Members of the South East Governors’ Forum have distanced themselves from the agitations of secessionist groups in the region and other parts of the country.
They also condemned the violence that followed the agitations which led to the loss of lives and destruction of properties.
Members of the indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), have been fighting for the secession of the region from Nigeria leading to heightened insecurity in that part of the country. The group has been blamed for all the violent attacks on security agencies and government’s infrastructures in the Southeast recently.
The governors of states in the region met on Saturday in Enugu State to deliberate on ways to tackle the security challenges and restore peace in the region.
The Chairman of the Forum and Ebonyi State Governor, David Umahi, spoke on behalf of the governors at the end of the meeting, saying: “We condemn in totality, the activities of violent secessionist groups in the South East and elsewhere.
“We firmly proclaim that we do not support them, they do not speak for South East.
“The impression that South-East leaders are silent over some of our youths’ agitations for secession is not correct.
“South-East Governors, Ohanaeze President, National Assembly members, notable leaders had come out publicly many times in the past to speak against such agitations.
“In order not to mismanage the unfortunate situation, South-East leaders have set up a committee to engage such youths to stop and allow elders speak to address such fears,” he said.
They appealed to the security agencies to discharge their duties within the rules of engagement and the law.
They also urged members of the National Assembly from the South East to support the creation of state police in the ongoing constitutional amendment.
“We, the Igbos do reaffirm our commitment to one united Nigeria under a platform of justice, equity of rights, fairness, love, and respect for one another.
“The meeting endorsed our South East joint security outfit – Ebubeagu – and asked them to work with security agencies and to respect the rights and privileges of all those living in South East and our visitors,” Governor Umahi said while reading the communique issued at the end of the meeting.
The United Arab Emirates has finally lifted the travel ban on Nigeria, paving the way for the resumption of flights between the two countries.
Flights were suspended since March following a diplomatic row between the two over the COVID-19 rapid antigen test introduced by the UAE government in addition to the negative PCR test requirement stipulated by the Federal Government of Nigeria.
The UAE flag carrier, Emirates, which suspended its flight since March, has now announced resumption from June 23rd.
This followed the updating of the travel protocols by the Dubai Disaster Management Committee which finally removed the rapid antigen test and said passengers from Nigeria would only be required to possess negative PCR test.
Emirates Airline, in a statement, welcomed the latest protocols and measures announced by Dubai’s Supreme Committee of Crisis and Disaster Management to allow the safe resumption of passenger travel from South Africa, Nigeria and India to Dubai.
“We look forward to facilitating travel from these countries and supporting various travellers’ categories.
“We will resume carrying passengers from South Africa, Nigeria and India in accordance with these protocols from 23rd June.
“We thank the Supreme Committee for their continuous efforts in monitoring the development of the situation and announcing the appropriate guidelines and protocols to protect the community and safeguard the travel sector.”
The fire that trailed the leakage from a moving cooking gas truck in Lagos on Thursday came from the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant, the Lagos State Emergency Management Agency (LASEMA) has said.
The restaurant is located at the Ogun State Property Investment Corporation (OPIC) Plaza where other offices were equally burnt.
Olufemi Oke-Osanyintolu, the LASEMA Director-General, made this known in Lagos on Saturday while reading a preliminary report on its investigation of the incident.
“Close investigation revealed that the leaking cooking gas from the truck was ignited by the exposed fire from the kitchen of the New Chinese restaurant inside OPIC Plaza.
“As a result of wind action, the whole area of OPIC structure was engulfed with fire.
“The fire trailed the cooking gas resulting in the combustion of the gas tanker outside the compound,’’ he said.
Mr Oke-Osanyintolu added that the inferno from the explosion resulted in several damages to the OPIC Plaza building structure.
He said that LASEMA’s “Tiger Team’’ received a distress call at about 10.57 p.m. on Thursday and immediately swung into action with its private sector technical partner.
“On arrival at the scene of the incident, it was discovered that a 13.5-ton gas tanker in motion was leaking its content.
Mr Oke-Osanyintolu added that the inferno from the explosion resulted in several damages to the OPIC Plaza building structure.
