Veteran comic actor, Babatunde Omidina, popularly known as Baba Suwe, has been buried.
Baba Suwe, who died on Monday after a protracted illness, was buried on Thursday rather than Wednesday earlier announced by the family.
SaharaReporters had reported that the burial was postponed by one day to allow his son based in the United States to return to Nigeria.
"Baba Suwe's son in the US insisted that they wait for him to return home before his burial. That was the reason why it was moved to Thursday.
"Everything is ready for the burial, it will surely take place on Thursday," a family source had revealed on Wednesday afternoon.
Adored by fans all over for his acting skills, Omidina came under national scrutiny on October 12, 2011 when he was held at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos, by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency on suspicion of drug trafficking.
He was suspected to have invested several wraps of cocaine and was kept under surveillance by the agency for three weeks.
A Lagos court ordered his release and instructed the NDLEA to pay him N25 million as compensation.
In 2013, the Appeal Court struck out the compensation ruling, insisting that the anti-narcotic agency violated no law in keeping Omidina in custody all through the investigation period.
The comic actor never got back to his old bubbly self after the episode, battling one health condition or another until he finally succumbed on Monday.
Fans of the late thespian have been paying tribute to him since his demise.
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The Nigerian army says it has started an investigation into the killing and assault on its personnel by officers of the Nigeria Police Force.
In a letter dated November 23, 2021, to all formations and units, the Chief of Army Staff called on military officers to “forward all recorded incidence of police brutality against personnel of the Nigerian Army.”
The letter exclusively obtained by SaharaReporters was signed by Major General J. A. Ataguba titled, ‘Evaluating Incidences Of Police Brutality Against Personnel Of Nigerian Army.’
It is also mandated to evaluate and present evidence surrounding the circumstances and draw conclusions as to the validity of the complaints raised.
The letter read, “The NA is constitutionally tasked to provide aid to civil authorities when called upon. This responsibility has occasioned conducting joint activities with members of the civil and paramilitary organizations. These joint operations with other security agencies particularly the Nigerian Police (NP) create occasions for the police to equate its hierarchy with the NA and this has often led to friction, especially at the lower levels.
“This friction has occasionally led to bodily harm and in some cases death to our troops. This is in spite of the fact that the victims have been identified and established to be serving personnel.
“This Dept is therefore conducting an evaluation of these occurrences with a view to establishing the frequency and recommend possible remedial measures to stem the tide. Consequently, all NA corps, formations and establishments are please requested to forward all recorded incidence of police brutality against personnel of the NA.
“The report should cover the last 2 years. Returns to reach this NLT 8 December 21 and should be forwarded using enclosed formal.“
Police brutality is common in Nigeria and was responsible for sparking the #EndSARS protest in Nigeria last year.
Nigerian youths in October 2020 took to the streets to protest against extrajudicial killings and brutality by the police, especially by a unit of the police known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad.
Some communities in Benue States have been coping with the hardship of scarcity of water as residents have to dig shallow pits to get dirty water for drinking and domestic purposes.
One of such communities is Agasha where a significant number of residents depend on a shallow well dug in a swamp beside the dried-up river for residents to get water, The Cable reports.
The newspaper reports that the locals have to queue up daily with several sizes of bowls and basins to fetch.
“Every day I come here and see the water dried up, it makes me cry,” said an old woman addressed as Mama.
“Now, not only do we use dirty water, it is not enough for everyone. To have water at all for your daily usage, you will have to wake up around 3 am to join a long queue.”
“And when that happens, we usually fall back on swampy areas for water. That’s where diseases like the one that made me blind come from,” said James, an elderly resident of Agasha.
Mike Igber, chairman of the water, sanitation and hygiene committee (WASHCom) in Agasha, said the military once donated a hand pump borehole to the community but it stopped working “a long time ago” and that no attempt has been made to fix it.
“The saddest tale is that no state government in the last 50 years has ever done anything about the community’s water dearth,” said Igber.
Like it is in Agasha, the river in Ipaav, Gboko LGA, once served the community, but these days, it has dried up and the residents have dug a makeshift well in a swamp around the area. Although the water is unclean, residents have no choice but to use it for their daily needs.
Joseph Agibee Terlumun, the community spokesperson said it was disheartening watching the residents drink the water.
“I was born in this community just as my father was. Though, I wouldn’t know how long (old) this community is; but I can state categorically that I have never seen any government agencies here,” he said.
“It is only during electioneering when some of them will send their boys to come and give us things like seasonings and salt just to vote for them.
According to this publication, in Oye-Obi, a community in the 66Oju local government area, which is surrounded by rivers on every side, water scarcity is not a problem. But while water is always available, the River Obi which the community relies on is permanently unclean; it is dirty and has an offensive smell.
