President Bola Tinubu has appointed Dr. Abdullahi Mustapha as the new Director-General and Chief Executive Officer of the Energy Commission of Nigeria (ECN).
Announcing the appointment on Monday, Tinubu’s media adviser, Ajuri Ngelale, said Mustapha is expected to key into the Tinubu administration’s goal to diversify the country’s energy sources and achieve industrialization.
He is an executive member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), United Kingdom chapter (APC UK).
Mustapha, according to Ngelale, has over a decade of experience in the energy and space technology sectors, having served in the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC).
The appointee, according to his curriculum vitae, is a Chartered Engineer and a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (MIMechE) with abilities in the areas of pipeline health monitoring, oil and gas engineering, strategic planning, research and change management.
He also has experience in space technology, having worked in the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA) for over 6 years.
Mustapha recently obtained his Doctorate degree in Mechanical Engineering with a focus on Renewable Energy, followed by a Postdoctoral Fellowship as a Research Associate in the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester.
The President tasked the new ECN CEO with ensuring that all Nigerians have access to affordable and reliable energy.
A black flag hoisted over a mosque in Iran prompted social media users to claim the country has called for war.
“The Islamic Black Flag has been risen on Razavi Shrine in Mashhad, Khorasan province, Iran, shown below,” read the caption of an Oct. 17 Facebook post. “This is a Scripture-based (Qur’an) call to all of Islam for War. This flag was used by the Prophet Muhammad and is a sign of religious revolt/rebellion and engagement of battle.”
(Screenshot from Facebook)
The post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)
Could a call for war be so straightforward? We looked into the context of the black flag and found that the claim is unsupported.
The black flag was a statement of mourning, not war, after the Oct. 17 bombing of al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, which killed hundreds with more casualties expected.
The Imam Reza Holy Shrine, sometimes called the Razavi Shrine, in Mashhad, Iran, posted an identical photo on its Instagram account. According to its caption, which tried to censor some words, the black flag was hoisted “in response to the barbaric crimes of the usurping Zio**nis**t (Zionist) regime, especially the bombardment of the Al-M**u’am**dani (Al-Mu’amdani) hospital.”
The Imam Reza shrine is managed by the Astan Quds Razavi, which also published an announcement about the hoisting of the black flag. Based on a version of the page translated with Google, it said, “Following the martyrdom of hundreds of residents of the Gaza Strip in the barbaric crimes of the usurping Zionist regime, the holy shrine of Razavi will take on a mood of mourning.”
Iranian state-controlled news sites and others also reported that the Imam Reza shrine raised the black flag to mourn the casualties from the hospital explosion and other “crimes” by Israel. In a fact check of similar claims, Reuters also linked to an Oct. 18 statement published by Astan Quds Razavi, the shrine’s administrative organization, saying the flag was changed for “public mourning” because of the deaths in Gaza after the hospital explosion.
Based on Imam Reza shrine’s news releases that were translated using Google, the shrine planned more events, including a people’s gathering and a support march to express solidarity with Palestinians.
It’s not uncommon for the shrine to hoist a black flag in mourning. It does so for martyrdomanniversaries.
A black flag hoisted in October at Iran’s Imam Reza shrine was not a call for war. We rate that claim False.
An injection of vitamin K for babies has been recommended and used safely for more than 60 years. It prevents life-threatening bleeding in newborns. But a viral post incorrectly claims the shot is harmful and unnecessary.
Full Story
The vitamin K injection administered to babies in their first six hours of life is extremely safe and crucial to prevent a life-threatening condition called vitamin K deficiency bleeding, or VKDB.
Vitamin K is essential to form blood clots and stop bleeding. People usually get vitamin K from food, such as green leafy vegetables, and some of it is produced by good bacteria in our intestines. But babies have low levels of vitamin K from birth up to six months of age. This is because very little of the vitamin passes through the placenta or is in breast milk, and newborns don’t yet have the gut bacteria to produce their own. The lack of vitamin K puts infants at risk of prolonged bleeding, which can range from minor to serious, and can result in brain damage or death.
