Gov. Elechi assents death penalty for kidnappers

FOLLOWING spate of kidnappings witnessed in Ebonyi state, in recent times, Governor Martins Elechi has finally assented into law, a bill stipulating death penalty for anybody convicted by a competent law court of jurisdiction for hostage taking and kidnapping of human beings.

This involved the signing the bill, titled ‘Ebonyi State Internal Security Enforcement and Related Matters Law, 2009,’ into law at the executive chambers of the state government house, in Abakaliki.

Governor Martin Elechi of Ebonyi State

Speaking at the occasion, the governor made special reference to what, he called, ”the state’s collective peace and security which cannot be imported or imposed on people, while the state has all it takes to guarantee collective security.

”The new law provides among other things, death penalty for the offence of kidnapping and hostage-taking,” the governor said, adding, ” The law which we have freely given ourselves is the expression of people’s collective will through us in the executive and in partnership with the elected members of the House of Assembly.”

In justifying the weight of the new law, Elechi said, “We derive no pleasure in killing but we are in a hurry to ensure that those who deny us our basic liabilities are themselves assisted to hasten their own destruction. Extraordinary situations demand extraordinary handling.”

The Governor’s brother-in-law, Mr. Chris Nwankwo was recently kidnapped in the state and ferried to Cross River State, where he was luckily rescued by a hunter, who called other villagers to rescue him from a swamp, where he was dumped by his abductors.

Nwankwo’s incident came on the hills of several other kidnappings in the state with huge ransom paid.
Among the victims was House of Representatives member, Darlington Okereke’s mother as well as the mother of the State chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dame Umahi.

Sourced From National Daily Newspaper

GO, GO, NIGERIA GO!!

On the eve of Nigeria’s independence the Nigerian union of teachers downed the pen and the chalk. Across writing boards in Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos, there will be no learning; worsening the nation’s intellectual hiatus Nigerian universities have been on extended holidays for an unprecedented quarter of a year, UNICEF estimates that over 10 million Nigerian kids are loafing around. Nigeria’s impeccable nil social cum physical development rut has gone full cycle and is worrisome .Healthcare, security, power and governance all paint a gloomy picture of a rambunctious ogre; that is if Nigeria is still Africa’s giant. There is genuine need for CHANGE; true social penitence and reformation and not some intellectual fever pitch-moral-treatise.

On the 1^st of October, in several major towns and cities in Nigeria, it will be straightaway traffic; Go, Go and Go. There will be neither crimson nor amber lights flickering stop or ready.  The preferred route 1 with-no- potholes, to and fro the length and breadth of Nigeria, the green white green train of the Believers LoveWorld reach out Nigeria campaign train will snake its way through the nooks and crannies of Eko. In the past month the Nigerian media has been inundated with “i believe in Nigeria hymns.” The TV, radio and internet have been transformed to a dais for Nigeria’s renaissance through this Christ Embassy inspired revolution.

“Good people, great nation” begins with strong belief in a nation where nothing seems to work. Meandering past about 37, 000 creeks in the Niger Delta, distributing copies of Rhapsody of Realities-the church’s daily devotional-is the spiritual panacea, repentant insurgents get in exchange for surrendered RPG’s and small firearms. During the week the Governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi stopped over at the Anambra state RON Launch and the host of the event, Pastor Tom Obiazi was not talking tongue in cheek when he said the campaign would have a reverberating effect around the country. In three years the campaign has been duplicated in several countries with measurable success.

On Independence Day, Nigeria’s Flying Eagles will launch out against Tahiti, depending on the mathematical forces of Pythagoras and a soccer deity who is Nigerian to scale through to the second round of the U-21 world cup in Egypt. A déjà vu voodoo technique its senior counterparts is trying out in its qualification bid for the more prestigious Mundial in South Africa, next year. Don’t ask me how far that will go, I don’t believe in fairy tales. Nigeria’s folklore is regaled with legendary myths like vision 202020; a magic number coated in real-time hocus-pocus. Perhaps the real change Africa’s most populous nation seeks after, begins with a change in its perceived spiritual values and ideals

