By Uzair Adam Imam

Kano State Deputy Governor, Dr. Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, has urged the state gubernatorial candidates to put their differences aside and work towards the development of Kano.

Gawuna, who is the gubernatorial candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC), said the interest of the state should supercede any individual’s ambition.

This, however, was disclosed in a statement signed Sunday, 4th September, 2022 by the Chief Press Secretary to the Deputy Governor of Kano State, Hassan Musa Fagge.

The statement disclosed that Gawuna made the charge during a ‘One Day Colloquium for Kano and Jigawa States Candidates’ across political parties contesting for various elective offices in the 2023 general elections.

The event was organised by the Kano-Jigawa Professionals Forum (KJPF) held at the Aminu Kano Center for Democratic Research, Mambayya House.

The statement reads: “As stakeholders it is our duty to enhance peace, unity, cohesion and progress among our people. Therefore, we should cooperate with each another and advise should be given to those in government even if you are in the opposition.

“I am delighted you organised this event to give your contribution towards promoting the development of Kano State.

“Even though everyone of us has his own programmes but this 10 years strategic plan report was made by professionals of diverse background therefore I wish to call on all contestants to use it as a platform for guide when elected during governance.”

In attendance during the event were the APC Deputy Gubernatorial Candidate Alh. Murtala Sule Garo and other candidates from other various political parties.

By Uzair Adam Imam

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has debunked the claims by a Nollywood actress, Halen Duru, that its personnel invaded her house on Saturday night.

EFCC has denied the claim Sunday on its official Instagram handle, describing the actress as a ‘mere publicity-seeking player, with a poorly-scripted claim’.

However, in viral bloodied video shared by the actress, Duru claimed that she was assaulted by men from the security agency.

Debunking the allegation, EFCC stated, “False and Misleading Video in Circulation on EFCC Operations. The attention of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has been drawn to an online video trending on Instagram, from the handle of a certain “@iamhelenaduru”, a self-styled actress, purporting, quite mischievously, an assault by operatives of the Commission.

“Checks by the Commission, however, flagged Helen Aduru, an upcoming actress, as a mere publicity-seeking player, with a poorly- scripted claim that has fallen flat in the face of unassailable facts available to the Commission.”

The agency further stated, “In her script, she was quick to include five names of officers she claimed came from the Cybercrime Section of the Enugu Command of the Commission. Characteristically, EFCC’s officers don’t wear name tags nor move around with bulldozer-shaped equipment to pull down security doors.

“Aduru claimed, rather strangely, that she was assisted by a little boy, to a Police Station at 3:44 am but met the station shut. It is important to note that Police Stations are not civil service ministries that “close” in the evening. Even more preposterous is the fact that she never went back, at daybreak, to lodge a complaint.

“More poignantly untenable is the fact that her purported assault of July 21, 2022, which has not been logged nearly two months later at the Police Station, is only being brought to public glare on September 2, 2022!! Such a scene could only stand in a typical Nollywood fiction series.

“Such claims by Aduru, like all other stranger-than-fiction, click-baiting, sympathy-seeking ploys, do not merit a response but for the need to avoid ‘silence is acquiescence’ stance of mischief makers. Deeper checks on the matter only showed that certain blackmailers could be bandying some known names in the Enugu Zonal Command to settle some scores.”

Hon. Ibrahim Tafashiya, the PDP candidate for Kankia Zone in the State House of Assembly for the elections in 2023, has been rescued by police in Katsina State.

According to reports, terrorists kidnapped the lawmaker on Saturday.

The police command’s spokesman, Gambo Isah, stated that the command acted as soon as it received the distress call and intervened quickly.

He added that the PDP candidate was saved by the Kankia Divisional Police Officer, SP Ilyasu Ibrahim, who led the cops under his authority to approach the thugs and engaged them in a bloody gun duel.

