Police beef up security in FCT ahead inauguration

Security operatives have taken over the Eagle Square, Abuja, in readiness for Sunday’s inauguration of President Goodluck Jonathan. Other strategic areas in and around the city centre have also witnessed massive security deployment. Major roads leading to the Eagle Square venue of the inauguration have been closed to traffic. Jimoh Moshood, FCT police public relations officer, said on Saturday that a perfect security arrangement had been put in place for the event. ``We have massive deployment of police personnel there at the Eagle Square; they have cordoned the area,’’ he said.

Moshood said the deployment of security operatives was being complemented by aerial surveillance. ``We want to assure Nigerians that there is perfect security arrangement in place in the FCT for the ceremony. We are extending the security measures throughout the FCT,’’ Moshood further said, adding that the police efforts were being complemented by other security agencies on a single operation order. The FCT Police Command had earlier announced the deployment of more than 10,000 security personnel for the inauguration. (NAN)

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Nursing mother, 25 others die in tanker fire in Ibadan

Residents of the Ojoo area of Ibadan , the Oyo State capital, yesterday watched helplessly as an inferno triggered by a spillage from an oil tanker burnt their loved ones into ashes.

About 26 people, including a nursing mother, died in the incident, while several others are battling for survival in different hospitals.

The ugly fire accident occurred at Aduloju community along Iwo-Ojoo Road.

Hundreds of people, who thronged the place to render a helping hand, wept uncontrollably as bodies were being consumed by the raging flames.

About 26 vehicles and equipment worth several millions of naira were burnt.

According to an eyewitness, the fire started when a tanker loaded with the petroleum product, in an attempt to avoid a collision with an 18-seater bus, ran into a pole beside the road, leading to an outbreak of fire following a spillage of its contents.

It was gathered that 18 passengers in the bus were burnt beyond recognition, while seven people who were roadside mechanics were also burnt to death.

Also a nursing mother selling engine oil beside the road was killed while trying to save her baby who was already trapped in the fire.

The fire also affected about eight buildings, including a church.

Many sympathizers could not hide their feelings as they bitterly blamed the incident on the high number of oil tankers plying the road.

They urged the government to bail the citizens out of the danger posed by the trucks on the road.

A lot of damage had been done before the arrival of the officials of the Oyo State Fire Service. They, however, swung into action to put out the fire which was already causing great panic among the residents who thought it would consume the whole area.

As the traffic was disrupted for hours, officials of the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) and policemen were around to control the situation.

The state Sector Commander of the FRSC, Mr. Godwin Ogagaoghene, confirmed the incident and said his men were already in control.

The FRSC boss, however, said the spot was dangerous for motorists and residents of the area, adding that the FRSC had made a representation to the state government about the danger posed by the Ojoo end of the expressway.

He enjoined road users to avoid dangerous overtaking, stressing that people should not always be in a hurry.

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Speaker Bankole’s brother, one other in court for N2.8m fraud

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Speaker Dimeji Bankole’s younger brother, Toyin Bankole, was yesterday brought before a magistrate court sitting in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, for allegedly defrauding one Modinat Odunlami of N2.8 million.

The prosecuting police officer, Mr. Paul Etusi, an inspector, had on January 15, 2009, told the court that Bankole alongside one Segun Baruwa, allegedly conspired to commit fraud by collecting money from Odunlami with dubious intent.

Etusi told Chief Magistrate Kolawole Peters that Toyin and his co - accused collected the said amount of money under the pretext of helping their victim and her daughter secure an overseas’ visa and admission abroad respectively.

When the matter was mentioned yesterday by the court officer, Etusi said eight witnesses had been assembled to give evidence in support his claim, but added only six of them were in court.

Etusi said he was forced to re -open the case when efforts by the complainant and the police to get the matter settled out of court failed, as the accused were not ready to refund the money,

According to him, the offence is contrary to and punishable under Sections 516, 419 and 390 (9) of the Criminal Code Laws of Ogun, 2006.

But defence counsel, Adedotun Akinmade, who was represented by another counsel, Carol Omobujo, asked for a short adjournment to enable them tidy their work first.

In his ruling, Chief Magistrate Kolawole Peters granted the request for an adjournment till July 13 for further hearing

EFCC recovers $11bn, 459 houses, 593 vehicles/oil vessels

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Mrs. Farida Waziri has called for an unconditional repatriation of over $148 billion annually stolen from African countries and hidden in safe havens in developed economies.

