After few days of his return from London for ear treatment, President Muhammadu Buhari today has appointed a new Inspector General of Police.
Mr. President made this known on his Twitter account saying:
Today I appointed Mr Ibrahim Kpotun Idris Acting Inspector-General of Police, to replace the retiring Solomon Arase.
Mr. Ibrahim was formerly AIG, Federal Operations, Force Headquarters.
He takes over from Mr. Solomon Arase who retires as IGP.
Report reaching us says the federal government has agreed to a one-month ceasefire with NDA militant groups in the Niger Delta.
The source added that it was very difficult getting the Niger Delta Avengers to the negotiating table but it was eventually done through a proxy channel and a truce was achieved.
Channelstv reported that the Minister of State for Petroleum Dr. Ibe Kachikwu, had led a government delegation to different camps in Bayelsa and Delta states, including visiting the temporary site of the Maritime University at Okerenkoko, Gbaramatu Kingdom, Delta State.
This was all in a bid to reach out to representatives of the militant groups to get them to stop the attacks on oil and gas facilities.
Justice Mahmoud who took office as the 15th CJN on November 20, 2014 was born on November 10, 1946 and is due for retirement on November 10, 2016 having attained the retirement age of 70years. Crossriverwatch.com reports.
By convention, the next highest ranking Supreme Court Judge, is supposed to take over. But his chances may be scuttled if the President tows the line of some stakeholders who are suggesting that the next CJN should be appointed straight from the Bar as a way of breaking from the past and curbing endemic corruption in the judiciary.
While some argue that it is desirable to appoint a CJN from outside the long standing tradition, citing examples of Kenya which has done so and two distant instances of the first indigenous CJN, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola, 1958-1972 and Teslim Elias, 1972-1975, others say those who are making the suggestion are only being political.
They accused those pushing for a change in the succession order of technically trying to prevent a judge from the South from emerging CJN, in preference for a northern judge.
They argue that having delivered several judgements against the ruling APC in the governorship election cases in the South South states, the ruling party considers the present set of Justices of the Supreme Court as pro PDP and are afraid of having a Southern judge whose tenure will last till the 2019 election as CJN.
It will be recalled that the last time a Southerner was CJN was Justice Ayo Irekefe, 1985 – 1987. Ever since, for about 30 years non-stop, following the seniority succession system, it has been Northerners all the way.
Namely: Muhammed Bello, 1987 – 1995; Muhammed Uwais, 1995 – 2006; Modibo Alfa-Belgore, 2006 – 2007; Idris Kutigi, 2007 – 2010; Aloysius Katsina-Alu, 2010 – 2011; Dahiru Musdapher, 2011 – 2012; Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, 2012 – 2014; and Mahmud Mohammed, 2014 till date.
It is now the turn of Justice Walter Nkwanu Onnoghen if the succession order is not jettisoned. After him comes, again, two other Northerners, namely; Justice Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed and Justice Suleiman Galadima.
According to Channelstv, the appeal was made in a resolution read by the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, on Thursday at the Upper Chamber of the National Assembly in Abuja, to commemorate the Day of the African Child.
The Senate wants all children to enjoy the legislation of the Universal Basic Education, which provides for the education of all children in the country.
Senator Monsurat Sunmonu from Oyo State moved the motion, hich was supported by her colleagues, including the Leader of the Senate, Mr Ali Ndume.
They said the issues she raised needed urgent actions considering the plight of children in the country, especially those in the northeast.
A Senator from Ekiti State, Mr Biodun Olujimi, also called on the government to redouble its efforts to ensure that Nigerian children get access to quality education and their rights protected.
While members of the Senate may have stated their position on what needs to be done by the federal and state governments, child rights activists believe that protecting the rights of Nigerian children is the duty of all irrespective of class or status.
Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Finance, Mr Akan Okon, gave this indication on Saturday while speaking to journalists in Uyo, the state capital.
According to Channelstv.com, the Commissioner lauded the federal government for the offer which he described as a good policy that will help states to deal with financial issues arising from the global economic downturn caused by the fall in oil prices.
Mr Okon said that the state government has taken concrete steps to improve the state’s Internally Generated Revenue (IGR)
He said that the Udom Emmanuel administration has initiated numerous projects and will certainly need the loan to ensure effective funding.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/06/pdp-asks-apc-to-apologise-to-jonathan-nigerians-for-lies-propaganda/
Indications emerged Friday that the Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, John Gaul-Lebo, might soon be impeached. This came following the crisis that has hit the House.
Punch reports that majority of the lawmakers are aggrieved over the prolonged non-payment of their entitlements. The aggrieved lawmakers had four days back threatened to impeach the speaker over the development.
Report says majority of the legislators are angry that after one year in office, they had yet to get their official cars, housing and wardrobe allowances, as well as other entitlements.
One of the aggrieved members said his colleagues were also worried over the inability of the House to sit and carry out constitutional duties due to lack of diesel and unavailability of facilities to run the legislature.
“Beyond all the grievances listed above, we do not sit regularly due to lack of electricity and office facilities to ease the business. It is a serious matter,” he said.
An insider said about 11 lawmakers, allegedly led by the lawmaker representing Ikom 2 State Constituency, Mr. Simon Nkoro, were already shopping for signatures to make up 2/3 of the 25 lawmakers in the House in order to impeach the Speaker.
