Justice
AAC disowns Omoyele Sowore as its chair
The leadership of the African Action Congress (AAC) on Wednesday said that the party’s presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Omoyele Sowore has been expelled by the party’s highest decision making organ and he is therefore presently unknown to the party. The party also in a petition to the Inspector General of Police claimed that the convener of the Revolution Now’s utterances and behavior have become a security risk and should be investigated by the security agencies before he plugs the country into crisis. Addressing journalists in Abuja, the National Chairman of AAC, Dr. Leonard Nzenwa said the letter by Sowore to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, claiming to be the Chairman of the party amounted to impersonation. Dr. Nzenwa, who is also the National Chairman o...
Bayelsa bans open grazing, vows to arrest armed herders
Bayelsa State Government has enacted a law prohibiting open grazing of livestock in the state. The law, Livestock Breeding, Rearing and Marketing Regulation Law 2021, was signed into law by Governor Douye Diri on Monday at the Executive Chamber of Government House, Yenagoa. Governor Diri said the essence of the law is to ensure harmonious living between cattle dealers and other inhabitants of the state and to forestall the violent clashes being experienced in other parts of the country. His words: “Bayelsa State welcomes all and sundry to eke out a living legitimately. The people of Bayelsa want to have a mutual and harmonious relationship with non-natives and natives. The essence of the law is to avert and forestall any clash between herdsmen, farmers, natives and non-natives as experienc...
Court refuses to unblock Shell’s bank accounts
Getty Images Justice Oluremi Oguntoyinbo of the Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday declined to vacate an interim injunction directing 20 banks to block Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) and its subsidiaries’ bank accounts. The court also insisted that two of the banks’ secretaries and chief financial officers accused of disobeying the order made on January 25, 2021 must appear before it on March 29, 2021. The affected banks and their officials are: Citi Bank Ltd, its Company Secretary Sola Fagbure and Chief Financial Officer, Sharaf Mohammed; United Bank For Africa (UBA) Plc, its Company Secretary Bill Andrew Odum and Chief Financial Officer, Ebenezer Kolawole. The judge threatened to issue a warrant of arrest against them if they failed to appear before her on the ...
Delta government heads to Supreme Court to reclaim £4.2 million James Ibori loot
The Delta State Government says it will challenge federal government’s plan to deploy the recently returned £4.2 million (around N2.2 billion) recovered from former governor, James Ibori, at the Supreme Court. The Commissioner for Information, Ehiedu Aniagwu, disclosed this on Tuesday while reacting to news of the repatriation of the funds, which the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), said would be used to complete the ongoing work on Second Niger Bridge, Abuja-Kano Road and the Lagos-Ibadan road. “We would try to get take advantage of the legal system to make the federal government correct the injustice they are about to visit on us as a state,” he said. “If they are quite sure that the funds they are about to repatriate left Delta State on ...
Femi Fani-Kayode: Old man arrested is not ‘wanted’ Isikilu Wakili
A septuagenarian arrested by members of the Oodua Peoples Congress (OPC) is not the “wanted Wakili”, according to former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode. Some members of the OPC in Oyo State had, on Sunday, razed a Fulani settlement at Kajola in Ibarapa area of Oyo State before arresting the elderly blind man. In the process, newsmen gathered Wakili’s daughter-n-law was killed. In a series of tweets on Tuesday, Fani-Kayode said the old man arrested is not the prime suspect. His tweet read, “One Isikilu Wakili, a foreign terrorist who operates in the Ibarapa area, is the most notorious, dangerous and bloodthirsty terrorist in the South-West today. He killed even more people yesterday. He is even worse than Abu and the old man that is in police custody in Ibadan. “The Isikilu Wakili t...
Senator Okon: Nigerian government handling insurgency, banditry with kid gloves
Pioneer National publicity Secretary of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Anietie Okon has expressed concern that President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is handling insurgency and banditry in the northeast and north-west with kid gloves. Okon who is also the Spokesperson of Akwa Ibom Leaders Vanguard, made the assertion yesterday during an interaction with newsmen in Uyo, the state capital. He regretted that the same government left the armed bandits, and Boko Haram insurgents destroying lives and property to be moving freely but deployed military forces to the Southeast to descend on unarmed agitators. His words, “It is unfortunate that the Buhari-led Federal government is treating insurgents and armed bandits with kid gloves by leaving them to operate freely on daily bas...