Waziri who made the call while presenting the Nigeria’s paper at the just concluded 1st Commonwealth Regional Conference for Heads of Anti-Corruption Agencies in Africa, in Gaborone, Botswana, also challenged her colleagues from other African countries to go beyond bemoaning the slow pace of corruption cases in courts to definite demand for the establishment of special courts that would prosecute only graft cases.

She said until this was done, anti-graft agencies on the continent would continue to complain about the slow pace of trial of corruption cases.

The EFCC Chairman said though Nigeria was yet to have special courts, the crusade for its creation which in 2008 had continued to win more support and advocates across the country.

A statement by EFCC’s Head of Media and Publicity, Mr. Femi Babafemi, noted that despite the constraints of slow judicial process, the support and independence given to the anti-graft agency by the federal government especially President Goodluck Jonathan had made it to cover a lot of grounds within a space of eight years.

According to Waziri, “If without special courts we can secure over 600 convictions within this short time, you can imagine what we will do if we are to have dedicated judges or courts to hear only corruption cases.

“Today, our record of recovery is in excess of $11 billion. But beyond this, we have seized through both summary and interim forfeiture orders 459 units of real estate, 593 units of vehicles/ oil vessels, 404 units of bank accounts and 183,627 units of other assets within the same period even though we are yet to start operating a non-conviction based assets forfeiture regime which we desire.”

“What it means is that, with special courts and assets forfeiture law, the war against graft would have been taken to a different level.”

Waziri further called on developed countries that have provided safe havens for looted funds to return them unconditionally, noting that the idea of holding on to stolen funds even after they have been traced and established as ill-gotten provides a distortion in global macroeconomic indices.

She stated that, “Our experience with certain countries has not been palatable. Consistently some countries have not been too cooperative in retrieval of stolen funds and it will appear that peculiar national interest guides cooperation with us.

“We must understand that the ill effects of corruption does not only affect the origin of the illicit funds but also the receiving countries in the sense that in both locations, funds that have no bearing on productive ventures has either left the economy or has been injected into it.

“Consequently, there is a major distortion in macroeconomic indices and this should not be accepted.”

The anti-graft boss noted that countries must work better together, pointing out that the United Nations estimates that around $148 billion is annually stolen from Africa by the political leaders, the business elite and civil servants with the collusion and connivance of banking industries in Europe and other developed economies.

“This is staggering; For African nations to win the war against corruption and overcome its developmental challenges, she said certain steps must be taken,” she told the gathering.

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4 policemen, 9 others killed in fresh Boko Haram attacks

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SUSPECTED members of the Yusufiyya sect, popularly known as Boko Haram, yesterday attacked and destroyed the Damboa Divisional police headquarters, police barracks and the First Bank branch in Damboa local government area of Borno state, killing four policemen, one prison warden and eight civilians.

The Islamists sect, it was gathered, came in three vehicles with Kalashnikov rifles and explosives, used in setting the police station ablaze, before attacking the bank and the police barracks that accommodate over 100 policemen in Damboa.

Confirming the incident, the Borno state commissioner of police, Alhaji Mohammed Jinjiri Abubakar, in a briefing at the police headquarters in Maiduguri , said members of the Boko Haram numbering about 70 came in three different vehicles, attacked the police station and threw some explosive devices on the station.

He said members of the sect attacked a church in Mashamari ward of the metropolis but were over powered by the superior gun power of the army, where they abandoned one AK47 riffle, motorcycle and three GSM phones.

The CP said “I think because they know that the security have been beefed up within the metropolis and they could not succeed that is why they moved to Damboa local government area of the state to carry out their dastardly act.”

Alhaji Abubakar noted that he had deployed four units of mobile policemen and the army also deployed one platoon of soldiers to Damba to assist the police in combing Damboa town and its environs, so as to fish out the hoodlums.

The police boss who was visibly disturbed, said that he would personally lead the operations in Damboa town and vowed to track down the culprits no matter how long.

On whether there was casualty or not, the CP said that he could not tell, as he was yet to visit Damboa to find out things for himself, but assured that he would brief newsmen immediately he came back.

He said the police had made some arrests in connection with yesterday’s church attack in Mashamari ward, but that he would properly address the press on any development.

Election tribunal okays Jonathan, Sambo’s inauguration

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, yesterday, declined to stop President Goodluck Jonathan and his deputy, Architect Namadi Sambo, from presenting themselves for the purposes of being sworn into their respective offices tomorrow, just as it equally struck-out the substantive petition filed before it by the Hope Democratic Party, HDP.

