A seven-man robbery gang led by a woman, Chioma Ezekwesiri, has been smashed by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, in Lagos, southwest Nigeria.
The robbery suspects were arrested while attempting to rob Bolatito Hotel, Kola Bus Stop, Ijaiye, Lagos.
In chat with P.M.NEWS, Chioma said she arranged for the guns with Raymond Chukwuka, a.k.a. Stubborn, they were to use for the operation, which she claimed was a land matter, whereas the police said that their mission was allegedly to rob a male customer of the hotel, who sells fertilizer, of about N8 million.
Other suspected members of the gang are: Amadi Igwe, 41, Raymond Chukwuka, 24, Ignatius Okeredi, 27, Michael Madu, 52, and Okechukwu Jerome, 28, and a yet-to-be identified member who is at large.
Lagos State Government said that it will no longer allow the operators of 911 buses, popularly known Molue” from plying routes on Lagos Island.
The General Manager, Lagos State Traffic Management Authority, Mr. Babatunde Edu, disclosed this at a stakeholders’ meeting with the branch chairmen of the Lagos Urban Bus Owners Association of Nigeria (LUBON).
Edu said the new directive had become effective since August 19, urging operators to comply with it.
The police in Lagos have launched investigation into the massive production of audio and video CDs of purported miracles performed by the General Overseer of Lord’s Chosen Charismatic Renewal Movement, Pastor Lazarus Muoka, currently circulating in the state.
Thousands of these CDs are sold daily at various markets in Lagos and at a high price.
The label on the CD is entitled ‘Chosen Mopol’ with a subtitle ‘Naked Truth.’ It has photographs of former workers in the church, including Pastor Nnamdi Ofoegbu, who allegedly disclosed how Pastor Muoka stage-managed miracles to deceive members.
The church has disowned the CDs, saying it did not emanate from them.
P.M.NEWS investigations revealed that a copy of the CD is sold for N200 and N300 in the market. Those behind it are unknown but the police have started investigation to expose and arrest the culprits.
The Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC, is to make sure that “speed limit devices” are installed in all commercial buses, Mr. Osita Chidoka, the Corps Marshal of the commission, has said.
Chidoka stated this on Wednesday at the Second Stakeholders forum on “Speed Limiting Device Enforcement.”
He said the measure was part of efforts to reduce road traffic accidents, adding that the maiden edition was held in December.
“We believe very firmly that it (device) should be made compulsory for all commercial vehicles; we cannot allow innocent people who board these cars to be put at risk by drivers.
CHAIRMAN of Senate Committee on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), Mohammed Alli Ndume, said Thursday in Abuja that the National Assembly has budgeted N900 billion for constituency projects since 2004.
According to him, a bill he is sponsoring to give legal backing to the various constituency projects has scaled the first reading in the Senate and would soon be passed into law.
The constituency projects, which were initiated by the Federal Government, usually come to the National Assembly as an Executive Act Special Intervention Fund. The aim is to foster a good relationship between the Executive and Legislature and also assist in providing basic infrastructures to the various constituencies across the country.
Ndume spoke told journalists during a stakeholders’ forum on the implementation of constituency projects, organised by the Ministry of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs that, “the National Assembly usually budgets N100 billion for constituency projects every year since 2004 for the six geo-political zones.”
Benin zone ASUU accuses govt of plot to break ranks
ANOTHER dimension has been introduced to the ongoing industrial action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), as the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS), at a peaceful protest in Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State Thursday threatened to shut down all private universities in the country.
The students said they have no option to the threat because they have sat at home for over two months while the children of those who they accused of “planning to mortgage their future” would soon resume academic session in the private universities.
Calling on the Federal Government to accede to the demands of the striking teachers to avert chaos in the country, the students, who carried placards with various inscriptions, lambasted the Federal Government for its failure to honour the agreement it voluntarily entered with ASUU since 2009, stating that agreements should be honoured in good faith.
Meanwhile, the Benin Zone of ASUU, comprising Delta State University, Ambrose Ali University, Niger Delta University, University of Benin and the Federal University of Petroleum Resources, on Wednesday evening met at the Delta State University, Abraka, for several hours, during which it accused the Federal Government of adopting desperate measures to end the ongoing nationwide strike, now in its ninth week.
Former militants in the Niger Delta region have said they will do everything to ensure that President Goodluck Jonathan not only contest the 2015 presidential election, but will complete his second term in 2019.
This is as the former creek warlords expressed their displeasure with members of the Alhaji Abubakar Kawu Baraje-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over their alleged plot to prevent Jonathan from being elected in 2015.