Aghogho, CONNECTAFRICA

On the eve of Nigeria’s independence the Nigerian union of teachers downed the pen and the chalk. Across writing boards in Nigeria’s commercial hub, Lagos, there will be no learning; worsening the nation’s intellectual hiatus Nigerian universities have been on extended holidays for an unprecedented quarter of a year, UNICEF estimates that over 10 million Nigerian kids are loafing around. Nigeria’s impeccable nil social cum physical development rut has gone full cycle and is worrisome .Healthcare, security, power and governance all paint a gloomy picture of a rambunctious ogre; that is if Nigeria is still Africa’s giant. There is genuine need for CHANGE; true social penitence and reformation and not some intellectual fever pitch-moral-treatise.

On the 1^st of October, in several major towns and cities in Nigeria, it will be straightaway traffic; Go, Go and Go. There will be neither crimson nor amber lights flickering stop or ready.  The preferred route 1 with-no- potholes, to and fro the length and breadth of Nigeria, the green white green train of the Believers LoveWorld reach out Nigeria campaign train will snake its way through the nooks and crannies of Eko. In the past month the Nigerian media has been inundated with “i believe in Nigeria hymns.” The TV, radio and internet have been transformed to a dais for Nigeria’s renaissance through this Christ Embassy inspired revolution.

“Good people, great nation” begins with strong belief in a nation where nothing seems to work. Meandering past about 37, 000 creeks in the Niger Delta, distributing copies of Rhapsody of Realities-the church’s daily devotional-is the spiritual panacea, repentant insurgents get in exchange for surrendered RPG’s and small firearms. During the week the Governor of Anambra state, Peter Obi stopped over at the Anambra state RON Launch and the host of the event, Pastor Tom Obiazi was not talking tongue in cheek when he said the campaign would have a reverberating effect around the country. In three years the campaign has been duplicated in several countries with measurable success.

On Independence Day, Nigeria’s Flying Eagles will launch out against Tahiti, depending on the mathematical forces of Pythagoras and a soccer deity who is Nigerian to scale through to the second round of the U-21 world cup in Egypt. A déjà vu voodoo technique its senior counterparts is trying out in its qualification bid for the more prestigious Mundial in South Africa, next year. Don’t ask me how far that will go, I don’t believe in fairy tales. Nigeria’s folklore is regaled with legendary myths like vision 202020; a magic number coated in real-time hocus-pocus. Perhaps the real change Africa’s most populous nation seeks after, begins with a change in its perceived spiritual values and ideals

NO-MUSIC-DAY OBSERVED IN NIGERIA

Nigerian broadcasters have been asked to observe what has been dubbed “No-Music Day” on their stations.

The call comes from the Nigerian Music Industry Coalition, which is concerned about the non-payment of royalties.

Its spokesman told the BBC that many stations and nightclubs see obtaining music licences as an “alien idea”.

Last week, the group organised an ongoing hunger strike by musicians – mainly in Lagos – angered at losing money to piracy.

In many Nigerian towns pirated CDs of popular albums are readily available at a fraction of the official price.

Despite the occasional raid on the pirates’ production outfits, security agents have failed to tame their activities, he says.

It is the first time Nigerian musicians have united to highlight their plight.

Nigerian Music Industry Coalition’s Efe Omorogbe said the failure to pay royalties was equivalent to making and distributing pirated CDs.

“There are probably more radio stations in Lagos than in two other African countries put together. Lagos stations do not pay royalties,” he told the BBC’s Network Africa programme.

He said Nigeria had two royalty collection associations.

Radio stations often say they do not know which one collects for which catalogue.

“The system has failed to structure itself in such a way that people are compelled to pay,” he said.

Our reporter says that so far radio stations in Lagos have complied with the musicians’ request and are not playing music.

The musicians’ indefinite hunger strike will be followed by a protest to the National Assembly, he says.

One Lagos musician, who goes by the stage name Xtreme, says piracy has really affected his income.

“All the artists are feeling the pain… we’re not relying on the album [sales], we’re only relying on shows,” he said.

FAILED NIGERIAN BANK CHIEFS TO FACE CHARGES

Nigeria will file criminal charges including money laundering on Monday against the former heads of five banks rescued in a $2.6 billion bailout, the anti-corruption agency said.

