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Disregard Social Media Reports on Rice, Vehicles Auctions-Compt. Mohammed Uba

Comptroller Mohammed Uba Garba
CAC, Seme Customs Command

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]omptroller Mohammed Uba ,Seme Customs Area Controller, CAC ,Nigeria Customs Service of  has refuted information going viral on the social media impersonating him as the one empowering Nigerian youths with the sum of N80,000 each as well as giving out auctions of items like bags of rice at cheapest rate of N6,500 and exotic cars worth millions of naira at a give-away price price of N300,000 only as well as other household items.

According to the alleged information which is already generating serious concerns in the social media, some of it read: “I want to use this little opportunity to empower Nigeria youths financially. So I’m giving out a token of Eighty Thousand Naira (N80,000) to start up small scale profitable business you wish. So contact Mr. Charles (financial secretary for further documentation)”.

The fraudsters gave out fake telephone numbers like 2348159047716, a number to contact so as to get the cash immediately and give feedback to the same owner of the telephone number.The fraudsters, who are bent on rubbishing the good image and the highly-cherished reputation acquired over the years by the Seme Customs Area controller, Compt. Uba as they informed their would-be victims and the users and account holders with Sky bank, Unity bank, Sterling bank and FMCB bank accounts and any prospective victim who doesn’t have account with any of the four listed banks that they can call them on this mobile phone number 08159047716″.

Meanwhile, another angle to this was the second aspect of information coming from the same fraudulent source which reads: “To Whom it May Concern.”…Order for your goods in credit for a cheapest rate and the goods will be delivered to your destination”.
The said fraudsters however, through the second information still going viral in the social media,  informed their would-be-victims that payment can be made short period after sales”.

They tried to use the name of Talatu Isa Mario as the ACG Tariff and Trade who can be contacted for the auction trading.While reacting to this, the CAC of Seme Command of the NCS, Compt. Mohammed Garba Uba who spoke to these reporters on the development urged Nigerian especially the venerable and Innocent Nigerian youths to disregard these whose only stock in trade is to defraud innocent Nigerian public.”They  are fraudsters. And this is the only thing they know how to do. People should be careful of them and their activities. They operate with about 11 different account numbers, but they are all fake account numbers.”Compt. Uba continued: “If you read the stories or the information they have been passing through the social media, you will know that it is all about falsehood and nothing more than that”.
They even wanted to robe in a retired Comptroller Tariff and Trade, a retired Customs Officer? That will tell you the extent they have gone to and what they can do”.The CAC, therefore, called on Nigerians to be wise especially this time around when they hear that the borders are closed.They are fraudsters, allegedly claim that their victims can get a bag of foreign rice at N6,500 through them.”Bag of rice at N6, 500 and bag of Cement at N1,500,Phones, iphones, laptop, laptop, Gas cooker, plasma TV etc,” the report reads.

Arrest order against me, an invitation to anarchy in Imo – Okorocha

Owelle Okorocha

[dropcap]A [/dropcap]former Governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, has described the state government’s arrest order against him as an open invitation to anarchy in Imo State.

Mr Okorocha said this in a press statement signed by his Special Assistant on Media, Sam Onwuemeodo, and made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Owerri on Friday.

Mr Okorocha was reacting to Thursday’s order by the Secretary to State Government (SSG), Uche Onyeaguocha, for his arrest over an alleged assault of a government official at his residence.

The News Agency of Nigerian (NAN) recalls that the Chairman of the Committee on Recovery of Government Property, Jasper Ndubuaku, was reportedly attacked by men said to be Mr Okorocha’s thugs.

Reacting to the incident, which trended online on Thursday, the SSG told journalists that the former governor had been listed under the state government’s security watch and placed on citizen’s arrest.

But Mr Okorocha in the release stated that the order would only cause disaffection in Imo, pointing out that residents would always defend him any time he came under the attack of his successor, Emeka Ihedioha.

He stated that the only reason given by the SSG for the order was that Imo people sympathetic to him prevented the recovery team from looting his private residence.

“The arrest order only added to their disrespect for me as the past governor and this is a very bad precedence which Ihedioha’s government is creating.

I was in Abuja when the recovery team slapped my daughter, Uloma Nwosu, and I was also in Abuja yesterday (Thursday) when the team invaded my private residence,” he said. Mr Okorocha said that Imo government had petitioned the Economic Financial Crimes Commission and Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission against him, but wondered why it could not allow the antigraft agencies to do their job.

