Courts
Haiti asks US, UN to send troops after president’s assassination
Haiti has asked Washington and the UN for troops to secure its ports, airport and other strategic sites after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise opened a power vacuum in the crisis-hit Caribbean nation, an official said Friday. The United States has already said it will send FBI and other agents to Port-au-Prince, two days after Moise was shot dead in his home. In the wake of the slaying “we thought that mercenaries could destroy some infrastructure to create chaos … During a conversation with the US secretary of state and the UN we made this request,” elections minister Mathias Pierre told AFP. The US State Department and Pentagon both confirmed receiving a request for “security and investigative assistance” and said officials remain in contact with Port-au-Prince, but did not s...
Anambra election: 22 political parties storm INEC office, want participation
Twenty-two political parties, on Friday, stormed the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Abuja, to submit names and particulars of candidates for the November 6 Anambra governorship election. The parties, which were part of the 74 political parties deregistered by INEC last year, insisted that they must be on the ballot as they had obtained a declarative judgment by the Appeal Court quashing their deregistration by the INEC. The electoral body, however, rejected their request, insisting that the parties remained deregistered. It would be recalled that the parties had, on March 18 this year, submitted letters of notice for the conduct of the governorship primaries for the Anambra poll. But INEC, then, in a swift reaction, signed by INEC National Commissi...
PDP vice chairman: Electronic transfer of results, a must for free, fair polls
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the South-south has called on the National Assembly to retain electronic transmission of results in the Electoral Act The National Vice Chairman, South-south of the party, Dan Orbih, made the call on Wednesday in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin. He was reacting to the purported removal of the provision for the electronic transfer of result provision from the proposed amendment Act currently being debated by the National Assembly. “Nigerians should resist the removal of electronic transmission of election results during elections from the Electoral Act because it is an invitation to unending electoral fraud,” Mr Orbih said. The introduction of electronic transmission of election results from the polling units to collation cen...
Jeta Amata again bemoans ex-wife’s disappearance
Nollywood filmmaker, Jeta Amata, has continued to express concern concerning the whereabouts of his ex-wife, Mbong. The filmmaker took to his Instagram page on Thursday to express some worry at Mbong’s disappearance. He also uploaded screenshots of the last chat conversation he had with the actress before her “disappearance.” He wrote: “I wonder when you all would realize how serious this is. See my last conversation with Mbong. She has not been seen. I suspected late last year and insisted on hearing her voice. That’s when she went dark. We weren’t quarrelling before. “I invited her mother to Abuja to see Veno and she lied and came with policemen. Veno opened the door. She’s been trying to kidnap her since. When her other daughter was pregnant as a teenager, her husband drove them out. Th...
Amnesty: Nigerian government highly sensitive to criticism
The country director of Amnesty International (AI) Nigeria, Osai Ojigho, says the federal government is “highly sensitive to criticism” and only focuses on appearances. Ojigho stated this on Thursday while addressing the topic “Is Freedom of Speech in Danger in Nigeria?” during a virtual conversation, tagged ‘Thursday Talks’. The virtual conversation, which is a monthly programme focused on engaging thought leaders, was moderated by Adeboye Adegoke, senior programme manager at Paradigm Initiative. The AI country director described the government’s ban on Twitter and its proposed amendment to the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) code as attempts to gag criticism. “What we are seeing is a government that is highly sensitive to criticism and, as such, seeks to work more on the public re...
EFCC to file 800 new corruption cases in court
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has said it is set to file 800 new corruption cases in court. The chairman of the commission, Abdulrasheed Bawa, said this Thursday as part of the weekly briefing by Heads of MDAs to give an update on their performance in office. He addressed State House reporters in Abuja. He said the cases to be filed will border on public corruption and cybercrime. The cases were delayed largely because of the strike by judiciary workers who shut down courts in Nigeria for over two months and only recently suspended the strike. At the event, Bawa also vowed that former Abia governor Orji Kalu “will be prosecuted all over again.” Newsmen reported how Kalu was set free by the Supreme Court on technicalities after being convicted of stealing billions of n...