In the same vein, the Katsina Police Command reported that it also freed Salisu Gide, the Isa Kaita College of Education’s Registrar, who had been kidnapped along with his wife.

However, “Unfortunately, the police team was unable to rescue his wife from the assailants,” he lamented. But still, the command is still doing its best to secure the nation and free all those in captivity.

By Uzair Adam Imam

Boko Haram insurgents have stormed a mosque in Borno and killed the Chief Imam of Gima alongside three other worshippers.

The attack occured in the wee hours of Friday where the bandits opened the fire on worshippers who had just finished their fajr prayer.

The terrorists who launched the attack at Ngulde community of Askira-Uba Local Government Area of Borno State where they set ablaze vehicles and looted foodstuffs.

Hon. Bilyaminu Umar, the Councilor representing Ngulde Ward, disclosed the story of the attack in a statement Sunday.

Umar said, “I, Hon Bilyaminu Umar, Councilor representing Ngulde ward in Askira-Uba local government, wish to sincerely extend my heartfelt condolences and sympathy to my entire constituents over the recent heinous attack by Boko Haram insurgents, which occurred on 2nd September 2022.

“Ngulde ward is one of the strongest communities in Askira-Uba local government that gave me the mandate in the last local government election to represent them, since then, I have been enjoying their solidarity and support.

“Hence, I felt deeply shocked in sharing the grief of this latest attack, when most of my people were busy tapping from this year’s farming season.

“The attack, which occurred in the early hours of Friday, September 2, 2022, after fajir prayers, claimed four (4) lives and left many with casualties, while properties and businesses worth millions of naira were also destroyed and carted away by the insurgents.”

“Already, I have informed the Deputy speaker Borno State House of Assembly Rt Hon, Engr Abdullahi Askira, on the unfortunate attack. He promised to convey it to the Executive Governor professor Babagana Umara Zulum for necessary action.”

The Borno State Deputy Speaker, who is also representing Askira-Uba constituency, Abdullahi Askira, confirmed the incident, adding the insurgents numbered to about 20 people.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

A Nigerian lady of northern extraction, Munayah Yusuf Hassan, has reportedly made history as the first woman from the northern part of Nigeria to be admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales.

Audu Bulama Bukarti, a Senior Analyst at the Tony Blair Institute, announced this on Facebook on Saturday, September 3, 2022.

According to Bulama, Mrs Hassan is the first lady of northern descent to achieve the feat. Bulama added that Mrs Yusuf graduated from the Law Faculty of Bayero University, Kano and was called to the Nigerian Bar before relocating alongside her husband to the United Kingdom.

He further described the solicitor as humble and hardworking.

“Meet Munayah Yusuf Hassan, the first northern Nigerian woman to be admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales (to my knowledge). Her admission ceremony held in London yesterday. Munayah was born and brought up in Kano and graduated from Bayero University before proceeding to the Nigerian Law School and being called to the Nigerian Bar. She relocated to the UK after marrying a Nigerian architect who lives there. Munayah is a beacon of hardwork, resilience, humility, kindness and excellence. May this be a blessing to Munayah, her family, friends and society. May it inspire all of us to work harder towards our dreams.” Bulama posted

By Mubarak Shu’aib

It has been far from a smooth ride for Nigerian university students and their academic staff for months now due to the marathon strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU). The strike has been a ridiculous one ever happening to our universities (6 months old). And this week has put forward the semblance of this current administration to the famous Don Jazzy’s song, SHAKITI BOBO, as it failed to come to terms with the union.

Whisper it quietly, but the union was right all along. At least when it came to one of their striking reason; revitalization of the universities. An inorganic chemistry professor dragged a colleague of mine for more than 10 minutes during our SIWES presentation. Reason? He said that a spectrophotometer detects the colour of the water. “There is no such spectrophotometer”, argued the professor. This is because he has probably never seen one in the university lab. The argument was later settled. By who? Lab technician (!) who came across one in a particular company during an IT supervision. Talking about the NMR machine, we have only one in the country (in ABU Zaria). This, and a wealth of other reasons, has exposed the uselessness of our universities and the need to recalibrate them.

