By Elo Edremoda, Warri

The days of mourning for Itsekiris all over the world are over as the final traditional rites of passage for His Majesty Ogiame Ikenwoli, culminates early Saturday.

The traditional ceremony which kicked off a fortnight ago, June 19, has seen various performances of the rich cultural heritage of the people from various Itsekiri communities, in honour of the demised monarch.

Ikenwoli, the 20th Olu of Itsekiri was crowned on December 12, 2015.

Sons and daughters across Iwereland, as well as well-meaning individuals have been flocking Ode-Itsekiri, the ancestral home of the Itsekiri people to participate in the rites of passage of Ogiame Ikenwoli, who joined his ancestors last December.

He has been described as a “peace crusader” and one whose reign ushered development to the kingdom.

Members of the Olu Advisory Council, the Warri Traditional Council of Chiefs, led by the Iyatsere of Warri were on ground to direct the traditional rites.

The renowned Professor of Mass Communication and former Chief of Staff and Commissioner for Economic Planning & Budget in Anambra State, Prof. Chinyere Stella Okunna has reacted to the news making the rounds about the possibility of her becoming the deputy governorship candidate/running mate to Mr. Valentine  Ozigbo, the PDP flag bearer in the November 2021 gubernatorial election in Anambra State.

Speaking in Awka, Prof. Okunna said she first heard the news of her becoming the deputy governorship candidate through many associates, as well as men and women of goodwill who called, to her embarrassment, to congratulate her on what they called her “deserving recognition.”

She said when she enquired the source of the news, they referred her to the social media. “I visited different social media platforms and saw different things that were written on the matter and my first reaction was to wonder how all this had been going on without my knowledge.”

Responding specifically, Okunna said: “In 2006, I joined the government of Mr. Peter Obi. Though my salary was much less than what I was paid as a professor, I still look back on all those years with nostalgia and a sense of immense fulfilment, knowing that Team Peter Obi worked with a world-class leader to actualize his Vision of achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) using his innovative, revolutionary and globally-acclaimed Anambra Integrated Development Strategy (ANIDS). It is on record that the team effectively delivered results which made Anambra number 1 in the implementation of the MDGs, consequent upon which the United Nations invited His Excellency to New York to share his MDGs experience. As the Chairman of the State’s MDGs Implementation Committee, it is obvious how proud I felt and still feel about that accomplishment.”

“Immediately after I left government in 2014”, Okunna continued, “I returned to the university and have been extremely busy ever since. From again being the Head of Mass Communication from 2014 to 2017,  becoming the Director of UNIZIK FM from 2014 to date, serving as the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences  from 2016 to 2019, and delivering my Inaugural Lecture in 2018, in addition to so many other academic and social engagements still stretching ahead of me, it has indeed been a most eventful life and will remain so for quite some time.

Let me therefore state categorically that I am happy where I am and that I am not interested in becoming the Deputy Governor of Anambra State.”

Further, Okunna who said she is related to the Ubas, expressed her reluctance to be dragged into needless controversy and direct ‘confrontation’ with them.

Okunna thereafter thanked those promoting her candidacy, as she is convinced that such promotion has been borne out of goodwill, but apologised and appealed to them not to continue doing so, as she is not enthusiastic.

By Emma Elekwa, Onitsha

A group, Independent Leaders’ Forum (ILF), has cautioned against alleged plans to impose a running mate on the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Valentine Ozigbo.

The group, in a statement signed by its President, Obinna Okafor, expressed fears that such imposition could mar the party’s chances in winning the November 6 poll.

It accused former governor of the state, Mr. Peter Obi of planning to foist a running mate in the person of Prof. Stella Okunna or Hon. Ndubuisi Menakaya, without recourse to other critical stakeholders in the party.

It regretted that the duo were not grassroots politicians, threatening to mobilise other youths to work against the party if they were eventually imposed on the party.

The statement partly read, “aware that the choice of a running mate is the business of the party and generality of the major stakeholders, we completely reject the choice of Prof. Stella Okunna, who is in her 60s and not a grassroots politician, and also the choice of Hon. Ndubuisi Menakaya, though in his late 50s, is not a grassroots politician.

“With all sense of humility and modesty, may we remind His Excellency, Mr. Peter Obi that we do not want a repeat of what happened in 2017 where Mr. Peter Obi was in the forefront of the campaign, sidelined the campaign organisation of HE Oseloka Obaze, and major stakeholders in decision making, the resultant effect was PDP losing 21/21 LGAs to APGA.

“No single individual can deliver a governorship candidate successfully, without the input of other major stakeholders. Therefore, Mr. Peter Obi’s dictate of Mr. Valentine Ozigbo’s running mate and campaign would naturally bring a repeat of what happened in 2017. This we must oppose with everything we have.