He said that LASEMA’s “Tiger Team’’ received a distress call at about 10.57 p.m. on Thursday and immediately swung into action with its private sector technical partner.
“On arrival at the scene of the incident, it was discovered that a 13.5-ton gas tanker in motion was leaking its content.7
Mr Oke-Osanyintolu said the fire resulted in 13 burns causalities at the scene who were given first aid by LASEMA before they were taken to the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) and Gbagada General Hospital for further treatment.
“Unfortunately, three adult males were further discovered dead at the scene and their bodies were bagged and transported to the morgue.
“Also, two victims died while undergoing medical attention at LASUTH, hence a total of five fatalities were recorded as at the time this report was put together,’’ he said.
He added that LASEMA and other responders evacuated other occupants of the building to a safe place, while the LASG Fire Service ensured that the fire was curtailed from spreading into nearby buildings and completely extinguished the inferno.
He said also that the crowd and traffic control were managed with the help of the Police, LASTMA and FRSC.
Mr Oke-Osanyintolu also said that the OPIC Plaza had been cordoned off as a disaster zone and prepared for further investigations, adding that 24 vehicles were burnt in the inferno.
He appealed to tanker owners to ensure that their trucks were certified roadworthy before embarking on a journey.
“All tankers conveying volatile gases should be roadworthy before embarking on a journey. All commercial buildings should develop an Emergency Response Plan and Fire Prevention Plan in case of an emergency,’’ he said.
Mr Oke-Osanyintolu advised Lagos residents to feel free to call the toll free lines112 and 767 in the event of any emergency.
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu of Abia State says he will engage with the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, for peace to reign.
He said he would speak with Kanu, not on the basis of IPOB, but as a citizen of Abia State
“I am the governor of Abia State and he is a citizen of Abia State,” he said.
“I have nothing personal against him and I don’t think he has anything personal against me. All of us are saying the same thing, that there is injustice, marginalization, but our point of divergence is the approach.
“If one is taking up arms Against the Nigerian Nation, what capacity does the person have to conclude it? Because I, as an individual, I am not a suicide Candidate. I saw a bit of the civil war and I don’t want to get people on a boat that is sailing to nowhere.
“Kanu is entitled to his opinion, views and approach, but I am also saying to him, that as a young boy who went to Maiduguri at the age of 16, the boundaries of the South East and Northern Nigeria is not in Umuahia or Ubakala Police Station, neither is it in Bende or Ohafia.
We cannot afford to allow our territory be used as a battle field when the home of our opponents is thousands of mile away from our home. If properties are going to be destroyed during the battle, they will still be our property which we shall suffer to replace at the end of the whole exercise.
“Fighting in one’s kitchen is one of the indices that defines lack of appreciation of the first rule of self-preservation, because after the fight, with which pot and plates, are you going use to eat?
“If you have a perceived enemy and you embark on such a voyage and your son kills you, your enemy will just attend your funeral and save his gunpowder for another enemy.
I think there is need for good reason to prevail, so that we can sit down and talk about it. If there are things you want us to vocalize about the way things are going in this country, raise the tune a little bit, I think there are people who are willing to say that and do that. For me, I think we need to change a few things in this country and I think we need to be smart about the way we change it.
There is somebody who said that those who resort to violence have exhausted the capacity of their intelligence to resolve the matter. I don’t think we have exhausted the capacity of our intelligence to resolve the matter. Violence cannot be the First option.” he said.
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) has threatened to begin another strike over what it called the deliberate refusal of the Accountant-General of the Federation, Mr Ahmed Idris, to pay the salaries and remittance of check-off dues of over 1,000 staff for 13 months.
Dr Lazarus Maigoro, the ASUU chairman, University of Jos, gave the threat in a press statement made available to journalists in Jos.
Maigoro also accused the AGF of fanning the embers of discord between the Federal Government and the Union.
The statement reads in part; “Despite the directive given by Mr president to pay the salaries of all lecturers, the AGF has refused to pay their salaries ranging from four to 13 months respectively.