He stated that the SSG had no right to issue such order against a former governor.

He said that the order would not deter him from coming to Imo anytime he deemed fit, given the huge investment he made in the estate.

UKAH ORDERS ESTABLISHMENT OF PTAS IN DELTA PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Chief Patrick Ukah
The Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education

[dropcap]P[/dropcap]rincipals and Heads of state owned primary and secondary schools in Delta State have been asked to quickly constitute Parent/Teacher Associations (PTAs) in their schools to serve as a platform for partnership that will bring about rapid developments in the schools.

The Commissioner for Basic and Secondary Education, Chief Patrick Ukah, gave the directive at a stakeholders meeting and interactive session with Principals, Head Teachers and Chief Inspectors of Education (CIEs) at Government College, Ughelli.

Chief Ukah said the essence of the stakeholders meeting was to deliberate on issues affecting the education sector and to proffer solutions on how to tackle them so that the state would be among the top three best education states in the country.

He said Principals and School Heads in public schools in the state must be proactive in their duties in other tackle the myriad of challenges confronting the sector which he said the collaborative efforts of the PTA, Traditional Rulers, Corporate bodies and individuals will go a long way, as government could not do it alone.

The Commissioner also charged them to key in fully into some of the new policies being put in place by the ministry such as the Back to School programme which is aimed at ensuring that students return back to school within the first one week of resumption of the new academic session, which he said would integrate the students quickly back to school

He said the back to school programme would comprise of a compulsory welcome test for the students within the first week of resumption which would make up ten percent of their academic work, adding that it was a strategy to ensure early resumption of students.

During the interactive session the Principals and School Heads promised to work closely with the ministry to ensure that the laudable plans the ministry has for the education sector is achieved.

Head teachers and Principals from Bomadi, Isoko North and South, Ndokwa East and West, Patani, Udu, Ughelli North and South Local Government Areas of the state attended the stakeholders meeting.

9/11 plotters to go on trial in 2021, almost 21 years after

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]lmost two decades after the devastating Al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Centre in New York, alleged 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others held at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp will finally go on trial in 2021.

A military judge at the US Navy’s Guantanamo, Cuba base set the date for the death-penalty trial for January 11, 2021, according to the New York Times. The date was included in a scheduling order for pre-trial activities by the military judge, Colonel Shane Cohen, the Times said.

The five will be the first to go on trial in the military commissions established to handle the “War on Terror” detainees captured and sent to Guantanamo after September 11, 2001 attacks that left 2,976 people dead in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington.

Mohammed, Walid bin Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abd al-Aziz Ali, and Mustafa al-Hawsawi were accused of planning and participating in the plot hatched by Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to hijack four airliners and crash them into New York’s World Trade Center and buildings in Washington.

Two of the planes struck the World Trade Center, another hit the Pentagon and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers, having learned of the other flights, fought the hijackers.

The five were formally charged in 2012 with conspiracy, attacking civilians, murder in violation of the law of war, aircraft hijacking and terrorism.

Mohammed, a Pakistan native thought to be about 54, is a key figure in the trial: he has been accused of being the mastermind of the 9/11 plot.

He was captured in Pakistan in 2003. Turned over to the US Central Intelligence Agency, he underwent severe torture, including repeated waterboarding, as US officials sought to learn more about the plot and Al-Qaeda.

Court remands Herdsman in prison custody for allegedly killing a farmer

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] Minna Magistrates’ Court on Friday ordered that a herder, Mohammed Bello, be remanded in prison custody for allegedly killing a farmer pending legal advice.

Magistrate Mariam Kings declined to take his plea on grounds that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter.

Kings directed the police to forward the case file to the State Director of Public Prosecution for legal advice, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.

She adjourned the matter until September 26 for further mention.

Earlier, the prosecutor, Insp. Aliyu Yakubu, in the charge sheet, charged Bello with three counts of criminal trespass, mischief and culpable homicide contrary to sections 348, 327 and 222 of the Penal Code law.

Yakubu alleged that the accused person was arrested in Rubochi Village in Lapai Local Government Area on August 2.

He alleged that the accused person deliberately guided his cattle into the farm of one Haruna Mohammed and destroyed his crops. He said when cautioned, the accused person removed his cutlass and slashed Mohammed’s hand, leading to his death.