Regardless of the state of the water, residents are always at the river bank to scoop some for their daily use.
“Ours is now like a community that has never been a part of Benue state or this whole country,” says 72-year-old Abraham Ogbu Ijih.
“Our lives are now marked by abject poverty and poor living conditions. We are surrounded by water and forest on every side. Yet, we are thirsty with no access to clean water.”
Ijih, a visually impaired man who has lived in Oye all his life, said he lost his wife and children to a “water epidemic” in 2020.
“I went blind six years ago. I wasn’t blind from childhood. But in 2020, I lost my wife and three children to water impurities. There was a period in this community where a water epidemic killed about 273 people according to our communal records,” the former rice farmer said.
Clement Onaa, chairman of Oju LGA, acknowledged the water problems in the communities but said there has been some intervention from the state and federal governments.
“We are working in collaboration with the state government and the federal ministry of water resources and environmental sanitation and we have recorded some level of intervention,” he said.
“Some of those interventions include the provision of solar-powered motorised boreholes to the people of Oye-Obi. The community had water pollution sometime ago and part of the interventions was to ameliorate their plight of bad water.
“Waters in our place are always recharged with rainfall and whenever there is no rainfall, the volume of water reduces.”
Onaa called on the state and Nigerian government to provide more boreholes to the affected communities.
In Otobi community located in Otukpo LGA, there are shallow wells dug on both sides of the road. And despite the milky colour of the water, children are always found around them; excited to fill their basins and pots to the brim.
Richard Inalegwu, a resident of the community, said they have no functioning borehole, adding that all the residents drink from the same place, save for those who don’t mind walking long distances to some neighbouring communities that have boreholes.
“When it comes to drinkable water, we don’t have options. It’s either you drink the water or not, since I was born and have been living in this community,” he said.
Rachel Agbenu, another resident who had a heap of dirty clothes to wash, said: “The scarcity of water is worrisome. My family has not been able to wash our clothes for the past three weeks because there is no water. We have even reused some of our dirty clothes.
“Just to drink water, we often go to a nearby community a little far from here. Even at that, the water is not always clean and people are always too mamy there, and there is never enough water to go round everyone.
“Sometimes, we spend nights there.”
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A Warri Chief Magistrates’ Court has Arraigned Ayirimi Emami, the deposed Ologbotsere of Warri Kingdom for allegedly stealing two royal crowns belonging to Warri Kingdom and said to be worth N2 billion.
The Nigeria Police Force had in August declared two sons of the late Olu of Warri, Ogiame Ikenwoli Godfrey Emiko, wanted for stealing the royal crowns.
According to reports, Prince Oyowoli Emiko and Prince Omatsuli Emiko were declared wanted for breaking into the private apartment of Olu of Warri in Delta State and stealing the crowns.
It was also learnt that the Federal High Court in Benin City, Edo State, had issued warrants of arrest for both men. A special police gazette had also declared both men wanting.
It was issued by the Force Criminal Investigation Department Zone ‘5’ Headquarters, Benin City on the orders of the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali.
However, Ayirimi was on Wednesday charged along with others now at large.
They were said to have allegedly committed the offence around 11.30 pm on March 30 this year in the residence of the Olu of Warri, the charge sheet with No: MW/178 C/ 2021 revealed.
The statement reads, “That you Chief Ayirimi Emami (m) and others now at large on 30th of March, 2021 at about 11:30 pm at Olu of Warri Palace, Warri did conspire among yourselves to commit felony, to wit, Burglary and Stealing and thereby committed an offence punishable under Section 516 of the Criminal Code Cap C21 Vol. 1, Laws of Delta 2006.
“That you Chief Ayirimi Emami (m) and others now at large on 30th of March, 2021 at about 11:30 pm at Olu of Warri Palace, Warri, in Warri in Warri Magisterial District, with intent to commit a felony broke into a dwelling house of the Olu of Warri and thereby committed an Offence Punishable Under Section 411 of the Criminal Code Cap C21 Vol. 1, Laws of Delta 2006.
“That you Ayirimi Emami (m) and others now at large on the 30th March, 2021 at about 11:30 pm at Olu of Palace, Warri, in Warri Magisterial District did steal two crowns valued at Two Billion Naira, properties of Itsekiri Kingdom and thereby committed an Offence Punishable Under Section 390 (9) of the Criminal Code Cap C21 Vol. 1, Laws of Delta 2006."
Meanwhile, Ayirimi pleaded not guilty to the three charges, while his lead counsel, Mr. Emmanuel Uti, urged the court to grant his client bail.