“Many of our members in the University of Jos and across the country have not been paid salaries from February 2020 to date.
“The AGF has completely violated the terms of the agreement signed between our union and the Federal Government.
“Ahmed Idris, from all intent and purposes, is bent on withholding the salaries of over one-thousand members of ASUU spread across Nigeria with more than a hundred of such lecturers being members of our Branch in the University of Jos.
“More worrisome is the fact that while Idris is refusing to pay these salaries, his staff in the OAGF are busy calling the affected lecturers and insisting they’ve to register with IPPIS before they are paid; some are even asked to forfeit a part of their salaries in order to be paid. So it’s very clear that this is a deliberate act on the part of the AGF and his staff.” he said.
Kebbi State Governor, Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, on Friday said two weeks before bandits attacked Federal Government College, Birnin Yauri, there was a report of bandits presence.
The school wasn’t closed, instead a detachment of special Anti-terrorism Task Force was deployed to guard the school.
Bagudu, made this known while addressing parents, staff and the students that survived the attacked when he visited the school in Birnin Yauri for an on-the-spot assessment.
According to him, when he consulted with the federal authorities on the situation at hand, it was agreed that since the school would be closing in two weeks time after the students finished writing their terminal examination, the school should be provided with security for the period.
“About two weeks ago we heard that there was a bandits movement. Bandits were sighted around here.
“We consulted with federal authorities and told us that the schools has about two weeks to finish their terminal exams.
“At that consultation we all agreed that if security could be found and stationed in the school that could support the children to finish their exams before going home.
“The police commissioner graciously enough find a big contingent from the special Terrorism Task Force that were stationed in the school before the incident that happened yesterday (Thursday).
He added that the bandits confronted policemen who were providing security to the school and overpowered them and unfortunately, made away with some of our children, some teachers and other employees.
NewsWireNGR reports that thr Nigerian Army says troops have rescued some of the kidnapped students and some teachers on Friday.
The authority also said that the troops recovered no fewer than 800 cows.
There were no details given on the students still in captivity.
Armed men suspected to be Fulani bandits have shot dead a Medical Doctor, Precious Chinnedu Emeka in Salka village, Magama Local Government Area of Niger state.
Late Dr Chinedu who owns and operates a Medical Health facility in the area according to newsmen findings was attacked in his clinic at about 9pm by armed Fulani men numbering about five.
NewsWireNGR gathered that the men, one masked had entered into the clinic and demanded to see the Doctor who was inside the compound and took him away to unknown destination by the gun men who did not ask of anything else than the owner of the hospital.
“When they took the Doctor away we reported to the police and the local vigilante. The following day (Thursday afternoon) the vigilante later called us that they have seen a corpse inside the bush and we were able to identify that of our oga”. A source told journalist s.
Meanwhile, the Ohaneze Ndi-igbo, Niger state President Chief Emmanuel Ezeugo, confirmed the murder of Dr. Chinedu, describing the killing as ‘very unfortunate’. Ezeugo however added that, ‘Igbo community are investigating the death of the medical doctor’.
Many travellers are currently trapped on the Abuja-Kaduna highway as angry residents have blocked the road over attacks, especially the killing of a 13-year-old girl by bandits.
The tragic incident occurred at Anguwar Magaji in Chikun Local Government Area of the state.
Residents said bandits stormed the house of the village head and abducted his family as well as other persons in the community.
A resident of the area told Daily Trust that they were not safe at home and their farms as bandits terrorized them unchanged.
“We cannot go to our farms and yet they will follow us to our homes to abduct us for ransom. They killed a 13-year-old girl, a security man in the village as well as abducted other residents including the family of the village head,” he said. He explained that the residents only want security or to be allowed to protect themselves against the bandits.
United Nations secretary-general António Guterres has appointed Nigeria’s Amina Mohammed to serve as Deputy Secretary-general for a second term, shortly after the UN General Assembly re-appointed him for a second term.
Guterres’s second term starts on January 1, 2022, and will run for a period of five years. He succeeded Ban Ki-moon in January 2017 as the ninth secretary-general.