Osanebi Expresses Shock Over Demise Of The Legislative Leader, Ndokwa East LGA

Late Hon Justice Uwa Chukwuji

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Member Representing Ndokwa East in the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Friday Ossai Osanebi has expressed sadness over the demise of the Leader of the legislative arm, Ndokwa East Local Government Council, Hon Justice Uwa Chukwuji.

Rt Hon Osanebi who is the immediate past Deputy Speaker of the House in a statement in Asaba said he received the news of the death of Hon Chukwuji with rude shock and prayed God to grant his soul and the souls of other departed eternal rest.

While condoling the immediate family of Hon Chukwuji, the legislative arm of Ndokwa East, the Ndokwa East local government council and the entire Ndokwa East Constituency, Rt. Hon. Osanebi stated that it was sad to loose a constituent at such a prime age of 44.

He said the late Leader was an epitome of hard work and humility, stressing that he will be greatly missed by the political family of Ndokwa East local government area.

It was gathered that the Legislative Leader of the Ndokwa East Local Government Council,  Hon Justice Uwa Chukwuji who was representing Aballa Ward in the council, died at the Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Asaba, after a brief illness at the age of 44 years.

How Soldiers Poured Acid On Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Corpse, Buried Him – Ibrahim Abdullahi

[dropcap]A[/dropcap]n eyewitness, Ibrahim Abdullahi, who was a prisoner when the environmental rights activist,  the late Ken Saro-Wiwa, was killed in 1995 by the late General Sani Abacha government, on Thursday, gave his account of how the late Ogoni leader and eight others were killed and buried. He said the soldiers who carried out the execution took their corpses to a bush and poured acid on them before dumping them in a shallow grave.

Abdullahi, who was granted a state pardon in June this year by the Governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade, after spending 30 years in prison, stated this in an interview with journalists at the African Centre for Peace and Development, Abuja.

The 52-year old, who became a prisoner following the death of a man he fought with, was at the centre being run by Senator Shehu Sani to collect some financial assistance to enable him to settle down after his long years of incarceration. The Katsina-born trader said he was in the prison with other inmates when the soldiers brought Saro-Wiwa and three others to join five of their colleagues earlier jailed.

He said the military men took over the entire premises on arrival and ordered the warders to go home. He said the entire area was barricaded with four Armoured Personnel Carriers positioned in different directions.

Abdullahi explained that Saro-Wiwa, who was the first to be executed, insisted that he was innocent when he was being led to the gallows. The gallows, according to Abdullahi, was directly opposite the condemned cell where inmates, including the late Musa Yar’Adua, watched helplessly as they snuffed life out of him.

He stated that the environmental rights activist cursed those who framed him and also said the Niger Delta region would never know peace following the great atrocity they had committed.

Abdullahi said the soldiers, after killing the nine Ogoni leaders, called some inmates, including himself, to assist in carrying their corpses to a bush inside a tipper for burial.

He said, “I was in the cell one day in 1995 when they brought the late Gen. Shehu Musa Yar’Adua (retd.), Senator Shehu Sani and Sanusi Mato. Sani and Mato were transferred to Aba and Owerri prisons respectively on the following day but  they left Yar’Adua in Port Harcourt.

“One day in 1995, soldiers brought Saro- Wiwa and three others from the military barracks and chased away everybody who was not a prisoner.

“ Saro-Wiwa, who was chained in the legs and hands, was marched to the condemned cell which was directly opposite the gallows where he and others would be hung. They met the five others who were already in the cell.

“One Major Obi, who led the operation,  made sure that no warder witnessed the execution. They serviced the gallows which could execute two people at a time. The Attorney-General of Rivers State then  came with a file which contained the charges preferred against the Ogoni leaders.

“The AG went straight to their cell and read the charges to them and went back. One of them, a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, was crying, lamenting that his wife had just given birth to a new baby and that he was observing a dry fast on that day.

“Saro-Wiwa maintained that he did not ask anybody to kill anyone but that the Federal Military Government just wanted to kill him. He then said there would never be peace in Ogoni land forever because of the innocent souls that Abacha wanted to sacrifice. After this, the soldiers marched him to the gallows.

“They brought out his corpse and put him in a slab and they invited a medical doctor who certified him dead. They called four of us to take his corpse.

“That was how they executed them one after the other. One of them was even calling the name of Jesus until he was pushed to the gallows.

“After the execution, Major Obi collected the films of the hanging from the photographer and the tape from the video man and asked us to put all the corpses inside a tipper which was used to covey them and four of us to the bush where they were buried.

