May 19, 2022

[GIST] Kanu's American Lawyer, Fein, Writes Facebook, Seeks Ban On Buhari Government For 'Engaging In Genocide, Crimes Against Biafrans, Others'

[GIST] Kanu's American Lawyer, Fein, Writes Facebook, Seeks Ban On Buhari Government For 'Engaging In Genocide, Crimes Against Biafrans, Others'

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Bruce Fein, International counsel and spokesperson for Nnamdi Kanu, leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has asked the popular social media platform, Facebook, to ban the Nigerian government. 
He described the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government as a criminal enterprise engaging in genocide and crimes against Biafrans and other ethnic or political groups. 

Bruce Fein
It also asked Facebook to rebuke the government for seeking censorship of IPOB's free speech. 
Fein made the appeals in a letter dated May 18, addressed to Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder of the social media website Facebook and its parent company Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook, Inc.). 
The American media magnate is also the chairman, chief executive officer, and controlling shareholder of the company. 
Fein's letter obtained by SaharaReporters on Wednesday, reads, "I represent the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leader Nnamdi Kanu. For more than a
century, Biafrans have been denied their international law right to self-determination, i.e., government by the consent of the governed, successively by the United Kingdom and the radical
Fulani-controlled Government of Nigeria. IPOB’s ongoing campaign for self-determination through a United Nations conducted referendum is protected free speech and association under
international law.
"I am aware of the Nigerian government’s high decibel clamor for Facebook to ban IPOB and its members from the social media platform for allegedly inciting violence. The clamor is predicated on the Nigerian government’s proscription of IPOB as a terrorist organization in September 2017. The whole story is more revealing.
"The proscription flouted due process. IPOB was denied notice and an opportunity to respond. The proscription was the fact-free ipse dixit of Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari. Despite
Nigeria’s hectoring for more than four years, no other country in the world has proscribed IPOB, including the United States and the UK. Indeed, five human rights experts of the United Nations
Human Rights Council wrote President Buhari in October 2020, asking for evidence that IPOB was complicit in terrorism. They were ignored. "Meanwhile, President Buhari threatened a reprise of the 1967-1970 genocide of Biafrans if IPOB did not surrender their right to self-determination under Article 1 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and otherwise.
"Accordingly, I am respectfully requesting that Facebook rebuke the Fulani-controlled Government of Nigeria for seeking censorship of IPOB’s free speech. Facebook should also
consider banning the Government of Nigeria as a criminal enterprise featuring genocide and crimes against humanity against Biafrans and other ethnic or political groups. The incriminating
evidence is voluminous and will be supplied on request."
The Nigerian Government on Tuesday asked Facebook and other social media platforms to stop allowing IPOB to use their platforms to allegedly incite violence and provoke ethnic hatred in the country.
The government said it was unjustifiable for any social media platform to provide a medium for IPOB, which had been proscribed and classified as a terrorist organisation. 
 
President Buhari banned Twitter operations in Nigeria from June 5, 2021, to January 13, 2022, accusing it of threatening the country’s corporate existence.
 

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[GIST] Ruling APC Party Lists 3 Presidential Aspirants Who Bought N100Million Forms But Failed To Submit

[GIST] Ruling APC Party Lists 3 Presidential Aspirants Who Bought N100Million Forms But Failed To Submit

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The National Publicity Secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Felix Morka has mentioned the names of three persons who did not submit the party’s N100 million presidential nomination and expression of interest forms they had bought.

Morka said out of the 28 aspirants who bought the forms, only three failed to submit the forms namely: Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige; Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva and Central Bank Governor, Godwin Emefiele.

Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele.

Ngige and Sylva are among the members of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet who made a U-turn after the President directed ministers with political ambitions to resign from office.

Morka said this on Wednesday while featuring on Channels TV’s Politics Today.

The APC spokesperson also said Eagle’s Square in Abuja had not been confirmed as the venue for the presidential primaries.

Speaking on the aspirants, Morka said some aspirants only reneged in public but have yet to officially communicate with the media.

“Some of those who reneged might have done so in the public space but are yet to communicate that to the party and they don’t necessarily happen at the same time.

“Except for those who have made their submissions, we don’t have information confirming or notifying us of their decisions.

“We have 28 altogether who purchased forms and at the last count, we have about 25 who made submissions of those forms but three of them did not and that will be Senator Chris Ngige, Godwin Emefiele and Timpire Sylvia.”

