Edo APC secretary home under attack by unknown attackers

The house of Edo State Secretary of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Lawrence Okah, was early Tuesday morning attacked by unknown assailants.

Mr. Okah disclosed this to journalists on Tuesday, saying he is lucky to be alive.

More to follows…

Senate adjourns plenary to mourn senator Ignatius Longjan

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Lawmakers at the Senate House of Assembly on Tuesday adjourned plenary to honour a member, Senator Ignatius Longjan.

Senator Longjan who represented Plateau South Senatorial District died on Sunday at Turkish hospital, Abuja at the age of 75.

A minute of silence and prayers were held for him before the adjournment.

Senate President Ahmed Lawan in a condolence message on Monday acknowledged the contributions of Senator Longjan, both at the state and national levels as former Chairman of the Board of Governors of the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies(NIPSS), Kuru; former Chief of Staff at the Government House in Jos, and Plateau State Deputy Governor between 2011 and 2015.

Senator Lawan said the Senate would miss Longjan who was Vice Chairman of the Committee on Culture and Tourism, and the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong in his condolence message also on Monday recalled how the Longjam served as deputy governor in the state from 2011 to 2015.

He added that the Senator also played a significant role in ensuring political stability in the state all through the period of various security challenges that the state passed through.

EFCC quizzes former Governor T.A Orji and son over alleged N521 billion heist! See accounts traced to son and all the money inside! Incredible!

A Nigerian pilot has narrated how the money approved for his flight school scholarship was looted twice when Senator T.A Orji was the Governor of Abia state, just after report of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission tracing billions to the accounts of the former Governor’s son, Chinedum Orji who is now the Speaker of Abia House of Assembly went viral.

The money was uncovered after a group, Fight Corruption: Save Nigeria Group filed a petition against the former Governor and his son on March 17, 2017. T.A. Orji who served two terms as governor between 2007 and 2011 and now represents Abia Central Senatorial district, was accused of withdrawing N500 million monthly as security vote from the state’s treasury during his eight years in office.

The group accused T.A. Orji of diverting ”N383 billion revenue from the Federation Account, N55 billion Excess Crude revenue, N2.3 billion Sure-P revenue, N1.8 billion ecological funds, N10.5 billion loan, N12 billion Paris Club refund, N2 billion agricultural loan, and N55 billion ASOPADEC money while in office”, and also accused Chinedum Orji of owning about 100 accounts in different banks.

EFCC’s Spokesperson, Tony Orilade confirmed that the two politicians were released on administrative bail and also revealed that it took them 3 years to commence investigation after the petition was filed because they were only following official protocols.

Some of the accounts traced to Chinedum Orji, the former Governor’s son who is now the Speaker of Abia House of Assembly include;

1.Fotoworld Industry Ltd, opened with GTBank, has in it $21million

2.Fotoworld Industry Ltd, with First Bank – N363million

3.Another Fotoworld Industry Ltd, with First Bank – $84,000

4. Another Fotoworld Industry Ltd, with First Bank – N343million

5.Another Fotoworld Industry Ltd, with First Bank – £1.7million

6.Another Fotoworld Industry Ltd, with GTBank – N88million

7.Another Fotoworld Industry Ltd, with GTBank – $21million

8.Exact Construction Ltd, opened with Keystone bank – N1.2billion

9.Another Exact Construction Ltd, with Keystone bank, has N636million

10.Another Exact Construction Ltd, with First Bank, has N599.8million

11.Fotofast Industry Ltd, with First Bank, has N21million

12.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with First Bank, has N224million

13.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with First Bank, has N4.1billion

14.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with First Bank, has N1.7billion

15.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with First Bank, has N274million

16.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with First Bank, has N64.9million

17.Fotofast Industry Ltd, with GTBank, has N425.6million

18.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with GTBank, has N71.8million

19.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with GTBank, has N23.5million

20.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with GTBank, has N158.5million