The central bank injected 400 billion naira into Afribank, Finbank, Intercontinental Bank, Oceanic Bank and Union Bank just over two weeks ago and sacked their senior management.

The banks had built up non-performing loans worth 1.14 trillion naira, leaving some of them close to collapse and at risk of triggering a systemic banking crisis in sub-Saharan Africa’s second biggest economy.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Nigeria’s anti-corruption police, has said some loans were granted without collateral or board approval and in some cases to individuals or companies using fictitious names.

“The charges will be filed against them today. They are criminal charges, especially money laundering,” EFCC spokesman Femi Babafemi said, declining to give further details.

Erastus Akingbola, former chief executive of Intercontinental Bank, is the only one of the five bank chiefs not to have been detained for questioning by the EFCC. He has been declared wanted by the agency.

EFCC agents have also been hunting debtors, including some of Nigeria’s most powerful tycoons, whom the regulator said owed the five banks 747 billion naira.

Babafemi said the agency had recovered 45.5 billion naira of that amount by the end of last week.

SOURCED FROM REUTERS

BOKO HARAM KILLING VIDEO DRAWS MEDIA IRE

A video showing the killing of a civilian in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital and scene of some of the most violent skirmishes between an Islamic sect and Nigerian  security forces has sparked an online media furore.

The 51 seconds video which is hosted on youtube, isn’t dated but shows a man shot at several times after he failed to heed policemen’s warnings asking him to lie down. This is coming on the heels of a picture recently published by the BBC, which suggests that the slain leader of the Islamist sect group blamed for the violence was unhurt when arrested by the Nigerian army and then handed over to the police. The police claim Mohammed Yusuf the Boko Haram sect leader died as a result of gunshot wounds he sustained while trying to escape

On several popular Nigerian social networking sites such as Nairaland, Nigerian Village square and Facebook, there have been condemnations and even calls for an investigation by the International court of justice. The Nigerian police has denied it used excessive force in dislodging the militants from its camp in nearly five days of fighting; a position which is hotly contested by human rights groups which have demanded that Nigeria’s President Umaru Yar’Adua set up a panel of inquiry into the mayhem.

The Nigerian police say at least 700 lives were lost in the mayhem, a figure that closely rivals the Red cross’ figure of 800 and a least 4,000 displaced.

Meanwhile Islamic clerics in Northern Nigeria say they will carry out a vetting process of Islamic preachers throughout the country

Aghogho, ConnectAfrica

NIGERIAN ISLAMISTS FLEE AS SOLDIERS RANSACK CAMPS

Members of a Nigerian radical Islamist sect are fleeing the northern city of Maiduguri after the military overran their enclave, reports say.

The army has stormed the base of Boko Haram’s leader, killing the deputy, militants are fleeing the city and the military says it now has the upper hand.

The move came after the military drafted in 1,000 extra soldiers.

Earlier reports said the army had lost ground to militants who were using civilians as human shields.

At one point the local authorities said sect members had taken over six districts of the city.

A BBC correspondent says the authorities have been surprised by the support the militants have been able to gather.

Boko Haram says it is fighting against Western education. It believes Nigeria’s government is being corrupted by Western ideas and wants to see Taliban-style rule imposed across Nigeria.

More than 200 people have been killed in four days of clashes since an estimated 1,000 well-armed militants began attacking police stations and government buildings in Maiduguri.

President Umaru Yar’Adua earlier ordered Nigeria’s national security agencies to take all necessary action to contain and repel attacks by the extremists.

The officer commanding the operation, Col Ben Ahanotu, said on Wednesday night: “We have taken over their enclave, they are on the run and we are going after them,” reports AFP news agency.

The military told the BBC personal items found on the bodies of young men indicated that many had come from neighbouring Chad and Niger.

Security forces flooded into Maiduguri and began shelling sect leader Mohammed Yusuf’s compound on Tuesday.

Fierce fighting continued through the night and into Wednesday with the militants returning heavy gunfire.

Also on Wednesday, police freed about 100 women and children who were being held by the sect in a building in Maiduguri.

