Juliana Francis Blog: May 2017

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Union chairman shot dead at APC primaries

Bello

Two persons, including the chairman of Motorcycle riders Union, Shogunle, Oshodi, Lagos State were killed and many injured yester during the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries for councilors.

A 42 year-old driver, Olumide Babajide has been arrested for allegedly diverting of N5.95 Million worth of laptops, mobile phones and its accessories.

The Director-General of the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), Julie Okah-Donli has said that real investments in the development of Nigerian children remain the panacea to peace and prosperity of Nigeria as a nation.

The National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking In Persons (NAPTIP) and the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) have agreed to work together to improve on the quality of empowerment provided to victims of human trafficking and vulnerable persons in Nigeria.

Kidnappers demand N20m after abducting 75yrs old Baale

A 75-year- old Baale, Salino Kareem, has been abducted by suspected militant kidnappers at the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State.

A traditional ruler, otherwise known as ‘Baale,’ has been arrested by policemen trying to rescue the six abducted students of Lagos State Model College, Igbonla, Epe.

Three persons, Sunday Olatunde, Michael Eyen and Aina Adebesin have been remanded in prison for vandalizing Ikeja Electric’s 500KV Transformer at Orisunbare, Ayoboarea of Lagos State.

Cultists on warpath: Aiye killed more than 12 of our members-Suspect

Three suspects, alleged of being members of Eiye Confraternity, have revealed how Eiye and Aiye confraternities’ members are daily killings one another at Seriki village area of Ogun State.

A lot has happened since the two years President Muhammadu Buhari took over the mantle of Nigerian leadership, especially on the security scene. No doubt, uppermost in the minds of Nigerians is what Buhari’s whistle blowing policy has unearthed.

Mr Kazeem Adebayo Omoniyi has narrated how a suspected fraudster, Mr Abiodun David, posing as an herbalist duped him N4million.

Street hawkers stone KAI official to death in Lagos

An official of the Lagos State Kick Against Indiscipline (KAI) Brigade, Moshood Ayeni, was lynched by hawkers at Iyana-Oworo area of Lagos State.

“I have several tactics for stealing phones at events. Sometimes, I’ll approach people, while they are taking pictures. I’ll offer to assist them, and before they know it, I’ll disappear with their phones.”

Operatives of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris’s Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT), have arrested two members of the Synagogue Church of All Nations, for pretending to have abducted the four-year-old son of a police inspector in Nasarrawa State.

Eight suspected armed robbers invaded the Mission House of the First Baptist Church, Surulere in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital on Thursday.

Kidnappers of six pupils of Igbonla Model College, Epe, Lagos State, have contacted some parents of the victims, demanding N1bn ransom to release them.

Daredevil kidnappers on Thursday returned to Lagos State Model College, Igbonla, Epe, and abducted six pupils.
This came barely a week after the kidnappers reportedly wrote the school to notify the management of their impending visit.
This was the second time gunmen had invaded the school since October last year when they abducted four pupils and two teachers.

Defence’ Absence Stalls Agbele’s Trial

The absence of defense counsel in court on Wednesday May 24, 2017 stalled the corruption trial of Abiodun Agbele, an aide to Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on an 11 count charge of money laundering to the tune of N1.2 billion before Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Maitama, Abuja.

The Cattle Dealers Association, United Butchers Association and the Myetti Allah Cow Dealers Oko Oba, Abbattoir, Agege, Lagos State, who described themselves as ‘stakeholders,’ have demanded compensations following demolition of the market on Sunday.

NDLEA secures interim forfeiture order for billion naira assets traced socialite

Mrs Fumilola Arike Ogbuaya a.k.a. Arike Fumilola Ogundipe, who was implicated in a case of unlawful exportation of 1.595kg of cocaine to Saudi Arabia in February 2017 and recently declared wanted by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) has finally reported at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport (MMIA) Command, Lagos.

18 arrested for attempting to hack into JAMB’s Website

The Akwa Ibom State Police Command has arrested 18 men for allegedly attempting to hack into JAMB’s Website, in order to have access to examination questions.

A 75-year- old Baale, Salino Kareem, has been abducted by suspected militant kidnappers at the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State.

