Wednesday, 30 April 2014
Abducted school girls sold for $12 each to Boko Haram fighters
The Custodian April 30, 2014
Nigerian parents lashed out on Tuesday at the government’s
failure to rescue scores of schoolgirls kidnapped two weeks ago by Boko Haram
Islamists, as a local leader claimed the hostages had been sold as wives
abroad.
“May God curse every one of
those who have failed to free our girls,” said Enoch Mark, whose daughter and
two nieces were among the more than 234 students abducted from the Government
Girls Secondary School in the Chibok area of northeastern Borno state.
The parents outrage came as
Pogo Bitrus, leader of a Chibok elders group said the captured girls are being
offered to Boko Haram fighters at $12 each.
Bitrus said that locals had
been tracking the movements of the hostages with the help of “various sources”
across the northeast.
“From the information we received yesterday from Cameroonian
border towns our abducted girls were taken… into Chad and Cameroon,” he said.
The girls were then sold as
brides to Islamist fighters for 2,000 naira ($12) each, Bitrus added.
The attack was one of the
most shocking in Boko Haram’s five-year uprising, which has claimed thousands
of lives across northern and central Nigeria.
The outrage that followed the
mass abduction has been compounded by disputes over how many girls were seized
and criticism of the military’s search-and-rescue effort.
Borno officials have said
that 129 girls were kidnapped when gunmen stormed the school after sundown on
April 14 and forced the students — who are between 12 and 17 years old — onto a
convoy of trucks. Officials said 52 have since escaped.
Locals, including the
school’s principal, have rejected those numbers, insisting that 230 students
were snatched and that 187 are still being held hostage.
Mark told AFP that his wife
has hardly slept since the attack, lying awake at night “thinking about our
daughter”.
Some of the girls who escaped
have said the hostages were taken to Borno’s Sambisa Forest area, where Boko
Haram has well-fortified camps.
Boko Haram’s name translates
as “Western education is forbidden”, and it has repeatedly attacked schools
during an insurgency aimed at creating a strict Islamic state in mainly Muslim
northern Nigeria.
The Islamists have set
schools on fire, massacred students in their sleep and detonated bombs at
university campus churches.
President Goodluck Jonathan
has faced scathing criticism over the attacks and the pressure has mounted
since the Chibok kidnappings.
Locals have scoured the
bushlands of the remote region, pooling money to buy fuel for motorcycles and
cars to conduct their own rescue effort, saying they have no confidence in the
military’s search.
“The free movement of the
kidnappers in huge convoys with their captives for two weeks without being
traced by the military which claims to be working diligently to free the girls
is unbelievable,” Bitrus told AFP.
Nigeria deployed thousands of
additional troops to the northeast last year as part of an offensive aimed at
crushing Boko Haram, but security experts say the military lacks the troops
needed to fully cover the region.
The defence ministry on
Friday said it had killed 40 insurgents near Sambisa Forest in an operation
aimed at finding the kidnappers.
An organisation called Women
for Peace and Justice has called for a “million-woman protest march” in the
capital Abuja on Wednesday to demand that more resources be committed to
securing the girls’ release.
While the group is unlikely
to rally a crowd of that size, support for the movement has been growing on
Twitter under #BringBackOurGirls.
“How is it possible in the
age of drones and Google Maps and aerial shots that over 200 girls will vanish
without a trace,” protest organiser Hadiza Bala Usman said in a statement.
Security sources have said it
is possible the Islamists are using the hostages as sexual and domestic slaves.
Amid the rumours and lack of
information, Mark said he feared some of the affected families “may take the
law into their own hands”, while others may decide they can no longer cope.
“It is not everyone who can
absorb this grief.”
Kill public official who steals above N1m – TUC
The Custodian April 30, 2014
The Trade Union Congress has recommended death penalty for
public officials who embezzle beyond N1m in order to reduce corruption in the
country.
The
President of the TUC, Bobboi Kaigama, said this during the fourth lecture series
of the Faculty of Environmental Design and Management, Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, on Tuesday.
While
speaking on the theme, ‘Corruption and challenges in nation-building’, Kaigama
noted that Nigeria needed to go tougher in its war against corruption.
He
said that leaders had no reason not to declare their assets.
He
said, “If the governments and legislators are truly sincere about the fight
against corruption in the country, they must go tougher. Any public official,
whether at the state or federal level, should be executed. Killing them after
confirmation of any embezzlement allegation of more than N1m will lead us to
the right path.
“I
sincerely recommend an active process of legislation that would support that.
It would also serve the nation well to have a law which not only provides for
every public office holder to declare his assets on assuming office, but also
stipulate that he must repeat the exercise each subsequent year that he is in
office and not later than one month after vacating the office. Such declaration
should be in at least three newspapers and not just to the Code of Conduct
Bureau.”
The
TUC boss also advocated that corrupt leaders should be banned from occupying
public offices.
