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joint military and police operation in the early hours of yesterday smashed a criminal gang in Gombe, arresting 88 persons suspected to be terrorists.

Briefing newsmen on the breakthrough, the Commissioner of Police, Mohammed Iyanda Sule, said he was called by the Commandant of 301 Artillery in the state capital, Col Joseph Iwara, around 04:30 am to provide men for joint raids of Anguwan-Uku at Arawa area of the metropolis.

He said they immediately responded to the operation that led to the arrest of a group of 88 notorious criminals.

Items recovered from them include three AK 47 rifles, one Barreta pistol, eight magazines, one boot of AK 47 rifle, 163 live ammunition and 24 GSM phones.

Other items later recovered at the scene included the butt of a military rifle, 34 improvised explosive device (IED) chargers and two Sambwa water used for producing IEDs.

The commissioner said the items later discovered indicated that the group was probably a terrorist group, adding that they were still investigating the development.

He appealed to the people of Gombe State to remain calm as the Command was doing everything possible to safeguard their lives and property.

He also urged the people to to trust the police and other security agencies by giving useful information that would lead to the arrest of criminals with the aim of making the entire state crime-free

Vice President, Mohammed Namadi Sambo, yesterday inaugurated the Presidential Committee on Defence Industries Corporation of Nigeria (DICON).

The committee’s main responsibility is to look into the structure, operations and activities of DICON with particular reference to its effect on military procurement and production of military equipment in Nigeria.

Inaugurating the committee the Vice President said the defence industry is necessary for “the development of national capacity for defence hardware and other facilities.”

Sambo expressed optimism that “with the calibre of people the Committee would properly execute its assignment to bring the result that would meet the expectation of the country’s national development objectives and to transform the Defence Industry in Nigeria to a higher level”.

The terms of reference of the Committee are: to review the DICON Act to position it to effectively carry out its regulatory functions to ensure compliance with guidelines in the procurement in the country; to determine ways to encourage private sector participation not just in the activities of DICON but also in the production of military equipment; to propose a sustainable funding framework to enhance the development of defence equipment in Nigeria; to determine ways to encourage patronage of foreign countries; to consider or otherwise the establishment of training institute. The Committee has four weeks to complete its assignment.

Those in the Committee are: the Attorney-Genera of the Federation and Minister of Justice; the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance; Ministers of Works; Interior; Trade and Investment; Defence; National Planning; Police Affairs; Aviation; Transport; Science and Technology; Others are DG, DICON; DG, Bureau of Public Procurement; DG, Infrastructure Concession and Regulatory Commission; Commandant, NDA; Rep of National Security Adviser; Reps of all Service Chiefs; Rep of Inspector General of Police; Secretary to the Government of the Federation serves as the Secretariat.

Plain clothe detectives from the Special Fraud Unit (SFU), Milverton, Ikoyi, Lagos on Wednesday stormed the Omole Phase 2 residence of detained Managing Director of Capital Oil and Gas Industries Limited, Dr. Ifeanyi Uba.

The team led by one Supol Soji was said to have taken away some documents and three posh cars belonging to the oil magnate.

It was not immediately clear on whose order the team acted, as sources familiar with the investigation wondered what could have led to the invasion and confiscation of the property of the detainee, who has been in the custody of the SFU since October 9.

According to the sources, all documents relating to the transactions under scrutiny had since been submitted to the police and nothing was withheld by Uba. The invasion and seizure of his posh cars, they said, were unwarranted.

Uba and some management staff of the company were detained after they honoured an invitation extended to the company by the police at SFU.

Their continued detention prompted them to approach a Federal High Court in Lagos to enforce their fundamental rights.

The trial judge, Justice Okon Abang, after hearing the arguments of Uba’s lawyer, Joseph Nwobike, SAN, and the lawyer to the SFU, Godwin Obla, has fixed ruling on the application for Monday, October 22.

