The Sokoto State government said yesterday it spent N3 billion to execute various Millennium Development Goals projects in its 23 local governments within three years . The state Commissioner for Local Governments, Alhaji Faruk Malami, told the News Ag...
Former Senate President Ken Nnamani has been slated to be the chairman of the second National Discourse on Local Government Autonomy billed for Tuesday next week at the Shehu Musa Yar ‘Adua Conference Centre, Abuja. Speaking with journalists in L...
Federal College of Education, Technical, Gombe, has advised all its students staying off campus, particularly residents of London Maidorowa and Kagarawal quarters, to relocate to the campus for safety reasons.
The Provost of the College, Dr Abbas Gimba, gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Gombe on Friday, saying that all the places mentioned were volatile and not good for students to live.
He said the advice was prompted by the recent incident at London Maidorowa, where one of the students was shot dead when security personnel invaded the area in search of criminals.
He said the school authority had to relocate some of the students whose houses were demolished when the security personnel raided the area in search of criminals' hideouts last month.
“In spite the fact that all accommodation in the campus was allocated we still created a space for them.
“The college even gave them money to buy clothes and food because most of their belongings were destroyed,“ he said.
The provost said by next semester the college would privatise its accommodation and make arrangements for people to come and start building the facilities because government had stopped funding the construction of hostels.
The provost said the college's major challenge was finance and expressed the hope that government would fund the institution adequately.
President Goodluck Jonathan in Malabo on Friday called for the establishment of a secretariat for the Africa-South-America (ASA) Summit.
Jonathan made the call in an address at the third Africa-South America Summit, saying that the establishment of the secretariat would consolidate the various institutions that would drive the collaboration.
He said it would also help to place the regions at an `advantageous position’ in the wider context of multi-lateral engagements.
``I urge that the secretariat be established without further delay.
``It is not enough to have the Strategic Presidential Committee play the role of an interim secretariat when we have already agreed to establish a permanent secretariat at our previous summit,’’ he said.
Jonathan described Africa and South America as two regions of `immense possibilities’.
He urged the leaders of two continents to take advantage of the summit to give further impetus and practical expression to South-South cooperation which the continents had long been engaged in.
The president lauded President Obiang Mbasogo of Equatorial Guinea for hosting the summit, especially when the prospect of having the meeting faced some challenges.
He described the theme of the summit, "Strategies and Mechanism to Strengthen South-South Cooperation", as `a welcome reminder’ of the objectives which the two regions had set for themselves when the partnership was established.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Nigeria hosted the first edition of the summit in June 2006 and Venezuela hosted the second edition in 2009.
However, since 2009, efforts to host the summit proved abortive. Equatorial Guinea made a fruitless effort to host the summit in 2012.
The desire of the Rivers Government to complete on-going projects informed its decision to convert a N100 billion bond to loan, Gov. Chibuike Amaechi said in Port Harcourt on Friday. Amaechi made the clarification shortly after signing into...
A week after suspected gunmen abducted seven expatriates working with SETRACO Construction Company in Jama’are local government area of Bauchi State and 60 days after the same fate befell a French engineer in Katsina State, security operatives in...
The opposition to the eligibility of a Goodluck Jonathan/Namadi Sambo ticket in the 2015 presidential election on grounds of allegedly agreement to run for one term has been described as of constitutional backing. A group under the aegis of Jonathan/Sa...
Indications emerged yesterday that aside the task of fishing out embattled chairman of the Pension Reform Task Force, Abdulrasheed Maina, whose whereabouts remain unknown, the Nigeria Police may have begun fresh probe into the certificates acquired by ...
National chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, yesterday said mass defection would hit the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) once the All Progressives Congress (APC) takes off. He added that some members of the PDP ha...
Certainly, Mrs Nkemdilim Ilomuanya is currently having sleepless nights as the business she did with her niece has gone awry. Mrs. Ilumuanya allegedly sold her niece, Onyinyechi when she was just two years old to her friend, one Mrs Chinyere Nwangwu wh...
Gov. Seriake Dickson of Bayelsa on Friday advised aspirants in the forthcoming Ijaw National Congress (INC) election to see the exercise as a call to service rather than mere political contest. A statement from the Chief Press Secretary to Dickson, Mr ...
