Policeman killed, others injured after robbers invade Anambra State

The commercial city of Onitsha, Anambra State was yesterday thrown into confusion as armed robbers stormed the popular Ochanja main market, robbing traders of their money and other valuables.
It was learnt that as the robbery operation was in progress, the heavily armed gunmen shot repeatedly into the air to scare away traders but a team of policemen led by DPO of the Central Police Station, Mr. Tope Fasugba and his Fegge counterpart, Mr. John Mark, intervened and opened fire on them.
Unfortunately, during the gun duel, stray bullets hit three persons while one of the police officers who came to calm the situation died in the process.
Eyewitness said, “The armed robbers were running from the police patrol van that was chasing them, when they got to Ochanja roundabout, they started shooting sporadically into the air to scare people away, but policemen were approaching and they alighted from their own car and started running. They mixed up with the crowd that was already tensed and in the process, three of them escaped”.
However, another police source said that after the fire exchange, one of the suspected robbers was later apprehended by the police.
The source said, “I don’t want to be quoted as saying this, but all I know was that when the suspects mixed up with the crowd, the police could not fire in order not to kill innocent people, but our man, who was not in uniform, was able to grab one of the suspects and a struggle ensued. At the end, the suspect was disarmed by our man and that led to his arrest by the angry mob and was burnt alive.”
Confirming the incident that held the town to a standstill for hours yesterday, the State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mr. Ralph Uzoigwe, said that his office was yet to be informed about the death of any policeman.
The police boss added that investigations are currently ongoing to arrest other members of the gang who narrowly escaped.
DailyPost

Nigeria Police College expels 500 recruits for theft, forgery

The Nigeria Police College has confirmed that about 500 recruits, have been dismissed for various offences.
A Deputy Commissioner of Police, Adekunle Oladunjoye, who is the Acting Commandant of the College, revealed this during the graduation of 4,484 recruits in Kaduna on Friday.
The offences committed by the recruits included forgery, stealing, health challenges and indiscipline.
“The recruit intake Batch 1/2011 course was inaugurated in October 2011.
“They were sent in by the various Police Commands in northern Nigeria catchments areas such as Kano, Jigawa Kaduna, Zamfara, Katsina, Niger, Nasarawa, Plateau and the FCT.
“Today we are witnessing the passing out of 4,484 recruits consisting general and specialist constables after 15 months of classroom and field training,” he said.
The Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, reminded the graduands of their primary responsibilites – protecting the lives and property of Nigerians.
“Our primary and sacred function of protection of life and property must not be compromised.
“You must take into cognisance the fundamental human right of every citizen which must not be infringed so as to gain the confidence of members of the public,” he said.
Mr. Abubakar advised them to be of good character and to “eschew any form of corruption in the performance of your duties”.
DailyPost

Nollywood actor orders wife to close her Facebook account

Some ‘sharp’ men have started taken measures to keep their wives out of the ‘many sins’ associated with the social media. One of such men is Nollywood actor, Charles Abazie. The actor, who’s advance in age, got married to his Edo State-born lover, Beatrice, on Friday 2nd November, 2012, at her family compound in Benin City.
The crux however is that the actor doesn’t seem to trust his wife enough to allow her continue to fraternize with her “friends” on the social media.
Insider sources revealed that Charles, probably scared of loosing Beatrice like his former girlfriend to bad guys on the social media, ordered his new wife to take down her facebook account immediately.
And guess what? Olufamous.com gathered that the wife had no choice for the sake of her marriage. Beatrice, according to records on the popular social networking site, have since closed her account.
 DailyPost