Mr. Soro Nwoko, a lawyer, said the policemen who carried out the operation must have had an ulterior motive and urged the Inspector General, Mr. Mohammed Abubakar, to order investigation into the illegal act.

He said, given that the accused persons had been in the custody of the police for about 11 days and a suit challenging their continued detention was currently before a competent court of law, invading his house and confiscating his property when the court had not given an order to that effect amounted to an affront on the judiciary and a further violation of the fundamental rights of the detainees, who should be deemed innocent, having not been pronounced guilty by any court of law.

“On whose order did the police confiscate his cars? Is it on the orders of the Inspector-General or the commissioner in charge of the SFU? This is uncalled for because the value of those cars is nothing to compare with the amount under investigation. I can tell you there is more to that and Police authorities should call the officers to order because this is becoming a humiliation,” Nwoko said.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) yesterday said it had seized about N16.068 million traced to a secret account of a retired public officer.

But the commission refused to disclose the identity of the said officer.

A statement by the Head of Media and Publicity of the commission, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, said the looted money was seized in Bermuda Island.

The statement said: “The EFCC has traced and taken possession of US$103,762.00 invested in Bermuda Island by a retired Nigerian public officer.

The taking over of the asset owned by the public officer, who is being prosecuted by the EFCC at a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, followea is an overseas territory of the United Kingdom in the North Atlantic Ocean, located off the East Coast of the United States . It is situated around 1,770 km (1,100 mi) Northeast of Miami, Florida.

“EFCC’s action is in compliance with Section 6(e) of the EFCC Establishment Act 2004, which empowers the Commission to adopt measures to identify, trace, freeze, confiscate or seize proceeds derived from terrorist activities, economic and financial crimes related offences or properties whose values correspond to such proceeds.

“The commission is hereby advising all citizens that there is no hiding place for any Nigerian who may want to courier the proceed of illicit wealth to foreign lands as the Commission, working with relevant intelligence units, has the capacity to trace and seize such proceeds.

“Among the three prayers granted the EFCC by the court is ‘An order freezing the said sum of $103,762.00, being the property of the Accused/Respondent held in an Investment Vehicle in Bermuda, with an initial deposit of $100,000 (One Hundred Thousand Dollars, a partial redemption of which the Accused/Respondent has requested for’ “

Adamawa State Governor, Murtala Nyako, was at the national secretariat of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) yesterday to beg the leadership of the party to rescind its decision on the dissolution of the PDP executive council in the state.

The national leadership of the party had dissolved the state Exco last week for what the party described as serial disobedience to directives from the national secretariat.

Nyako, who stormed the party secretariat with his entourage, pleaded with the leaders to restore the dissolved exco, saying that he regretted every of his action that led to the dissolution of the exco.

He said there was nothing wrong in begging the leadership of the party for leniency.

Nyako stated: “There is nothing wrong in begging. PDP is a very large family. It has elder brother and younger brother. In our own situation, we have a national headquarters, we have a state chapter of the party, we have local government chapter of the party, we have the ward, we have the unit leadership.

“So, if there is any shortcoming, we should express regrets that this has happened.

“It is a large family. We are here to tell our elder brother our own version of the story.

“We are here as the state chapter, which I am privileged to be the leader.

“Don’t forget I am not the chairman. I am the leader of the party in the state and I am here to explain what has happened.

“It is a very busy time for us in Adamawa. We had election this year. We have the menace of Boko-Haram and flooding. So, we are very busy.

“Sometimes when you are busy the way we are, omission is inevitable. So, whatever the omission or shortcoming is observed in our conduct, we extend our regrets.”

The Governor told the party leaders that the various waring factions in the state were being reconciled and that peace would soon return to the chapter.

Edo State Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Osagie Obayuwana, yesterday defended the action of Governor Adams Oshiomhole in signing the death warrants of two persons convicted of murder.

Obayuwana said the governor acted within the law, adding that the Supreme Court had confirmed their sentences.