HDP had gone before the court with a motion seeking to forestall the planned swearing-in ceremony, insisting that it was the only way the tribunal could effectively protect the ‘Res’ of all the pending petitions challenging the outcome of the April 16 presidential election that favoured the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

The party via a petition it lodged before the tribunal on May 6, alleged that Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, failed to comply with either the Electoral Act 2010 or the 1999 Constitution as amended, in conducting the presidential poll on a day different from the originally slated April 9, adding that over 30 million votes that were garnered by its own presidential candidate, Chief Ambrose Owuru, were illegally diverted to the PDP.

It pleaded with the court to, on the interim, issue an order of mandatory injunction directing INEC to suspend and withdraw the certificate of return already issued to the president and his deputy, pending when the merit in its request for a nullification of the poll, is determined.

Goodluck Jonathan and Namadi Sambo

Meanwhile, a mild drama played out yesterday when the motion seeking the stoppage of the scheduled presidential inauguration was called up for hearing.

Immediately one Mr. Eyare J Ogar, announced his appearance for the petitioner, HDP, expressing his readiness to properly join issues with the team of lawyers who were led by Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN, and Mr Damien Dodo, SAN, to enter an appearance for both the 1st and 2nd respondents, Jonathan and Sambo, another lawyer that identified himself as Mr Tochukwu Alozor, stood up to inform the court that the petition pending before it was a fraud.

Tochukwu told the bewildered court that his name and signature was illegally used by the petitioner in preparing the suit, stressing that he neither prepared, signed, no consented to the entire process.

According to him, “my lords, I need to draw the attention of this court to the fact that my name was used in preparing this suit. I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t sign it neither was my consent sought before it was filed in court”.

His assertions led to lawyers on the side of President Jonathan, to demand a thorough investigation of the alleged scam with a view to identifying and punishing the culprits.

Dr Izinyon contended that the implication of the revelation meant that there was no valid petition before the tribunal upon which the motion that sought to frustrate the swearing-in ceremony was anchored, just as he urged the court to not only strike out the petition in its entirety, but to go ahead and order relevant security agencies in the country to investigate the allegation by Mr Alozor.

Determined to get to the root of the matter, the 5-man panel of jurists headed by the president of the court of appeal, Justice Isa Ayo Salami, stood down the matter for 30 minutes, a period within which the lawyer that ab-initio announced his appearance for the HDP, Ogar, quickly filed an application to withdraw the suit.

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What we expect of the new administration- Jakande, Balarbe Musa

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Twenty four years from now, Nigerians will experience another change in government as President Jonathan would be sworn in for another four years alongside 24 state governors, eight of which are freshmen. Nigerians want the new government to make a world of difference in today’s politics and policy?

In this week’s edition, Saturday Vanguard speaks with a cross section of politicians and other Nigerians on their expectations of Jonathan’s government.

Jakande, Balarabe Musa, Ighodalo, Akinyele, Chima Ibe, Lawrence Omoh and co

Alhaji Balarabe Musa, a politician from the North said he is not expecting anything positive from the incoming administration.
“ I am not expecting anything because, they couldn’t do anything in the past administration. They only loot public funds and that is what we are expecting from the in coming administration. They are the same people.

They are only there to serve themselves. You can see what is happening in the National Assembly. They are the same people, they can only feed people with lies and get away with it.

“People like them have no regard for humanity. There was nothing they were able to achieve while they were in office and when Jonathan became a substantial president of the country for one year. There is nothing he can mention that he has done except for the level of corruption that has continued to increase by the day which is not going to reduce. So, we don’t expect anything good from any of them”.

Alhaji Lateef Jakande, former governor of Lagos State expects honesty from the new administration.

“We are looking forwards to a progressive administration. The president is doing well which is a good beginning. We hope that he will be able to fulfil the promises he made to Nigerians. I’m particular about education, housing, power, health and employment. If he can meet the target he has set for himself, the country will be a better place. I hope he will choose people who will not drag him to the mud but people who will be honest and effective in all they do”.

For Pastor Ituah Ighodalo of Trinity House, this is the time for Jonathan to write his name in gold.

“President Jonathan has an opportunity to write his name in gold and change history. I hope, he doesn’t loose it. He needs to focus on the economy and energy . He should have a plan of providing energy for Nigerians. He needs to focus on infrastructure and building of roads that have gone into deplorable state. He needs to focus on education and health and have a policy for housing.