The captives told the BBC they had been held for six days, living on dates and water.

Many of the women said their husbands were Boko Haram followers, and they had been forced to travel to Maiduguri from other parts of Nigeria.

Four states in northern Nigeria have been affected by Boko Haram unrest – Borno, Bauchi, Kano and Yobe.

A total of 103 deaths were officially reported in Maiduguri and reports say more than 50 people died in Bauchi and Yobe, but the true number of casualties may be much greater. There were also reports of Christian churches being torched.

Sharia law is in place across northern Nigeria, but there is no history of al-Qaeda-linked violence in the country.

The country’s 150 million people are split almost equally between Muslims in the north and Christians in the south.

SOURCED FROM BBC

NIGERIAN MILITANTS RELEASE ABDUCTED CREW MEMBERS

Militants in Nigeria have released six crew members they seized from an oil tanker, the Sichem Peace, nearly three weeks ago.

The ship’s managers, EMS, said the six, including the Russian captain, were on their way to Lagos for medical checks.

The militant group, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (Mend), said the release was part of a 60-day ceasefire announced last week.

The ship had already resumed commercial operations with a supplemented crew.

AFRICA HAVE YOUR SAY Amnesty in Niger Delta will not work. Problems are not treated from its symptoms and that is what Wiwa died for Monkeytrick, Lagos

Armed men boarded the ship on 4 July. They took hostage six crew members – three Russians, two Filipinos and an Indian.

The rest of the crew were released and took the ship – which flies under the flag of Singapore – to a safe distance offshore.

The Mend statement said that the releases were a “dividend of the current ceasefire” and added that it hoped the Nigerian government would reciprocate.

The group wants the Nigerian military to withdraw from the Gbaramatu community in Delta State, and allow displaced people to return home.

The ceasefire was proposed by President Umara Yar’Adua in May. It was accepted by Mend after the government released its leader Henry Okah on 13 July, and dropped the treason charges against him.

The violence in the Niger Delta has sharply cut Nigeria’s oil production, costing it billions of dollars in lost revenue.

Mend says it is fighting for a fairer share of the wealth of the Niger Delta.

But many criminal gangs have taken advantage of the lawlessness in the area.

SOURCED FROM BBC

NIGERIA’S REBELS DECLARE EIGHT WEEKS OF CEASEFIRE

The main rebel group in Nigeria’s Niger Delta is to observe a 60-day ceasefire in its attacks on the oil industry. Mend – the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta – said the move was in response to the freeing of rebel leader, Henry Okah, on Monday.

Mr Okah was released from jail as part of a government amnesty; he’d been held for more than a year on charges including treason. The Mend ceasefire is set to come into effect from Wednesday, a statement said.

On Sunday, just hours before Henry Okah was freed, militants in speedboats attacked the main oil depot serving Lagos – well away from the usual area of operations in the Niger Delta. Mr Okah said he regarded that attack as a gesture, welcoming him to freedom. But he said the Niger Delta needed a kind of peace process. People there, he said, were fighting so that the government would recognise the poverty and injustice that exists.

Asked if he would favour a partial decommissioning of weapons, he said: “Yes, yes, I would. But the government must start attending to our problems.”

Numerous attacks by Mend on installations in the Niger Delta in recent years have seriously disrupted the Nigerian oil and gas industry. Mend says it is fighting for a fairer distribution of the wealth from Nigeria’s natural resources, but in the past the government has dismissed the militants as criminals.

In a bid to end the attacks, the government offered militants an amnesty three weeks ago. Officials said any rebel willing to give up weapons by October would benefit from a rehabilitation programme, including education and training opportunities. The government’s critics say the amnesty is unlikely to work because the unrest is not a straightforward political struggle.

MEND LEADER RELEASED

Nigerian rebel leader Henry Okah was released from jail on Monday after the government withdrew its case against him, a federal court judge said.

President Umaru Yar’Adua agreed to drop felony charges against Okah, who is the suspected leader of the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND), after the militant accepted the government’s “unconditional” amnesty.

“Having reviewed what the attorney general said, you have become a free man at this moment. You are now discharged,” Judge Mohammed Liman told Okah at a hearing in the central city of Jos.