The names of the two condemned convicts, according to sources, are Osaremwinda Aiguohian and Daniel Nsofor.

It was gathered that the governor signed their death warrants over the offences they were convicted of.

Aiguohian was said to have killed his victim and dismembered the body which were buried separately to avoid detection.

The convict described his action in his defence during trial in court as a “mistake”. But the Supreme Court, in affirming his death sentence in 2004, said “the likes of Aiguohian belong to the Hades.”

Daniel was said to have strangled his female victim after stealing her money.

Governor Oshiomhole reviewed the death sentences of four other convicts whose names were given as Callistis Nkem, Monday Odu, Zubeiru Abdulrama and Tijani Mustapha.

Callistus and Monday were pardoned and released while the others’ sentences were commuted to life imprisonment.

Governor Oshiomhole ordered that job be given to Monday while transport fare was given to Callistus to go back to Imo State.

Oshiomhole said the National Human Rights Commission and other bodies were wrong in saying that he signed the warrants of Callistus and Olu Fatogun.

He said Olu’s sentence was commuted to life imprisonment while Callistus was released.

According to him, “the state must be seen to be sensitive to the feelings of persons and their families. The National Human Rights Commission was wrong. They must be seen to be painstaking in matters of life and death. They must check their facts rights. The state does not exercise mercy on such persons. I decided to free those who didn’t kill to go and sin no more. We must send clear message to criminals that they have no right to kill and live.

Nigeria’s foremost novelist Chinua Achebe has claimed that Nigerians, especially of the Hausa/Fulani and the Yoruba stocks, do not like his Igbo ethnic group because of the southeast’s cultural advantage.

He made this claim in his new book, There was a Country, which has generated controversy for his onslaught on the role of Obafemi Awolowo as the federal commissioner of finance during the Nigeria civil war. He accused Awolowo of genocide and imposition of food blockade on Biafra, a claim that has drawn rebuttals and contradictions of emotional intensity from some southwest leaders and commentators.

“I have written in my small book entitled The Trouble with Nigeria that Nigerians will probably achieve consensus on no other matter than their common resentment of the Igbo,” he wrote under the heading, A History of Ethnic Tension and Resentment. He traced the origin of “the national resentment of the Igbo” to its culture that “gave the Igbo man an unquestioned advantage over his compatriots in securing credentials for advancement in Nigerian colonial society.”

He observed that the Igbo culture’s emphasis on change, individualism and competitiveness gave his ethnic group an edge over the Hausa/Fulani man who was hindered by a “wary religion” and the Yoruba man who was hampered by” traditional hierarchies.”

He therefore described the Igbo, who are predominantly Catholic, as “fearing no god or man, was “custom-made to grasp the opportunities, such as they were, of the white man’s dispensations. And the Igbo did so with both hands.”

He delved into history with his claim, asserting that the Igbo overcame the earlier Yoruba advantage within two decades earlier in the twentieth century.

“Although the Yoruba had a huge historical and geographical head start, the Igbo wiped out their handicap in one fantastic burst of energy in the twenty years between 1930 and 1950.”

He narrated the earlier advantage of Yoruba as contingent on their location on the coastline, but once the missionaries crossed the Niger, the Igbo took advantage of the opportunity and overtook the Yoruba.

‘The increase was so exponential in such a short time that within three short decades the Igbos had closed the gap and quickly moved ahead as the group with the highest literacy rate, the highest standard of living, and the greatest of citizens with postsecondary education in Nigeria,” he contended.

He said Nigerian leadership should have taken advantage of the gbo talent and this failure was partly responsible for the failure of the Nigerian state, explaining further that competitive individualism and the adventurous spirit of the Igbo was a boon Nigerian leaders failed to recognize and harness for modernization.

“Nigeria’s pathetic attempt to crush these idiosyncrasies rather than celebrate them is one of the fundamental reasons the country has not developed as it should and has emerged as a laughingstock,” he claimed.