21.Another Fotofast Industry Ltd, with GTBank, has N50million

22.Orji Chinedum’s Access Bank personal account – $47,726.64

23.Orji Chinedum’s First Bank personal account – N117.7million

24.Another Orji Chinedum’s Access Bank personal account – $124.3million

25.Another Orji Chinedum’s First Bank personal account – N342.7million

26.Orji Chinedum’s FCMB personal account – N384.9million

27.Another Orji Chinedum’s FCMB personal account – N205.5million

28.Orji Chinedum’s First Bank personal account – $601, 716.62

29.Another Orji Chinedum’s First Bank personal account – N153.9million

30.Another Orji Chinedum’s First Bank personal account – N153m

31.Another Orji Chinedum’s Access Bank personal account – N178.3m

32.Another Orji Chinedum’s Access Bank personal account – $48,000

33.Cheetah Press Ltd, First Bank account – N1.1billion

34.Cheetah Press Ltd, Union Bank account – N430.9million

35.Cheetah Press Ltd, Standard Chartered Bank account – N42million

36.Cheetah Press Ltd, GTBank account – N241million

37.Another Cheetah Press Ltd, GTBank account – N966million

38.Cheetah Press Ltd, UBA account – N143.9million

39.Another Cheetah Press Ltd, UBA account – N2.2billion

40.Another Cheetah Press Ltd, UBA account – N782.7million

41.TravelBETA, UBA account, $788, 174.22

Northern Elders Forum Nothing But One Man Riot Squad: Femi Adesina

The presidency has described the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) as a “one-man army” and accused its chairman, Ango Abdullahi, NEF of showing antipathy against President Muhammadu Buhari before the 2019 election.

Femi Adesina, presidential spokesman, said this while responding to a statement issued by NEF faulting Buhari over insecurity and poverty in the country.

“Hearing that title, you would think the body was a conglomeration of true elders. But the truth is that NEF is just Ango Abdullahi, and Ango Abdullahi is NEF.

“It is a quasi-organization that boasts of no credible membership, and its leader is akin to a General without troops.

“Before the 2019 presidential election, the one-man army called NEF had shown its antipathy against President Muhammadu Buhari and its preference for another candidate. They all got beaten together.

“NEF is merely waving a flag that is at half-mast. President Buhari steadily and steadfastly focuses on the task of retooling Nigeria, and discerning Nigerians know the true state of the nation. They don’t need a paper tiger to tell them anything.”

Okada Ban: The Trekkers Of Today Will Snatch Our Cars Tomorrow

I am not one the biggest fans of the motorcycle as a means of transportation. I wasn’t always an antagonist; it all started in 2010. My friend was on a bike that collided with a danfo in the Ikorodu area of Lagos. It wouldn’t have been too bad if that was where it ended, but after she tumbled off the bike, an onrushing bus overran her right hip. She was a guest of the National Orthopaedic Hospital, Igbobi, for several months. Ten years on, her life hasn’t been the same. That leg still isn’t the same. Before that experience I was a frequent user of the motorcycle, but in the 10 years that followed I haven’t ridden it up to 10 times. Still, I do not support this wholesale ban on motorcycle and tricycle operations.

We’ll come back to why later. But first, it must be established that the government has valid concerns about “the menace” of bicycles and tricycles. The Lagos State government says the proscription was prompted by “scary figures” of fatal accidents recorded from operations of okada and Keke NAPEP between 2016 and 2019”. We’re talking over 10,000 accidents recorded at the general hospitals alone, 600 of which have claimed the lives of their victims. The government is also worried by the use of motorcycle and tricycle as getaway means by criminals. I think we can all agree that these two reasons are legitimate, but do the people deserve this kind punishment?

The ban has abruptly eviscerated the means of livelihood of tens of thousands of Lagosians, mainly the already-poor or semi-poor. There are families just getting by before that will now truly struggle to eat three meals daily. With the crowds at bus stops and terminuses these days, Nigerians are technically fighting a bloodshed-less civil war to navigate the otherwise simple task of finding a bus to office. Those who aren’t strong enough for the challenge, or those who aren’t patient enough to wait endless minutes, end up enduring the arduous option of long treks to their office and back home (even at that, not one of them came close to winning the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon on Saturday!). On the bright side, though, the roads seem saner to drive on even if the perennially-heavy Lagos traffic has shown no sign of dissipating.

One very worrying thing about this ban is that it’s a knee-jerk reaction to repeated complaints about accidents and insecurity. It’s no different from the situation in October last year when Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu declared a state of emergency on Lagos roads only after intense complaints on the social-media. Everyone knows Akinwunmi Ambode, the former Governor, stopped working more than a year earlier —from the season it became apparent Bola Tinubu was never going to be placated in his choice of the next governor. Before that sensational emergency declaration, Sanwo-Olu himself had been governor for five months; unless he’d been flying a chopper all over Lagos, there’s really no reason he ignored the numerous gridlock-causing potholes on Lagos roads, reacting only when the public censure became unbearable. His government has been largely reactive, notoriously uninventive. This okada ban is another example.

If the government genuinely wanted to reduce the injuries, deaths and robberies, there is an important question it should have asked, and answered: Why exactly are Lagosians attracted to motorcycles? Why, despite the deaths and robberies, do they keep flying bikes on highways? Unlocking this is the key to regulating the operations of motorcycles and tricycles.

The answer is traffic — the maddening Lagos traffic that makes multi-car owners abandon their intimidating machines at home and fly bikes to work instead. Solving the traffic conundrum is what Sanwo-Olu should be doing, not the self-confessed “wielding the big stick”.

