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  • Nigeria, UK to sign prisoner transfer agreement on today

    Nigeria, UK to sign prisoner transfer agreement on today

    Nigeria and the UK will today in Abuja sign the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (PTA) , a senior official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed.

    Spokesman of the ministry, Ogbole Ode, said the agreement would be signed by Minister of Justice Mohammed Adoke and the UK Minister of Prisons Jeremy Wright.

    The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that no fewer than 15,316 Nigerians are in various prisons abroad with the largest number of 752 in the UK.

    The bilateral agreement allows the return of a prisoner to serve out his sentence in his home country where both jurisdictions are in agreement.

    Similarly, Mr Abdulazzez Dankano, the Director of Consular and Immigration Services in the ministry also, told NAN that Nigeria had an existing Commonwealth Prisoner Transfer agreement with the UK.

    According to him, the commonwealth scheme had facilitated the repatriation of only one prisoner since inception.

    “Under the commonwealth agreement, the prisoner has to consent before repatriation as that is the practice in international human rights.

    “The commonwealth scheme is still open and convicted prisoners can opt to come back through that scheme or through the bilateral PTA that will soon be signed,’’ he said.

    Dankano said some 300 Nigerian nationals currently in UK jails could be deported under the new prisoner transfer agreement.

    NAN learnt that a major stumbling block to deportation of Nigerians in the past had been the condition of prisons but the UK has promised one million pounds to Nigeria to help improve its prisons.

    Nigeria is currently implementing a PTA with Thailand, which had seen the repatriation of 400 prisoners since 2008.The country has concluded negotiations with Hong Kong and India on the transfer of prisoners but have yet to sign the agreements.

  • U.K. considers raising pension age to 68 by Mid-2030s

    Prime Minister David Cameron’s government may bring forward an increase in the age at which Britons take their pensions by a decade as life expectancy rises.

    The government said in a statement that the planned age increase to 68, originally estimated to be introduced in 2046, may be brought forward to the mid-2030s, and the pension age could rise to 69 by the late 2040s.

    The changes will affect people currently in their 40s or younger and will save about 400 billion pounds, it said.

    According to the announcement issued before Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne’s Autumn Statement to Parliament, the government will use the principle that people should spend, on average, up to one third of their adult lives in retirement to inform future changes in the state pension age. This is part of the government’s long-term economic plan to secure a responsible recovery.

    Proposals to raise the age at which Britons are eligible for a state pension were first brought in last year. The Pensions Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords, is likely to become law early next year. It will also introduce a single-tier pension to replace the current basic means-tested allowance.

  • Civilians crucial to war against terror, says NSA Dasuki

    Civilians crucial to war against terror, says NSA Dasuki

    The National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki, has said the support of the civilian population is essential to the success of the war against the Boko Haram insurgency.

    The NSA spoke to participants at a strategic communications workshop organised by the National Defence College, Abuja.

    The project coordinator, Albany Associates (UK), will today present a report  of the workshop to the Presidency.

    A statement yesterday by the organisers said: “The workshop is a first of its kind for the Nigerian security services and stakeholders. It is part of National Security Adviser, retired Col. Sambo Dasuki’s new strategy for embracing a new discipline – strategic communications –as it steps up its fight against the insurgency that has ravaged parts of northern Nigeria.

    “A major challenge facing the military and other security agencies is the inability to effectively communicate with civilians in their areas of operations and the country as a whole. This rethink demonstrates a new approach on the part of the federal government to win both the war and the peace. As NSA Dasuki said at the opening of the workshop, there must be a more comprehensive spectrum of weapons and technologies developed and deployed against terrorism.

    “The military does not have a strategic communications plan and as such has not fared well in the public domain despite many successes recorded against Boko Haram. It is this lack of a strategic communications plan for the armed forces that the NSA is trying to change. “

    Dasuki and other stakeholders at the workshop said the nature of the conflict has changed significantly.