Alhaji Suleiman Barau, A Deputy Governor at the CBN, says the apex bank will ensure that the growth recorded in the banking sector is transmitted to real sector. Barau made the pledge in Lagos on Friday while delivering a paper on “Balancing Glob...
Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius was granted bail on Friday, having been charged with premeditated murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp.
When the announcement was made, members of his family shouted in approval.
"I come to the conclusion that the accused made a case to be granted bail," Judge Desmond Nair told a packed courtroom.
The judge said he concluded Mr. Pistorius isn't a flight risk, and hasn't been proven to pose violence to other people or that he will interfere with state witnesses.
In his two-hour reading of the decision, Mr. Nair said the recently removed chief investigating officer's evidence was weak and "tarnished." At the same time, he said it doesn't account for the whole state case.
He also said, "The defense has failed to show there is a weakness in the state case."
During the extended bail hearing for Mr. Pistorius, which is in its fourth day, the state has alleged the Olympic and Paralympic runner fired shots through a closed bathroom door and killed his girlfriend, 29-year-old model and aspiring actress Ms. Steenkamp, after what it says could have been a Valentine's Day argument with his girlfriend. The state argues it was premeditated murder, which could render a life sentence if Mr. Pistorius is found guilty.
Mr. Pistorius's legal team says he fired shots through the bathroom door because he thought there was a burglar inside and feared for his safety. Mr. Pistorius said through an affidavit this week that he had no intention to kill his girlfriend. When Mr. Pistorius's lawyer, Barry Roux, was asked by the judge what he would have argued for if he were the prosecution, he said at most culpable homicide, which is a much smaller sentence.
Mr. Roux and prosecutor Gerrie Nel sparred further Friday, before the judge adjourned to make his decision. Mr. Nel refutes the version Mr. Pistorius put forward through an affidavit. Mr. Nel said it didn't make sense that a man who has been portrayed as fearful for his safety would leave his bedroom sliding door open or that Mr. Pistorius would fire through the bathroom door before checking where Ms. Steenkamp was located.
Mr. Roux, in previous days' arguments, sought to poke holes in the chief investigator's evidence, such as not having thoroughly checked phone records or seen that Ms. Steenkamp's bladder was empty, indicating she could have chosen to get up and go to the toilet.
The judge is still to set a trial date. The case will go before a judge; South Africa doesn't use the jury system and doesn't have the death penalty.
The investigating team will continue to collect evidence, but under a new team. Hilton Botha was removed as chief investigating officer Thursday after the prosecuting authority of Mpumalanga province, in early February, reinstated an attempted murder charge against him for a 2011 incident.
- The Wall Street Journal
A security man with First Bank of Nig. Plc, Seyi Jaiyeola, was on Friday docked before Ebute Meta Magistrate's Court, Lagos for allegedly stealing the sum of N12.5million from the bank's Automated Teller Machines (ATMs).
Jaiyeola, 33, who resides at No.5, Ibikunle st. Onipanu, Lagos, is facing a five-count charge.
The prosecutor, Cpl. Ishola Samuel said that the crime was committed between Oct. 5, 2010 and July 12, 2011 at First Bank Plc., Alakija St. Jibowu, Lagos.
He said that the defendant was the security guard of the bank.
He said that the defendant allegedly stole a bunch of keys of the bank, and used it to gain accesss to the ATMs and stole the cash.
“During the defendant's official duty in the night, he used to enter the bank with the keys and remove the money little by little,” Samuel said.
According to the prosecutor, the bank officials discovered the defendant's plans when calculating and inspecting money transactions.
He said that the alleged offences contravened sections 285, 308, 307 of the Criminal Codes, Laws of Lagos State,2011.
The defendant, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges.
The magistrate, Mrs M.O Tanimola granted the defendant bail in the sum of N1 million, with two sureties in like sum.
She adjourned the case to March 18 for further hearing. (NAN)
Miss Vivian Amuneke, a receptionist at Cosmilla Hotel, Festac Town, Lagos, where Cynthia Osokogu was murdered, on Friday confessed that she lied to the police after the corpse was discovered. The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Amuneke made t...