Yet, a recent thread on X, formerly known as Twitter, falsely claims the shot is dangerous and unnecessary.
“The so called Vitamin K injection is not a vitamin but a mixture of chemicals injected into newborns to ensure a sick child … will come back to the medical establishment,” a user wrote on X. A screenshot of the post went viral on Instagram.
Later in the X thread, the user added that the ingredients of the shot “can cause death,” and that babies shouldn’t need it since “[h]umans are not born defective.”
It is “definitely untrue” that the vitamin K shot is harmful and unnecessary, Dr. Eugene Shapiro, a professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine, told us in an email.
“It is extremely safe. Side effects in the amounts given to newborns are virtually unheard of— I don’t think I’ve ever seen a problem in more than 40 years of taking care of babies,” he said.
The vitamin K injection has been recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics since 1961. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in more than 60 years, only one case of an allergic reaction in an infant has been reported.
The agency says infants who don’t get the vitamin K injection are 81 times more likely to develop VKDB. The bleeding can occur in the baby’s brain or other organs, and go undetected, since most of the time there are no warning signs.
One in five babies with VKDB dies and about half of infants with late VKDB — VKDB that occurs in babies 1 week to 6 months old — have bleeding in their brain, which can cause permanent brain damage. A single shot of vitamin K administered to a baby’s thigh in the first hours of their life can prevent the risk.
Before the shot was routinely given to babies, the bleeding disease “was feared and relatively common,” Shapiro told us.
“Vitamin K deficiency bleeding is now rare, and you may not ever have heard of it, because most infants receive the shot,” reads an information sheet, part of an American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement published in Pediatrics in March 2022.
Ingredients of Vitamin K Shot are Safe
Misinformation about the safety of vitamin K injections is not new. Just in the past year, our fact-checking colleagues have published at least five articles correcting false or misleading information about the safety of the shot’s ingredients.
In this latest iteration, the X user incorrectly claims the shot does not contain vitamin K, because it “contains Phytonadione, a synthetic (lab-made) chemical,” which is “not naturally occurring vitamin K.”
But phytonadione is vitamin K, just a man-made version of it. The fact that it’s not naturally occurring should not be alarming to people. “[N]either are virtually all of the vitamins purchased in drug stores and health stores,” Shapiro said, adding that it’s “a distinction without a difference, since they are chemically identical to the active component of the naturally occurring substances.”
A single shot of vitamin K administered in the first hours of a baby’s life prevents the risk of a potentially life-threatening bleeding disease.
The AAP recommends a single intramuscular dose of vitamin K administered in the baby’s thigh within six hours of birth. The recommended dose ranges from 0.3 to 1 milligram per kilogram, depending on a baby’s weight.
The CDC explains that even though these doses are much higher than an infant’s daily requirement for the vitamin, it’s not too much because the vitamin K level in a baby is low and without a supplement it would remain low for about 6 months. The vitamin in the injection goes both to the bloodstream for immediate use and to the liver, where it’s stored and slowly released over the following months.
Other ingredients are added to the shot to keep it safe and long-lasting. This can include the preservative benzyl alcohol, which is used to protect against bacterial contamination. “There is no evidence that the small amount of preservative, benzyl alcohol, is associated with toxicity, and many infants receive preservative-free vitamin K,” according to the AAP.
Dr. Jaspreet Loyal, an associate professor of pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine, studies vitamin K refusal. A review article she co-authored with Shapiro notes that “reports of VKDB in the United States are almost always associated with refusal of intramuscular vitamin K by a parent,” and that refusal of the shot appears to have increased in recent years.
“Parents may be concerned about the dose being too high or preservatives in the injection,” she told us in an email, “but the dose and presence of preservatives have not been shown to cause harm.”
Other Vitamin K Injection Misconceptions
Loyal told us sometimes parents want to avoid the vitamin K shot, and prefer to increase a breastfeeding mother’s vitamin K intake or give their child an oral dose of the vitamin.