    The statement added: “Participants at the workshop were in no doubt there are communication challenges between security agencies and the public over military action in their communities. But with this new approach, it appears we may begin to see an improvement in trust and collaboration.

    “Participants were drawn from all the branches of the Nigerian armed forces including the police and their civilian security counterparts from the State Security Service and the office of the NSA. Overall more than 160 senior officers from the Nigerian military, as well as representatives of other government agencies, benefited from the workshop. The media and Diplomatic Corps, bodies closer to the public, were also involved in the deliberations that brought experts from countries that had faced such insurgencies in Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Northern Ireland. The presentations and discussions led by experienced military and civilian communications experts from the United States of America and the United Kingdom gave Nigerian officers the opportunity to exchange experiences with officers who have faced situations elsewhere in the world that are similar to what Nigeria is experiencing in several.

    “Both the office of the NSA and the National Defence College have been working with the US State Department, UK’s Ministry of Defence and strategic communications specialists Albany Associates, partnered in Nigeria by Africa Today, the London-based pan-African news magazine, to promote this strategic communications approach which will, hopefully, lead to a successful and effective communication relationship between the military and the public. The partnership delivered intensive training in different communications disciplines deployed by the US and UK in their operations against insurgencies across the world.”

  • UK APC welcomes G5 governors

    UK APC welcomes G5 governors

    The Merger Working Committee (MWC) of the United Kingdom (UK) chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has congratulated the party’s national leadership for getting five former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governors into its fold.

    A statement by its chairman, Alhaji Garba Sani and General Secretary, Dr. Ibrahim Emokpaire, said: “The spate of the defection (into APC) is a testament to the yearnings of majority of Nigerians for a new nation, where the rule of law and order, integrity, peace, disciplined governance and ethnic reconciliation will be the norm rather than the exception.

    “This well-deserved footprint has come at a time when our dear nation is in dire need of visionary leadership.”

    The group hailed the APC for ensuring the general well-being of Nigerians and the resolve for an indivisible country.

     

  • Nigeria will accept deportee’s plane

    Nigeria says it has given permission for a plane to land in the country should the Home Office try again to deport a failed asylum seeker.

    Isa Muazu was returned to the UK after a private jet chartered to take him to Nigeria on Friday was turned back.

    According to officials the relevant documents for the flight had not been completed.

    Mr Muazu, on hunger strike for more than 100 days, has said he fears being killed by Islamic extremists.

    A spokesman for Nigeria’s aviation ministry told the BBC that permission had now been granted for a privately chartered jet carrying Mr Muazu to land in Nigeria, although he said it was not clear if any flight was imminent.

    The Home Office has rejected Mr Muazu’s arguments and attempted to deport the 45-year-old on Friday after he lost a series of legal challenges.

    He has been detained since claiming asylum in July, saying he faced persecution from the militant Islamic group Boko Haram.

    Mr Muazu entered the UK on a visitor’s visa in July 2007 and stayed without permission after it expired in January 2008.

    It is believed he then found work in south-east London and was detained on the day he claimed asylum, 25 July of this year.

    Duncan Lewis Solicitors, representing Mr Muazu, said his case was then fast-tracked and his application rejected in August.

    The firm said he had made himself “seriously ill” in his protest, adding: “His hunger strike lasted for over 100 days”.

    A claim that his detention was unlawful was rejected by the Court of Appeal on 25 November, and two last-minute appeals were also refused, his lawyers said.

    Labour believes the government has questions to answer over the case.

    After the plane was prevented from landing in Nigeria, Shadow Immigration Minister David Hanson said: “Deportations should be carried out with competence and humanity – neither of those things seems to have happened in this case”.

    Mr Muazu’s lawyers say he has returned to the medical wing at Harmondsworth detention centre near Heathrow.

    The Nigerian is 5ft 11in (1.8m) tall, weighs eight stone (53kg) and has described himself as “looking like a skeleton”, his lawyers have said.

