Abdul's Blog: 02/20/18

Tuesday, 20 February 2018

Father of boy smuggled into Spain in suitcase walks free

A Spanish court on Tuesday allowed an Ivory Coast man to walk free, with only a small fine to pay, after his son was found crammed into a suitcase at a border crossing.

Prosecutors had initially sought a three-year prison term for Ali Ouattara, 45, for facilitating his son’s illegal entry into Europe and threatening the child’s life.

Morgan Tsvangirai, who has died after a battle with cancer, was the face of Zimbabwe’s downtrodden opposition for decades.

Jail, beatings by pro-regime thugs and perennial disappointment at the ballot box never dented the 65-year-old’s desire to move the country past the decades of autocratic rule by former president Robert Mugabe and his acolytes.

The leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party (MDC) took his furtive first steps on the country’s complex and sometimes violent political scene as a trade union activist in the 1980s.

Fulani herdsmen in Ekiti and South West have taken an oath to ensure peace with host communities in Ekiti, and by extension, the South West region.

They promised that they would no longer behave in unruly manner, kill or allow their cows to stray into farms.

The traditional oath is said to be an effective cultural sanction against cattle herders as its violation is believed to bring tragedy on the culprit.

The Taraba State Government has temporarily suspended the Anti-Open Grazing law in the state to allow for some amendments as farmers and herdsmen agree to shield swords.

The decision came after three days of interactive sessions between the National Economic Council Technical sub Committee on ending herders/farmers crisis, and key stakeholders in the state.

Leader of the NEC technical sub-committee and Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State ,who disclosed this to journalists at the end of the three-day interactive sessions, in Jalingo, commended Governor Darius Ishaku for being considerate enough to allow for a review of the law after it has been duly passed by the state Assembly.

A prominent Zimbabwean activist voiced doubt on Tuesday that upcoming elections – the first since Robert Mugabe’s ouster – will be credible, as the new president’s commitment to basic rights was still unclear.

Evan Mawarire, a pastor who became the face of anti-Mugabe demonstrations last year, told AFP that Zimbabwe’s legacy of ballot rigging and political repression would take time to shed.

Following strict orders by the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to his Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and other operational apparatus of the police, the mastermind of the Fulani herdsmen responsible for the recent attacks in Benue State, was arrested by the police.

The Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Operations, DIG Joshak Habillah, who made this disclosure on behalf of the IGP said the mastermind was arrested after deploying the most advanced technology and trailing him for more than three weeks.

Arsene Wenger revealed he was once visited by Pep Guardiola when the former Barcelona player wanted to sign for Arsenal.

Guardiola made more than 250 appearances for Barcelona as a player, before a series of brief spells at the likes of Roma and Brescia, and retired in 2006.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, on Tuesday passed a vote of no confidence on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, under the leadership of Prof Mahmood Yakubu.

PDP said the Yakubu-led electorial body can “readily announce false results, cancel elections, alter polling procedures and allow any irregularities during the 2019 general elections once it is threatened by the All Progressives Congress (APC) or any other group for that matter.”

Suleiman Hukunyi, senator representing Kaduna north, says he has forgiven Nasir el-Rufai, governor of Kaduna, for allegedly pulling down his property.

The property which housed a faction of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was demolished in the early hours of Tuesday.

This happened less than two days after the faction led by the lawmaker suspended the governor.

A Malaysian artist was jailed for a month Tuesday for publishing a caricature of scandal-plagued Prime Minister Najib Razak looking like a clown, the latest government critic to be imprisoned.

Fahmi Reza’s picture of the premier wearing powder-white clown make-up, with evilly arched eyebrows and blood-red lips, went viral and the image was widely used in demonstrations against Najib.

Residents of Dapch, headquarters of Bursari local government area of Yobe state, fled on Monday after suspected Boko Haram members attacked the community.

Those who fled sought refuge in the bush.

Abdulmalik Sumonu, commissioner of police, confirmed the attack on Monday.

Peter Okpaleke, Catholic bishop of Ahiara diocese, in Imo state, has finally resigned, following rejection from the faithful in the diocese.

A statement issued by the Vatican on Monday said Pope Francis has accepted his resignation.

Ahiara diocese had been engulfed in crisis following their refusal to accept Peter Okpaleke, appointed the local bishop in 2012 by the then pontiff, Benedict XVI.

After three weeks of investigation, the Monitoring Unit of the Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department of the Imo State Police Command has nabbed a couple for allegedly selling their daughter, Chinecherem, for N400,000, a few hours after delivery.

The couple – Ifeanyi, 35, and Emmaculata Elijah, 30 – are indigenes of Amakpu- Umuba, in the Isiala Ngwa North Local Government Area of Abia State. But they are residents of Irete, in the Owerri West LGA of Imo State.