Most of the lawmakers said to be in support of the impeachment, according to the source, further include members representing Calabar Municipality, Bakassi, Odukpani, Obudu, Akamkpa I and II and Calabar South II constituencies.
Reacting to the development, Chairman of the House Committee on Information, Nelson Ofem, confirmed that there was “discontent” in the House.
He, however, said that no impeachment notice had been served the Speaker.
Also speaking, the Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker, Mr. Azogor Ideba, said, “There is no problem in the house, a few members cannot just wake up and impeach the Speaker.”
As part of the then Eastern Nigeria, South-east state was created in May 1967 and renamed Cross River State (CRS) in 1976. While the current Cross River State was reconfigured in 1987 when Akwa-Ibom State was carved out of the former Cross River State Structure.
With a population of about 3 million persons, the state shares common boundaries with the Republic of Cameroon in the east, Benue state in the north, Ebonyi and Abia state in the west, Akwa-Ibom state in the south-west and Atlantic Ocean in the south.
Having a land mass of 23,074SqKm, Cross River is home to rich stock of arable land, forest and mineral resources inclusive of but not confined to Limestone, Natural Gas, Clay, Salt, Tin, Granite, Kaolin, Lead, Zinc, Barite, Uranium among others.Thus sitting on this biodiversity hotspot, one at once imagine that Cross Riverians of every extraction would tap into their pass to examine where they are coming from to enable them access the present just as they figure out how to shape the future against the backdrop of their institutional education, religious and cultural orientation. For many years until recently was oriented to contain with unemployment.
At least a flicker of light can be glim now that the bar placed under employment has been raised by the governor of Prof. Ben Ayade with the distribution of forms to qualified persons in the state after several years of miss-match between retirement and employment which may render the state Civil Service almost comatose from irregular replacement, fatigue or from lethargy of inexperience army of newly recruited persons or both. In this regard, those to be recruited must be competent and of good character.
These goes far beyond paper qualifications as character and competence are of course necessary and there are also neutrally and individually inclusive to function or lead in the 21st century.
Cross River State is endowed by God with various natural and mineral resources located within the tropical rainforest belt of Nigeria with largely and agrarian economy of rich arable land. Its mineral deposit of limestone, natural gas, clay, salt, tin, granite, lead, zinc, barite, uranium among others make the newly created Ministry of Solid Minerals in the state dream come through. The chronicle of the lethargy of the state mineral blessing without whose is of little or no avail.
The pioneer spirit of the Gov Ayade led administration that made wide the birth of this ministry and other new ones in the state has a positive trajectory that has placed the state in the lead of manufacturers or industrialist when driven to it logical conclusion. The growth and development of the economy of any geopolitical entity depends largely on manufacturing but less or less on handout from the federation account.
More so, when the recent global oil drop sadly witness the free fall of prices of over $120 per barrel to a ridiculous low of less than $50 currently. There is going to say the fact that the 2015/2016 Calabar Festival Theme “Climate Change” drives this awareness more than anything else in the state just as more than 150 world leaders gathered in Paris last under the austerity of the United Nations (UN) in their to hammer their commitment into a responsible agreement to reduce carbon emission or to decarbonise energy use or switch from fossil fuel to renewable energy in the world, the first of its kind in the millennium. Thus with the influx of investors into the state, it is expected that the guarantee of the investors confidence is assured in an atmosphere of neutral trust amidst an environment of congenial bureaucracy and less restrict as a com poise to explore these minerals.
As businessmen navigate their way to the state known for her hospitality, Cross Riverians would cease to be hospitable if we allow our differences in politics, religion, culture,traditional, and primordial interest or impulses to deface the pace and take the better part of us. The state is in urgent need of political, social, economic, cultural and intellectual regeneration. At all times, a combination of strategy, patience, commitment, trust, education, character and above all love is key to all successful political and economic business.
21st century Cross River under Gov Ayade needs nothing less. This is the legacy we all owe the state.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has beamed its searchlight on governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State for allegedly transferring the state’s cash amounting to N4.29 billion from banks to unknown recipients.
An insider hinted Vanguard, last night, that the agency received two petitions against the governor and some top officials of the administration and had already commenced investigation into the matter, even though the governor is covered by immunity while in office.
He said: “I can confirm to you that the commission has received petitions against Governor Ortom and other dramatis personae over alleged diversion and other financial infractions. We have also commenced investigation into the veracity of the petitions. And I can also tell you that the commission will soon take necessary action on the matter.”
Some of those named in the petitions as arrowheads of the scam are members of the state House of Assembly and the National Assembly.
The official said only those not covered by immunity were being interrogated in connection with the cash movement, adding that the outcome of the commission’s probe would soon be made public.
However, Governor Ortom, who spoke through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Terver Akase, said there was no iota of truth in the report.
more 700 repentant Boko Haram insurgents in the North-East have surrendered to the military. Director of Defence Information, Brig.-Gen. Rabe Abubakar.
Abubakar said this when he paid a courtesy call on the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Mr Bayo Onanuga, in Abuja on Thursday.
According to him, a camp will be opened where the repentant insurgents will be kept “before the government decides on what to do with them’’.
The defence spokesman said the media had a very important role to play in mitigating the crisis befalling the country.
He, therefore, called for synergy between the media and the military in mobilising and informing the citizenry about the crisis.
“We have many of the Boko Haram members, who surrendered as a result of our operations in Sambisa.
“We have over 700 now and very soon we will open the camp in the North-East where we will be keeping them before the government decides on what to do with them.’’