The defence lawyer said the accused person was willing and ready to appear in court any time he was called to appear.
Police prosecuting counsel, SP Sunday Irabor, asserted that the discretion of granting bail lied with the court. He, however, called for stringent bail conditions, stressing that the sureties must be reliable.
Chief Magistrate Diejomaoh granted the accused bail with two sureties and N2 million each.
The sureties, she ruled, must be on Grade Level 15 in the civil service and they must provide their passports and photographs as well as national means of identification.
The case was adjourned till January 19, 2022, for hearing.
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An Islamic rights organisation, Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has condemned the findings revealed in the report by the Lagos Panel of Inquiry that investigated extrajudicial killings and police brutality, especially the killing of peaceful protesters by security forces at Lekki Tollgate, during the #EndSARS protest on October 20, 2020.
The report disclosed that there was a "massacre" at the tollgate.
Prof. Ishaq Akintola, Director of MURIC
But MURIC discredited the findings of the report saying the investigation carried out by the panel was subjective and one-sided.
It maintained that there were certain loopholes contained in the report which the panel of investigators failed to address.
The Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, had said the President Muhammadu Buhari government would not accept the report of the panel.
Mohammed said the report, which indicted the Nigerian army, police and Lekki Concession Company, is filled with errors and contradictions.
According to the Islamic advocacy group, the panel came up with "concocted figures" from resurrected ghosts or the licence to endorse criminality.
It also slammed the panel, saying it suffered from desertification of credibility.
In a statement by its director, Professor Ishaq Akintola which was obtained by SaharaReporters on Thursday, the MURIC boss stated that there was an hidden agenda and a pre-determined position behind the report.
He said, “In the wake of a Tsunami of rejections which greeted the leaked report of the #EndSARS report, we of the Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC), having critically scrutinised the report with the aid of experts hereby affirm that the said report is full of loopholes, discrepancies, half truths, irregularities and inconsistencies too many to mention.
“For the sake of clarity, we assert that life is sacred and to that extent we abhor the killing of protesters even if it is just one person. But that does not give a panel the excuse to come up with concocted figures from resurrected ghosts or the licence to endorse criminality. #EndSARS panel suffers from desertification of credibility.
“The wordings of the report is replete with terminological inexactitude. Exempli gratia, the word ‘massacre’ was used to describe the so-called killing of a total of nine people whereas ‘massacre’ is used for the killing of tens, hundreds and thousands of people. This is symptomatic of a desperation to indict at all cost.
“Nigerians were made to suffer the trauma of mathematical juggling from DJ Switch’s 78 bodies to CNN’s 56, BBC’s 38 and the feminists’ paltry figure of 23 which the panel pruned down to nine (9) bodies. But analysts have even reduced the figure to three or four after establishing prima facie cases of improper evaluation of evidence. This report cannot stand the test of time.
“There are outright lies in the report. For instance, the Doctor at Reddingtons never mentioned that a dead body was deposited at the hospital, yet the panel claimed on page 287 that he did. A body was alleged to have been deposited in an hospital whose officials later said had no mortuary facility. A man who reported seeing the lifeless body of his brother himself was listed as one of the dead. Kolade Salami, who was killed in 2019, was listed among the victims of Lekki shootings.
“Half names were given without addresses while no relations have turned up to claim bodies. Yet the panel recommends payment of compensation to the non-existing families. People who died long ago were listed as victims of the Lekki shooting. These are some of the reasons the panel’s recommendations are laughable, irrational and unrealistic. A kindergarten lawyer will tear the panel’s report into shreds within minutes.
“We find it most unusual and unethical that the panel rejected the testimony of ballistic experts who testified before it. This points to a hidden agenda and a pre-determined position. Another major defect in the report is in the composition of the panel. We have reason to believe that the state government was rail-roaded into including people who had expressed support for the protest as well as certain anti-establishment elements in the panel. One of the key drivers of the panel has led several protests at the same spot (Lekki) against the state government. He is also in court against the government.
“Contrary to the maxim nemo judex in causa sua (one cannot be a judge in his own case), such people sat in judgement on a matter they have expressed interest. This may be traced to the fact that the panel was set up when Lagos was burning and certain proviso may have been given by the protesters. We foresee a prolonged legal battle if this leaked report is accepted by the panel’s convener."
“In view of the above, we are constrained to conclude that the panel made a futile attempt to fetch water for Nigerians with a rickety old basket. The more they try to fill the basket, the more the water leaked. The convener of the panel has a duty to come to the panel’s aid following due process at every step. This rickety old basket must be replaced by those who know how to fetch water successfully,” it added.
#EndSARSNewsAddThis : Original Author : SaharaReporters, New York Disable advertisements :
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