Tag: Adamawa

A Chief Magistrate court in Adamawa State has remanded nine men at a correctional centre in Yola on a charge of armed robbery.

The remand order was issued by Chief Magistrate Mohammed Fufore of Court I in Yola during the arraignment of the defendants by prosecuting police officers Inspector S. S. Nicholas and ASP Francis Audu.

Seven of the defendants, Abdulwahab Abdulkarim, Musa Mohammed, Ibrahim Buba, Mallamjo Yunusa, Haruna Umar, Musa Buba and Sumai Buba, who were arraigned by Inspector S. S. Nicholas, pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Two other defendants: Samson John and Babangida Mohammed were arraigned by ASP Francis Audu, for the offences of criminal conspiracy and armed robbery, of which the former pleaded guilty and the latter pleaded not guilty.

Arraigning his seven defendants, Inspector Nicholas told the court they were found in possession of two cutlasses, two knives, a horn and a razor blade.

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He explained that a team of police officers raided Yola South main market on 17th May 2024 and apprehended the suspects.

After the defendants had made their pleas, the prosecuting officers sought the adjournment of the matter to enable them to transmit the case diary to the state directorate of public prosecution (DPP) for vetting.

Arraigning the two other defendants, ASP Francis Audu, informed the court that they were arrested on 13th May 2024, by a local hunter who handed them over to the police.

He said one of the two had confessed to conspiring with two other people currently at large to indulge in robbing people.

After the plea of the defendants, the presiding judge adjourned the case to June 3, 2024.

Many men still do not recognise the need for family planning and deny their wives access to relevant services and commodities.

Health officials in clinics around Adamawa State said some men force service providers to remove whatever contraceptive device in furtherance of family planning that their wives may have received. 

The Assistant Facility Manager at the Primary Health Care Centre (PHCC) in Jabbi Lamba, Girei Local Government Area, Mrs Irish Isaac, said: “A man brought back his wife who received an implant from us. The man insisted we should remove the implant. We did.”

Implants are woman-based family planning commodities meant to decide not to get pregnant; the others being injectables, contraceptive pills and vaginal rings.

Easily the most widely used, but only where both wife and husband mutually agree, is condom.

At another PHCC, this one in the heart of Girei town, a family planning promoter got a deal tougher than that experienced in Jabbi Lamba. 

Hajia Ummu Khutum Aliyu, a family support mobiliser attached to the PHCC Girei and who goes from door to door on a child spacing campaign to families, tells how she went to sensitize a woman.

According to her, the woman’s husband not only chased her out, he went on to report to the village head that she (the mobiliser), was inciting his wife against having children.

The testimonies were narrated during the week when a couple of journalists visited the two clinics in Girei LGA under the initiation of The Challenge Initiative (TCI), an NGO working with the governments of Adamawa and some other states to raise access to family planning services and commodities.

Earlier in the year, TCI-mobilised team of journalists had visited four clinics in Yola North LGA where the story of men not agreeing with their wives over child family service uptake was similar.

Experiences have however also been shared about women being wilfully supported by their husbands, and in many cases where it has even been the husband initiating the process.

A Yola South resident and husband of two children, Mr Gala Denis, told The Nation that ignorance drives rejection of family planning by some people.

Mr Denis said, “Most of these uninformed fellows see people who talk to them about family planning as enemies who wish them not to have children. They view it in that narrow perspective, claiming that man should do nothing to limit God who gives children.”

Another male respondent, Halilu Jallo, said some men can afford to talk tough against family planning because it is women who bear the bulk of the risks that go with reckless procreation. 

“It’s women who have to deal with possible maternal deaths when pregnancies come at the times that they are not ready,” Jallo lamented, expressing the hope that some day soon, women would be sufficiently empowered to take decisions that strengthen their maternal wellbeing and safety of newborns.

The Programme Manager of TCI in Adamawa State, Mr Yusuf Godiya, addressing the newsmen on the Girei health facility tour, said that despite the challenge with acceptance of family planning by some families, Adamawa rates high among states accessing family planning services.

“In terms of uptake, based on last quarter, Adamawa is one of the top three contributors to the national numbers of new service uptake. So, we are doing pretty well, but we need to do more,” Mr Godiya said.