Nigerian judicial workers suspend strike
Members of the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) have resolved to suspend their two months old industrial action. The decision to suspend the strike was reached on Wednesday at the National Executive Commitee meeting of the union held in Abuja. Deputy President of JUSUN, Mr Emmanuel Abisoye, who spoke with newsmen shortly after the meeting said that the union was prevailed upon by the leadership of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to suspend the strike. Communiqué of the meeting is about now being put together to formally declare the strike action ended. With the latest development, courts in the country which had remained shut during the strike will now reopen. Get more stories like this on Twitter You Deserve to Make Money Even When you are looking for Dates Online. So we reima...
Nigerian government asks judiciary, parliamentary staff to call off strike
The Federal Government has directed members of the striking Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN) and the Parliamentary Staff Association of Nigeria (PASAN) to “urgently” call off their over-two-month-old strike. The Minister of Labour and Employment, Chris Ngige, gave the directive in a statement on Tuesday, threatening that the government might be forced to invoke “sections of the Trade Disputes Acts” if the strike persisted longer. The threat is a government’s familiar warning of possible introduction of “no-work-no-pay” policy to break adamant striking workers. “The ministry will not be happy to be pushed into invoking sections of the Trade Disputes Acts capable of eroding all the gains made so far in the negotiations since May 6, 2021,” the statement signed by the ministry of Labou...
JUSUN strike: How we decongested our cells – Police
The police in Lagos say they have devised means to decongest their cells amidst the prolonged strike by the Judicial Staff Union of Nigeria (JUSUN). The police spokesperson in the state, Muyiwa Adejobi, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday that the decongestion was carried out in collaboration with the office of the Chief Judge and Attorney-General of the state. NAN reports that JUSUN, on April 6, directed its members to shut down all courts across the country, demanding the implementation of the law granting financial autonomy to the Judiciary. “The command had been managing the situation in collaboration with the office of the state chief judge,” Mr Adejobi said. He, however, did not give the number of suspects that had been granted bail. “We work with the office of the CJ an...
JUSUN strike: NBA accuses governors of reneging on agreement
Pool Photo The 1st Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), John Aikpokpo-Martins, has said that governors have not fulfilled their agreement with the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria, (JUSUN) who are currently on strike. Aikpokpo-Martins, said that as things are now, the governors are holding everybody to ransom. “The agreement was very straightforward. They are supposed to have paid last week upon receiving allocations. But when they received the allocations, they didn’t pay.” he said According to him, the governors are saying that “we should wait for last week of June when they will get another allocation from the federal purse. But the question is: if they entered into an agreement whose implementation was to start this May, what guarantee do we now have that even in that ...
UEFA supremo: Barcelona, Real Madrid & Juventus ‘paralysed themselves’ with ‘strange’ Super League approach
Barcelona, Real Madrid and Juventus have “paralysed themselves” with their “strange” approach to the Super League, according to UEFA president Aleksander Ceferin. A controversial proposal for a new competition to rival the Champions League was met with universal condemnation in April, leading to the withdrawal of nine of the original 12 founding clubs. The Super League plans were subsequently put on hold, but Barca, Real and Juve have vowed to continue pushing for change despite being threatened with serious sanctions by UEFA, who are in the process of investigating their involvement in the breakaway. The three remaining clubs released a statement criticising European football’s main governing body last week, which read: “FC Barcelona, Juventus FC and Real Madrid CF wish to express their a...
South-East National Assembly caucus decry attacks, killings in Igbo land
The South-East Caucus of the National Assembly said it was surprised with the recent spike in violence in the South-East region, noting that it is now worried over the latest developments, which have thrown Igbo land into violence and confusion. The caucus led by a former deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu (PDP, Enugu) is a platform of all Senators and Members of House of Representatives from the South-East zone irrespective of political party. It, therefore, called on the Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, to dig deep in his investigations to unravel the actual identities of the unknown gunmen causing havoc in the South-East. In a statement issued on Sunday and jointly signed by 10 federal lawmakers cutting across both chambers of the National Assembly, the South...