Speaking with journalists after taking the oath of office for a second term, Guterres said he had extended an offer to Mohammed to continue in office.
“After being elected, I have the pleasure to invite the deputy secretary-general to remain in my second mandate and I hope she will accept,” Guterres said.
Mohammed, who was standing behind Guterres at the press briefing, responded with the comment: “absolute honour”.
She had also served as the special adviser to Ban Ki-moon on post-2015 development planning, which focused on the 2030 agenda for sustainable development goals.
Amina Mohammed is a diplomat and politician who is serving as the fifth Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Previously, she was Nigeria’s Minister of Environment from 2015 to 2016 and was a key player in the Post-2015 Development Agenda process.
The Nigerian Economic Summit Group said on Friday that many Nigerians are expected to fall into the poverty trap amid rising unemployment in the country.
The NESG, a private sector-led think-tank, noted in its economic report for the first quarter of 2021 that the country’s economic growth in the period under review was relatively weak.
It said, “Nigeria’s economic growth trajectory is better described as jobless and less inclusive even in the heydays of high growth regime in the 2000s.
“While the Nigerian economy recovered from recession in 2020Q4, unemployment rate spiked to its highest level ever at 33.3 per cent in the same quarter.
“With the COVID-19 crisis heightening the rate of joblessness, many Nigerians are expected to fall into the poverty trap, going forward.”
The group noted that the World Bank estimated an increase in the number of poor Nigerians to 90 million in 2020 from 83 million in 2019.
“This corresponds to a rise in headcount poverty ratio to 44.1 per cent in 2020 from 40.1 per cent in 2019. The rising levels of unemployment and poverty are reflected in the persistent insecurity and social vices, with attendant huge economic costs,” it said.
According to the group, Nigeria needs more than an economic rebound, and there is a need to improve growth inclusiveness.
It said, “Nigeria has struggled to achieve inclusive growth for many decades. Since recovery from the 2016 recession, the economy has been on a fragile growth path until it slipped into another recession in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This suggests that the country needs to attain high and sustainable economic growth to become strong and resilient.
“The relationship between economic growth and unemployment rate in Nigeria suggests that economic growth has not led to a reduction in unemployment rate – jobless growth.”
A consortium of four media development and media freedom organizations have opposed the proposed amendment of the Nigerian Press Council Act by the National Assembly saying the measures contained in the amendment Bill seek to make the Government the arbiter of truth while subjecting the entire media sector in Nigeria to the control of the Minister of Information and Culture in violation of internationally accepted norms and standards.
The organizations, comprising the International Press Centre (IPC), Media Rights Agenda (MRA), the Centre for Media Law and Advocacy (CMLA), and the Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ), outlined their objections to the measures in a “Joint Memorandum” they presented to the House of Representatives Committee on Information, National Orientation, Ethics and Values at a public hearing in Abuja on the Proposed Bill for An Act to Amend the Nigerian Press Council Act.
Presented by Mr. Lanre Arogundade, IPC’s Executive Director, on their behalf, the groups said although regulation is necessary in “this age of fake news and hate speech”, such regulation should not erode media independence or freedom and should not be unduly punitive, adding that the “regulator must also be free of the stranglehold of the powers that be, political or other interests, so that it can judiciously adjudicate in matters bothering on the infringement of the code of ethics of the profession of journalism.”
In the Memorandum signed by Mr. Arogundade as well as Mr. Edetaen Ojo, MRA’s Executive Director; Mr. Richard Akinnola, Executive Director of CMLA; and Mr. Dapo Olorunyomi, PTCIJ Executive Director, the organizations noted that although masquerading as regulation, the proposals contained in the amendment Bill are aimed at restricting freedom of expression and media freedom.
They complained that the amendments as currently proposed would give exclusive powers on the composition of the Board of such sensitive body like the press council whose independence is of paramount importance, to the President and the Minister without confirmation by the National Assembly unlike what obtains with other regulatory bodies such as the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC).
Besides, the organizations said, the amendments seek to empower the Council to ensure truth and genuineness in reporting, which would make a Council dominated by Government appointees and controlled by the Government the arbiter of truth.