He noted that the ousting of prominent Igbos from top offices was a ploy to achieve a simple and crude goal. He said what the Nigerians wanted was to “get the achievers out and replace them with less qualified individuals from the desired ethnic background so as to gain access to the resources of the state.”

Achebe, however, saved some criticisms for his kinsmen. He criticised them for what he described as “hubris, overweening pride and thoughtlessness, which invite envy and hatred or even worse that can obsess the mind with material success and dispose it to all kinds of crude showiness.”

He added that “contemporary Igbo behavior(that) cab offend by its noisy exhibitionism and disregard for humility and quietness.

One of the many aides of the late Biafran leader, Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu-Ojukwu, resigned angrily in August 1968 after accusing him of frustrating international efforts to get food aid across to civilians caught on the wrong side of the civil war.

Robert S. Goldstein, an American and Public Relations Representative of Biafra in the USA, accused the late Ojukwu of using ‘ starving hordes as hostages to negotiate a victory in the war.

His letter of resignation, which was first published by the defunct Morning Post on August 17, 1968, resurfaced in the wake of Prof. Chinua Achebe’s damning condemnation of the role of the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo during the war, especially the blockage of food to the rebels.

Goldstein, in the letter, recalled various efforts he made to swing public opinion in Europe and the USA in favour of the defunct Biafra and the subsequent recognition of such countries like Gabon,Tanzania, Zambia, Ivory Coast and Haiti until Ojukwu began to undermine those achievements by “hoping to use these unfortunates with world sympathy on their side as a tool to further your ambition to achieve war concessions at the upcoming peace talks in Addis Ababa.”

(See full letter on page 60)

He said: “Urgent telex messages were received from ‘Biafra’ telling of tens of thousands of people starving in the refugee camps, the villages, the bush country – stating if something weren’t done in the next few months over a million women, children and aged would be starved to death. I immediately contacted the Press, urgently petitioned the State Department for action on their part.

“ Food, medicine and milk were sent to the only available ports open for immediate shipment to ‘Biafra’ via land routes through Federal and Biafra territory, under the auspices of world organisations such as the International Red Cross among others.

“Then came the incredible answer from ‘Biafra’ that land corridors could not be acceptable until there was a complete ceasefire, and that an airlift was the only solution to feed the starving.

“You then appeared before the various Heads of State and representatives of the OAU at Niamey in Niger. I fully expected you to at least accept the world help that was offered your starving throngs. However, you delayed, hoping to use these unfortunates with world sympathy on their side as a tool to further your ambition to achieve war concessions at the upcoming peace talks in Addis Ababa. Thus, innocent victims continue to perish needlessly of starvation, the most agonising death that can befall any living creature.

“I cannot in all conscience serve you any longer. Nor can I be a party to suppressing the fact that your starving thousands have the food, medicine and milk available to them…..it can and is ready to be delivered through international organisations to you. Only your constant refusal has stopped its delivery.”

The Federal Government is angry with the Senate over its removal of a ‘vital’ clause from the anti-terrorism bill passed on Wednesday.

The executive bill (A bill for an Act to amend Terrorism (Prevention) Act 2011 and Other Related Matters) is part of the strategy by government to tackle the insecurity caused by Boko Haram and other terrorist groups.

The clause has to do with empowerment of the Office of the National Security Adviser to co-ordinate the activities of all security and enforcement agencies in the country.

Its adoption would have formed the basis for the United States of America to establish what it calls Fusion Centre in the country.

Government and the security community are worried that Nigeria is now at the risk of losing the benefit of such an important facility in the fight against terrorism.

They fear that without the clause, the co-ordination of the security agencies will be very difficult.

It was learnt that the rejection of the section was influenced by some senators from the South.