Meanwhile, the tongue-lashing of some state universities and the jarring reply to FG on the backlogs by the chairman of ASUU have outlined the fault lines in the union’s struggle and the glaring need for pertinent media and resourceful PR.

The union is showing no signs of cracking under the FG tactic of ‘no work, no pay’, and that’s commendable. But that’s enough to signal that this current crop of leaders and retrogression are five and six. They exploit every avenue to render our institutions valueless.

The stalemates in the meetings have exposed mainly the lack of political from the education and labour ministers, who were somewhat culpable in the concession of the marathon strike.

If ASUU were to call off the strike today without coming to terms with the FG, it would be like holding up their hands to the FG and the emotion-driven students saying, ‘you were right’.

At some point, the blame game between the two parties stops being admirable and starts to look reckless. May God comes our way.

Mubarak Shu’aib writes from Hardawa Misau LGA, Bauchi State. He can be reached via naisabur83@gmail.com.

By Aliyu Nuhu

Already party stalwarts are beating their chest to celebrate the achievements of the party. They called it Africa’s biggest party (not greatest).

One of the major achievements they continued to hammer was the introduction of GSM communication technology.

The big for nothing party is only talking of GSM as if Nigerians are getting the service for free! The truth is we had GSM because the technology caught up with us. When digital satellite TV came to us, the government of the day didn’t see it as an achievement. PDP and its leaders don’t have an iota of shame.

For the 16 unbroken years they succeeded in turning Nigeria into a one party state. Infact they underdeveloped Nigeria.

Security has never been worse in their time and today’s insecurity was planted by PDP.

Power generation even at peak of rainfalls was a dismal 4400mw after billions of dollars investments.

During their terrible reing there was endemic poverty, unemployment and diseases.

Meanwhile even as the party held on to power for 16 unbroken years there were 6000 abandoned projects that will need N1.5trn to complete. Billions were spent on such projects without result.

Just take a calculator and sum up our capital budgets for 16 years and compare with what PDP left on ground to give you an idea of the crimes of PDP.

Each government jettisoned the projects of the previous government to re-award or start another, forgetting that development must be anchored on continuity and consistency.

The worst of PDP has not yet been seen yet with industrial scale looting that took place in the last government still under investigation. Nigeria was never so brazenly raped like those inglorious years of Jonathan. The man simply opened the treasury vaults and allowed hyenas to feast on it. At times they didn’t even wait for oil proceeds to make it to the treasury. They stole the oil from source and hocked it to international black market.

Between the past presidents and their families, the leadership of National Assembly and their members, Ministers and governors, PDP was able to steal well over 60 Billion dollars from Nigeria and still counting.

PDP made us the most corrupt nation on earth, forget the Transparency International ranking us better figures these years we are the number one most corrupt country in the world no thanks to PDP. Nigeria is the indisputable champion of corruption and graft in the world.

And PDP slogan has been “things shall always get better”.

Better for them as from all counts they are the sworn undertakers of Nigeria and it’s poor citizens.

When they told us to tighten our belts they loosened theirs.

We have seen it before, somebody in the size of Boni Haruna went to government house to emerge with the tommy of James Ibori.

And they said we should be patient, that results of their ingenious hard work will materialise in the year 2020. We are in 2021 now and APC that is made up of PDP members is even becoming our heartless undertaker, nailing our coffin finally.

When we thought APC has come to set things right we realize we are just dealing with the same brand of oppressors. Today APC chairman Abdullahi Adamu was a former PDP chairman, an endorsement that both parties are just different sides of the same coin.

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

A man identified as Peter Orji has allegedly murdered his elder brother, Godwin Orji, over N1500 electricity bill at Nnewi in Anambra State.