Hysteria rules the air. Anger fumes, shutting down clear thinking. So, a monumental mistake might just dawn.

If that happens, the present pains, in comparison, risks turning heavenly bliss. So, pause, take a deep breath and think.

For starters, x-ray two key actors in the gripping drama.

Sexually transmitted infections and diseases are common and can be passed on from person to person without sex.

From herpes to chlamydia and HIV, the severity of these infections vary and some do not have symptoms.

Iranian search teams found today the wreckage of an Aseman Airlines plane that went missing in the Zagros mountains two days earlier with 66 people on board, a spokesman said.

Aseman Airlines flight EP3704 disappeared in the Zagros range on Sunday morning, around 45 minutes after taking off from Tehran.

The Lagos State Government on Tuesday said that the ongoing construction of the Ilubirin Housing Scheme would be completed before the end of the year while it would go on sale to members of the public from the first quarter of 2019.

The Government, in a statement signed by the Commissioner for Housing, Mr. Gbolahan Lawal, said the development of the scheme, would be built in seven phases starting with the completion of the existing structure which is already underway, while other plashes of the project would be completed over a period of three years terminating in 2022.

The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has faulted the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), for advising the Federal Government to drop all the charges filed against individuals and firms implicated in the $1.1bn Malabu oil scam.

Sagay said this during an interview with our correspondent on Monday.

R. Kelly has been evicted from two of his houses because of unpaid rents.

DailyMail reports that both houses are situated in the Johns Creek neighbourhood of Duluth in Atlanta, Georgia.

The R&B legend had been served an eviction notice on February 13 after owing $31,000 as rent for both apartments.

Muhammadu Barkindo, lamido of Adamawa, has asked President Muhammadu Buhari not to listen to some “empty barrel Nigerian elite” opposed to his re-election bid.

Speaking when he hosted the president at his palace on Tuesday, the monarch said Buhari has achieved a lot and should proceed to seek for a second term.

Prof Ishaq Oloyede, Registrar, Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), has slammed Nigerians that have been making jokes out of the missing N36m from the board’s office in Makurdi, Benue State.

The JAMB boss was reacting to the recent claim by Philomena Chieshe, a sales clerk in JAMB office, Makurdi that her housemaid connived with another JAMB staff, Joan Asen, to “spiritually” swallow N36m from the vault in her office.

Ibe Kachikwu, minister of state for petroleum resources, says the federal government will NOT sell its refineries.

Rather, the aim is to make Nigeria the refinery corridor for the rest of the continent, he said.

The minister was speaking on Tuesday on the short and medium term priorities directed towards growing the country’s oil and gas industry at the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit in Abuja.

President Muhammadu Buhari has directed the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to ensure that those involved in the Malabu OPL 245 scam are made to face prosecution.

Named in the saga are Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke, Attorney-General of the Federation under the Goodluck Jonathan administration, and Mrs. Diezani Alison-Madueke, a former Minister of Petroleum Resources. Former President Goodluck Jonathan was also named in the scam by investigators in Italy and the UK.

Muhammadu Sanusi II, emir of Kano, says herdsmen should obey the anti-open grazing law in the states where it has been enacted.

Sanusi said this on Monday while speaking at a meeting with Ayodele Fayose, governor of Ekiti, security agencies and interest groups, in the Ado-Ekiti.

The emir was represented by Ibrahim Shekarau, a former governor of Kano who said his mission to the state was not about politics but for peaceful coexistence among the people.

The Federal government has declared hate speech as an act of terrorism and warned that it will, henceforth, prosecute those who indulge in the practice. Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said henceforth, offenders of dangerous comments would be treated in accordance with the 2011 terrorism Act.

The minister who spoke yesterday at the second National Conference of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) in Kano reminded that government directive from National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to sanction any broadcast station who allows its airwave to be used as medium for promotion of hate speeches, is still in place.

Donald Trump has been ranked as the worst US President in history in a Presidents’ Day poll conducted by political scientists.

The poll ranked all 44 persons who have served as US president.

Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Teddy Roosevelt respectively took the top four spots in the Boise State University ‘Presidential Greatness Survey’.

As the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, begins to reconcile warring sides in the ruling party, his wife, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has decried that her husband was “trashed” after the party won the 2015 elections.

President Muhammadu Buhari had mandated Tinubu to reconcile aggrieved party members ahead of the 2019 general elections, an assignment the former governor of Lagos State has since begun.

The Lagos State Police Command has arrested a 45-year-old man, Philip Ononaku, in connection with the death of his estranged wife, Iyabo Akinpelu.

Iyabo, 48, was reportedly found dead floating on a river in Oke Eeri, off Odo Eran, in the Oworonshoki area of the state on Friday after she was declared missing by her family the previous day.