“It should be noted that since 2003 till date, this is the first time a PDP candidate emerged by a collective effort of major stakeholders, and not by anointing/selection by a godfather. It is important that we protect this candidate with all jealousy against that action/s capable of making us lose this election.

“Finally, we will not hesitate to mobilise other youths to work against the party if Mr. Peter Obi’s or any individual’s nominee of running mate is imposed on the candidate without the collective input of other critical stakeholders.”

Reacting, Media Aide to Mr. Peter Obi, Val Obienye, dismissed the allegations, quoting Prof. Okunna as saying she was not interested in becoming Deputy Governor of the State.

By Bassey Anthony, Uyo

The University of Uyo (UNIUYO), Akwa Ibom State, was on Friday shut down following the tension from the death of an unidentified student in a cult clash.

Another student was badly injured in the crisis which has created intense tension at the town campus of the university situated along Ikpa Road, Uyo metropolis.

It was gathered problem started on Tuesday, June 29, 2021, when a 300 level student, from the Geography Department, Faculty of Social Sciences was killed by some suspected cultists.

It was learnt that the situation has paralyzed academic activities in the institution as both lecturers and students have been engulfed in fear of the unknown.

A source who pleaded anonymity said that upon the death of the student, some cultists in a reprisal attack proceeded the following day to the Fine Arts Department and shot another unidentified student where he only sustained injury.

The source said that the suspected cultists thought the death was caused by the student in the Fine Art Department but was later discovered it was caused by a student from the Department of Philosophy, Faculty of Art.

“A student from the Department of Geography was killed on Tuesday.

“But, on Wednesday around 5 pm, we heard some gunshots in the Department of Fine Art and on getting there discovered that a student was shot.

“He was said to have been rushed to an undisclosed hospital where he is undergoing treatment,” the source added.

However, the management of the institution through a statement signed by the Registrar, Mr. Aniediabasi Udofia, obtained by our correspondent in Uyo on Friday, directed all the students residing in the hostels to vacate the school with immediate effect.

The statement urged students whose academic activities were still running to carry them out from their respective homes.

The statement reads: “The University Management has given a directive that all students residing in the hostels in the University Campus should vacate the same before 6pm of today, Thursday, July 01, 20211 till further notice.

“Students who have any ongoing academic activities (examination or research projects) to do in the school during this period are advised to do so from their respective homes.

“By this notice, the Dean of Students and the Director, Security are requested to ensure that the hostels are evacuated as directed by the management,” it added.

As at the time of filing this report, the suspected cult groups involved in the matter were yet to be unraveled.

By Sunny Nwankwo, Aba

The  Abia State Police Command has paraded seven members of armed robbery gangs that have been terrorizing the state.

The two gangs, our reporter gathered, have been on the radar of the police and other security agencies in the state in recent times.

They were accused of carrying out armed robbery and kidnapping activities in the state where many of their victims had been made to pay huge sums of ransom.

The names of the suspects were given as Samuel Udochukwu, male, aged 26 Emeka Okedum, male, a native of Osah Ukwu Obingwa LGA, Abia State, while, Udo Onwukwe, male,  aged 48 years from Urnuonu Obingwa LGA, Abia State, until their arrest was the armourer and camp provider of the gang.

Others are: Okechukwu Obioma, male, aged 31 years, from Umual Ntigha Obingwa LGA  was the guard for victims; Saviour Akpan, male, aged 27 years from lkoro Esenan in Orukanam LGA, Akwa Ibom State, was the gang driver. Other members are: Abia Daniel, male, aged 41 years from Item in Bende LGA Abia State and Kelechi Nnachi, male, aged 24 years from Edda in Afikpo South LGA, Ebonyi State.

Exhibits recovered from the two armed robbery gangs include, one AK-47 rifle with breach No. TC 6664 with 25 rounds of live ammunition, one pump action gun with ten live cartridges, one locally made double barrel cut to size gun with ten live cartridges, one Volkswagen Jetta car and one victim’s phone, one locally made double barrel pistol with four (4) live cartridges, the deceased victim’s Techno Spark phone.

Parading the suspects at the State Command Headquarters in Umuahia, the state capital, the Abia State Commissioner of Police, CP Janet Agede said that on the 25th and 26th of June, 2021, based on intelligence, the Command’s personnel in collaboration with IGP 1RT operatives on ‘Operation Restore Peace Mission’ arrested the suspects at different locations in the state.

According to the Abia police boss, relevant information available to the police also led to the arrest of members of the second gang.

The Abia CP disclosed that Abia Daniel pulled out from his gang to form his own gang where he turned out to be their gang leader.

She said Abia Daniel on Thursday 24 June, at about 1900hrs, waylaid one Uzoma Ndubueze of No. 50 Ogwo Street by Ohanku Aba while driving into his house.