He
lamented that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as well as the
Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission were not
strengthened.
Vice-Chancellor
of OAU, Prof. Bamitale Omole, said the war against corruption required a
collective effort, saying, “countries all over the world have different times
along their developmental journeys stared this behemoth squarely and fought it
(not to talk to it) with their might collectively.”
N10bn jet scandal: Court denies stopping Madueke’s probe
The Custodian April 30, 2014
…summons House of Reps to appear May
5
ABUJA — Justice Ahmed Mohammed of
the Federal High Court in Abuja, yesterday, denied granting an interim
injunction that stopped the Public Accounts Committee, PAC, of the House of
Representatives from investigating the Minister of Petroleum Resources, Mrs. Diezani
Alison-Madueke, over allegation that she spent N10billion on chartered private
jets.
This was even as the embattled
Minister and the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, yesterday, told
the court that they never served such restraining order on either the House of
Reps or the Hon. Solomon Olamilekan led probe Committee.
It will be recalled that the House
Committee had suspended its original plans to commence investigation into the
matter last Monday, saying it was served with a copy of a restraining order
from the High Court.
The restraining order was said to have emanated from a suit with reference number FHC/ABJ/CS/295/2014 which was entered before the Federal High Court on April 11, 2014, by both the Minister and the NNPC.
However, at the resumed sitting on
the matter yesterday, the presiding Judge, Justice Mohammed, said he never made
such order, saying he only directed both the National Assembly and the House of
Reps, who were listed as the 1st and 2nd defendants in the suit, to appear and
show cause why he should not stop the probe as the plaintiffs prayed him to do.
The Judge said it was unfortunate
that the House of Reps which relied on a nonexistent order and claimed that it
was stopped from carrying out its oversight function by the court, failed to
enter appearance in the matter yesterday.
Consequently, he directed the House
to appear before him on May 5 to explain the origin of the restraining order it
said was issued by the court.
Tuesday, 29 April 2014
Panic as Aero Contractors aircraft mistakenly lands at Enugu Government House, three crew members arrested
The Custodian April 29, 2014
The erroneous landing caused panic among the residents and staff who mistook it for terrorists.
Three occupants of the helicopter – two pilots and an Engineer were immediately detained for alleged security breaches.
DailyPost learnt that security men at the Governor’s lodge took positions on sighting the helicopter since the mission of the occupants was not known to them.
Governor Sullivan Chime was said to be present in the lodge when the helicopter landed suddenly on the carpet-grassed open space in front of the lodge.
The three occupants were immediately arrested and later handed over to the State Police Command by the Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP Fidelis Ogarabe, Chief Security Officer to Governor Sullivan Chime for interrogation.
Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Mr. Chukwudi Achife, in a statement on the issue, said: “At about 10.30 am today (Tuesday), a helicopter bearing the markings of Aero Contractors landed without permission at the Governor’s lodge.
“The mission of the visitors was unknown to the government. After preliminary inquiries, the Chief Security Officer to the Governor, Mr. Fidelis Ogarebe, handed the three occupants of the aircraft – two pilots and one Engineer over to the State Police Command for further investigations”.
However, a source told DailyPost that the pilot of the chartered helicopter mistook the Government House for the State House of Assembly complex where he was to land to convey the corpse of a deceased member of the old Anambra State House of Assembly, Sir Andrew Okonkwo Umeoji to his Aguata country home after a valedictory session held in his honour by the state lawmakers Tuesday morning.
Sir Umeoji represented Aguata North Central in the old Anambra State House of Assembly in 1983. He died recently and his funeral programme commenced on Tuesday with a valedictory session held in his honour by members of the Enugu State House of Assembly.
“The valedictory session was held for him this morning and after the event presided over by the Speaker, Chief Eugene Odoh, the casket was rather conveyed to Anambra State in a motorcade since the helicopter did not land at the Legislative building which is about 200 meters away from the Government House”, spokesman of the State Assembly, Mr. Jonas Ugwuanyi said.
He said that the House of Assembly premises was cleared for the helicopter to land but it could not be seen until the end of the valedictory session.
But unknown to the lawmakers, the helicopter had landed in the Governor’s lodge where the crew members were detained for allegedly breaching the security of the Government House.
The State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, said when contacted that the command had commenced investigations with a view to finding out “why the aircraft landed there vis-à-vis who invited them, where they came from amongst other things”.
Security had been beefed up at the Government House since members of the pro-Biafra Movement, Biafra Zionist Federation, BZF, invaded the Enugu State seat of power at about 4.30am on March 8, 2014.
The children of the deceased second republic lawmaker including the current chairman of Aguata Local Government Area, Mr. Chukwuma Umeoji and his sister who is a senior staff of Zenith Bank were said to have contacted the Government House to seek the release of the helicopter and the crew members but their pleas were reportedly turned down as the Governor who was said to have been frightened by the strange visitors, reportedly directed that the incident be thoroughly investigated.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)