The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Nigerian Newspaper

  • Anxiety in Melaye’s camp after governorship primaries

    There is palpable anxiety in the political camp of Dino Melaye, the senator representing Kogi West in the National Assembly, following the outcome of the recently concluded governorship primaries of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kogi State.

    Although he had gone into the primary election with high hopes of picking the party’s ticket for the governorship election of the state scheduled to hold on November 16, the result was nothing short of a catastrophe, considering that he had just been sacked by the state’s National Assembly/State Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal.

    The rambunctious senator was still smarting from the shock of the tribunal’s verdict when the governorship primaries of the party was held with him polling a paltry 70 votes to emerge a fourth behind the winner, Musa Wada who polled 748 votes, Ibrahim Abubakar who polled 710 votes and the immediate past governor of the state, Idris Wada, who came third with 345 votes.

    The result of the primary election coupled with his sack by the tribunal as senator means that Melaye faces the grim prospect of a long spell in political wilderness if he fails to reverse the verdict of the tribunal in a superior court.

    Little wonder he has been ranting on twitter over missing votes from eight out of 10 ballot boxes since Wada was declared winner, while the APC candidate, Governor Yahaya Bello, has been celebrating the defeat as if he has won re-election.

  • Immigration Service intercepts 32 illegal migrants in Niger

    The Niger state command of the Nigeria Immigration Service has intercepted 32 illegal Migrants in Niger state.

    The migrants who are mostly Nigeriens and Malians had sneaked into the country through illegal routes, the Comptroller, Mamman Ango disclosed.

    According to him, the arrest was made in a bid to secure the country’s border and bring an end to illegal crossing by migrants.

    Ango said that the migrants were between the ages of 12 to 35 and were interrupted in Kontagora adding that when interrogated confessed that they were heading to Lagos in search of greener pastures.

    He said that the illegal migrants were created by the Joint Border Operation Drill codenamed “Ex-Swift Response” which comprised of men of the Immigration Service, Nigeria Customs Service, and Police.

    “Sector 3 of the Joint Border Operation Drill located in Kontagora axis intercepted the migrants who are all males and brought them this morning to the command.

    “We have profiled them and ascertained the nationality of each of them for immediate repatriation back to their respective countries.”

    The Comptroller further said that two 18-seaters buses are being ready to transport the migrants to Kamba Control Post in Kebbi state stating that from there, they would be handed over to the representatives of their respective countries.

    Ango then said that the Immigration Service has no problem with anyone coming into the country in search of greener pasture but stated that they need to go through the right channel and procedures of entering the country.

    He called for cooperation from the public to avail the Immigration Service and other security agencies with useful information to ensure the end is seen of illegal migration into Niger state.

  • Beware of impostors, NNPC cries out

    The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has advised that individuals and corporate bodies, locally and internationally, should be wary of unscrupulous elements parading themselves as officials of the corporation.

    A release on Saturday in Abuja by NNPC Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division, Mr. Ndu Ughamadu, said the warning came in the wake of the claim by a group of dubious individuals to be representing “a Gas and Power Committee” of the corporation, hosting a chief executive of a United Kingdom-based company in a purported “office of NNPC” in Abuja recently.

    The release said one of the miscreants had claimed the identity of NNPC Chief Operation Officer (COO), Gas and Power, Engr. Yusuf Usman, all in an attempt to swindle the unsuspecting company based in Salehurst, Robertsbridge, East Sussex, UK.

    Mr. Ughamadu said the unsuspecting UK entity was saved from an ordeal when it reached out to the corporation’s London Office to authenticate the swindlers’ identity, following the difficulties the company had experienced in reconnecting with the conmen on telephone.

    Read Also: U.S. court rules in NNPC’s favour in $2.7b suit

    The release said one of the miscreants had given the unsuspecting UK company a fake call card of NNPC COO, Gas and Power, Engr. Usman.

    The NNPC spokesperson advised individuals and corporate bodies, in their own interest, to verify the identity of any officials of NNPC from relevant units of the corporation before making commitments to avoid falling into the trap of swindlers.

  • Man hangs self over wife’s alleged infidelity

    A man has taken his life in Lagos after finding out that his wife of over  12 years  was cheating on him.

    The body of the middle age furniture maker, Abiodun Tijani was found dangling from the ceiling of his one room apartment at 1, Abeokuta Street in Alagbado area of Lagos  penultimate Tuesday.