According to them, the proposed amendment to the functions of the Council has the additional effect of making the Nigerian media a department of the Federal Ministry of Information and subjecting the entire media sector to the control of the Minister by giving him the power to approve a national Press Code and standards to guide conduct of print media, related media houses and media practitioners.
The organisations objected to the highly punitive measures which can be taken by the Council against media houses and media practitioners for alleged violation of the press code without judicial intervention, saying they constitute a potential threat to press freedom and media survival as they could be used as a political weapon against the media.
They criticized the proposal to empower the council to “receive, process and consider applications for the establishment, ownership, and operation of print media and other related media houses” as a violation of section 39 of the Constitution, which gives everyone the right to own, establish and operate any medium, and called on the Committee to reject the proposals on the composition and functions of the Council.
The organizations suggested that the power to determine sanctions relating to hefty fines should be vested in the courts and not the Council, adding that the provision relating to revocation of license for alleged publication of fake news should be removed from the Act as decisions on appropriate sanctions for such offences should belong to the courts.
That even the vaguest pretense to traditional watchdog journalism is in throes of death in Nigeria’s institutional news media was instantiated by the interview Arise TV’s crew had with Muhammadu Buhari last week. It was out and away a PR job that masqueraded as journalism.
The questions were feeble, obvious follow-up prompts were ignored, the questioners were diffident, and the viewer was left scratching their head about what they had just watched. It was the journalistic equivalent of a bad circus.
I am glad famous Punch columnist Sonala Olumhense clinically dissected the interview in his Sunday column and showed what a tragic professional theater the interview was. Even though I was initially inclined to comment on the poor quality of the conduct of the interview, I chose to cut the interviewers some slack because I thought managing to get reclusive and tight-lipped Buhari to talk after nearly six years of ignoring the domestic news media was praiseworthy.
But Reuben Abati’s cloying, self-aggrandizing, and mind-bendingly eulogistic post-interview column removed all doubts that Arise TV was merely conscripted as an instrument of presidential propaganda and mind management in the aftermath of the growing global reprobation that Buhari’s ill-thought Twitter ban has activated. Who better to recruit for the job than two previous presidential propagandists and mind managers?
So, in retrospect, it makes sense that the “interview” did not have the haziest resemblance to a professional journalistic interview. It was a predetermined, duplicitous public relations performance that stole and wore the garbs of journalism to give it undeserved professional legitimacy.
Now let’s look at the print version of Abati’s presidential propaganda project that he called a column. Although the interview was clearly pre-recorded and edited, which gave Buhari more verbal clarity than we have become accustomed to lately, he was still repetitive, cracked the same humorless jokes, avoided questions that required him to demonstrate familiarity with the nitty-gritty of contemporary events like the Twitter ban, and gave and got away with puzzlingly off-center responses to questions he was asked.
Yet Abati wants Nigerians to disbelieve what they saw, transport themselves to an alternate universe, and persuade themselves that Buhari was “alert, alive, informed, confident, relaxed, witty and capable of disarming humour” during the interview. This is classic gaslighting. Many people who read Abati’s column were compelled to re-watch the interview to see what they’d missed. They found that they were being psychologically manipulated by a professional mind manager.
The presidential propaganda project won’t be worth its while if it wasn’t deployed to impugn the growing evidence that Buhari is held hostage by dementia, which I have called attention to since 2018.
Abati wrote: “Commentators like Farooq Kperogi, claiming insider knowledge of Aso Villa and its actors, in seductive prose, told Nigerians many tales about how their President had succumbed to a combination of dementia and senility and government had been taken over by unscrupulous persons who call the shots in the President’s name.”
I know Abati is earning his pay, which is fine by me, but he should not promote ignorance in the process of doing so. A choreographed one-hour interaction isn’t what you need to disprove that someone has dementia. The doctor who met Buhari and alerted me to his dementia years ago also has a father with dementia. He reached out to me because he read my June 20, 2015 column titled “Criticizing Buhari Over ‘President Michelle of West Germany’ Gaffe is Ignorant.”