    He has said that he came to the UK “for a better life” and would “rather die” than face removal

  • ‘Why we prefer studying in UK’

    ‘Why we prefer studying in UK’

    “The best thing about studying in the UK is that you get to meet so many different people,” Olufunmilayo, Odeyemi, 19, currently a student in the UK said excitedly.

    Olufunmilayo, is among several other Nigerians who rush to the UK to get a degree.  A recent statistics revealed that the number of Nigerians studying in the UK has trebled in just eight years.

    For Olufunmilayo, the experience so far is worth the while, “It’s a real experience and I have learned much more than I ever imagined. Not only that, but I love football and have been to watch my favourite team, Manchester United, play in the Premier League,” she said.

    It is the same story for her sister Fehintola, 21, “The lifestyle is very different in the UK compared to Nigeria. What you say, how you dress and the way you interact with people is very different from home. It has been a real experience.

    “I plan to do a masters degree in architecture which will lead to me being qualified with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Once I have this, I would like to come home to Nigeria and move to Lagos to work in an architectural firm,” she said.

    Data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency in the UK (HESA) shows that 17,640 Nigerians enrolled to study at UK universities during 2011/12 compared to 5,385 for 2003/04.

    Nottingham Trent University, based in Nottingham in the East Midlands in England, now has nearly double the number of Nigerian students compared to two years ago. For the academic year 2013/14, 64 Nigerians enrolled at the university, compared to 38 in 2011/12.

    Among those to enrol were siblings Olufunmilayo, Fehintola and Olurotimi Odeyemi who were all born and raised in Kaduna.

    Olufunmilayo is currently studying for a degree in product design, while Fehintola and Olurotimi have both graduated with degrees in architecture.

    They all undertook a foundation course at Nottingham Trent International College, which is based at the university’s campus in Nottingham city centre, to give them a good ground for their degrees.

    Selma Toohey, international recruitment officer for Sub-Saharan Africa at Nottingham Trent University, said: “We’re seeing increases in the number of students from Nigeria coming here to study, which is really encouraging. In the past we have had many students applying from Lagos, but now we’re seeing more come to us from other parts of Nigeria, such as cities and towns in the north like Kaduna.

    “More people are realising that studying in the UK is a realistic option and many find it to be a real benefit to experience living in another culture while studying for their degrees.”

  •  British back down

     British back down

    The recent decision by the British government to halt its controversial proposal to impose a £3,000 visa bond on a percentage of visitors from six countries deemed to be “high-risk” is a welcome one.

    Announced earlier in the year by the British Home Affairs Secretary, Teresa May, the visa bond policy was aimed at deterring nationals of Nigeria, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Ghana who are seen as the most persistent illegal immigrants. In addition to discouraging illegal immigration, it was to help defray the costs of locating, securing and deporting them back to their own countries. The policy was also supposed to signal the ruling Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s preparedness to tackle the vexed problem of illegal immigration and fend off inroads by the anti-immigration UK Independence Party (UKIP).

    The widespread hostility with which the visa bond proposal was met, as well as its ultimate scrapping, is a clear demonstration of the fact that it was poorly conceived, badly timed and ill intentioned. It was clearly discriminatory in its focus, singling out countries and individuals solely on the basis of nationality and race. It offended natural law by proposing pre-emptive punishment of crimes that were yet to be committed.  Its efficacy was in doubt, given the problems the UK has had with immigrants from elsewhere in the European Union (EU) and in Eastern Europe, which were not covered by the proposal.

    Most damaging of all, the visa bond policy threatened the durability of some of Britain’s most enduring ties. All of the six targeted countries have maintained largely cordial economic, social and political relations which are very beneficial to all sides. In the light of their perceived demonisation by the proposal, strongly-worded protests and threats of retaliatory treatment from these long-standing friendly nations posed a clear danger to hitherto-harmonious relationships.