But neither of those alternatives are as good as the vitamin shot. According to the CDC, breast milk does not provide enough vitamin K, even if a mother is supplementing. And oral administration of vitamin K, which has been tried in other countries, has not sufficiently prevented late VKDB, even with multiple doses. Late VKDB is the most concerning type of VKDB, the CDC says, since it occurs in healthy babies up to 6 months old, and 30% to 60% of such babies have bleeding in the brain.
Other reasons for refusal Loyal has identified include parents’ experiences with caregivers or health institutions and general mistrust.More parents refuse the vitamin K injection when having a baby in a birthing center or at home, as opposed to in a hospital. “There is mistrust around vaccines and some parents lump the vitamin K injection with vaccines and their hesitancy around vaccines,” Loyal told us. But the vitamin K injection is not a vaccine.
Finally, Shapiro said many parents refuse the shot because they don’t like the idea of having their babies suffer pain. But as the CDC explains, parents can reduce the discomfort by holding their babies or breastfeeding while and after the shot is given. And, as the agency adds, the diagnosis and treatment of VKDB “often involves many painful procedures,” including blood draws and transfusions, or anesthesia and surgery.
Editor’s note: SciCheck’s articles providing accurate health information and correcting health misinformation are made possible by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The foundation has no control over FactCheck.org’s editorial decisions, and the views expressed in our articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the foundation.
Sources
The Nutrition Source. “Vitamin K.” Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Mar 2023.
Shapiro, Eugene. Professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at Yale School of Medicine. Email to FactCheck.org. 18 Oct 2023.
Hand, Ivan, et al. “Vitamin K and the Newborn Infant.” Pediatrics. 22 Feb 2022.
American Academy of Pediatrics, Committee on Nutrition. “REPORT OF COMMITTEE ON NUTRITION : VITAMIN K COMPOUNDS AND THE WATER-SOLUBLE ANALOGUES.” Pediatrics. 1 Sep 1961.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ’s): Vitamin K and the Vitamin K Shot Given at Birth. CDC. 24 Jul 2023.
Protect Babies from Life-threatening Bleeding — Talk to Expectant Parents about the Benefits of the Vitamin K Shot for Newborns. CDC. 24 Jul 2023.
Fischera, Angelo. “Post misleads on vitamin K shot ingredient, safety.” Associated Press. 5 May 2023.
Rougerie, Pablo. “Vitamin K shots are safe and polysorbate 80 isn’t poisonous, contrary to claim by Brandy Vaughan.” Health Feedback. 25 May 2023.
Goldhamer, Marisha. “Vitamin K shot strongly recommended for newborns.” AFP Fact Check. 27 Mar 2023.
Trela, nate. “Fact check: Vitamin K injections safe for newborns, save lives.” USA Today. 31 Mar 2023.
Malashenko, Uliana. “Fact Check: Vitamin K Shots Do NOT ‘Poison’ Babies — They Protect Newborns From Life-Threatening Events.” Lead Stories. 25 Aug 2023.
Loyal, Jaspreet. Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Yale School of Medicine. Email to FactCheck.org. 18 Oct 2023.
Loyal, Jaspreet, and Eugene D. Shapiro. “Refusal of Intramuscular Vitamin K by Parents of Newborns: A Review.” Hospital Pediatrics. 1 Mar 2020.
Golding, J., et al. “Factors associated with childhood cancer in a national cohort study.” British Journal of Cancer. 1 Aug 1990.
Loyal, Jaspreet, et al. “Refusal of Vitamin K by Parents of Newborns: A Qualitative Study.” Academic Pediatrics. 11 Apr 2019.
Leff, Michelle, and Jaspreet Loyal. “The Term Newborn: Alternative Birth Practices, Refusal, and Therapeutic Hesitancy.” Clinics in Perinatology. Volume 48, Issue 3, Aug 2021.
SAN FRANCISCO — Draymond Green will be out for the Warriors’ season opener against the Phoenix Suns, coach Steve Kerr announced on Monday.
Green has missed all five preseason games and most of training recovering from a left ankle sprain he injured the week before training camp began. The 33-year-old has been practicing with the team and doing 5-on-5 scrimmages since Sunday, but isn’t in game-playing condition.