The clause- Section 1 of the Act- reads in part: “The Office of the National Security Adviser (in this Act referred to as ONSA) shall be the co-ordinating body for all security and enforcement agencies under this Act and shall: (a)provide support to all relevant security, intelligence, law enforcement agencies and military services to prevent and combat acts of terrorism in Nigeria.

(b) “ensure the effective formulation and implementation of a counter-terrorism strategy for Nigeria.

( c) “build capacity for the effective discharge of the functions of all relevant security, intelligence, law enforcement and military services under this Act or any other law on terrorism in Nigeria; and

(d) “do such other acts or things that are necessary for the effective performance of the functions of the relevant security and enforcement agencies under this Act.”

A reliable source, who spoke in confidence, said: “Going by the way the Senate passed the bill, the fight against terrorism is certainly being threatened. The implication is that all security agencies will be left to operate independent of each other without relating with the Office of the National Security Adviser.

“This is against the new focus of the Federal Government in promoting synergy in the operations of all security agencies.

“Our fears border on the fact that Boko Haram and other terrorist organisations may capitalise on the loopholes in the law to wreak more havoc. This bill as passed by the Senate will not assist counter-terrorism fight.

“Also, when the US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton was here, she announced that a Fusion Centre will be established to serve as a pool for intelligence gathering and coordination for counter-terrorism.

“The Fusion Centre ought to be domiciled in the Office of the National Security Adviser. But with the bill passed by the Senate, we may lose this security advantage in the sub-region. This is a threat to the centre being built by the US.

Responding to a question, the source added: “We learnt that some Southern senators in the relevant Committee deliberately shielded the facts from the Senate before it removed the clause and passed the bill.

“I think these Southern senators might have had a secret agenda of undermining security coordination against terrorists. Only God knew their motive.”

Asked if nothing could be done, the source said: “The House had passed the bill with the clause intact. This means we have to make a strong representation to the Joint Review Committee of the two chambers to restore the said clause.

“But the bill as passed by the Senate on Wednesday will leave terrorists to win the ‘war’ against security agencies.”

No fewer than 100 public secondary schools in Ekiti State which underwent renovation have been delivered and handed over to the management of the schools.

Commissioning some of the schools which are spread across the 16 local government areas of the state, Governor Dr Kayode Fayemi said his administration is committed to providing an environment that will enhance productive teaching-learning process.

The governor also hinted that the renovation of the remaining 83 secondary schools billed for the second phase of the Operation Renovate All Schools in Ekiti (ORASE) will commenced during the Christmas holidays.

The Governor restated his resolve to revamp the education sector so that it can produce quality products that will make the State proud.

Fayemi said he would ensure that adequate resources are expended on the education sector so that it could return to its place of pride as the fountain of knowledge.

Some of the schools renovated also got new buildings such as examination halls and laboratories where the existing ones were considered beyond renovation.

Meanwhile the distribution of the 40,000 units of furniture ordered by the government has commenced, following the delivery of the furniture.

It will be recalled that the Governor had during the flag off of the renovation exercise said that the renovation and the purchase of the furniture would cost N2.5 billion and would be delivered within eight weeks.

The Governor has also flagged off the 2012/2013 school enrolment into all primary schools in the state.

Registering pupils in Ikole Ekiti on Wednesday, the Governor expressed satisfaction at last year’s enrolment which was higher than the penultimate year.

He added that the rise in the enrolment is not unconnected with the confidence that the people repose in his administration’s effort at revamping the education sector even as the State SUBEB Model Primary School recently emerged the best primary school in Nigeria.

At Ola Oluwa Muslim Grammar School, Ado Ekiti, the Grand Imam of Ekiti State, Alhaji Bello Kewulere, commended the ORASE initiative of the administration.

The cleric said it was a testimony to the commitment of the Governor to providing quality, functional and free education for all students in the state.

Kewulere said he was particularly impressed with the distribution of computers to the students, saying that this would no doubt expose the students to best global practices in the education sector.