The Federal Government, yesterday, said it has continued to save up to N24.7 billion monthly as a result of Treasury Single Account, TSA, policy.

The government also boasted that within the last two and half years in office, about N108 billion has been saved from removal of maintenance fees payable to banks before the advent of TSA.

A Political Science lecturer with Kaduna State University (KASU), Mallam Aliyu Yero, says Nigerian youths are not yet ready to take up the mantle of leadership of the country.

Yero made the assertion in an interview with the News men on Monday in Kaduna while reacting to the Not too young to run Bill passed by the National Assembly.

A former security guard with the Nigerian Aviation Handling Company Plc (NAHCO), David Akinniran, who allegedly absconded after stealing $230,000 (about N83, 030,000) from two passengers at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport in Lagos, was on Monday brought before a Lagos High Court in Igbosere.

Akinniran, 40, was arraigned by the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) before Justice Agnes Nicole-Clay.

President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday arrived Yola to declare open the State’s Anti-Corruption Summit and commission some projects.

This was made known on Twitter, by the President’s media aide, Bashir Ahmad.
The president before leaving for Yola, was in Daura, Katsina State, to commiserate with members of his extended family, who were bereaved recently.

The Peoples Democratic Party has set up a reconciliation committee headed by a former President of the Senate, David Mark, to settle the rifts among its members in Ekiti State.

Mark, it was learnt, would be assisted by the Deputy Vice Chairman of the party in the South-West, Dr. Eddy Olafeso, and others whose identities were not known as of the time of filing this report.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, confirmed the setting up of the committee in an interview with our correspondent in Abuja on Monday.

The Nigerian Army on Tuesday has commenced Operation Cat Race Exercise in Benue state to stop further clash between herdsmen and farmers in the state.

Ahead of the formal inauguration of the operation, the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, has visited Governor Samuel Ortom at the Government House in Makurdi the state capital.

Details later.

Chelsea legend Didier Drogba’s son Isaac joins Guingamp

Isaac Drogba has followed in his legendary father’s footsteps by agreeing a deal to sign for Ligue 1 outfit Guingamp.

The 17-year-old, who has also spent time in the Chelsea academy, was unveiled by the French club on Monday, 16 years after they signed his father in an £80,000 deal from Le Mans.

An Egyptian court on Tuesday sentenced 20 people to 10 years in prison for burning a church, official news agency MENA reported.

The convicts were also accused of illegal gathering, violence, attempted murder and possession of unlicensed weapons.

Two lawyers were killed in a firing incident between two rival groups within premises of a court in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore on Tuesday, local media reported.

According to local reports, the incident occurred in the Lahore session court when two groups opened fire at each other, killing one lawyer on the spot while injuring another, whom later succumbed to injuries on his way to the hospital.

A former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Anthony Cardinal Olubunmi-Okogie, has told the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration that Nigerians are angry over poverty and insecurity in the country.

Okogie, a former Lagos Archbishop of the Catholic Church, also called on the President to take note of the criticisms by former President Olusegun Obasanjo; former military dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida; the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria and others, saying that they should not be dismissed as “wailers.”

The secretariat of the faction of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kaduna has been demolished.

The controversial secretariat is reported to have been demolished in the early hours of Tuesday.

According to Channels TV, the Secretariat is located at number 11B Sambo in the state capital.

Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo State has tasked candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the March 3 local government election in the State, to work hard to earn and justify their victory at the polls.

This is even as he restated that the Council election will not be rigged in favor of candidates of the APC.

Business tycoon and President, Dangote Group of Companies, Aliko Dangote, has assured that the ongoing Apapa-Wharf Road reconstruction project would be completed on schedule in June this year, adding that he was impressed that the work was progressing faster than he anticipated.

The business mogul who made this disclosure during his visit to the project site recently to see extent of work done, said, “Now, my impression has changed, AG Dangote is actually doing an excellent job.” He lauded the quality of work being done just as he commended the project financiers such as Dangote Group, Flour Mills of Nigeria and the Nigerian Ports Authority.

Pedro and Marcos Alonso both trained with the Chelsea first team on Monday following their respective absences as they prepared for Tuesday’s Champions League clash with Barcelona. Both have sat out the Blues’ last three matches through injury, but are available for selection by manager Antonio Conte.

Conte will be feeling the pressure though as his Chelsea squad entered the final phases of their preparations for the first of their two-legged last 16 tie at Stamford Bridge.

Head coach of the Super Eagles, Gernot Rohr, is considering dropping the China-based duo of John Obi Mikel and Odion Ighalo, from the squad for their upcoming friendly matches.

Rohr is mulling the decision, because they are stil in pre-season training with their Chinese clubs.