“We don’t feel like it would be wise to throw him out there with so little scrimmage time on the floor,” Kerr said.
This is the second Opening Night Green will miss in his 12-year career and first since the 2020-21 season when he sat out against Kevin Durant’s Brooklyn Nets with foot soreness.
The Warriors looked incomplete, particularly on defense, without Green in the mix along with a new-look roster. Kerr tempered expectations about how the Warriors might look to start the season with Chris Paul and a new bench featuring Dario Saric and Cory Joseph.
“I have a clear vision of our team this year and it will not be on display tomorrow night because we aren’t where we need to be,” Kerr said. “But I think the clarity we have as a coaching staff, we can see where this team is going. That’s a great sign. You get bumps in the road, hopefully we don’t have too many but one was Draymond’s injury before camp. We have to ease in, we put in a ton of stuff on both ends of the floor. We have to whittle that down to get players comfortable. It’s a long way of saying we’re going to be way better in a month or two.”
The Oyo State Government has evacuated 359 illegal structures and shanties shielding its public primary and secondary school premises within the Ibadan metropolis.
The State’s Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources, Arc. Abdulmojeed Mogbonjubola, during the exercise, on Monday, revealed that the evacuation was embarked upon in order to create a more conducive environment for learning in the state.
The owners of the shanties and illegal structure were about two months ago issued eviction notices through the principals and heads of the affected schools.
The commissioner stated that the state will not rest until all impediments capable of creating distractions around school premises in the state were uprooted.
“We will not rest on our oars, until sanity is maintained. Every student stands to learn better and maximize his/her potential, only if the learning environment is favorable. The present administration of His Excellency, Engr. Seyi Makinde, will never look away from this reality,” he said.
The affected schools were around Ode Aje, Orita Aperin, especially, IMG, Ode Aje; Islamic Primary and Secondary Schools; IMyyG Olubadan Basic Schools 1, 2 and 3, Orita Aperin; Government Technical College, Orita Aperin; Christ Church High school; United Mission College Demonstration School 1, Molete; IDC Basic School, Adobe; St. Stephen’s Primary School, Alegongo; Community High School Alegongo.
Also Issabatudeen Girls’ Grammar School, Orita Basorun; St. Paul’s Anglican Primary School, Yanbule; Methodist Grammar School Bodija; Emmanuel College, U.I, and a host of others.
The commissioner warned owners of the illegal shanties against re-erecting the structures around the school premises which he said was against the state’s Environmental laws.
NEW YORK — U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez returned to court Monday and entered a not guilty plea to a charge alleging that he conspired to act as an agent of the Egyptian government when he chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Menendez, 69, made the plea during his first appearance before Judge Sidney H. Stein at Manhattan federal court. Stein is expected to preside over a trial tentatively scheduled for May.
Stein said the plea was the sole purpose for the hearing and adjourned the preceding after about five minutes.
The New Jersey Democrat stepped down from his powerful post leading the Senate committee after he was charged last month. Prosecutors said the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes of cash, gold bars and a luxury car over the past five years from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for a variety of corrupt acts.
The other defendants entered not guilty charges to a superseding indictment last week. The senator was permitted to delay his arraignment so he could tend to Senate duties. He has said that throughout his life he has been loyal to the United States and that he will prove he is innocent.
Menendez has resisted calls from more than 30 Democrats to resign.
The rewritten indictment added a charge alleging that the senator, his wife and one of the businessmen conspired to have Menendez act as an agent of the government of Egypt and Egyptian officials.
As a member of Congress, Menendez is prohibited from acting as an agent for a foreign government.
Menendez is accused of passing information to the Egyptians about the staff at the U.S. embassy in Cairo, ghostwriting a letter on Egypt’s behalf intended to influence fellow senators and urging the U.S. State Department to get more involved in international negotiations to block a dam project Egypt opposed, among other things.
Last week, Nadine Menendez and a businessman, Wael Hana, pleaded not guilty to the superseding indictment.
Both of them were charged with conspiring with the senator to use him as an agent of the government of Egypt and its officials. The charge carries a potential penalty of up to five years in prison.