Bloody festival: Inspector, two brothers hacked to death

*16 houses, vehicles burnt

A police inspector and two brothers were killed at the Ibeju-Lekki area of Lagos State on Saturday during Kilajolu Festival.

Justice A. R. Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja has granted permission to a former NNPC Boss, Andrew Yakubu to travel to the United Kingdom for medical check-up.

The trial of a former governor of Taraba State, Jolly Nyame, continued before Justice Adebukola Banjoko, of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Gudu, with his defence team presenting its third witness, Aminu Ayuba, on May 24, 2017.

Johnson Ejohwenu, a witness in the trial of Raymond Dokpesi, former Chairman of DAAR Communications Plc, on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 told Justice John Tsoho of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja how N6million was used by Dokpesi to host a two-day forum for former councillors during the administration of former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Aliyu Mohammed Mukddas, a Senior Manager with the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, who is also a witness in the trial a former National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Haliru Bello on Wednesday, May 24, 2017 told Justice A. R. Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja how Bam Projects and Properties, a company owned by former PDP chair, was paid N300million by the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA.

Planned relocation: Residents share mixed feelings about Prophet T.B Joshua

A service of sorts was going on when Saturday Telegraph visited the Synagogue Church of All Nations (SCOAN) on a week day last week. With a sizeable crowd in the massive edifice as part of the ongoing service which involved singing various tunes as well as dancing, a mild drama was playing out outside the church at the time.

Two teenagers, who ran away from their parents Abuja homes over issues pertaining to poverty, have been found in Lagos State.

The Inspector General of Police, Mr Ibrahim Idris, has urged all medical doctors in Nigeria to ensure they treat gunshot victims.

Taxi driver dies, waiting for passengers

A taxi driver, simply identified as Idowu, has allegedly died of cardiac arrest in the Lagos Island area of Lagos State on Sunday.

The Ogun State Police Command has arrested eight men for allegedly robbing multinational companies.

Detectives attached to the Zone 2 Police Command, Onikan, Lagos State, have arrested three men for allegedly using naval uniforms to rob unsuspecting Nigerians.

Operatives attached to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris’s Special Intelligence and Response Team (IRT), have arrested some men believed to have been terrorizing Suleja, Niger State.

A 22-year-old nursing mother, Beauty, who was imprisoned for five months in a Libya detention facility located in a desert, has described her experience as a living hell.

Detectives attached to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris’s Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT), have arrested four undergraduates posing as top officers of the Nigerian Customs Service and eight robbery suspects operating in Abuja and Niger State.

How our plans to defraud President Buhari’s children, uncle failed- Ex-policeman

*Syndicate buys phone numbers of rich, influential Nigerians

Operatives of the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Special Intelligence Response Team (IRT), have arrested two men, who attempted to defraud the children and uncle of the President of Nigeria, General Muhammadu Buhari.

Ebola: We’re monitoring and ready if it comes again – Lagos health officials

Fear over the likely resurgence of the dreaded Ebola in Nigeria has continued to mount as the number of suspected cases in the Democratic Republic of Congo rises to almost 30.

THEY LEARNT NOTHING, AND FORGOT NOTHING, BY FEMI ADESINA

They showed their pernicious hands again last Sunday, and have been on the prowl since then, roaring like a lion, seeking who to devour. Purveyors of death they are, and they have killed President Muhammadu Buhari many times over, cloned the websites of international media houses to announce the hoax, but their wishes did not become horses, so they remain stranded, with nothing to ride.

Lagos places N30m reward for information on fleeing kidnapper

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, (CP), Mr Fatai Owoseni, yesterday said that the Lagos State Government, in synergy with the police, have placed a N30 million reward for information concerning a fleeing kidnapper identified as Evans.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Tuesday May 16 arraigned the duo of Murtala Salisu, acting director works of the Gombe State University and Sanusi Sani Abdullahi, director engineering Federal Teaching Hospital Gombe alongside a company, SST Nigeria Limited before Justice B.L Iliya of the Gombe State High Court on an 8_count charge bordering on diversion of public funds and abuse of office.