Morka earlier said the party had reviewed its timetable for primary elections for various elective positions.

He released the new timetable on Wednesday with a few adjustments to the former one.

He said the new dates were approved by the party’s National Working Committee at its meeting on Wednesday.

The statement read, “The National Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress on Wednesday, 18th of May, 2022, approved an adjusted Timetable/Schedule of Activities for the Governorship, State House of Assembly, House of Representatives, Senate and Presidential primaries and appeals as follows:

“Governorship and House of Representatives – Thursday, 26th of May, 2022. Senate and House of Assembly – Friday, 27th of May, 2022.

“For election appeals: Governorship and House of Representatives – Friday, 27th of May, 2022.

“Senate and House of Assembly – Saturday, 28th of May, 2022. Special convention for presidential primaries holds Sunday 29th – Monday, 30th of May, 2022.”

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[GIST] Ohanaeze Calls For Arrest Of Northern Elders Forum Spokesman, Baba-Ahmed, Says He's A Threat To Nigeria

[GIST] Ohanaeze Calls For Arrest Of Northern Elders Forum Spokesman, Baba-Ahmed, Says He's A Threat To Nigeria

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The apex Igbo socio-cultural organisation, Ohanaeze Ndigbo has slammed Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the spokesman for the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), over his broadcast that Igbo should leave Nigeria if they so desire.
 
Baba-Ahmed in a widely-circulated broadcast video said “we said if secession is what every Igbo wants, and this is what the Igbos want, the nation should not fight a war over it”.

He went further to call on the northerners resident in Southern Nigeria to consider returning to the North.
 
But reacting to the position of Baba-Ahmed, on Wednesday, Ohanaeze spokesman, Dr Alex Ogbonnia, said the statement was extremely nauseating, uncouth, provocative, incendiary, inflammatory, and above all very arrogant and licentious.
 
Ogbonnia said, "We are not distracted by lowly persons who by the circumstances of their birth and conditions in life do not weigh the implications of their public conduct, remarks and actions before going public.
"The urbane among us know that Nigeria is one of the countries of the world that unites several nations in one; a federation of various nations or a multination state. Nigeria, like every other multination state, requires leaders who can formulate ideologies, policies and programmes aimed at galvanising or harmonising the diverse component units at all times.
 
"This accounts for such Federal Government schemes as the National Youths Service (NYSC), Federal Government (unity) colleges and other unifying national bodies. On the other hand, remarks with centrifugal dynamics are deliberately avoided in order to engender a genuine unity for the multicultural and multinational units of the country."
 
He described the call for northerners living in Southern Nigeria to consider relocating back to the north as bad.
 
Ohanaeze recalled that in September 2021, Baba-Ahmed, in reaction to the position of the Southern governors with respect to rotational presidency, deployed such unwarranted extreme rhetoric as “heaven will not fall if a northerner is elected the next Nigerian President”.
"It is very certain that Baba-Ahmed knows next to nothing about the economy and political tendencies of Nigeria.
“In his narrow thoughts, he does not reflect on the consequences of the Igbo leaving the country. In his delusion, he believes that the economy of the remaining part of Nigeria will be better off if the Igbo or the Ogoni, or the Yoruba or the Ijaw or the Edo, Tiv, Igala, etc. should go their separate ways. 
 
"For the avoidance of doubt, the Igbo youths who were not even born before or during the Nigerian civil war and of course were not accessories to the war, are aggrieved over the alienation of the Igbo from the structures of power in Nigeria.
 
"For instance, it is public knowledge that going by rotation and zoning principle that has been entrenched as a variant of Nigerian democracy, it is the turn of the South and indeed the South East to produce the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria come 2023. Nigerians and the world are living witness to the shenanigans and conspiracies by the likes of Baba-Ahmed to truncate the Igbo democratic rights.
 
"It is in response to such injustice that triggers the agitation among the Igbo youth for self-determination. Such a scenario played out among the Yoruba, South West when Chief MKO Abiola’s presidency was annulled. And confidence and trust were restored with the zoning of the presidency to the South West in the persons of Chief Olusegun Obasanjo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Chief Olu Falae of the Alliance for Democracy (AD) in 1999.
 
"Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex Igbo socio-cultural body and indeed the mouthpiece of the entire Igbo both at home and in the Diaspora, has repeatedly made it clear that the Igbo want to coexist peacefully and in unity with our fellow Nigerians.
 