In a statement issued in Port Harcourt, under the aegis of the Leadership, Peace, and Cultural Development Initiative (LPCDI), the former freedom fighters said that they would adopt every available lawful means to stop those who were fighting against the second term bid of the president.
By Ibim Seminetari
Today, Thursday September 5, 2013, the Commissioner of Police in Rivers State, Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu redeployed the Escort Commander, in charge of the Convoy of the Governor of Rivers State, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi. The redeployment according to CP Mbu was because the Escort Commander had refused his directive to “furnish (the CP) with prior information of the movement of the Governor.” The Escort Commander is not in charge of the Governor’s Protocol and cannot have prior knowledge of the Governor’s movement, especially in the prevailing circumstances regarding security in the State.
After redeploying the Escort Commander, CP Mbu also requested the Camp Commandant of Government House, Port Harcourt, to give him prior briefing of the Governor’s daily movement. A request which in practice would be difficult to comply with unless the Camp Commandant gets prior knowledge of the Governor’s movement.
• Nigerians, Indians top list of foreign doctors
• Less than 26, 000 doctors work at home
• NMA blames poor conditions of service
NIGERIANS and other nationals top the list of foreign doctors practising in the United Kingdom (UK), according to the British National Health Service (NHS).
A fact sheet on the number of registered doctors in 2012 published by DailyMailOnline showed that India tops the list with 25,336 doctors; Pakistan, 8,998; South Africa, 5,695; Ireland, 4,010; Nigeria, 3,936; Germany, 3,291; Egypt, 3,141; Greece, 2,711 doctors; Italy, 2,499 doctors; and Sri Lanka, 2,335 doctors.
Others include: Sudan with 1,418 doctors; Libya with 727; Burma, 691; Syria, 671; Caman Islands, 28; Kazakhstan, 26; Liberia, nine; Burundi eight; and Haiti, four .
Despite the retinue of stem-looking security personnel deployed to the residence of the Delta State Deputy Governor, Prof. Amos Utuama, armed robbers on Monday successfully carted away goods worth millions of naira from the residence.
The official residence is at the Government Reserved Area (GRA), Asaba, and close to Government House and Federal High Court.
The robbers, whose number is yet to be known, reportedly scaled the 16-feet wired fence of the compound, headed for the car parks, ransacked all of them, removed over nine brain boxes of the vehicles which ranged from Toyota Hilux cans, jeeps and others.
The Federal Executive Council has approved the amendment to an Act of the West African Examinations Council, part of which will make culprits of examination malpractice to be liable to five-year jail term or N200,000 fine or both.
The Minister of Education, Prof Ruqayyat Rufai, announced this in Abuja on Wednesday while briefing State House Correspondents on the outcome of the weekly FEC meeting. He addressed journalists in company with her counterpart in the Health and Environment ministries, Onyebuchi Chukwu and Hadza Mailafia, respectively.
Rufai said the decision of the meeting, which was presided over by President Goodluck Jonathan, was to “give effect to the revised convention of WAEC, 2003 in Nigeria.”
She said the Council had subsequently directed the Ministry of Justice to take further necessary action on the subject.
The federal government said yesterday that its activities in the country could possibly shut down if the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and other sectors in the country insist on the total compliance with their demands.
This is even as the minister of education, Prof Ruqayyat Rufa’i has alleged that ASUU was bent on portraying the federal government in a bad light by claiming that after signing the agreement in 2009, nothing has been done.
Minister of Information, Mr. Labaran Maku, who stated this while addressing State House correspondents after the Federal Executive Council (FEC) meeting, noted that the federal government had been spending a lot of money on the development of tertiary education across the country.
NEW DELHI (AFP) – Doctors declared Wednesday that a pair of formerly conjoined twins were healthy and happy after they were successfully separated in a marathon “nerve-wracking” operation in India by a team of 40 specialists.
The one-year-old girls from Nigeria, sporting matching bright pink dresses, sat patiently on their parents’ laps as doctors explained the separation last month during an 18-hour operation at a New Delhi hospital.
“They were fused at their back when they came to us which is very rare,” paediatric surgeon Prashant Jain told AFP.
“Usually the twins are joined in the head or the upper body. It posed a huge challenge to our team of doctors,” Jain said.
Doctors held the media conference as the twins, Hussaina and Hassana, sat happily, grabbing at a mobile phone, clutching a rattle and trying to pull off their mother’s earrings.
Corps Marshal of the Federal Road Safety Corps, Osita Chidoka, said on Wednesday that he had written to the Managing Director of Toyota Nigeria Limited over high frequency of crashes involving Toyota buses, especially the Hiace brand.