First, clear the potholes on the roads. To Sanwo-Olu’s credit, there’s been an improvement since late last year. But so much more is yet to be done. There are still many traffic-catalysing portions on Ikorodu Road, for example, and it’s much worse inside, such as on the road leading to Asolo-Isawo from Agric Bus Stop. Keep the roads pothole-free and watch more people ditch bikes for cars and buses. This, it must be said, is the low-hanging fruit.

The permanent cure is the easing of Lagos’s notorious traffic situation via the diversification of transport. The more than 20 million inhabitants of the city are too many for its 999.6km2 land area. Road as the ultimate means of transport is the number one enabler of bikes; it won’t even support the “greater Lagos journey” Sanwo-Olu says we have embarked on. So a more thoughtful step would have been an ambitious rail project that connects the busiest routes in Lagos. An underground rail line preferably, just like is obtainable in many of the countries Sanwo-Olu and other Nigerian politicians frequent but seem to learn little from. London, the world’s third busiest city in the world, for instance, owes a great deal of its tolerable traffic to its underground train stations. Empty the Nigerian people into the streets of London and I can assure you bikes would naturally have no place. These things can work in Nigeria too, but politicians who’re more interested in stuffing their pockets and securing their political future will never have the bravery, moral presence or financial prudence to actualise them.

Potential investors in Lagos are surely having second thoughts after seeing the likes of O’Ride, Gokada and Max helplessly watch their investments go down the drain overnight by one abrupt policy announcement. No serious economy does this — to, in one breath, wipe off solid private investments when these companies have in fact introduced some sanity and respectability to a hitherto chaotic and raucous motorcycle operating system. Yet that’s not personally my biggest worry.

I’m very worried about the trekkers. No people deserve this agony on account of rash governance. This is a classic case of a government transferring its own burden of governance to the people. As long as we agree that democracy is a government for the people, this can’t be right. More importantly, the tens of thousands of now jobless bike riders will become trekkers too — either because they’re now too broke or they themselves have to join the long queues for buses. Whichever way it happens, watch out for these guys — because they will come back to snatch your cars. And when they do it, it will be with venom, with a terrifying self-justification of being forced into it by a Greater Lagos with no place for the poor and lowly. Those of you who seem unbothered by the ban because you’re cruising in your wound-up, air-conditioned cars, don’t dare think you’re safe.

Soyombo, former Editor of the TheCable, the International Centre for Investigative Reporting (ICIR) and SaharaReporters, tweets @fisayosoyombo.

Northern Elders Forum: Buhari Is In Denial Of His Failure To Secure Nigeria

President Buhari

The Northern Elders Forum (NEF) says President Muhammadu Buhari is in denial of his failure to secure Nigeria.

This was made known in a statement by Ango Abdullahi, its chairman, adding that the Buhari led government does not have any idea on what will provide relief or solution to insecurity and poverty in the land.

It said, “It has become necessary and appropriate, however, to make public, the position of the forum on important matters that affect the manner Nigerians live, and the future we must address. ”

“The forum regrets that by any standard of judgement, the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari has failed the nation in the vital area of improving its security.

“The relationship between insecurity and poverty is fundamental, but the administration does not appear to have any idea on what will provide relief or solution.

“It gives the forum no pleasure to say that it had warned Nigerians that President Buhari lacked the will, the competence and commitment to lead it into a secure and prosperous future before the 2019 elections.

“It is shocking that in spite of unprecedented consensus among Nigerians that the administration requires a new resolve, approach and leadership in the fight against the nation’s multiple security challenges, President Buhari appears either totally isolated or in deep denial over the result of his failures to secure Nigerians. ”

It said with the mindset, it is difficult to see how Buhari can accept the challenge to “radically improve his handling of our security situation”.

”The north knows its interests, and will stand together to elect only persons who meet the standards and interests of the people of the North.

“No politician should assume that they are entitled to our support unless they show a clear understanding and a commitment to deal with our problems and meet our aspirations.”

Why I Can’t Interfere In Ganduje/Sanusi Feud: Buhari

President Buhari

President Muhammadu Buhari says he is unable to interfere in the dispute between Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje and the Emir of Kano, Muhammadu Sanusi II because the constitution hasn’t given such power.

This was as the Emir of Ningi, Alhaji Yunusa Danyaya, on Thursday pleaded with Buhari to save the traditional institution in the North from being destroyed by urgently intervening in the conflict between Sanusi and Ganduje.

While speaking in a chat with newsmen at his palace in Ningi, he said: “I am begging the President as a father to all to please in the name of Allah to intervene in the problem happening in Kano and settle this dispute between the Emir and the Governor.

“I have high hopes that Buhari will not allow the traditional institution to be humiliated and bastardised, ”  the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) quoted him as saying.