The State Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, confirmed the development and disclosed that Peter Orji and his wife were arrested by the Nigerian Police Force, NPF, on Tuesday.

Ikenga added that the State Police Commissioner, Echeng Echeng, has ordered for the transfer of the case to the State Criminal Investigation Department, CID, for proper investigation.

According to local sources, Peter’s refusal to pay N1500 electricity bill led to the disconnection of power supply to his flat. The action was carried out at the behest of his elder brother and ensued in an altercation between the duo. Peter then took a gun and fired at his brother which caused the later to die on the spot.

By Prof. Abdelghaffar Abdelmalik Amoka

The parents are angry over the strike. I can understand their frustration. Nobody can be happy seeing their kids at home while they are supposed to be in school studying. Some of the affected students are supposed to have graduated but can’t because of the strike. So, who should the parents vent their anger on? The government or the union of lecturers?

It is called a public university, funded with public funds, and we are all stakeholders. We are all meant to be concerned about the state of our universities. But they have been closed for the last six and a half months. Meanwhile, there are questions we are not asking as we take the side of the government or the lecturers.

Why is ASUU on strike? Where is a fund for other things but education? Why will the government set up committees, invest resources in them for weeks to work, and reject the report after the conclusion of their work? Why is FG not bothered about students spending months at home instead of being in school? ASUU is on strike. Why will it take FG 6 months to make an offer? What is the content of the Nimi-Briggs committee report that they are hiding? Why are they not ready to make our universities attractive to international students and scholars like they used to be in the 80s? The VP recently told people below him that “we” need to do something about the ASUU strike and the only person (the president) that he should be talking to was not there. So, who is the “we”? Are we in a hopeless situation?

Why are we not asking these questions? Let me review the situation.

There was a  strike in 2020 just before the COVID-19 lockdown. The government refused to and did not solve the issues that led to the strike till after the lockdown. After a  series of negotiations, ASUU and FG had a signed agreement they both called the Memorandum of Action (MoA). One of the items on the signed MoA was the renegotiation of the 2009 ASUU-FGN Agreement. Then, the Emeritus Prof Munzali’s renegotiation committee was inaugurated in December 2020. The committee concluded the renegotiation and submitted the report around June 2021.

There was no action after the committee submitted the draft agreement. ASUU lobbied for the implementation of the 2020 MoA and to take action on the submitted report by the FG renegotiation committee without result. ASUU reached out to NASS leadership. They promised to intervene without any result. ASUU members in December 2021 wanted the strike to be declared, but the executives pacified the members to exercise patients as religious leaders (NIREC) were intervening and a meeting scheduled. The intervention did not yield any results in January 2022.

Since all the lobbying failed, ASUU re-activated its last option. “Strike”! Then, ASUU declared the four weeks warning strike on the 14th of February. The government did not take it seriously. On its expiration, it was extended by 8 weeks. That was when they picked up the Munzali’s committee report to have a look at it and later said it is not implementable. They inaugurated the Nimi-Briggs’s renegotiation committee for another round of negotiation.

ASUU agreed. By then, the guys in the government were more concerned about the APC internal crisis and the primary elections. The 8 weeks elapsed without anything serious, and it was rolled over for 12 weeks. By the end of the 12 weeks, the Nimi-Briggs report was ready with the Minister of Education.

Shortly after then, Ngige and Keyamo were everywhere, blackmailing ASUU of some N1.3trn that nobody knows the source of the information. They were even blackmailing the committee that the FG set up. It was so embarrassing that the renegotiation team had to respond. I am sure you read the paid advertorials on national dailies.

Then, the Nimi-Briggs committee report was also set aside. And the minister came up with an “awarded” of N30k to N60k salary increase on gross for the lowest to the highest level, respectively, on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. It was an arrogant presentation, like he was talking to small boys. The ASUU team politely said they would present the offer to members for deliberation and revert even though it was obvious that it would be rejected outright by all the branches. The withheld salary was not discussed as it was not seen as an issue. You can only discuss that after the members accept the offer.