"The diverse Igbo contributions to the economic development of all parts of the country do not indicate otherwise but the unity we want is not the unity of Jonah in the belly of the whale, but unity in holy matrimony. While the former is characterised by defecation and suffocation, the latter is procreative and productive.
 
“Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed has a shady background. His Mauritanian root betrays an identity crisis and psychological torture in him and he thus believes that to ingratiate himself to the Hausa-Fulani establishment, he should invest in vicious invectives against the entire South and the Igbo in particular. This is against natural justice and all known principles of nation-building.
 
"We reiterate that the broadcast by Baba Ahmed is a threat to peace and unity of the country and the security agencies should act on time to serve as a deterrent to some others harbouring such mindsets against the unity and corporate existence of Nigeria."

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[GIST] BREAKING: Alleged N47bn Fraud: Nigerian Anti-graft Agency, EFCC Arrests Ex-Managing Director Of Niger Delta Development Commission, Nsima Ekere

[GIST] BREAKING: Alleged N47bn Fraud: Nigerian Anti-graft Agency, EFCC Arrests Ex-Managing Director Of Niger Delta Development Commission, Nsima Ekere

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The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has arrested the former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nsima Ekere.

Ekere was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly diverting N47 billion through registered contractors of the agency.

The anti-graft commission’s spokesperson, Wilson Uwajaren, confirmed it to Channels Television.

Similarly, on Tuesday, the EFCC arrested a former Speaker of the Nigerian House of Representatives, Patricia Etteh.

Etteh was grilled by EFCC’s special duties unit for her alleged involvement in a solar power electrification scam in Akwa Ibom State worth N240 million.

The former speaker was said to have received N130m through her personal account.

The contract was awarded by the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).

Etteh was elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in 2007 but resigned only after a few months amid allegations of financial misappropriation.

The EFCC on Monday arrested the Accountant-General of the Federation (AGF), Ahmed Idris, over alleged N80 billion fraud.

Ahmed was on Wednesday suspended indefinitely by the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, to allow for proper investigation of the allegations against him.

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[GIST] Arrested Kidnappers Confessed To Raping New Bride Multiple Times, Beheading Male Victim After Collecting Ransom – Nigeria Police

[GIST] Arrested Kidnappers Confessed To Raping New Bride Multiple Times, Beheading Male Victim After Collecting Ransom – Nigeria Police

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The Nigeria police have announced the arrest of 31 suspects connected with major violent crimes including kidnapping, culpable homicide, rape and unlawful possession of firearms.
Among them are two suspected kidnappers, Umar Muhammed, 40, from Mitchika in Adamawa State, and Musa Buba, 29, who confessed to killing and beheading a victim, even after collecting ransom.

A statement signed by the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, said, “Operatives of the FIB-STS equally apprehended the duo of Umar Muhammed aged 40 years old from Mitchika in Adamawa State, and Musa Buba aged 29 years old from Hong in Adamawa State, who are famous for their kidnapping activities.
“They were arrested at the market, upon credible intelligence that they would be there to buy food items for their kidnap victims. They confessed to many heinous crimes including the killing and beheading of one Alhaji Mai Gome, even after ransom payment had been made.”
Similarly, the police announced the arrest of a “five-man trans-border syndicate who carries out kidnapping operations in between Adamawa State in Nigeria, and Burha, Fituha, and Kesu in Cameroun”.
The statement continued, “The gang which comprises Abubakar Mohammed, aged 28, Shehu Mohammed, aged 38, Abdullahi Ali aged 30, Abubakar Ali, aged 18, and Hussaini Sule, aged 18, all males from Mubi, Adamawa State, targets wealthy individuals who possess beautiful houses or cars.
“They confessed to the kidnap and multiple rapes of a newly wedded woman at Askira Uba Local Government Area of Borno state whom they released upon receipt of a million-naira ransom. They were apprehended by operatives of the FIB-STS after collecting a ransom sum of 2 million Naira for one Alhaji Moni of Buladega Village on the 11th of May, 2022.”
The police said the Force Intelligence Bureau Special Tactical Squad (FIB-STS) operatives also recovered a total of 61 firearms including “41 AK rifles, 8 Type 06 rifles, 4 Light Assault Rifles (LAR), 4 pump action guns, 2 locally made firearms, 1 G3 rifle, 1 Dane gun, 376 rounds of live ammunition of different calibres, and a cash sum of two million naira, from the suspects in the course of investigations”.
Adejobi said all the suspects would be arraigned in court on the completion of investigations. 

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