    Sources said Tijani decided to end it all when he suspected that his wife was  indulging in extra-marital affairs.

    The Nation gathered that the deceased was residing in Abeokuta, Ogun State, until he recently relocated to Lagos to join his wife who had been living in the house for nine years now.

    Residents described him as an easy going man who ran his furniture workshop around the AIT Road in the area.

    A source said: ‘’His wife moved into this building about nine years ago and she is a quiet woman.

    Read Also: Man threatens suicide over father’s unpaid gratuity

    “The man (Tijani) used to live in Abeokuta, Ogun State, until he joined his wife here about a year ago. The couple is blessed with a 12-year-old boy, called Wasiu

    “Although the man was unassuming , he had been feuding with his wife who sells soft drinks and grocery at the  old toll gate in Ota.”

    Wasiu, , the only child of the deceased, recalled how his father tricked him out of the house on the fateful before taking his own life.

    He said: “ He went out the day before the incident and returned home the following  morning.

    “By then my mother had gone out; he gave me money to go to a barber’s shop to cut my hair. By the time I returned home I met him dangling from the ceiling.

    “He didn’t share his problems with me and I wouldn’t know what could have led him to commit suicide. He lost his father several years ago but his aged mother is still alive. He hailed from  Ago Ika, Abeokuta.’’

    The incident was reported to the Alagbado Police Station, while men of the station assisted in evacuating Tijani’s body from the scene.

  • Court remands ‘okada’ rider in prison custody for throwing baby into river

    A Chief Magistrates’ Court in Minna has ordered that a 20-year-old commercial motorcyclist popularly called ‘Okada’ rider, Mustapha Aliyu be remanded in prison custody for throwing his three-month-old baby boy into a river.

    Aliyu is standing trial on a charge of culpable homicide contrary to Section 221 of the Penal Code.

    The prosecutor, ASP Daniel Ikwoche, told the court that Amina Zakaria, the   mother of the baby had reported the matter to the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC) on Sept. 8.

    Ikwoche said that the complainant of Keranbadi village in Borgu Local Government Area of Niger alleged that she had the baby for the defendant out of wedlock.

    Read Also: Okada operator beats wife to death for refusing to breastfeed baby

    The prosecutor said that the complainant alleged that the defendant had visited her at about 9:30p.m., on Sept. 7 and took the baby away.

    Ikwoche said that the defendant took the child to his own village, Tamanai.

    There, he threw the baby into a river where he eventually drowned, the prosecutor said.

    When the charge was read to the defendant, he pleaded guilty and begged the court for leniency.

    Chief Magistrate Hauwa Yusuf, however, declined to take his plea, saying that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter.

    Yusuf directed the prosecuting police officer to forward a duplicate copy of the case file to the State Director of Public Prosecution, (DPPs) for legal advice.

    She, thereafter, adjourned the case until Oct. 10 for further mention.

  • Nurturing the Sino-Nigerian Friendship: The Sam Maduka Onyishi’s way

    To the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Peace Mass Transit Ltd, Chief Samuel Maduka Onyishi, awards and recognitions have become a common thing. Make no mistake -they don’t come cheap by any means. But since he has distinguished himself and business in an indigenous way, these rewards always come his way.
    On a daily basis, Dr Onyishi, a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ, does various kinds of philanthropic acts. For some of these acts, he hardly keeps track of them all.
    He was once quoted as saying, “Whatever act of kindness or philanthropy I do is between me and my God. I don’t do them to get any special praise or recognition from anybody or government. “Let the beneficiaries tell their own story.”
    Indeed, as foretold, the beneficiaries are “telling their own stories,” by themselves, as evidenced by the recent award by the Chinese Alumni Association of Nigeria, on Chief Onyishi as “Outstanding Nigerian Advocate on China/Nigeria Relations.”
    The recognition is part of the “October 1st Awards”, for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, and Nigeria’s 59th Independence anniversary.
    The Peace Mass Transit founder Onyishi has been at the forefront of the Nigeria-China relations with business connections and investments, dating back to nearly three decades. Remarkably, his involvement with China isn’t all about business: In 2009, he sponsored five Nigerians to China on fully paid undergraduate scholarship. All of them are back after graduation and are in different spheres of life, promoting Chinese language and Sino-Nigeria relations in general.
    Dr Onyishi’s citation read at the “October 1st Awards,” highlighted some of his investments in, and association with Chinese blue-chip companies, including Foton Motor Corporation, Tianji Meiya Automobile Vehicle Company and Xiamen Kinglong Automobile Motors.
    The award, which came with cash, was presented to him by the Chinese Language Coordinator at the Afe Babalola University, Ado Ekiti, Ejemezu Charles. Charles is one of the members of the pioneer team that benefited from Dr Onyishi’s scholarship.
    Everything being equal, for Dr Onyishi and Peace Mass Transit Ltd, these awards are not about to dry up.