Justice Isn’t Happy About Justin Bieber’s Justice Album Art
Last week, Justin Bieber announced the title for his new album, Justice, but the artwork for it looks awfully similar to the logo for a certain Grammy-winning electronic duo. Justice is set to be the pop star’s sixth studio album. An outspoken Christian, Bieber leans into his faith, marking the “t” in the word as a cross. The only problem? We’ve seen this before. It’s the same design French duo Justice has used for its official logo since forming in 2003. SPIN reached out to the duo’s management for comment, who responded with the following: “Bieber’s team emailed us in May of 2020, asking to be looped in with Justice’s graphic designer to discuss a logo. We tried to set up a call between Bieber’s team and our designer, but the call was never completed and the conversation ended there...
Court dismisses NUT’s suit against Kaduna governor over competency test
Nigeria Union of Teachers The Kaduna Division of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria has dismissed the case between the Nigerian Union of Teachers and Governor Nasir El Rufai for lacking in merit and substance. A statement titled, ‘Teachers sack: Court dismisses NUT’s suit against KDSG,’ issued by the Commissioner of Justice and Attorney General of Kaduna State, Aisha Dikko on Saturday, said that Justice S.O. Edeniyi delivered judgment on the matter on February 2. The statement which said that NUT and Comrade Audu Titus Amba were the claimants, further said that they sought nullification of the termination and compulsory retirement of those who failed the competency test for all primary school teachers. The Attorney General recalled that “in the bid to restore the competency of the te...
Northern governors condemn Zamfara schoolgirls abduction
The Northern States Governors Forum on Friday condemned another attack on Government Secondary School, Jangebe, in Zamfara State where hundreds of schoolgirls were abducted, saying enough is enough. Chairman of the Forum and Governor of Plateau State, Simon Lalong, in a statement, said this trend is unacceptable and that strong measures must be taken to put an end to it before it escalated into a monster that would consume educational pursuit and national aspirations. Lalong said this development, which is coming on the heels of the abduction of school children in Kagara, Niger State still being addressed, called for serious concerns among all Nigerians. He said “as Northern Governors, we are deeply saddened by this embarrassing and unfortunate attack on our children who are in schools to ...
Security: Northern governors, NSA, IGP meet in Kaduna
Governors of the 19 Nothern States and traditional rulers of the region are meeting in Kaduna over security challenges bedeviling the region. Newsmen report that the two-day meeting, which opened on Thursday, is also being attended by Senate President, Ahmad Lawal, Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari and Information Minister, Lai Mohammed. Others are National Security Adviser, Maj.-Gen. Mohammed Monguno, Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Ibrahim and Director General, State Security Service, Yusuf Bichi. The participants are expected to discuss current security challenges bedevilling the Northern region and youth unemployment. Governors at the meeting, holding at Sir Kashim Ibrahim House, include those of Plateau, Adamawa, Sokoto, Nasarawa, Jigawa and Katsina. Niger, ...
Man handed 15-year prison sentence for murder of Maltese journalist
Vince Muscat, one of three men accused of murdering Maltese investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017, was sentenced to 15 years in prison on Tuesday after changing his plea to guilty. The judge accepted the plea bargain presented by Muscat’s lawyers and prosecutors after he had told the Valletta courtroom that he was admitting to all charges, in a shock development that could prove crucial in the high-profile murder case. Muscat must also pay 43,000 euros (52,240 dollars) in court fees. Muscat is one of three men accused of planting and detonating the bomb that killed Caruana Galizia in her car in October 2017. A fourth man, business tycoon Yorgen Fenech, stands accused of having paid the three men to carry out the assassination. He denies the charges. In a statement read ou...
Bauchi, Benue governors reconcile in Port Harcourt
Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike, on Tuesday, brokered a truce between the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom and Governor of Bauchi State, Senator Bala Mohammed in Port Harcourt. The conflict was resolved following the intervention of Governor Wike and his Adamawa State counterpart, Governor Ahmed Fintiri. Briefing journalists at the meeting, which held at Governor Wike’s private residence at Rumuepirikom, Governor Mohammed said the outburst between him and Governor Ortom over herders/Fulani profiling was regrettable. “We don’t mean to divide the country, to divide our people. We are still friends and brothers and that we will move forward because most of those issues are fully resolved. “I want to seize this opportunity to tell Nigerians that whatever misconception that is there, th...