One of Okah’s lawyers confirmed his client had been freed and would travel to the capital Abuja later on Monday.

“We are relieved this has finally happened after more than a year,” the lawyer said

Okah was arrested in Angola in September 2007 and extradited to Nigeria to face charges carrying a possible death penalty. His deteriorating health has been an increasing concern, with his lawyers saying he needs urgent treatment overseas.

The rebel leader is the first senior militant to participate in the federal amnesty programme, which Yar’Adua created last month in hopes of halting the unrest in the Niger Delta.

Some rebels have said they would lay down their arms after Okah’s release, but analysts believe the violence will not subside.

MEND said earlier on Monday it had attacked a key loading dock for oil tankers in Lagos state, the first such assault in the area since the group began its latest campaign of violence against Africa’s biggest oil producer.

SOURCED FROM REUTERS

JUST BEFORE NIGERIA MURMURS

Raucous Shouts of ‘akwaaba’ rent through the air; the US President Barack Obama had finally come through the Kotoka airport met the parliamentarians and reconciled Michele with her ancient roots and all the way the large street-cheering crowds were ecstatic. Ghana’s media was painted red before and on D-day. ‘Welcome home’ they all seemed to chorus. Akin to the triumphant entry, scenes around Accra must have drawn greenish gawks and blushes from Africa’s de facto king of kings; AU’s and Libya’s Muammar Ghaddafi.

On the flip side, Obama’s visit to Ghana has polarised the continent. Like biblical Joseph’s hydra headed envious siblings, sub Saharan Africa is in stupefaction over Obama’s choice of Ghana. The bitter undigested pill is Ghana is neither the same country where Michael Jackson infamously covered his snout behind tinted glasses lest he be plagued by the Spanish flu during a tour in the early 90s nor is it marked with the ragged poverty striped jute bags that flooded Nigeria in droves in the eighties in search of greener pasture.

Everything Ghana is today Nigeria and the remainder of sub Saharan Africa’s jealous siblings are far away from. Listen to Obama.“Ghana represents a functional democratic system with Institutions that work for the people.” 5 successive elections in Ghana have engendered the spawning of the idyllic dividends of democracy. With consternation many local civil rights groups had responded to May 29th; Nigeria’s democracy day. Then Nigeria’s media was awash with congratulatory messages heralding 10 years of uninterrupted democracy .In retrospect it would have been more laudable if those messages had aped similar messages broadcast in the Gold coast a few years back-one year of uninterrupted power supply.

The debilitating power situation in Nigeria has attained mythical levels. Former President Olusegun Obasanjo ludicrously advocated spiritual healing in dealing with the power demons that threatens to shut down Nigeria’s flailing economy. But the demons that hex Nigeria’s weak infrastructure are corruption and mismanagement; demons that have transmuted potholes to pit holes leading to thousands of on highways in major cities. Obama’s sobering speech in Ghana would scorch the threadbare fabric of Nigeria’s soul when he says Ghana has shown it is serious in reducing corruption which is evident in its real economic gains. Corruption is the enervating aeon that nourishes and fêtes the personae of governance in Nigeria. Convicted and accused political leaders wash their hands in spittle dining unashamedly with the central government; enjoying the broad media limelight; perks mean economic and political salvation. This modern day buccaneering which has come at a social cost- soaring apathy and frustration among its populace with a jaundiced central government.

An 80s hit blared through a giant speaker at Oshodi, on my way to work; ‘weytin dey for Shokoto’ a reminder that state governors seeking for knowledge in the prestigious Harvard University could instead go as the crow flies to Ghana and take effective Pol. 101 lectures. And who knows five years from now Nigeria may have yet taken the most important lesson from Obama’s visit when he re-echoed age-long wisdom saying that Africa has no reason not to be self sufficient when it comes to food.

And like the great civil rights leader Martin Luther King Junior we may one day proselyte that  Nigeria shall live up to the true meaning of its creed, as it channels the world’s population to its borders in search of fine grains, paralleling Joseph in his important role as preserver of his family and ultimately the human race.

Aghogho, CONNECTAFRICA