For the second time in a week, trial of Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.), at a Federal Capital Territory, FCT High Court, Maitama, for an alleged N13.5 billion fraud, could not go on as expected, as the former National Security Adviser, NSA, was again absent in court, May 17, 2017.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Tuesday, May 16, 2017 arraigned the duo of Buhari. Fannami and Ba-Kura Abdullahi on two separate one count charge before Justice M. T Salihu of the Federal High Court Maiduguri, for allegedly giving false information to the agency under the whistle blowing policy.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Thursday, May 18, 2017 arraigned one Ikechucwu Duru before Justice A. O. Otaluka of the Federal Capital Territory High Court sitting in Lugbe, Abuja on one-count charge of obtaining by false pretence.

Duru is alleged to have, between 2012 and 2013 “in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, by false pretence and with intent to defraud obtained the sum of N86million from Alhaji Aliyu Idris Shuaibu under the pretext of re-instatement of plot No 4 Cadastral Zone C10 located at Wumba District and allocation of a new plot of land”.

It is an offence contrary to Section 1(1) (a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act 2006.

He pleaded “not guilty” to the charge.

Prosecuting counsel, Mukhtar Ahmed, thereafter asked the court to fix a date for hearing since the defendant pleaded not guilty to the charge. He also urged the court to remand him in prison custody pending trial.

Defence counsel, Micheal Eleyinmi, however moved his client’s bail application.

“I urge the court to grant bail to the applicant on liberal terms since the defendant was on administrative bail by the EFCC”, Eleyinmi said.

However, Ahmed in opposing the bail application said:

“The defendant has earlier jumped the administrative bail granted to him before he was re-arrested by the Commission and he might again jump bail”.

After listening to the arguments, Justice Otaluka granted bail to the defendant in the sum of N2million with one surety in like sum. The surety, who must be a civil servant in Abuja on grade level 14, must show evidence of being in the service for the next five years.

The judge ordered that the defendant be remanded in Kuje prison pending the fulfillment of the bail conditions, and adjourned to June 5, 2017 for trial.

NAPTIP boss wants foreign based traffickers stopped

Okah-Donli

The Director-General of the National Agency for the prohibition of Trafficking in Persons, (NAPTIP) Julie Okah-Donli, has disclosed that one of the surest ways to check human trafficking is to first decimate foreign based traffickers.

The Bayelsa State Police Command has confirmed that suspected assassins killed Mr Pamo Hobobo, former acting chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) ‎in the state.

Prophet Oladele Ayoola, of Celestial Church of Christ Oke-Ira, Ogba, Lagos State, who was accused of defrauding one of his female clients, N75million after hypnotizing her, has denied the allegation.

A Yaba Chief Magistrate Court, has issued a warrant of arrest on two Canadian nationals Kiranjot and Tara Matharoo, over failure to appear in court.

By FELIX OBOAGWINA

Recently, I ran into a roadblock mounted by Vehicle Inspection Officers (VIO) of Lagos State on Liasu Road in Alimosho Local Government Area. Their presence gave me no qualms for (as I supposed) I had all the necessary papers –Driver’s Licence, Certificate of Insurance, Proof of Ownership Certificate, including the controversial MOT supposed to give the vehicle a clean bill of health. I drove an unbranded official car, a Toyota Corona, with the papers made out in the name of my boss, a reputable politician and frontline professional, Mr. Jimi Agbaje. Anyway, the team stopped me, ignored the PRESS sticker on the windscreen indicating that I was a Journalist (and most unlikely to break the law) and ushered me off the road.

Clearly, these two points soured one female officer –that I was a Press man and I worked for an opposition political party in the state. “Risikatu” (as I later learnt was her name) took my papers and paced up and down, inspecting not my vehicle, as VIOs were supposed to do, but the papers. She and the rest of the team did none of the things VIOs traditionally did: Check vehicle headlights and indicator lights, rev the engine for excessive smoking and so on. Instead, Risikatu brashly ordered me out of the vehicle. I stepped out. She flipped through the papers some more.

Moments flew by; finally, Risi thrust the papers under my nose and told me, apparently triumphantly, that I carried a “forged” Proof of Ownership Certificate (of course only the photocopy was attached, plus the receipt, their originals were kept in my files at home) and that my vehicle was “hereby impounded.” This was 2008 and I had just entered into the lion’s den of VIO and LASTMA in Alimosho, Lagos.