Abia Daniel and his gang were said to have whisked Mr. Ndubueze alongside his Lexus 330 SUV, ash in colour to Ntigha area in Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area of the state where they shot and killed him, and still went ahead to collect the sum of seven hundred thousand naira (N700,000) as ransom from the family.

The phone of the victim was recovered from the gang leader, who confessed that his gang members were nine in number.

Agbede warned young people who see crime as the only means of livelihood to desist or have the security agencies to contend with.

By Damian Duruiheoma, Enugu

The Enugu State Police Command has said that it has no information on the accident that led to the death of Ebonyi Commissioner for Infrastructure and Concession, Fidelis Kings Nweze, 11 days ago.

Our correspondent found that no accident occurred at Eke Obinagu along the Enugu-Abakiliki in the past two weeks.
Ebonyi State Governor had while announcing Nweze’s death last Tuesday, said: “Nweze died this (June 22) morning at Turkish Hospital, Abuja at about 9:50 am.

“He was travelling to Enugu on Saturday morning with his driver and orderly. At Obinagu in Enugu State, they rammed into a stationary truck.”

Nweze was also said to have been rushed to Niger Foundation in Enugu, from where he was moved to the Turkish International Hospital, Abuja where he died after “a successful operation”.

However, when contacted on the telephone at the weekend, spokesman for the Enugu State Police Command, Daniel Ndukwe, said: “I am not aware of such accident. We don’t have any information on it.”

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He told our correspondent to contact the Ebonyi Police command to get the actual place of the accident.

Also, when The Nation visited the axis on Enugu-Abakiliki Road on Friday, some members of the National Union of Road Transport Workers (NURTW), traffic wardens at Eke Obinagu and members of a task force, said no accident had been recorded between Emene and Nkalagu axis of the highway in the past two weeks.

A traffic warden at Eke Obinagu, who declined to give his name, said the only accident he could remember occurred close to the mouth of the bridge near Orie Emene Community Market on June 16, three days before the commissioner’s reported case.

Umahi has said he would adopt the late Nweze’s family even after the end of his tenure on May 29, 2023.

“I have become the father of the family till eternity and I will stand by the family even when I leave office because of the life he lived,” he said during a church service at Christ Embassy in Abakaliki on Sunday.

By Okungbowa Aiwerie, Asaba

Senator Peter Nwaoboshi (PDP, Delta North), has slammed Governor Ifeanyi Okowa over his disparaging comments on the party’s zoning arrangement for the governorship position in Delta State.

Nwaoboshi, who spoke at the weekend in Asaba, said no person could produce a governor in the state, as stakeholders in the party had the resources to resist him.

He said: “No man can sit in his office and determine who the next governor is. We have the resources to fight and stop him from picking his successor alone.”

Nwaoboshi added: “I lost my commissionership because I was fighting for power shift, which he is a beneficiary of. Then at the end of your tenure, you are saying there is no written agreement.”

He recalled how he fought for power shift in 2006 when James Ibori’s tenure was coming to an end, saying the body language of the then governor showed that he was likely to handover to a successor from Delta Central.

He said: “I rose and told him that in our meetings at various places the notion is that power will rotate among the senatorial districts and that he cannot hand over power to another person from Delta Central; this is the understanding we all have.

“My brothers from Delta Central rose against me, including the current  Deputy Senate President. I stood my ground. I formed ‘Equity 2006’ to challenge the power that was in power in Delta State.

“Okowa participated in the struggle. He was sending people to the meeting although he was romancing with the government at that time.”

The Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), Youth Wing Worldwide, has appealed to Delta South and North senatorial districts to support the Central to produce the next governor in 2023.

Its President, Mr. Duru Ufuoma, made the appeal at a news conference yesterday, alongside members of the National Executive Council of the union in Agbarho, Ughellli North Local Government.

Ufuoma said the appeal became expedient to sustain the existing justice, fairness and equity which the governorship zoning arrangement had entrenched in the state.

He urged those secretly formulating political alliance between Delta North and South to neutralise the political force of the Urhobo by 2023 to stop and embrace the existing principles of zoning agreement.

Ufuoma recalled that a former governor of Delta, Chief James Ibori, had initiated the policy of rotating the governorship position among the three senatorial zones.

According to him, the aim is to pave the way for minorities and enable ethnic groups in the state to attain the governorship position whenever it gets to the turn of their senatorial district.

He added that the move was welcomed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) leaders in the three senatorial districts and jointly agreed that the governorship position be rotated among the three senatorial districts and not on ethnic basis.

“The attention of the UPU, youth wing, has been drawn to the constant discordant tunes from the Delta South, demanding ethnic zoning of the governorship position in 2023.

“We would have ignored the deliberate move, but if we do, we are not helping to consolidate on the unity, peace and equity the PDP’s gentleman zoning agreement has yielded across the three senatorial districts.