  • Our raw deal with killer soldiers in Taraba

    Two of the five operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Inspector Sanni Abib a.k.a. Osha and his team member, Abu Yunus, have revealed how they managed to escape from the IRT operation vehicle in Ibi town, Taraba State when soldiers allegedly rained bullets on the vehicle in a bid to rescue the millionaire kidnap kingpin, Hamisu Bala Wadume.

    The IRT operatives had captured Wadume and were conveying him from Ibi to the police headquarters in Jalingo when some soldiers attacked their vehicle, killing three police officers and one civilian while they also left other occupants of the vehicle with bullet wounds, after which they unshackled Wadume and set him free.

    Narrating how he managed to escape being shot dead by the soldiers allegedly on a mission to rescue Wadume, who was believed to be very close to some of the soldiers, one of the lucky survivors of the attack, Inspector Abib, said: “I am the team leader of the IRT operatives who went to Ibi, Taraba State to arrest the kidnap kingpin Wadume. I was face to face with death but I conquered by the grace of God Almighty.

    “We had first gone to Jalingo, Kari Area Command to process our documents, after which we went to Ibi Police Station and booked our movement. There is only one road that leads into Ibi town, and it is the same road one must take to get out of it.

    “There are also three checkpoints on the road. The first is manned by soldiers. The second is manned by mobile police officers while the third checkpoint is also manned by soldiers. It means that if you are entering Ibi, the first checkpoint you see is one manned by soldiers. And if you are leaving the town, the first checkpoint you see is soldiers’ checkpoint. There is a gap of two to three kilometres between the checkpoints.

    “When we arrested the kidnap suspect Wadume, we handcuffed him and also chained his legs, put him inside our IRT operation vehicle and started our journey back to the police headquarters when the soldiers started attacking us.

    “At the time we left Ibi town and were about to cross the three checkpoints, we did not expect that the soldiers would attack us. So, it was a big surprise, because they were aware of our official movement and our mission.

    “On our way into the town, we got to the first checkpoint manned by soldiers and they passed us. The second checkpoint manned by mobile police officers passed us and the third one manned by soldiers also passed us.

    “After due documentation, we went and arrested Wadume. And as we headed back to the police headquarters, we passed the first army checkpoint and the second checkpoint manned by mobile policemen. But as we were getting near the last army checkpoint, we noticed that one Picnic vehicle was following us, and at a point, they started firing at our vehicle.

    “We were all the more surprised when we noticed that the occupants of the vehicle were soldiers. And as we were still wondering about the attack by soldiers in a Picnic vehicle, another vehicle, a Hilux GPMP with soldiers carrying machine guns, overtook the Picnic vehicle and started firing at our vehicle.

    “The way they sprayed bullets made our vehicle to summersault three or four times. To get out of our bullet-riddled vehicle which had tumbled, I had to use my leg to break the window glass. Seeing that the soldiers had not stopped firing, I crawled some distance before I dashed into a nearby bush. But on noticing that about three soldiers were pursuing us and firing at the same time, I jumped into a river and remained in it for about 30 minutes. When they could not see me, they went back to their checkpoint with their AK47 rifles and I came out of the river and continued my escape bid.

    “I walked carefully through the bush, knowing that it could contain various traps and dangerous snakes.

    “When I got to Ibi Police Station, I heaved a sigh of safety, then I fell down any fainted. When I rediscovered myself, I discovered that I had bullets brushes on my right leg and in the back. The officers at the police station rushed me to the general hospital in Ibi for medical attention.