“The soldiers then poured raw acid on Saro-Wiwa and others when we got to the place called Bolokiri and their bodies melted instantly inside a single pit where they put all of them.”

This report was lifted from PUNCH

Asaba Sand Dealers Send SOS To IGP Over Dredging Rights

[dropcap]M[/dropcap]embers of Sand Dealers Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society Asaba, Delta State, have called on the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to raise a special team from his office to come and enforce a court judgement delivered in their favour by a Benin High Court, as efforts to get the Commissioner of Police Delta State Command to carry out the order have not yielded the desired result.

The group alleged that the Commissioner of Police, Delta State Police Command had gone further to flout the directive given by the Inspector General of Police for them (Police) to enforce the several orders obtained from different courts empowering them with the right of ownership to do dredging business at the river banks in Asaba.

Briefing some select journalists at the Nigeria Union (NUJ) Secretariat, Asaba, yesterday, the President, Sand Dealers Multi-Purpose Co-operative Society, Asaba, Mr. David Ossai, who narrated the ordeal meted on them since 1999, alleged that they have been witch-hunted by State Police and several others who are currently carrying out dredging activities on beaches in Asaba against subsisting court judgements and orders.

Having been issued a license by the National Inland Waterways Authority (NIWA) to conduct business activities, he stated that four members of his cooperative have been killed as a result of fabricated petitions, of which several efforts to seek justice have been swept under the carpet.

“A total arrest of 53 was made on our members, out of which we were remanded at the Federal Prison Ogwashi-Uku for 38 times by the Nigeria Police” he said.

He disclosed that the continuous arrest and imprisonment of members have been used as means to disorganize them as illegal while unrecognized individuals have taken over their business since 1999.

However, he also mentioned that himself alongside eight  of his members were unlawfully imprisoned in 2011 until they were discharged and acquitted by a court of competent jurisdiction in 2018, after they were denied bail on several occasions.

Referring to a legal advice by the Office of the Inspector- General of Police (IG) dated 3rd May 2019, where the AIG Zone 5 and the Delta State Commissioner of Police were instructed to obey the court order of the Federal High Court of Benin in suit No. FHC/ B/ CS/ 157/ 2000, to arrest the suspects and charge them to court for conspiracy, forceable entry, attempted murder amongst others

He also said that on 26th July, 2019, the AIG in a legal advice tagged “Case of Flagrant disobedience of orders of the Federal High Court With Impunity Criminal Trespass, Forcible Entry, directed the Delta State Police to obey the court order.

Despite all orders given, David Ossai noted that no action has been taken by the police to abide  by the judgement of the court, stating that, despite four judgements and 22 orders of court in their favor, the Police has done nothing.

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He alleged that their inaction amount to a perceived compromise of the Police, stating that the present Commissioner of Police in Delta state has made no attempt in carrying out the orders of the IG and the court.

“Some police are stationed in our beaches to protect those who are in unlawful occupation of our beaches, threatening to arrest us if we come close to the beach” he asserted.

As a result of this, David Ossai has called on the Office of the Inspector General of Police (IG) to set up an independent body to ensure the implementation of the directive given.

In a telephone chat with PPRO, DSP Onome Onovwakpoyeya, Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO Delta State Command, she denied knowledge of the court orders and ordeals faced by the dealers. “At the moment, I will find out

Amaechi, Abe Swear For Another Political War

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he Crisis in Rivers State APC  and the lingering soured relationship between the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi and the former lawmaker representing Rivers South-East Senatorial District, Senator Magnus Abe, has again worsened.

Grassroots Publishers can report that the feud which led to the failure of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to produced candidates for the 2019 general elections is resurfacing over plan for the party to conduct fresh congress in the state.

Abe, a former ally of Amaechi, has disagreed with the Minister of Transportation over move to conduct the congresses of the APC in Rivers State.

In a statement on Monday, Senator Abe said the announcement by Amaechi that the congresses would be conducted in Rivers was unacceptable.

Amaechi was said to have announced to his supporters shortly after his inauguration in Abuja by President Muhammadu Buhari that there would be congress in the state.

But according to a report in The PUNCH, Abe spoke at the weekend when members of the APC Visionary Media Team paid him a courtesy visit at his residence in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

He said in the statement signed by his spokesperson, Mr. Parry Benson, that rather than concentrate on achieving the needed contribution to national development, Amaechi was creating another avenue for tension and crisis in the political structure of the party.