Adamu Adamu was a fan of ASUU and had written several articles justifying the previous strike actions by the union. He is very familiar with how ASUU operates. ASUU usually doesn’t disclose any discussion with the government to the Press till the offer is presented to members at the branches for deliberation. The minister took advantage of that principle and attempted to blackmail ASUU to the public. You are aware of his misinformation during the press briefing. He surprised everyone.

Meanwhile, for these last 6 months, the public was supposedly with ASUU on the struggle, support they said ASUU is losing. So, the public supported ASUU but watched FG drag the strike for 6 months before making an offer. There was no outcry from the public. So, what is the impact of public support then? If that public support is withdrawn, what will be the effect? It is not very likely to have an impact. ASUU seems to be in the fight alone.

In March 2022, after the strike was declared, a member of the House of Reps raised a motion to make it compulsory for public servants to patronize public schools for their kids. His reason was that if that happens, attention will be given to public schools. The motion was rejected by the House instantly. There was no outrage from the public. Unlike the rejected bill on women that attracted protest from women for weeks in the NASS complex, there was no protest from the public or the students to sustain that motion on education. It appears we are enjoying the slave-master relationship that is between the public and the supposed public servants.

But then, has the public ever been on the side of ASUU during any strike? What steps did they take for a quick resolution? The public never really supported ASUU’s struggles for the universities, and I feel their pain. They want their kids to go and get a degree. They are unconsciously not bothered about the quality of teaching in the university. The state of their lecture rooms, lecture facilities, available learning resources, and hostels; are not all important. They are expected to MILT. After all, as long as they know somebody or have the cash to buy a job, the kids don’t need to know anything to get a job. They just want a graduate to be celebrated. You can’t be happy seeing that your child at home due to the ASUU strike. Since you can’t afford a private university and those emperors in the government are too big for all of us to fight against, it’s natural to transfer the anger to the oppressed side, the lecturers!

Dear parents, ASUU did not keep your kids at home but FG. If FG is sincere and does the needful instead of threats, ASUU members are willing to return to classes tomorrow. The whole crisis is shrouded with insincerity. If the government is sincere, the strike would not have lasted a month. They know the minimum to offer that will be acceptable if they want the strike to end. As Dele Ashiru, the Chairman of ASUU Unilag, rightly stated, the Federal Government declared war on ASUU, and lecturers in the public varsities are only responding to the unacceptable treatment with the indefinite strike.

To my colleagues, there is an invitation for a meeting in Abuja on Tuesday. Expect anything. But whatever happens in Abuja, you have 2 choices: to give up, get nothing after the 7 months of hardship, lost your withheld salaries, or endure and get what you are on strike for and get your withheld salary released.

Dear Malam Adamu Adamu, please remind Mr. President that Nigeria is still a developing nation and education is key to our development pace and must be placed on the priority list. No serious government will keep their universities inactive for 6 months and still counting. That displayed ego that shocked everyone must be set aside for a serious discussion to end this crisis. The declared war against ASUU won’t end it but dialogue.

Education must be properly funded, sir!

By Ahmad Deedat Zakari

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has buried a staff of the commission that was killed by gunmen in Imo State.

INEC announced the burial of the deceased staff, Mr Anthony Nwokorie on Thursday, September 1, 2022 on their verified Facebook page.

The deceased, aged 35, was attached to Ihitte Uboma Local Government Area of Imo State. He was killed on April 14, 2022 by gunmen at Nkwo-Ihitte while on official assignment for the commission.

“On 14th April 2022, Mr Anthony Nwokorie, a staff of INEC attached to Ihitte Uboma LGA office, was killed by unknown gunmen at Nkwo-Ihitte (Polling Unit 004) while on official duty during the just concluded Continuous Voter Registration.”

He is being buried today.

“RIPNkwokorie,” INEC Nigeria stated on Facebook