    “It was at the hospital that I met my other colleagues who had also escaped from the bloody scene. That was where I saw Mark being operated upon to remove the bullets the soldiers had pumped into his tummy. I also met Mathias with bullet wounds on his right leg. I stayed in the hospital for five days before I was discharged and I went to Ibi Police Station from where we finally left.”

    Abib described the death of his colleague, Mark, in the hospital as a particularly painful experience, saying that he wept profusely when he saw the deceased colleague’s condition before he eventually gave up the ghost.

    Another survivor, Abu Yanusa, described his escape as sheer miracle.

    “My survival was a miracle. The way the soldiers were firing made me to think that the bullets got me. But to God be the glory, there was no fatal wound when I got to the general hospital,” he said.

    Asked how he managed to escape, he said: “It was the team leader that showed us the way when he used his leg to break the vehicle’s window glass. When he jumped out, I followed him. Even when he was crawling I followed suit. Because of persistent firing by the soldiers, crawling was the only safe way to get away from the scene as fast as possible.

    “However, when we noticed that about three soldiers were pursuing us fully armed with AK47 and firing indiscriminately, we ran in different directions. As for me, I ran in the direction where I could quickly get to the main road. But my mind skipped a beat when I saw some natives with machetes and clubs advancing aggressively towards me. They surrounded me and asked me to identify myself, and I did so immediately.

    “I told them how we came to arrest the suspect Wadume and how the army came to rescue him and how they fired our vehicle and wanted to kill all of us, hence our decision to run in order to save our lives.

    “After explaining to them, they believed me. They said they knew Wadume as a notorious kidnapper.

    They asked where I was going and told them that I was going to the area command, and they followed me down to the area. When we got to a point a few meters to the area command office, they pointed at the place and went back.

    “From the Area Command, I was taken to the hospital where I met my team leader, Inspector Abib and others who had escaped. I also saw Mark who they were operating on as a result of the bullets in his tummy.”

    The suspected kidnapper, Hamisu Bala Wadume, had confessed his murderous escape from the grip of the operatives of Intelligence Response Team on August 6 in  Ibi, Taraba State. Speaking in Hausa language, Wadume said he escaped from the custody of IRT operatives when they came under attack from soldiers attached to Battalion 93, Takum, Taraba State, as they conveyed him from the scene of his arrest.

    The Army later explained that the soldiers attacked the IRT operatives because they mistook them for criminals, following a distress call they had received. In the said attack, three policemen and a civilian were killed, while five other operatives sustained injuries.

    Wadume was, however, re-arrested on the eve of Monday, August 19, as revealed by the Force Public Relations Officer, Mr. Frank Mba, a Deputy Commissioner of Police.

    In his confessions, Wadume, virtually implicated soldiers at the Battalion 93, Takum, Taraba State over his escape from the IRT custody. He said the soldiers were the ones who set him free by cutting his leg chains and handcuffs at an army base and he went home a free man before he was rearrested by IRT operatives in Kano.

    The kidnap suspect, who was alleged to have received millions of naira as ransom from his victims, had confessed thus:  “My name is Hamisu Bala Wadume. The police came to arrest me. When they arrested me, the army chased after them and opened fire. From there, they (soldiers) took me to their headquarters, and cut off my handcuffs. I went back to my house and the police came to re-arrest me.”

    Preliminary investigation reportedly revealed that the suspected kidnap kingpin and the Divisional Crime Police Officer in Ibi community had exchanged 200 calls.

    However, it is still not clear when the army authority will release the findings of the panel they appointed to look into the matter towards proper trial of those indicted in the ugly incident.

  • Traits that tarnish Nigeria’s image

    This country is endowed with some of the best brains in the world – brains deployed to achieving exploits in science and technology and in businesses.

    We have an Ogunlesi from Sagamu, Remo in Ogun State owning one of the two prime airports in London; some of the best surgeons in the USA of Igbo descent and an Aliko Dangote of Northern extraction, holding his own in the world of high profile businesses like Bill Gate and Richard Branson, etc, etc

    The people referred to above rose through the ranks, though in meticulous manners, to get to their present stations in life. Theirs were not by sudden flights; but because they took years of toil and sweat to get to where they are today, they have come to be celebrated in positive light by those who know and appreciate the quality of their achievements.

    On the flip side of the coin are some of our citizens, from virtually all the tribes of this country, whose sources of wealth are questionable and who attract so much of needless and negative attention to themselves within and outside our shores, that it was a matter of time before the prying eyes of the saner world got fixed on them.