The Adamawa Police Command has arrested six suspected kidnappers in Mubi-South local government area of Adamawa state.
According to a press release shared with THE WHISTLER on Monday by the Police Public Relations Officer of the command, SP Suleiman Yahaya Nguroje, one tricycle, 3 handsets, mats among other items were recovered.
Nguroje said the suspects were arrested following a complaint received about the kidnap of one Mustapha Ibrahim, a 9-year-old boy on 18/10/2023 at about 1800 hours.
The PPRO said the complaint was laid by the father of a 9-year-old boy on 19th October, 2023 stating that some unknown faces came to his House around 1800 hours under the pretence of wanting to buy “Zobo Juice” and lured his 9-year-old Boy.
After they kidnapped the little boy, they allegedly demanded N5 million ransom.
Nguroje revealed the suspects as, Abubakar Mohammed 23 year-old, Auwal Usman 21 year-old, Mohammed Abubakar 37 year-old, Umar Mohammed, 20, years; Abdulhameed Musa, 19 years and Muhammad Nasir, 20 year-old all residents of Maiha Road and Kaba Ward in Mubi-South/North LGAs.”
The Commissioner of Police CP Afolabi Babatola while expressing happiness, commended the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Mubi South and his men for rescuing an innocent child and denying the criminals the opportunity of escaping arrest.
The CP further assured of diligent prosecution of the suspects.
Jodi Bobbitt, the school nurse at William Ramsay Elementary in Alexandria, Virginia, is always ready to see children with a wide range of injuries and illnesses. One day during the first week of school, the parade started before the first bell when a little girl walked in with red, irritated eyes.
Then it got busy.
A student fell from the monkey bars and another tripped while playing tag. Two kids hit each other’s heads with lunchboxes and needed ice packs. A young boy had a stomachache. Bobbitt also saw her regular kiddos: one who has special needs and uses a wheelchair and another who has diabetes and gets his blood sugar checked daily before lunch.
“Every day, I’m seeing more and more [youngsters],” Bobbitt, who is a certified nurse practitioner, said with a smile. “I saw more today than yesterday, so we just have to wait and see what the year has in store.”
As the only school nurse at this suburban Washington, D.C., elementary school, Bobbitt’s responsibilities extend beyond treating scraped knees and sniffles for the school’s 600 pupils. At her under-the-sea-themed clinic, she administers medications, teaches kids about health care, and conducts routine health screenings. As the school nurse, she also serves as a public health point person — tracking student vaccinations, linking parents to local health care resources, and communicating sometimes difficult messages to them, such as warnings about sexually transmitted diseases and signs of depression.
It’s a full plate, but Bobbitt considers herself lucky. In a previous school nursing job, she split her time between two buildings within the same school district — some years three. What hasn’t changed is that school nurses play a critical role in keeping students healthy and ready to learn, but it’s an often-unrecognized field for which schools struggle to attract and retain employees.
More than a third of schools nationwide don’t have a full-time nurse on-site, according to a 2021 survey by the National Association of School Nurses. The schools that don’t have a dedicated nurse either share one with other campuses, or don’t have one at all. Meanwhile, the nation is facing high rates of chronic illnesses among K-12 students, such as diabetes and asthma, along with an unprecedented mental health crisis among youth, and school nurses are at the front lines — often, alone.
School nurses’ roles were further complicated by covid-19. Since the pandemic took hold, they’ve been tasked with tracking cases and tracing exposures. An “extreme load of work was put on school nurses’ shoulders during the pandemic,” said Kate King, president of the NASN.
They got caught in the middle between anti-maskers and maskers and anti-vaccine and pro-vaccine parents, and were the point of contact whenever students had to quarantine. “School nurses are used to interacting with parents who are angry,” said King, but because of the pandemic “that anger just got to levels we had never seen before.”
In general, kids’ attendance and learning can suffer when students don’t have access to a school nurse. “You’re going to see more absences,” she said, citing a study from the Journal of School Nursing that found students with illnesses or injuries were sent home 18% of the time when evaluated by an unlicensed school employee while only 5% went home after being seen by a school nurse.