    The consequent withdrawal of the proposal is thus a recognition on the part of the British government that the UK stood to lose far more than what it hoped to gain if it went ahead with the policy. While Nigeria and the other five nations may see the action as a triumph of common sense and hard-nosed realpolitik, they must realise that the underlying problem of illegal immigration by their nationals remains as intractable as ever.

    Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are all heavily-populated developing countries whose infrastructural and other challenges often serve as an impetus for its more adventurous nationals to seek greener pastures by any means possible. Such is the level of poverty and unemployment that a formidable human-trafficking industry has emerged in these nations to take advantage of increasingly desperate attempts to travel to other lands.

    If illegal immigration is to be slowed down to manageable proportions, it will first require comprehensive efforts by Nigeria and the other countries to take care of the basic needs of their citizens. Nigeria, with its vaunted oil wealth, is particularly well-placed to ensure that its people are able to lead meaningful and fulfilled lives within its own borders. The simple fact is that nobody will undertake the risks of illegal migration when all that is needed for a civilised existence is available at home. It is when people increasingly feel that their prospects at home are irredeemably bad that the attractiveness of foreign lands becomes the norm.

    In this regard, it is significant that top British officials were assiduously courting China with a significant relaxation of travel requirements for its nationals even while the visa-bond policy was still being considered. Like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, China is an Asian country, but unlike them, it has been able to economically transform itself to the extent that its citizens are welcomed almost everywhere with open arms due to their enhanced spending power. The lesson is clear.

  • UK-based Nigerian filmmaker honoured for Jand Hustle

    UK-based Nigerian filmmaker honoured for Jand Hustle

    EHIZOJIE Ojesebholo, United Kingdom-based Nigerian filmmaker and producer of Jand Hustle, recently won the Efere Ozako Best Experimental Film at the 10th edition of the Abuja International Film Festival (AIFF 2013).

    Jand Hustle is a documentary-comedy about a Nigerian called Jimmy Bendel, who travelled from West Africa to East London in search of greener pastures but finds out things are not the same as he had read about or heard from people who had travelled abroad.

    Artistes that featured in the movie include Rachael Oniga, Kevin Hallett, Onoh Kallista, Oyinka Yusuff, and Okechukwu Chima. It was co-produced by Funmi Adesanya (UK), Ibironke Ojesebholo (Nigeria) while Associate Producers include Vitor Okhai, Cheah Kar Mun, Yejide Akomolafe and Oliver Aleogena.

    Ojesebholo holds a Diploma certificate from Sound and Audio Engineering, (SAE), London and a Degree in Filmmaking from Middlesex University, London and he is a member of Directors Guild of Great Britain.

  • UK to send hundreds of Nigerian prisoners home

    UK to send hundreds of Nigerian prisoners home

    There are 534 Nigerian nationals serving sentences in British prisons. UK Minister Jeremy Wright says prisoner transfer deal is close to being sealed, reports Daily Mail

    Hundreds of Nigerian criminals will be sent home to serve out prison sentences under a deal set to be struck by ministers within weeks.

    Talks are continuing into reaching a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement, which could see more than half of the 500 criminals from Nigeria currently in UK jails repatriated.

    Prisons minister Jeremy Wright told MailOnline how ‘more foreign prisoners must serve their sentences in their own countries’.

    Ministers have been ordered to step up efforts to end the scandal of more than one in eight prisoners being from overseas.

    The Prime Minister said in 2010 that he would ’personally intervene’ to send more foreign criminals home.

    Britain has even made clear it would pay to build new prisons in countries like Nigeria to speed up the process of sending foreign criminals home. Up to £1million has been promised to upgrade Nigerian jails, including a new wing at Kirikiri Prison in Lagos.

    But to date little progress has been made. When the coalition was formed there were 11,135 foreign prisoners in UK jails, and this figure has fallen by just three per cent since to 10,786.