    Our perverted values and moral decadence helped in the nurturing of the negative traits that our citizens have exhibited, without qualms and with little or no sanctions in this country, and which have emboldened them to export those traits that are hardly tolerable, to other lands.

    Some of our citizens have perfected the art of living on other people’s labor, exploiting them in mindless ways no better than murderers who take peoples lives without human feeling. Some had even gone the audacious length of establishing institutions like ‘yahoo, yahoo schools’ where students are recruited, for a fee, to come and study fraudulent schemes of withdrawing huge sums of money from other people’s banks without their victims knowledge.

    A media report of the discovery of a yahoo, yahoo school somewhere in this country, went viral some months ago and I have not read of a police denial of the existence of such an occurrence. It can then be assumed to be true reportage. But has there been any update? Given our ways in this country, the criminally-minded guys behind such school of fraud must have bought their way out of trouble, away from the klieglight of negative publicity.

    The ranks of criminals are swelling because virtually every institution of state is profiting from the proceeds of fraud. Police paste stickers everywhere that bail is free but that injunction is observed more in the breach. One needs to get involved in being taken to a police station even for  issues laymen believe to be trivial, to experience the killing charges imposed to get police bail, that are advertised as free!

    One has had stories of police investigators exhibiting the dubious skills of assisting complainants to write incriminating reports against ‘foes’ and at the same time helping such suspects to write submissions that will help them wriggle out of trouble.

    Some lawyers are happy to take briefs from suspects they know to be of questionable character, not because they are interested in serving the cause of justice but because they are more interested in swelling their bank accounts, at the detriment of society. How many lawyers and law enforcement agencies have been rewarded with plots of land, some in choice areas, for assisting in the perversion of justice or in procuring dubious court judgements ?

    Preachments and admonitions by genuinely concerned citizens inside and outside of government are pooh-poohed by the large number of criminals out there undetected, who must have sworn to make efforts to rid the nation of corruption and allied crimes unachievable.

    The growing army of people with virtually incurable corrupt tendencies seem to be winning their ways through fraud and other malfeasance. A look around the academia, politics, industry et al confirm this fact. And, this set of people feel so confident and audacious that the detestable things they do in this country and get away with, and for which the nation seems powerless to combat and wipe out, can be exported and practiced elsewhere.

    The xenophobic onslaughts on some of our nationals in South Africa are condemnable no doubt; but have we taken pains to dig into the remote causes of the brouhaha ? Are our nationals in the place conducting themselves properly or do they think what their country allowed, will also be embraced in other lands? From the other side of the stories we have been regaled with, are negative revelations which no country except Nigeria can tolerate and live with.

    In any case, no country can be as tolerant as Britain where for several years, some of our citizens are living very expensive lives of scam and fraud. Some of them live on credit card  fraud and find it difficult to cover their tracks. Their money-spending spree has no parallel. The cars they ride, the ostentation they display at open parties; and all these by people without visible means of livelihood, give intelligence agencies in those advanced societies not-too-hard nuts to crack, to burst the fake lives they live.

    When I was growing up in the 60s, Chinese in their first time foray to this country, were scammed by dubious businessmen who routed letters of credit to them from their so-called “Central Bank of Ijebu Igbo” when everyone knows that any apex bank of a country is usually located at its capital city, not in any remote surburb.

    I grew up as a matured adult and as a businessman in the United Kingdom some 18 years ago, to be reminded of a similar case, when someone hacked into my internet and said before I could claim a humongrous win in a lottery I never played, I should pay some £750 into an account at a non-existent Bank of Luton. That ploy didn’t jell with me because I knew Luton too well as I walked the streets of that town anytime I was free from my training school in Milton Keynes, to the extent that I could tell how many banks were life in that town, on the way to the North of England.

    The sophistication with which our citizens ply their illegal and absolutely intolerable trades in developed nations of the world have forced their hosts to the drawing board of honing their scientific and technological skills to detect and deter criminality prevalent in the conduct of some of our citizens.

    If the UK and the USA in spite of their advancement in the detection and prevention of crimes are already at their tether’s end coping with our people’s ways, who can blame South Africa who, by the xenophobic reaction of her citizens, equally exposed herself as a developing country with scant regard for civilised behaviour.