“In 2023, a detribalised Delta Central person shall be the governor of the state, because it is the turn of Delta Central to produce the next governor.

“We call on our brothers from the Delta South secretly formulating a political alliance between Delta South and North to neutralise the political force of the Urhobo in 2023 to stop and embrace the rules of zoning.

“This politically incorrect motive has a dangerous tendency to change the fortunes of PDP in Delta,” Ufuoma said.

He urged the leadership of the PDP to maintain the rotational governorship arrangement to sustain the peaceful co-existence, unity and development of Delta.

Ufuoma also urged his kinsmen,

particularly the political class and stakeholders, to remain calm and go about their political businesses, saying: “Governorship position is not negotiable outside Delta Central in 2023.”

The youth leader appealed to politicians from Urhobo extraction working for aspirants from other senatorial districts to have a rethink and retrace their steps.

Ufuoma thanked Governor Ifeanyi Okowa for fulfilling his campaign promises.

He said his developmental stride had reawakened and rekindled hope of youths in the state.

“But, he was sending his people to participate in my struggle to shift power. In fact, the first meeting we held in Mrs. Giwa-Amu’s house on this issue, Okowa was there. So what we are saying is that power must rotate among the three senatorial districts. That it cannot remain at the Central.

“It was at that meeting that we coined the name ‘Equity 2006’. It became the vehicle with which we fought the government. That was how power left Central and went to the South. The Urhobo people would have killed me then if they saw me.”

Nwaoboshi accused Okowa of undermining the leadership of the PDP and destroying the unity of stakeholders.

He said the cohesion that existed in the PDP had been eroded, noting that during Ibori’s tenure, everyone was treated as stakeholders.

“Then, we worked as a team. Ibori treated us as colleagues and did not take decisions on his own. When Ibori won his election, he summoned many meetings in Warri for us to discuss with the government. We saw the government as our own.”

 

 

By Chris Njoku, Owerri

Former Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha has called on the Inspector General of Police to take over case files of two members of his political family, Ojukwu Ukonu and Ugbor Casmir, allegedly been held over attacks on the Command Headquarters and Correctional Centre Owerri in April.

The police last Thursday claimed that Ukonu and Ugbor were among four additional hoodlums arrested in a coded operation over their involvement in the Owerri attacks.

Sen. Okorocha said the police had deliberately lied, as Ukonu and Ugbor and their wives were arrested three weeks ago and since then they have remained in detention with nobody allowed to see them.

He urged the IGP in a statement by his

Special Adviser on Media, Sam Onwuemeodo, to step into the matter to ascertain whose report or claim or account to believe.

“Whether to believe the account or claim of the police in lmo that the two men were arrested on May 27 or our own claim that they have been in detention for three weeks now.”

He recalled that he issued a statement when the duo were arrested on May 15.

“In the statement, we called on the Commissioner of Police to release Ukonu and Ugbor because we knew and still know that their arrest was part of  the relentless effort to add non-existent flesh to the mentioning of Senator Okorocha’s name by the state  government 24 hours after the Police Headquarters and Correctional Centre Owerri attacks happened.

“We equally claimed that they were arrested and detained on the strength of the petition said to have been written by the state government, in which the names of Okorocha’s political associates and members of his large political family were listed for arrest.  Nobody denied this claim because it was a fact.”

He said: “With all these lies, we could only situate the arrest, detention and subsequent parading of Ojukwu Ukonu and Ugbor Casmir in the desperate effort to justify the state government’s hasty mentioning of Okorocha when the Owerri attacks took place, without waiting for the investigation into the ugly incident by relevant security agencies to even commence.”

According to him, “linking the two men with the Police Headquarters and Correctional Centre Owerri attacks was most uncharitable, very ungodly, unpatriotic and inhuman. Their only offence to the best of our knowledge is that  they  are members of Okorocha’s large political family.

“The problem is that the leadership of the Police in lmo has not  defined  its modus operandi . Whether to always succumb to the whims and caprices of the state government or to work for lmo people, while giving the government its due regard.

“With all these, most lmo people have begun to feel that the former PPRO, Mr Orlando lkeokwu, was removed for always insisting on professionalism.  The new spokesman for the command seems to be having his own style, which, so far, has appeared strange.

“We therefore call on the lnspector General of Police to take over the case files of Ojukwu Ukonu and Ugbor Casmir, to know whose report or claim or account to believe.  Whether to believe the account or claim of the police in lmo that the two men were arrested on May 27 or our own claim that they have been in detention for three weeks now.

“The IGP has a responsibility,  with regard to what has been happening in lmo.  There is a new dimension to the security situation in lmo.  The dimension of vendetta and undue victimisation. Our worry is that if the ugly development is not checked, people may suffer for offences they never committed.  And God won’t be happy. Posterity and judgment of history will aslso not be favourable,” he said.