South Africa’s ex-president Jacob Zuma on Friday mounted a last-ditch legal bid to avoid prison after the country’s top court ordered him jailed for failing to appear before graft investigators. In a landmark ruling, the Constitutional Court on Tuesday handed Zuma a 15-month term for contempt after he snubbed a probe into the theft of state assets under his tenure. If the 79-year-old fails to turn himself in by Sunday, police will be given a further three days to arrest him and take him to jail to start the sentence. As the deadline loomed, Zuma pleaded on Friday that the order be “reconsidered and rescinded.” “It will not be futile,” Zuma said in papers filed to the court, “to make one last attempt to invite the Constitutional Court to relook its decision and to merely reassess whether it...
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...
If You Pay Kidnappers Ransom, You Will Go To Jail! An Article By Tony Ogunlowo Nigeria is a funny and strange country to live in and the lawmakers are even stranger making you think whether they’ve lost touch with reality all together: recently the Senate is trying to push a Bill, the Terrorism Prevention(Amendment) Bill 2021, through that threatens to imprison anybody, for up to 15 years, if they pay a kidnappers ransom!. Morally, paying a kidnappers ransom is wrong: it sends out the wrong signals as it not only encourages the kidnappers to abduct more people but encourages more people to become kidnappers because its lucrative. But in a country where there is a breakdown in law and order and there are no specialized police units to rescue abductees, the victims next-of-kin often have no ...
A Myanmar military tribunal has sentenced 28 people to 20 years in jail with hard labour for arson attacks on two factories, state media reported, after a string of mainly Chinese-financed factories were torched during unrest in Yangon in March. The army-run Myawady news portal said the offenders had targeted a shoe plant and a garment factory in the industrial Hlaing Tharyar suburb of Myanmar’s biggest city. Martial law was imposed in the suburb after the blazes, with dozens killed or wounded when security forces opened fire on anti-military protesters, media and an activist group said. The Chinese embassy in Myanmar said at the time that many Chinese staff were injured and trapped in the arson attacks and called on Myanmar to protect Chinese property and citizens. A total of 32 Chinese-i...
The United States on Sunday denied a report by Iran’s state television that the arch-foes had reached a prisoner swap deal in exchange for the release of $7 billion frozen Iranian oil funds under U.S. sanctions in other countries. Iranian state television said on Sunday that Tehran would free four Americans accused of spying in exchange for four Iranians held in the United States and the release of $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds. The U.S. government denied that an exchange was in the works. The state TV, quoting an unnamed Iranian official, also said British-Iranian national Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe would be released once Britain had paid off a debt on military equipment owed to Tehran. A British Foreign Office official played down that report. Iran and world powers are holding talks ...
President of the Senate Ahmad Lawan has decried recent attacks on Police formations and Correctional facilities in Imo. A statement by Mr Ola Awoniyi, the senate presidents Special Assistant on Media, said Lawan described those responsible for the attacks as enemies of the people and country. Lawan stated this in Owerri on Friday while inaugurating a road project completed by Gov. Hope Uzodinma of Imo. He said that the aim of the attackers was probably to cause a distraction for the Imo government or even the Federal Government. The road which was named after a former Senate President, Late Chief Evan Enwerem, was one of the infrastructural projects inaugurated to mark Uzodinma’s one year in office. Lawan advised the people to take ownership of the projects, utilise them well and protect t...