How on earth could she judge the papers as forged, without any independent confirmation other than her bias and her gut feeling? All my arguments only flowed into a leaking basket, that neither my profession nor the calibre of man who owned the car could indulge in forging documentation. This short, round lady accused, prosecuted, judged and sentenced me on the spot. Instantly, she wrote out a fine ticket for N5,000 and told me to deposit that amount at the FCMB Branch at Okota, about 4 kilometres away in Isolo Local Government, although there was a branch within a kilometre in this same local government where I was apprehended. Risi then directed one of her subordinates to board the vehicle and escort me to the Alimosho Council compound.

This effectively aborted my programme for the day, including my plan to see a church member admitted into the General Hospital at Igando in Alimosho and paying a sympathy visit to a relation hit by multiple deaths. On the way, I asked the junior VIO officer how I could secure genuine papers since Risi’s excuse for reining me in was for flaunting forged vehicle particulars. Demola himself could not say and went on to say that his own father, who had served in the VIO for 30 years before retiring, had always regarded the acquisition of genuine papers as the most damning thing an officer could involve in.

Unknown to me, my ordeal would be a journey of exposure. As directed, I paid the fine at FCMB and brought both teller and electronic scratch card to LASTMA/VIO office at Ejigbo for “downloading.” The VIO officer on the computer demanded N200 before doing the job. I paid. No receipt. Next, I must submit photocopies of the receipt, teller and fine ticket. Another officer, to whom I would submit this document, demanded N100. I paid. No receipt.

As I trudged from one corruption point to another, I could not help but notice the signs of despair in the environment. All over the compound, impounded commercial and private vehicles, of all shades, shapes and sizes, languished. Many were new arrivals; some were old, judging by their position inside the small compound and from the gate. All of them had been captured by LASTMA and VIO operatives. In this same place a few weeks before, CAC’s Pastor Alade had been harassed to an early grave by LASTMA operatives. Frustration oozed from the faces of victims, while officers played God. I witnessed as one officer busied himself with a motor technician negotiating to buy some parts that would be pilfered off one of the many abandoned vehicles in that auto graveyard. Their transaction appeared to be routine. Of course, demurrage was being charged these vehicles at N500 per day. Undoubtedly, some owners had calculated the fine imposed (sometimes up to N250,000) plus the demurrage accumulated plus the illegal charges and decided it was cheaper to let the government keep the vehicle.

After all this, I still spent over two hours gallivanting in the premises as the official to issue the “Gate Pass” that I needed to retrieve my car was nowhere around. When he finally resurfaced, he had a Herculean task securing the “Gate Pass” for me even though I had to cough out another N500.

I reached Alimosho council compound late in the evening. There, another surprise awaited me. The security man insisted I pay another unreceipted N500 before allowing the vulcaniser to inflate the tyres, two of which had been deflated in my absence. The vulcaniser charged N200 per tyre (four times the N50 it would normally cost on the streets). By this time, I was too pissed off by the rottenness being dispensed at the VIO/LASTMA setup in Ejigbo that I just wanted to end that day’s nightmare –at any cost.

To summarise, the illegal payments I made that day at VIO/LASTMA in Ejigbo and Ikotun came to N1,300 and included: N200 to “download,” N100 for recording via photocopy, N500 for pass, N500 for exit –not counting the wasted day, nor the N5,000 I paid into the bank as official fine.

LASTMA and VIO officials who took interest in my case would later tell me that Risikatu had no justification for her actions. One advised me to detach and get rid of the Proof of Ownership receipt that I carried around, it was neither a vehicle particular nor a requirement; it was an overkill that could raise suspicion.

My agent who did the documentation later insisted that he had processed genuine documents for me, with the requisite payments made. He said I had fallen victim to the petty politics and muscle-flexing between Lagos State traffic agencies and the Federal Road Safety Commission over which of them should issue vehicle particulars to motorists in the state. What I had was an FG-issued document. Two elephants fight and the underdogs suffer. Simply put, Risikatu, the VIO officer, had punished me for carrying a Federal-issued document.

FELIX OBOAGWINA, A JOURNALIST, SENT THIS PIECE FROM LAGOS

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

Monday, May 29, 2017

Sunday, May 28, 2017

Wednesday, May 24, 2017

Monday, May 22, 2017

Sunday, May 21, 2017

Thursday, May 18, 2017