Chidoka said extensive investigations and analysis of commuter vehicles carried out by the FRSC between 2007-2012, showed that Toyota Hiace buses were involved in 1,844 accidents.
He said 31 percent of bus accidents within the period also resulted in fire incidents.
The FRSC boss, who spoke at a sensitisation programme on speed limiting devices in Abuja, stressed that the situation was unacceptable to his organisation.
Anxiety reigns in most parts of Osun State and Ile-Ife in particular, yesterday over the state of health of the Ooni of Ife, Oba Okunade Sijuwade. Checks revealed that there was palpable fear in some quarters over the present state of health of the first class traditional ruler who is also the president of the Osun State Council of Traditional Rulers and Chiefs.
It was gathered that the monarch had been flown abroad about a month ago due to health related issues.
Oba Sijuwade had been absent in most of the functions in the state and the country at large in the recent times and his absence at state functions remained a source of worry among his kinsmen.
The last is yet to be heard about looted funds traced to ex- Head of State, Gen. Sani Abacha, as £20m(N5.12billion) laundered through some lawyers in Britain is being probed.
Two suspects, including a former Attorney-General of Kogi State, have been arrested in London in connection with the loot
The two suspects, who were trying to convert a 1994 CBN Traveller’s Cheque worth £2,000 at Travelex are undergoing interrogation in London.
Upon a search in the suspects’ hotel in London, it was gathered, about £78,000 traveller’s cheque was found on them.
There were indications that the UK Police may invoke the Mutual Legal Assistance to seek the extradition of Mohammed Sanni, who is allegedly linked to the probe.
A source said: “The arrest of two Nigerian suspects (including a former Attorney-General of Kogi State) has triggered the latest round of investigation.
The Comptroller-General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Alhaji Abdullahi Dikko Inde (CFR) has denied that he met with former Vice President Atiku Abubakar at an undisclosed hotel in Lagos last week, as was reported in some newspapers and other media of mass communication (LEADERSHIP not included).
In a statement issued and signed by the media aide to the Customs CG, Mr Joseph Chidi, the Customs boss said it was important to put the fact straight, and declared that he never met with the former VP, but was in Lagos on ‘a working visit’ to assess the readiness of the NCS to take over the destination inspection (DI) from concessionaires by December this year.
•Mark warns against another civil war
Leaders of the factional group in the troubled ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seem to be consolidating their hold on the party with moves for possible impeachment of President Goodluck Jonathan if he refuses to jettison his yet to be declared aspiration to contest the 2015 Presidential poll.
The ‘New PDP,’ as the splinter group is known, it was gathered, has started to compile signatures in both chambers of the National Assembly to move against the President if their conditions for resolution of the crisis currently rocking the party were not met.
Apparently realising their possible superior numerical strength and the fact that the balance of power may have tilted in their favour, the new group is telling the President to either forget his 2015 ambition or get ready for impeachment.
•Sets up 29-member caretaker committee
The All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, has expressed a resolve to do everything, including going to court, to retrieve the mandate of the Imo people from the state governor, Chief Rochas Okorocha.
The party’s National Chairman, Chief Victor Umeh, who spoke at the inauguration of a 29-member caretaker executive committee for Imo State in Abuja, said the first move to retrieve the mandate will commence at the court very soon, where APGA hopes to sack Governor Okorocha from office.
Reacting to a statement credited to Governor Okorocha in which he declared APGA dead in the state, Umeh said it is the APC that will be shown the way out of Imo at the next election.
The Esan Elders’ Forum, an umbrella body of elders of Esan Land, has accused Edo State Governor Adams Oshiomhole of making some subterranean moves to relocate the College of Medicine of Ambrose Alli University from Ekpoma.
The elders made the allegation in a document issued at a meeting convened in Igueben town, the Headquarters of Igueben Local Government Area.
The document was signed by the forum’s National Chairman, Chief Julius Akpede and other leaders, before it was made available to National Mirror in Benin yesterday.
The 57 members of the House of Representatives belonging to the Abubakar Kawu Baraje-led leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said yesterday that Speaker Aminu Waziri Tambuwal is in their group.
Fifty-seven out of the 205 PDP members in the House had on Tuesday declared support for the faction as they warned anti-graft agencies against harassment and intimidation.
Tambuwal and other principal officers are currently attending the Pan African Parliament, PAP, conference in South Africa.
Though the speaker’s name was not listed among those who signed for the “New PDP,” the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Zakari Mohammed, said: “Tambuwal is a man of the majority and therefore naturally belongs to the new PDP, which is progressive and responsive.”
Mohammed, who disclosed this in a telephone interview, explained that Tambuwal is a grassroots leader and could not abandon his people and governor who were part of the “revolution” in the party.