Police operatives have been arrested in Adamawa state for allegedly blocking a section of the Numan-Jalingo highway robbing and kidnapping passengers.

The state police command which disclosed this in a statement on Tuesday, May 14, said its operatives, working in collaboration with hunters on May 10, arrested the suspects.

The command said in the statement signed by its Police Public Relations Officer, SP Suleiman Nguroje.

He said: “The arrest was as a result of a timely response to distress calls made to police that the road linking Numan and Jalingo of Adamawa and Taraba state respectively, was blocked by armed robbers.”

The command added that a timely response of operatives yielded the arrest of five out of seven suspects.

The command said: “The suspects were on 9/05/2024, at about 11:30 pm armed themselves with offensive weapons, blocked Numan-Jalingo Road, robbed commuters of their belongings, and kidnapped three from the passengers into the thick forest.

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“The command’s response team aggressively gave a hot chase to the kidnappers, leading to their arrest, recovery of offensive weapons, and successful rescue of the kidnapped victims.”

The police gave the names of the suspects as Adamu Usman, 25 years old; Sule Abba, 20 years old; Abdullahi Muhammed, 20 years old; Aliyu Abubakar, 26 years old; and Isah Musa, 25 years old.

According to the police, the suspects were residents of Kedemure and Barikin Sajo, communities in Demsa and Song local government areas of Adamawa state.

Members of the Adamawa State House of Assembly and representatives from the Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation have expressed grave concern over the insufficient funding allocated to the WASH sector.

During the state annual budget review for Bauchi, Adamawa, and Gombe States Houses of Assembly Committees on Health, Education, and Water Hygiene Sanitation (WASH) in Abuja, Lawmakers shed light on the dire state of the WASH sector, attributing it to the meager budgetary allocations.

The Commissioner for the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Emmanuel Piridimso revealed that numerous irrigation systems and treatment plants in Adamawa are non-functional, performing at less than 30% capacity due to funding shortages.

Despite budgetary provisions, inadequate funding has left communities without sufficient access to water.

He added that the intervention of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) repaired some pumps in Yola, significantly improving water accessibility.

Emmanuel explained that challenges persist, particularly in distribution networks, where unauthorized connections hinder water flow to overhead tanks for proper distribution.

He stated that budgetary discrepancies further exacerbate the situation, with substantial disparities between allocated funds and actual disbursements.

He said: “For instance, in 2022, the Ministry of Water Resources received a budget allocation of 250 million naira, yet no funds were released, and in 2023, out of over 3 billion naira budgeted, only 91 million naira was disbursed.

“Also at the state water board, the budgetary figure for 2022 is 167 million, and 107 million was released. In 2023, about 215,000,000 million was budgeted and only 13,000,000 actual funds were released.

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“In rural water supply in environmental sanitation, budgetary provision for 2022 is 29,900,000 and no penny was released. While in 2023, they budgeted 160,000,000 and no fund released.”

Shafa Salma, Secretary of Basic Education Group maintained that the plight of rural communities is particularly distressing, with villages lacking clean water access, and some devoid of boreholes altogether.

Lawmakers urged Adamawa Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri and his commissioners to prioritize funding for the water and hygiene sector, advocating for the conversion of electricity-powered boreholes to solar-powered ones for affordability and sustainability.

While commending certain assembly members for constituency projects such as solar and hand boreholes, there’s a call for sustainable maintenance mechanisms.

Nneka Egbuna, communications specialist, highlighted the role of the State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

Operating in seven states, including Adamawa, the project aims to enhance governance transparency and effectiveness for improved service delivery, particularly in the education, health, and WASH sectors.

Two young men from Taraba state who crossed to neighbouring Adamawa to perpetuate kidnapping have confessed to killing a particular victim after collecting money to feed the victim.

The suspects have similarly owned up to insisting on being paid N10 million ransom even as they knew that the best they could do was to present the lifeless body of their victim.

The Adamawa state police command which disclosed this on Friday, May 10, explained that the suspects had been fast in collecting feeding money from the parents of their victim while they waited for the parents to raise ransom money.

The command, in the statement signed by police public relations officer, SP Suleiman Nguroje, said that on Wednesday, May 8, it received a report from Edwin Eze, a resident of Tudun Wada in Ganye LGA, that on the night of the same date, Kidnappers invaded his house and took away his 6-year-old son, Eboka Edwin.