He said contrary to what I wrote, Buhari’s gaffes during his trip to Germany (or, as he called it, “West Germany”) wasn’t age-induced memory lapse, which everyone over the age of 40 is apt to suffer occasionally, but dementia. He listed signs to look out for, which I did and chronicled in many columns (see, for instance, my January 19, 2019 column titled “Buhari’s Physical and Mental Health is Now a National Emergency”). So, it wasn’t based on “tales” but on verifiable observations.
If Abati has no idea what dementia means, he should look it up on the web. He might learn a thing or two. Dementia doesn’t mean people who suffer it can’t grant an interview. But it means even when they grant one, they can’t answer the questions they’re asked if the questions are very current, as Buhari often does.
The short-term memory of people with dementia is often weak and unreliable, so they rely on old memories, which makes them boringly repetitive. That’s why Buhari keeps saying the same things since 2016.
In 2020, when a journalist asked him in an impromptu interview about the probes of the EFCC and the NDDC, he started talking about Single Treasury Account. Garba Shehu was caught on camera frantically telling the journalist who interviewed Buhari to cut the interview. It wasn’t a “tale.” It did happen. And the evidence exists on the Internet. There were many such examples even in his Arise TV interview.
Having dementia also means that while the sufferers may have occasional moments of clarity, they are usually mostly lost. And that describes Buhari. Why do you think he failed to show up at Government Science Secondary School in Kankara in the aftermath of the kidnap of schoolboys there even though he was in Katsina at the time?
Why do you think he failed to show up at the funeral of the Chief of Army Staff even though he had no other engagement that day and was only a few minutes away from the venue of the funeral?
When COVID-19 became a pandemic in March 2020 and there was public pressure for Buhari to address the nation, he was absent. When his minders couldn’t resist the pressure any longer, they pre-recorded a speech that lasted only a couple of seconds in which Buhari mispronounced COVID-19 as “Kovik one nine”! As I pointed out at the time, there was no sentient, living being on this earth— and certainly no world leader—who didn’t know that there was a global pandemic tipping over the world that was called the new coronavirus or COVID-19.
Again, during the #EndSARS revolt, which convulsed the foundations of Nigeria, Buhari was absent. Then on October 13, 2020, a video surfaced on the Internet of Lagos State governor Jide Sanwo-Olu briefing Buhari on what the Inspector General of Police was doing about the EndSARS protests. Buhari stood like a breathing, insentient mannequin and intermittently laughed vacuously.
More disturbingly, when Sanwo-Olu said the IGP recommended that governors set up commissions of inquiry into SARS brutality, Buhari interrupted him. “I said that,” he said and looked at Ibrahim Gambari, his Chief of Staff, for assurance. “I said that in my speech.” He hadn’t given any speech at the time.
Recall, too, that when Buhari visited the family house of the late President Shehu Shagari to commiserate with them over the death of their patriarch, he didn’t have the presence of mind to write anything on the condolence register; he just signed his name and couldn’t even get the date right.
And he also appended his signature to a memo to then Senate President Bukola Saraki appointing two justices to the Supreme Court in which his first name was spelled as “Muhammdu.” People who are close to Buhari know he has (or used to have) an obsessive-compulsive urge to spell his name as “Muhammadu.” That he missed the misspelling of his name and appended his signature to it pointed to diminished sentience.
Plus, dementia also sometimes comes with a degeneration of the muscles, which explains why Buhari falls without explanation, as we saw during the 2019 campaigns in Lokoja and in Kaduna. His close aides who caught him when he fell in Lokoja didn’t seem shocked, which indicated that they were already habituated to it.
A 45-minute propaganda interview can’t erase all the evidence of dementia we see in Buhari.
Anyone who wants to believe that Buhari has no dementia and that he is the picture of perfect mental and cognitive health because he didn’t drool during a choreographed PR show called an interview is free to do so. But it takes nothing from the truth of his progressive mental degeneration and his unfitness to be president of a complex, developing country like Nigeria with no solid institutions to withstand a dementia-plagued president.
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