    I sympathize with innocent victims of the xenophobic attacks in South Africa but if the truth must be said, many of the woes brought on the others were self-inflicted and such people have no one but themselves to blame.

    If Nigeria, by the clumsy and partisan ways of some of her officials, can tolerate the condemnable behaviors of her citizens and cannot dissuade them from their mindless and murderous pursuit of money, some other nations with appreciable degree of conscience, cannot live with it. Our people talk of children who refuse to imbibe proper home training, will be taught to toe the line and be wiser from outside. There should be no quibbling about it: what is bad, has no other name!

  • Legality, politics and justice

    The  dismissal  of the  2019   Presidential  election petition  of by the Election Tribunal in Nigeria this week,  together  with the allegation in   the   UK  that the British PM  Boris  Johnson lied to the Queen  in getting her consent to prorogate  Parliament,  provide  food for thought today. We  shall  look  at these two  issues in the light of  the statement that the law  can  be  an  ass  at times and also  wonder  aloud   how   legal  erudition can   somewhat   turn to  buffoonery given  the reasons that eminent lawyers pursue in open court to  advance their clients cases and interests. We    also  take a peep  at how the US President Donald  Trump is using  the US Supreme  Court as a’ weapon’ to  advance his policies on immigration  in the  American   presidential   system of  politics.

    These  events throw  up  the issues of legitimacy, legality, the rule of  law and the pursuit  of justice in any  political  system  and are  not peculiar  to Nigeria, the UK  and the US. On  each  scenario  however we shall  highlight what  we deem to  be  the mood,  guiding  principle  or motivation.  We  shall  therefore  as in Nigeria’s  case  ask    why the legal  luminaries that  represented the opposition PDP thought  that a presidential  candidate like the incumbent  Nigerian  president can  be disqualified on account of his educational  qualification given his background as an Army General  and someone who had  contested and lost elections for the same office four times in the past . In  Britain we shall see  the implications of mendacity  by  the PM for  Brexit  and the future of  the British  Parliamentary  system. In the US   we  examine  the rancorous  cowboy  politics of  the US President in filling the US Supreme Court with crony  judges  who  give him legal  backing for  his political  agenda and see  how that is affecting US politics consequently. Let me now  dilate  broadly  on these highlighted  situations  in the three nations.

    Of all  the five grounds of  appeal,  by the  PDP  dismissed  by the Election tribunal   it  is the educational qualification that  I  found  most  interesting. How  it got  to be an  issue to disqualify  this particular  candidate  on this   ground  is  simply  unbelievable. It  happened before when legal  luminary GOK Ajayi   brought up  the issue of educational  qualification of former President Olusegun Obasanjo in the presidential  election he won  at the time. The  two  events are  similar  but  in the case of President Muhammadu  Buhari I  think it is a  provocative insult  and shows that  the lawyers  for Atiku lack  the erudition they  parade in not seeing the absurdity of a plea for  disqualification  on  lack  of requisite  qualification  of a candidate  who  went to NDA, became a general in the army, was a military  Head of State and had  contested election four times before and lost,  till  he won in 2015 and 2019.

    One  does not need the lengthy judgment that threw  out  the disqualification on account of education given by the tribunal  because simple  common  sense   showed  the buffoonery of  the plea. Indeed  the president deserved exemption from  educational qualification given his military service and the height he reached and not the disgrace of disqualification  based  on his   education  as his opposing   lawyers averred  at  the tribunal. This really  was a lesson in absurdity and a great  mistake  of seeking to make an ass  of the law. I  can recall what Agrippa the judge told Paul of Tarsus  in the bible, ‘Paul, Paul  thou  art mad, thine too  much  learning doth turneth  thee to  madness ‘Really  too much  erudition especially  in the law  can make  lawyers  fall  from the sublime to the ridiculous.

    In  the UK  the rule  of law  is facing   a huge test  over  Brexit  that  is bound  to task  Britain’s  monarchical  democracy  that has hitherto  served it so  brilliantly in providing political  stability. On  occasions like this one can recall  a statement on the beauty of the role of British  monarch  that says –‘ with the Queen in Buckingham Palace every  Briton sleeps well in his bed. ‘This  statement puts absolute trust  of the British in their  monarchy as a bastion of stability and security. Now  if a PM is adjudged  to  have lied to  the Queen, a  charge Boris Johnson  has denied, then  the British  people should have great  cause for  concern  about the workings of their Parliamentary  democracy. But  credibility  is an asset  that  Boris Johnson is losing fast  on Brexit .