According to the command, the kidnappers later called on the phone and demanded N10 million as ransom, which became additional to the sum of N152,000, they received from Eze for the feeding of his son.

The command stated: “On the strength of that, the Commissioner of Police, Adamawa State Command, CP Dankombo Morris, raised detectives led by SP Mohammed Yahaya Nuhu, Divisional Police officer (DPO) Ganye to rescue the victim.

Read Also: Adamawa women battle shortage of family planning commodities

It added that the team swung into action and arrested two suspects: Muktar Mohammed, aged 20 years, and Hussein Suleiman, also aged 20 years, both residents of Bashin Village, Yoro Local Government Area of Taraba state.

“During preliminary investigations, the suspects confessed that they conspired and jointly kidnapped the victim to a forest lying across the border between Nigeria and Cameroon Republic.

“They added that they killed the victim by inflicting severe injuries on him using a knife, after which he bled until he became dead. Thereafter, they buried the corpse in a shallow grave and kept demanding ransom, until their arrest,” the Adamawa state police command stated.

It added that three phones were recovered from the victims.

The command said the state police commissioner commiserates with the bereaved family on the unfortunate incident and reaffirms the Command’s commitment to combating all forms of crime.

The Adamawa state government on Monday, May 6, postponed resumption of schools for third term.

The government indicated that the decision was to prevent possible spread of measles which had affected two LGAs in recent days.

The schools which formally reopened on Monday were told to close till next Monday, May 13.

In a circular dated 6/5/2024, the state Ministry of Education and Human Capital Development said: “The resumption date of third term 2023/2024 academic session earlier scheduled to be 6th May, 2024 has been postponed to next week 13th May, 2024 due to outbreak of measles in some LGAs in the state.”

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The ministry, in the circular signed by the Permanent Secretary, Aisha Umar, explained that the postponement of school resumption “is to mitigate the spread of the disease, and to enable the Primary Health Care Agency vaccinate the age group of the children that are vulnerable to the disease.”

The circular, addressed to the Acting Secretary, Post Primary Schools Management Board; Acting Executive Chairman, Adamawa State Universal Basic Education Board; and Chairman, National Association of Proprietors of Private Schools, Adamawa State; specified that all public and private schools “are hereby directed to close down accordingly.” 

Our correspondent recalls that the state Commissioner of Health, Felix Tangwame, had on Friday May 3 confirmed outbreak of measles in the two local governmemt areas of Gombi and Mubi North  that had resulted in 42 deaths.

The Adamawa State Government on Friday evening confirmed that 42 people have died due to outbreak of measles.

The state Commissioner of Health and Human Services, Felix Tangwame, who provided an update on the outbreak, said the deaths occurred in Mubi and Gombi local government areas.

Speaking to newsmen shortly after the state executive council meeting held at the Government House, Yola, the commissioner said the measles outbreak affected eight wards in Mubi and seven wards in Gombi local government areas.

He gave the death toll of 42 out of 131 and 177 respectively of the affected persons in the indicated LGAs.

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As part of measures to avert further spread, the commissioner said all LGAs in the state had been put on red alert.

Tangwame said his ministry, on receiving report of the outbreak, had responded swiftly, which was why it was able to manage the situation.

He added that the government and development partners were on top of the situation.

The Adamawa state government has started fresh moves to tame notorious gangsters called Shila Boys.

The gangsters, operating mostly around the capital, Yola, have recently been more daring, frequently snatching valuables, particularly phones and other items, applying knives and handy weapons.

Addressing the Shila Boys’ resurgence, the state deputy governor, Professor Kaletapwa Farauta, said during an interaction with newsmen on Tuesday that Governor Ahmadu Fintiri who drastically brought down the activities of Shila Boys on his inauguration in 2019 has promised new offensive against the group. 

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The deputy governor who did not specify the tough security measures the government is planning, insisted that they are security issues better kept under wraps. 

However, she indicated that part of the new approach is an appeal to all youths to mend their questionable ways and buy into the numerous economic empowerment programmes of the government. 

Farauta who spoke on behalf of Governor Fintiri who is currently out of the state, said the government also appeals to parents to play their part in efforts to remould youths.

The Nation reports that in the last three months, the state command of the Nigeria police has reported frequent arrests of Shila Boys.