    Each felon costs an average of around £40,000 a year to keep inside.

    Last week it was announced that notorious Liberian warlord Charles Taylor is to serve his 50-year sentence for war crimes in the UK.

    A prisoner-transfer agreement was struck with Albania earlier this year to ‘free up space in prisons here and reduce the cost to the British taxpayer’.

    It was the first major bilateral prisoner transfer agreement with a country outside the European Union.

    There were around 250 Albanians in UK jails in June this year.

    But securing an agreement with Nigeria would be seen as a much more significant breakthrough.

    Latest figures show there were 534 Nigerian nationals in British jails, 485 men and 49 women.

    Nigerians account for one in 20 of all foreign prisoners, putting the country fifth in the league table of nations whose citizens have been jailed in the UK.

    Justice Minister Mr Wright said: ‘I am clear that more foreign prisoners must serve their sentences in their own countries.

    ‘That is why we are currently working with the Nigerian Government on a compulsory prisoner transfer agreement to increase the number of prisoners who are transferred.

    ‘Legislation allowing Nigeria to enter such an arrangement was passed earlier this year by the Nigerian Parliament. We are now working with them on the text of a final agreement.’

    Overflowing jails abroad have made it increasingly difficult to deport prisoners to their own country.

    It is argued that by paying for building new jails or making existing ones more ‘comfortable’ so they approach British standards, will be repatriated.

    In April Mr Cameron said: ‘When people are sent to prison in the UK we should do everything we can to make sure that if they’re foreign nationals, they are sent back to their country to serve their sentence in a foreign prison.

    ‘And I’m taking action in Government to say look we have strong relationships with all of the countries where these people come from.

    ‘Many are coming from Jamaica, many from Nigeria, many from other countries in Asia.

    ‘We should be using all of the influence we have to sign prisoner transfer agreements with those countries. Even if necessary frankly helping them to build prisons in their own country so we can send the prisoners home.’

     

     

  • BA offers special fares to UK, US, Europe

    British Airways has announced special price discounts across all of its cabins for its Nigerian customers, Known as the Independence Anniversary Special.

    According to the airline, the offer presents the customers with the opportunity to travel at special discount rates to London, the United Kingdom, and selected destinations in Europe and the United States from Lagos and Abuja.

    According to officials of the airline, the offer will extend to the end of this month.

    Under the new arrangement, customers travelling to different destinations from Lagos and Abuja in all its cabins, can now experience the unparallel service and luxurious surroundings of British Airways for less with the Independence special offer.

    British Airways’ Country Manager for West Africa, Kola Olayinka, said with the Independence Anniversary Special, customers in World Traveller class can now travel direct from Lagos, or Abuja to London, the UK and select European destinations from as low as $353.

    For those travelling to the same destination in the World Traveller Plus, the fare goes for $753, while fares for Club World and First Class cabins start from as low as $2,153 and $5,353.

     

     

     

    Giving further details of the offer, Olayinka said travelling to US cities is now also cheaper on British Airways, with new fares of $653 in World Traveller, $1,453 for World Traveller Plus, $2,753 for Club World and $6,453 for First on select North American destinations, including US and Canadian cities.

    “We are constantly looking for new ways to make our customers happy and satisfied, and also give value to our clientele. The fare is exclusive of all surcharges and taxes, and the selling is between February 1 and February 28, while outbound travel period run from February 1 to June 14, this year,” she pointed out.

    He said the offer has once again reiterated the fact that British Airways’ commitment to offering more value for money for its teeming Nigerian customers, and shows how much the airline values its Nigerian customers.

    “We are always looking for new ways to make our customers happy and satisfied, and also give them value, and the Independence anniversary provides us with such a unique opportunity,” he said. He promised that the airline will continue to offer its Nigerian customers great fares, and a choice of services and onboard products, adding that all fares quoted are exclusive of all surcharges and taxes.