Teachers and administrators are shouldering some of the burden by learning how to handle injuries and illnesses themselves, but “it doesn’t take the place of having a school nurse who can respond immediately,” King said.
Jodi Bobbitt, the school nurse at William Ramsay Elementary in Alexandra, Virginia, tries to address whatever reason brings a pupil to her office as quickly as possible, “because we don’t want them to miss very much school or much class work,” she said. “That’s our goal, right?” (Eric Harkleroad/KFF Health News/TNS)
Though there is no federal law requiring schools to have nurses on staff, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends at least one full-time nurse for every 750 students enrolled — but most states are missing the mark by miles. School nurses in California have one of the heaviest workloads in the country with a student-to-school-nurse ratio of 2,410 students for every nurse, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.
According to research organization Child Trends, California, along with 34 other states and the District of Columbia, requires schools to employ school nurses. Of those, 12 set required nurse-to-student ratios. Seven states encourage schools to have nurses on staff. Eight states don’t have mandates on the books.
Still, schools were scrambling over the summer to hire nurses.
Jessica Sawko, director of education for Children Now, a California-based nonprofit organization, said schools struggle not only to retain nurses but also encourage aspiring nurses to consider working in schools. Districts can’t compete with the salaries and benefits hospitals offer. The national median salary for school nurses is nearly $55,000 a year, but a registered nurse could make nearly $30,000 more annually working at a hospital.
In some states, school nurses need special certification in addition to their nursing degrees.
The lack of school nurses is a byproduct of a larger issue: the nation’s overall nursing shortage. Health organizations in general — even those that offer healthy salaries — are facing difficulties hiring and keeping nurses. Around 40% of nurses who participated in a 2023 survey by McKinsey & Co. said they were considering leaving their position.
As a nurse for junior high students, King said she is keenly aware that school nurses sometimes serve as students’ only contact with a health care professional, especially at her campus.
World Language Middle School in Columbus, Ohio, where King works, has a diverse student body and takes in many students who are new to the country. “So that requires school nurses like myself to have a very broad range of knowledge of diseases and symptoms,” she said.
Robin Wallin, director of school health services for Alexandria City Public Schools, said that another layer of this issue is that school nursing “is an aging cohort.” The district has at least one school nurse in each of its 18 campuses — but this year it was a challenge to fill every spot. That’s partly because many school nurses are aging out, starting to retire, she said. “We need to start to replenish our cohorts.”
Bobbitt said the nursing students who shadow her almost never imagine themselves working in a school. “They want to work in the ER, they want to work in the hospital, they want to work in the NICU, or somewhere where they can have that adrenaline,” Bobbitt said. “This is a little different,” she said, adding that it is fast paced in its own way.
Robin Cogan is a clinical coordinator at Rutgers University’s School Nurse Specialty Program in New Jersey, and she said one of the biggest learning curves for nurses who opt to work in school settings is that they are “often an independent practitioner,” which involves juggling a lot of responsibilities.
Meanwhile, Bobbitt, working in her brightly colored clinic, stays focused on her daily mission: to address the students’ needs as quickly as possible. “We don’t want them to miss very much school or much class work,” Bobbit said. “That’s our goal, right?”
___
(KFF Health News, formerly known as Kaiser Health News (KHN), is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs of KFF — the independent source for health policy research, polling and journalism.)
The 2023 governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Lagos State, Olajide Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, has written a letter to the President of the Court of Appeal, Hon Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, seeking the transfer of the state’s governorship petition appeal from Lagos to Abuja.
In the letter dated October 23, 2023, Adediran said this was to ensure fairness and objectivity “devoid of potential meddling.”
Dongban-Mensem had recently directed parties and their counsel to transfer all election appeal cases to the Abuja and Lagos divisions of the appellate court.
Adediran noted that his request seeks to achieve the same purpose as the directive given by the appellate court president.
The letter, which was obtained by THE WHISTLER on Monday read: “I write to humbly seek your gracious approval and directive, as the first petitioner, to have the above case transferred from its original jurisdiction, which is Lagos State to Abuja, to ensure fairness and objectivity devoid of potential meddling.
