President Zuma's statue Dear Rochas,   My hatred for the Western media is a global secret. I have personally boycotted them for over two decades. I would have maintained my blissful presumption that their flagship cable television has long gone extinct, if it were not for a recent event that had to do with your person.   You may not know but I discovered ‘’fake news’’. I discerned the West’s practice of fact-bending journalism and outed them long before the internet emerged and popularized ‘’fake news’’. This is the real reason they portray me as a buffoon, the humanoid baboon that reduced Zimbabwe from a food basket to a banana republic.   Notw...

              Kebbi State Accountant-General, Mohammed Arzika Dakingari and others were sentenced to prison The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission has secured the conviction of the Kebbi State Accountant-General, Mohammed Arzika Dakingari and others for their involvement in a N1.6billion fraud.  The Court of Appeal, Kebbi Division has upturned the judgment of a Kebbi State High Court which discharged and acquitted a Kebbi State Accountant-General, Mohammed Arzika Dakingari, on charges of conspiracy and obtaining by false pretence preferred against him and one other by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC. He, among other things allegedly used his office as the Accountant-General, Kebbi State for personal enrichment to the tune of N1.6billion. Dakingari was charged alongside Musa Yusuf, Managing Director, Beal Construction Nigeria Limited; a company owned by him (Dakingari) and used in award various contracts to him...

Paul Akpederi, a 52-year-old retired civil servant, is now a ‘tenant’ in a Lagos police cell after taking her daughter’s virginity. The Delta State indigene, who lives on Adegbite Street, Ori-Okuta, in the Ikorodu area of Lagos State, was alleged to have raped his 15-year-old daughter, Rose, for over three years. According to the information gathered by PUNCH Metro , Paul started sexually abusing Rose when she was in Junior Secondary School Three. When the secret got to the knowledge of a teacher, Paul allegedly changed her school. The suspect was said to have continued the abuse until she got to Senior Secondary School Two in her new school. Rose’s former teacher was said to have run into her sometime in October 2017 and told a friend about Rose’s plight, who then alerted the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender through the agency’s social media platform. The officials of the agency reported the case to the police at the Owutu division, who then arrested the su...

Former President Goodluck Jonathan has alleged that the Federal Government under President Muhammadu Buhari is a government of lies and propaganda. He made this statement on Thursday in Abuja when he received one of the national chairmanship aspirants of the Peoples Democratic Party, Prof. Tunde Adeniran, and members of his campaign team in his office. The party will hold its national convention in Abuja on December 9 to elect its national officers. Jonathan said the solidarity being enjoyed by the party even though it lost election at the centre in 2015 showed that “there is something in the PDP.” While pledging to speak up some day on the achievements of the PDP in its 16 years in power, the former President took a swipe at the Minister of Works, Power and Housing, Mr. Babatunde Fashola (SAN), who as a state governor reportedly said that a serious government at the centre must be able to fix power within six months. Jonathan was the president when Fashola made the state...

The Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign state of Biafran, MASSOB, has rejected in strong terms to the decision of President Muhammadu Buhari to approve payment of pension to police personnel who served under the defunct Biafran police during the civil war. According to a statement made by its National Director of Publicity, Samuel Edeson on Thursday, 19 th 2017, he described the move by President Muhammadu Buhari as an administration of medicine after death. MASSOB said Buhari was using the carrot to placate what it alleged Nigeria government’s atrocities against Igbos. The group noted that even if Buhari stepped down for an Igbo man to be president of Nigeria, it cannot change demand for Biafra. The statement reads: “‎the directive that ex- Biafra policemen should be paid is medicine after death. “For forty seven years after the civil war, these men have been denied their right. Why must it be now because president Buhari feel by doing so, Ndigbo and Biafr...

                                                               Kwara State governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed (Photo: Premium Times) According to a statement issued by the Kwara State Governor’s Chief Press Secretary, Abdulwahab Oba on Thursday revealed that a former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Saidu Isa, is dead. Until his death, Isa who died in the early hours of Thursday at the age of 71, was the Chairman Governing Council, Kwara State University, Malete, and occupied the same position at the Federal College of Education Osi-Ile, Abeokuta in Ogun State. The Kwara State Governor, Abdulfatah Ahmed, described the death of a former Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and one time Secretary to the State Government, Saidu Isa, as a big loss to the state and the country as a whole. The governor said the decease...

The Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice Abukabar Malami, SAN has disclosed that President Muhammadu Buhari has directed all relevant agencies to compile documents on names of all looters with a view to promptly enforcing the judgment of a Federal High Court in Lagos ordering the government to release to Nigerians information about the names of high ranking public officials from whom public funds were recovered. The court also ordered the government to tell Nigerians the circumstances under which funds were recovered, as well as the exact amount of funds recovered from each public official. Mr. Malami made the disclosure during a meeting at his office in Abuja with a delegation from Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP). This development was disclosed on Thursday in a statement by SERAP Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni. Mumuni said, “We had a very productive meeting with Mr Malami, discussing among other critical issues th...

The ruling party, All Progressives Congress has said it will abide by its constitution to resolve the controversy over whether or not President Muhammadu Buhari will be given an automatic ticket to contest the 2019 presidential election. Governor of Bauchi State, Mohammed Abubakar, made this known while speaking to reporters in Abuja, after an expanded meeting of the party’s National Working Committee with state governors and principal officers of the National Assembly, at the party’s National Secretariat, on Wednesday. Abubakar, who was flanked by the party’s National Publicity Secretary, Mallam Bolaji Abdullahi, and the Senate Majority Leader, Ahmed Lawan, was asked whether the party’s presidential ticket was open to all or restricted to the President. He said, “This meeting has not deliberated on that but the APC has a constitution and that is one of the items that was discussed – the amendment to the constitution of the APC in order to faithfully hold the convention in ...

As part of the deliberate measures to curtail abuse and to prevent smuggling of tobacco products into the country, the Federal Government says it may increase taxes on Tobacco. This was made public in a statement made by the Minister of Health, Prof. Isaac Adewole, when he addressed State House correspondents after the meeting of the Federal Executive Council on Wednesday. The meeting was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential, Villa, Abuja. According to Adewole, Nigeria is implementing the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Nigeria became a party to the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control on Jan. 18, 2006. “Yes, we are part of the campaign against Tobacco. We are implementing the WHO Framework Convention for Tobacco Control. As of Monday, we were part of the ECOWAS meeting to look at how do we raise taxes on tobacco, and that meeting would really work to prevent smuggling of tobacco products. We looked at h...

Despite the hostile responses by many Nigerians over the Jacob Zuma’s 250-metre multi-million statue erected in Owerri by the Governor, Rochas Okorocha of Imo State, he (Governor) has publicly said that he owes no apology for erecting Jacob Zuma’s statue in Owerri, the State capital. Okorocha’s Chief Press Secretary, Sam Onwuemeodo has however said that they cannot be deterred by enemies of the people who are trying to discourage them from making the state open to foreign investors. The statement reads: “And in case these “Galatians” do not know all we need to do to attract good things or investments to Imo is erecting statues, then, we have no option than to erect as many of such structures as possible. “We owe no one apology. Rochas made a promise to open the doors of Imo to the rest of the world, for good and he is doing that and we cannot be deterred by these enemies of our people. “If it was in the days of PDP, schools and markets would have been shut down. And roads...

The Bayelsa State government has on Monday announced that one of the victims of the dreaded viral disease, Monkey Pox has committed suicide. According to the Commissioner for Health, Prof. Ebitimitula Etebu, the victim allegedly took his own life on Monday at the quarantine centre in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, located in the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital, Okolobiri, in Yenagoa Local Government Area of the state. Addressing journalists on Monday evening in Yenagoa, the state capital, Mr. Etebu, said the deceased was among the 21 suspected cases of the virus that were being managed at the teaching hospital. Prof. Etebu was joined at the conference by the Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Mr. Daniel Iworiso-Markson , the Chief Medical Director of the NDUTH, Prof. Dimie Ogoina, and other senior health officials. Prof. Etebu expressed regret that the patient took his own life despite impressive progress to stem the outbreak by the government. He said the dece...

According to PUNCH, Mr. Olukoya Ogungbeje, counsel to the alleged billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudumeme Onwuamadike, a.k.a. Evans, has petitioned the Police Service Commission, calling for the probe of the policemen who handled the case of his client. Ogungbeje, in a petition dated October 13, 2017, alleged that members of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team, which handled the case, abused their position to extort his client. According to him, the team of police investigators led by Mr. Abba Kyari, an Assistant Commissioner of Police, “forcefully and corruptly extorted” from Evans cash in local and foreign currency as well as various items including phones, wrist watches, jewellery, television, cars and trucks. Ogungbeje claimed that the policemen forcefully took N50m from Evans, while his wife was also forced to part with another N5m. The lawyer claimed that a sum of $10,000 was also forcefully taken from the suspect by the police. Other items all...