, just as he informed that a mega reception by the people of Owerri zone to welcome and congratulate Governor Uzodimma as the new governor of the state was in the pipeline.

“Politics is not a business for a single person. Once we were treated like lepers but today we can see the light at the end of the tunnel with  the coming of  Governor Uzodimma. He has no business in impressing me but what he has done since he assumed duty as governor is commendable.

“What he will do in Imo State  will shock people. This is a man I know is a power house.  Ndi Owerri will  follow him.   We will keep fishing for good men in Owerri to support him,” Agbaso said.

A  former PDP chieftain,  Harry Njoku,  thanked the governor for giving him and his supporters the opportunity to join the APC.

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“I have come to thank you for everything you have done in my life. We have pledged to join hands with you to move our dear state forward to recover the state from decay.

Earlier,  the APC state Chairman,  Marcillius Nlemigbo,  told the audience that journey to bring people from other political parties had started with the opposition now interested in the achievements of Governor Uzodimma. “APC is not just a political party, it is now a movement in Imo  State. ”

Governor Uzodimma while thanking his visitors expressed happiness that all the big names in politics from Owerri zone are now returning to the APC, maintaining  that it is time to bring back the state from its lost glory.

He said:  “I’m happy to see such the calibre of people returning to our party, APC. These are the best no doubt from Owerri, with your collective efforts, we shall rescue Imo and bring it back to where it used to be.”

 Mike Odiegwu, Port Harcourt

A FORMER agitator and founder of the Network for the Defence of Democracy and Good Governance (NDDGG), High Chief Soboma Jackrich, has faulted the position of Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike on the state’s unemployment rate, as released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The Federal Government’s agency, in its recent publication, categorised Rivers as top three states with the highest unemployment rate in Nigeria.

But Wike described the NBS report as fake and political, insisting that his government had provided about 100,000 jobs.

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Reacting to the development, Jackrich said: “The only jobs Rivers citizens have benefited under him are menial jobs of daily pay for our youths; task force jobs, which have turned our youths to louts; and all state-owned enterprises, which were hitherto functional before now, are grounded and not revived and no new investments in place that would create employment for Rivers people.

“This accounts for the senseless wave of crime among our youths, owing partly to the treacherous ‘use and dump’ politics we play in Rivers State.”

 Nsa Gill, Calabar

CROSS River State Governor Ben Ayade has given the over 2,500 workers delisted from the state payroll the conditions they must meet to be reabsorb.

The governor addressed the affected workers yesterday at the U. J. Eusene Stadium in Calabar, the state capital.

He directed them to report for verification and regularisation.

Ayade said the affected workers were hired without his knowledge, adding that “the state Civil Service Commission did the employment without recourse to me”.

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The governor listed some of the conditions the delisted workers need to meet to include the verification before reabsorption as fresh workers and without demands for any arrears.

Asking the affected workers to put themselves in his shoes, he queried: “If you were the governor of the state and you suddenly discovered an additional 2,500 workers on your payroll that you did not authorise, that you did not know about, that nobody consulted you about, what will you do?”

Ayade noted that if he was vindictive, he would have since sacked officials who smuggled the names of the delisted workers into the state’s payroll.

“I am doing so on compassionate ground and not because the state is buoyant enough to accommodate you,” he told the affected workers.

Our Reporter

IMO State Government has given approval for the resumption of schools on Monday.

The resumption is, however, subject to the adherence to the recommendations by the committee responsible for ensuring that COVID-19 safety protocols headed by the Deputy Governor, Prof. Placid Njoku.

The decision to reopen the schools was reached at the State Executive Council meeting on Wednesday, which was presided over by Governor Hope Uzodimma.

Commissioner for Information and Strategy Declan Emelumba, who briefed reporters,  also said the council gave approval for the school system to be fully automated and digitalised to capture pupils and students enrollment; teachers, pupils and students personal data; payment of school fees; examination details and other relevant information concerning schools.

The reason for automation, the commissioner said, is to make it easy for government, parents, teachers, students, pupils and the public to access information on schools as well as data of anyone who passed through such schools.

Emelumba said that the Commissioner for Education will head the automation process.

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He, however, informed, regrettably, that the State Executive Council had received information that the planned warning strike by doctors is politically-motivated and an intention to blackmail the government.

The Kano State Government also yesterday released a time-table for re-opening of public and private schools for the third term academic year.

Commissioner for Education Muhammad Sanusi-Kiru released the time-table at a news conference yesterday in Kano.

Sanusi-Kiru revealed that the schools would be re-opened in phases and that exit class students in public and private schools would resume between Oct. 11 and Oct. 12.

He said that primary I and II pupils would attend classes on Mondays and Tuesdays and primary 3, 4 and 5 would attend classes on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.