Abe pointed out that the minister was demonstrating the same unruly behaviour that brought the party in Rivers State to a fiasco.

The senator urged the minister to demonstrate his sincerity in rebuilding the party by consulting others and showing respect for the rights and feelings of all members of the party.

Abe, however, appealed to members to be resolute and committed to the growth of the party in the state.

He assured the group that even if he was out of office, he was still a politician committed to the development of the party, insisting that what is needed is peace, inclusiveness, progress and the commitment of all members to move the party forward.

“Look at the state of our party here today in Rivers State, yet the Minister of Transportation, on assumption of office as Minister of Transportation; the first thing he did was to announce congresses in Rivers State and I ask myself, this was the same kind of behaviour that led the party to where it is.

“Everybody in Nigeria knows that the origin of the crisis in Rivers APC was from the congress and how the congress was handled and there are extant judicial pronouncements on the last congress, which the party was misled to ignore and we have all kept quiet in the hope that by keeping quiet, we will create room for resolution of some of these challenges, so that the party can move forward.

”Instead, you become more brazen in your challenge to the rights, feelings, and interest of others within the same political party. How do we do that and expect to make progress?

”What kind of congress? Is he the chairman of the party? Is he the National Working Committee? Is he the court? What gives him the power to come and announce congress on the day he was inaugurated as a minister?

”Rather than address the issues of the country and the issues of his ministry, the first thing he could do was to reopen the sourest point in the heart of members of the party. And it is on that basis that party members are deprived of all rights and benefits in the party we all suffered to build. Is that how to grow a political family? Is that how to grow politics? We will not accept that congress.

”Minister cannot sit in his office and make pronouncement on a matter in which he and several other people have interest; people have gone to court, people have fought for their rights in that congress and the same thing that he did before, by creating confusion in the first place, he is determined to continue to do it because he wants to prove to the world that he is a conqueror. As I said before, nobody can conquer Rivers people.

ATTACK ON BUHARI: Kanu, IPOB Deceiving Igbo Youths – Ohanaeze

IPOB MEMBERS

[dropcap]A[/dropcap] pan Igbo youth organisation, Ohanaeze Youth Council (OYC) has accused the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu of deceiving Igbo people that he is fighting for their common cause.

OYC, however, warned Igbo youths to be wary of the ‘deceitful antics’ of the IPOB leader, whom the group claimed is enjoying his life in London while his so called supporters are suffering in Nigeria. The group said IPOB as a group is not a true defender of the Ndigbo.

In a statement signed by the Deputy President-General the group, Comrade Obinna Achionye, warned Igbo youths living in Japan and Asia to disregard IPOB’s directive to attack President Muhammadu Buhari.

President Buhari is currently at the seventh Tokyo International Conference on African Development holding in the city of Yokohama from August 28-30th 2019 in Japan.

The statement posited that IPOB has lost the sympathy and consciousness as defender of Igbos, now ranking as a violent group capable of carrying arms in the nearby future

Achionye said, “It is suicidal and foolishness that someone will never participates in assault proposed by him against President Buhari in Japan, and directs gullible Igbo youths to risk jail in Japan and repatriation, while he enjoys in London.

“Asia countries are not like Europe were someone will engage in activities against a visiting African President without heavy sanction and punishment by the host country. So, we call on Igbos staying in Japan to remember that Igbos are not traditionally violent people and will never identify with terrorism.”

It further disassociated the group  from what it termed rented crowd led by an Enugu lawmaker that welcomed Ekweremadu at the Akanu Indian International Airport in Enugu.

“We wish to disassociate ourselves from the rented crowd that received Ike Ekweremadu former Deputy Senate President at Enugu airport.

“Ohanaeze Ndigbo Youth Council Worldwide observed that a desperate Enugu lawmaker from Ezeagu local government area who is  a stooge of Ekweremadu in Enugu State House of Assembly went to Onitsha main market and Obete Enugu market to persuade touts and beggers to masquerade as Ohanaeze youths to give the impression that Igbo Youths give Ekweremadu a rousing welcome.

“But contrary to his expectations, he was betrayed by lack of communication skills exhibited by a 60 years old man parading himself as a youth leader. Though, we still condemn the attack on Ekweremadu in Germany, but we are not involved in the deceitful outing. We will sanction the lawmaker appropriately”, the statement added.

 

By: Emeji Noble