“This seeks to achieve the same purpose upon which your lordship recently directed the transfer of all election petition appeals out of their original jurisdictions nationwide to safeguard neutrality, equity and to discourage interference.
“While awaiting your gracious approval, kindly accept my best regards.”
In a statement on Monday, the PDP candidate said his petition centres on constitutional grounds for qualifications for the governorship election, as prescribed by the 1999 constitution of Nigeria (as amended).
Recall that the state’s Governorship Election Tribunal had last month dismissed Adediran’s petition against the outcome of the March 18 governorship election in the state, in which Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu was declared as the duly elected governor of Lagos State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The tribunal ruled that the issue of non-compliance as argued by the petitioner on the nomination of the 2nd respondent, Obafemi Hamzat (Deputy Governor of Lagos State), is a pre-election matter.
The Justice Arum Ashom-led panel also ruled that only a member of a political party who participated in a primary election can contest the nomination process.
However, Adediran has filed 34 grounds of appeal to show “how the Tribunal erred in law” in dismissing his petition.
“Part of it was the Allegation of forgery of WAEC statement of result presented to INEC by Governor Sanwoolu which was proved to be true by WAEC masterlist tendered in court by WAEC itself via subpoena. This ran foul of section 182(1)(j) of the constitution and it is a ground for disqualification.
“Section 29(2) of the electoral act 2022, says: “a candidate is deemed to have carried out all constitutional requirements for the position he’s contesting, having sworn to an affidavit and declare on oath in support of claims he has made in his INEC Form EC9, and Failure to do this indicates that such a candidate hasn’t fulfilled all constitutional requirements for the position he’s contesting for. This, Dr. Obafemi Hamzat of APC did not comply with in his form EC9.
“In paragraph 69, 70 and 71 of our petition, we pleaded that GRV as at the time of obatining nomination form for his sponsorship in Labour Party, was still a member of the PDP and was not sponsored by the PDP for the election.
“This we were able to prove at the tribunal, by tendering evidences of his subsequent official participation in PDP affairs, such as an Application letter written by him to be Deputy Governorship Candidate under PDP, and reports of screening exercise for Deputy Governorship candidates under the PDP, held at the PDP HQ, which he personally attended, screened and cleared.
“His disqualification falls under section 177(c) of the Constitution which is a constitutional ground for qualification to run for Governor in Nigeria, as he was not sponsored by PDP and you can’t also be a member of two political parties at the same time,” he said in the statement.
OROVILLE — Every year, the Butte County Board of Supervisors looks at the Master Fee Schedule to determine if and where changes need to be made based on any new variables. That will take place again at the supervisors’ next meeting Tuesday.
The fees are generally related to services provided by the county. A study was conducted and presented before the board in 2017, at which time the board opted to update the Master Fee Schedule annually going forward.
According to the related staff report, changes are typically based on the Employment Cost Index, or ECI. It is noted that since the last discussion in October 2022, the ECI has gone up by just short of 5% based on findings from the second quarters of 2022 and 2023.
Multiple county departments — including administration, the agricultural commissioner, development services, public works, the Butte County Sheriff’s Office and more — are recommending that the board approve increases based on the updated ECI.
Additionally, the Butte County Public Health Department will be requesting the addition of a laboratory testing fee to the Master Fee Schedule.
It is estimated that with the newly proposed increases in fees, county revenue will rise by $193,975 for the general fund along with $114,484 for the public health fund and $23,469 for the road fund.
Once approved by the board, all changes to the fees go into effect on Jan. 1, 2024.
Other business
Aside from the fee adjustments, the board will also be discussing a budget adjustment for the purpose of reimbursing the North Valley Animal Disaster Group for services provided during recent disasters. The total cost comes out to $199,046 and requires a four-fifths vote by the board to pass.
The board will also review a series of proposed liens on properties determined to be a public nuisance.
The Butte County Board of Supervisors generally meets at 9 a.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday of the month at its chambers located at 25 County Center Drive, Suite 205 in Oroville. Meetings are free and open to the public.