However, in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, Buhari said: “I know my role as the President of Nigeria.

“By the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Governor of Kano State has his own roles, once a matter is in the hands of the House of Assembly (like in Kano), the President has no Constitutional right to interfere.

“I am here by the Constitution, I swore by it, and I am going to stand by it. But let me tell you the bottom line of my understanding of the Constitutional role is that peace and security of all Nigerians must be guaranteed, where the people are threatened, then I will use my constitutional powers,” he said.

“I hope you are mindful of your promises to your constituencies. You went round and you promised your constituencies. I hope the promises you made are within the resources of your state.

“If you made promises outside your resources, it will be your problem because you are going to stand again in four years’ time. This is very important and it is important for our party,” he said.

Why I Go To Work With My Resignation Letter In My Pocket – Abia Speaker

Chinedum Orji

Speaker of the Abia State House of Assembly, Chinedum Enyinnaya Orji, says he goes to work every day with his resignation letter in his pocket.

The speaker, who is the son of the former governor of the state, Theodore Orji said this during a recent interview with Vanguard.

The speaker said he contested election in 2015 just to be a member of the assembly and only wanted people to know him for who he is as people thought he couldn’t “even speak proper English, talk less of expressing myself. The impression of me out there was that of an illiterate. ”

To those pushing propaganda against hi., be says he “cannot respond to every propaganda. I am only responding to it now because I don’t want the governor to be distracted from his job which is enormous.”

“To calm their mind, let me tell you that at any time I wear my suit to go to work, I always have my resignation letter in my pocket; at any time the Governor feels I am no longer protecting his interest or the interest of my colleagues, I will simply submit my resignation letter and go my way.”

EFCC Investigates Theodore Orji Over Numerous Bank Accounts

There are reports that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is investigating former governor of Abia State, Senator Theodore Orji, over billions of Naira allegedly traced to his son.

The former governor has also been accused of diverting, while in office, N383 billion revenue from the Federation Account, N55 billion Excess Crude revenue, N2.3 billion Sure-P revenue, N1.8 billion ecological funds, N10.5 billion loan, N12 billion Paris Club refund, N2 billion agricultural loan and N55 billion ASOPADEC money.

According to a petition to the anti-graft agency, the funds were received without commensurate projects on ground.

Vanguard reports that he ex-governors first son, Chinendum Orji Eyinanya, who is presently the Speaker of Abia State House of Assembly, is said to be a frequent guest at the EFCC Headquarters to throw light on his involvement in the alleged fraud as he is alleged to have about 100 accounts in different banks, with over 80% of the accounts still very active.

‘You did the right thing crying out at the right time, unlike myself’ – Teebillz writes to Harrysong

Tiwa Savage’s ex-hubby, Teebillz who once battled and recovered from depression has reached out to singer, Harrysong saying, he’s been there before.

According to Teebillz, Harrysong did the right thing by crying out at the right time to get the needed help. ‘It’s Ok “not to be Ok sometimes my Brother” and there’s no shame to it! I’ve been there! The Saddest part is that our society shy’s away from the truth and being human, we are covered up by a culture that is so far lost. We emulate the western world at our convenience but shy away from the reality of consciousness’ he wrote.

He added that, ‘you did the right thing, crying out at the right time, unlike myself! The western world that we emulate has lost so many lives due to ignorance. Your mind is the greatest weapon to attack the delusional world that we live in bro! When you understand the dynamics of life, define your values and understand your purpose in life, the rest is a daily exercise. Gratitude is my recommendation. If we can all exercise empathy and love to one another, The world will be a better place to contain all of us in peace. Don’t get carried away from reality and the social media world folks!’.

”This is the worst government since 1999” – Atiku

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar and PDP presidential hopeful, has described the Buhari-led goverment as the worst government Nigeria has had since 1999.

Atiku who submitted his presidential nomination form last Thursday and hopes to be the PDP presidential candidate in the 2019 election, berated the government of the day when he paid a courtesy visit to Ahmed Makarfi, former caretaker committee chairman of the party who is also a presidential aspirant of the PDP.

“You can definitely acknowledge that since the return of democracy, we have not had a worst period than now, whether in terms of economy, whether in terms of unity, whether in terms of security, this is the worst time since 1999. The maladministration of the APC government is very evident, we have the highest record of unemployment since 1999, we have the highest inflation, we have multiple exchange rates that discourage foreign investment. We have the highest level of insecurity since 1999.

“People are more angry, people are poorer more than at anytime. Nigeria is rated as the headquarters of poverty in the world. This is unthinkable for a country that is endowed with human and natural resources like ours, just because of lack of clear headed leadership and direction, this is where we find ourselves. So, it is obvious that we just have to change the leadership of this country.” he said