    He  has promised that Britain will  leave the EU deal  or no deal by  October 31. But  Parliament last week passed a law prohibiting No  Deal and when asked if he would  implement that he said he would rather  be seen dead in a ditch . But then even though a court in England ruled his prorogation legal, another court in Scotland  has ruled otherwise noting judicially that his  prorogation  was to stymy Parliament and  a higher  court is expected to resolve the legality of the Prorogation presently. Already  the Speaker  who has said he would  leave his post by October 31 has vowed  that  Parliament will  not allow anyone to bypass the laws it has enacted on Brexit. There  is  no doubt  in my mind that Boris Johnson is  going to do  something nasty and illegal  while Parliament is on suspension . The  saying is quite apt here that while  the cat  is away mice would  pay.  Surely the British  PM  knows  his onions  on Brexit but he should be careful  that Brexit , deal or know deal, does not become his political hemlock.

    We  round up with US President Donald  Trump  who  had the backing of the US Supreme Court   this week  in his policy  of reducing the rate of immigration from named nations as well  as from Central  America through its neighbor Mexico. The  US Supreme Court  has ruled to allow  government  to severely limit the ability of migrants to ask  for asylum in the US once they  failed to do so in a transit nation before. Lower  courts have ruled against this before and stopped the Trump policy in its tracks to his  chagrin. Now that Trump  has majority of judges on the Supreme Court, who share his world views on many issues,  he is using the rule of law  to  have his way. While some may accuse him of subverting the   checks  and balances inherent in the   presidential   system  there are those  who  will say that separation of powers does not necessarily preclude symmetry between  the executive and legal  arms of a presidential  system  of  government.  Once again long live the Federal  Republic of Nigeria.

  • Tribunal victory: Buhari’s supporter battles for life after multiple stabs by angry neighbour

    A supporter of President Muhammad Buhari and the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Elvis Omoiri, is battling for his life after an angry neighbour allegedly stabbed him multiple times with a broken bottle in Effurun, Uvwie Local Government Area of Delta State.

    The Nation gathered that Omoiri was attacked after an argument ensued between him and his neighbour identified as Best Uduophori, over the President’s tribunal victory on Wednesday.

    According to reports, his attacker, believed to be a Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) member, runs a bar around the Okoloba area of Effurun and is currently at large.

    The victim was said to be struggling to survive at an undisclosed hospital over injuries he sustained on his neck, head and other body parts.

    An APC supporter in the state, MC Paul, confirmed the incident in a social media post yesterday.

    He described the attack as inhumane and unwarranted.

    Paul said: “I have just received report of an attempted murder of one Elvis Omoiri by a neighbour, Best Uduophori, who runs a beer parlor in Okoloba, Effurun, Uvwie LGA, Delta State, over a mere political argument.

    “What are we turning politics into in this country? You want to kill someone over Buhari and Atiku tribunal matter? This is animalistic!

    “You break a bottle and stab a fellow countryman almost to the point of death over APC and PDP matter? So, someone doesn’t have right to personal opinion again in Nigeria?

    “Just few days ago, we were all against South Africans for Xenophobic attacks on Nigerians. Today, it is a Nigerian that seems not to value the life of a fellow Nigerian. This is very disgusting, cruel, callous, mean and most condemnable.”

    He however called on the Nigeria Police to thoroughly investigate the matter and see through to the prosecution of the attacker, further disclosing the Warri Area Command has been briefed.

    “I learnt the matter has been reported to the Area Commander in Warri and that the Police are on the lookout for the guy, who is said to be at large at the moment.

    “The Nigerian Police Force should do everything in its power to arrest the accused at once and properly investigate this matter. Justice needs to be served and fast.

    “Until we get serious by taking strict measures against crimes like this, Nigeria will not be safe for anyone. The perpetrator of this heinous attack should be punished accordingly.”

    The State Commissioner of Police, Mr Adeyinka Adeleke, who expressed shock at the development, could not confirm the report, as he said he had not been briefed of the incident.

    At the time of filing this report, he was yet to call back as he promised.