OOU graduate among 24 pipeline vandals arrested in Lagos

The Police Special Task Force on Anti-Pipeline Vandalism Headquarters, Annex, Lagos has arrested a 27-year-old graduate of Business Education from Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ago-Iwoye and 23 others in connection with pipeline vandalism.
According to Kayode, who claimed to be a cab operator, he was not a vandal but only patronised the suspected vandals because he needed to make extra profit.
“I graduated from OOU in 2008, but it’s been hard getting a white collar job so I started using my car for taxi business,” Akinsanya said.
“When fuel became scarce and I needed to make more money, I was informed that some vandals were selling fuel at Ikorodu at a very cheap price so I went to buy.”
Other suspects arrested were: Jimoh Hussein, Abia Joseph and Kazeem Sanni, who all admitted that they were pipeline vandals but said that they had only done it once.
Sanni, a welder, claimed that some hoodlums forced him into the business.
He said, “I hail from Fidewo Village, Ogun State and that is where I live. Some months ago, hoodlums started vandalising pipelines in our community. I and some other concerned members of the community told them to leave or we would report them to the police but the hoodlums called off our bluff and threatened us to either join them or vacate the community”
“After much persuasion, I joined them and as a welder, I was responsible for drilling holes into the pipes through which oil could be extracted. I did it only once and was given N25,000 before policemen arrested me,” he said.
It was gathered that one of the suspects, Hussein, better known as Sesan, is alleged to have been declared wanted by the police.
He confessed that he had been doing the business only for a year and had been arrested by the police before but granted bail by a court.
“I was a pipeline vandal but stopped two years ago after a court granted me bail. I am now a trader and I deal in building materials,” he said.
DailyPost

Politicians Using Religion To Destroy The North – Kukah

The Catholic Bishop of Sokoto Diocese, Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah, yesterday lashed at political office seekers for using religion to destroy the north.

Kukah, who made this comment when he was delivering his sermon during Yakowa’s burial, said: “Those who project Islam as the basis for power have now created crisis that has threatened the foundation of our society, especially in Northern Nigeria.

 

“Those who use religion, have used the north, and left it poorer that they met it, more divided than when they started. The result is that rather than seeking out men and women of honour and integrity into public life, our country has lost the sense of common vision to create a decent society. We no longer trust the other; only those who worship with us, feed like us and dress like us,” he said.

Speaking on the alleged celebration of Yakowa’s death by some people, Bishop Kukah described such persons as ‘scoundrels’ who constitute “the toxic waste of our humanity, who will dance and rejoice at the nakedness of the fathers and mothers in the market place. They should not distract us Christians and Muslims as we hold hands together across the country.”

 

Kuka lamented that “years and years of corruption and abuse of power have turned the otherwise noble profession of politics from being a vocation into a dark temple of money and power, occupied by those who worship the same idol,” adding that “Nigerians believe that the good public officer is not the one who is most qualified, most honest, the one with the greatest capacity to do good, but rather the one who is a member of our own circle of greed.”

 

He, however, excluded Yakowa from this group.

 

“But Mr. Yakowa,” he observed, “has managed to build a bridge to unite a people who have started to believe in one another as brothers and sisters despite the difficulties. He was relentless in the pursuit of peace. The result is that he has rather, successfully, blunted the sharp cutting edge of religion in our public lives.”

Leadership

Why We Re-opened Capital Oil’s Depot, By AMCON

Managing Director of, AMCON, Mustafa Chike-Obi

• ‘Firm’s debt now N65bn’

By Yemi Adebowale                        

The decision of the Assets Management Corporation of Nigeria to vacate the premises of Capital Oil and Gas Industries Limited on Thursday morning, contrary to its earlier position not to do so (despite a court ruling) was borne out of the need to protect the interest of the Nigerian public.

The Managing Director of, AMCON, Mustafa Chike-Obi stated this in an exclusive interview with THISDAY in Lagos, yesterday.
He said even-though AMCON could have remained at the premises until the Court of Appeal rules, it decided to vacate the premises because "we want to make sure that we are not associated in any way with anything that might have to do with scarcity of petroleum products."

Chike-Obi explains further: "We had a number of considerations in mind. The first one was the public interest. There was a pipeline explosion in Lagos and we do not want AMCON to be associated in any way with shortage of petroleum products during the holiday season. So, even though we believe that the impact of Capital Oil is minimal, we still want to make sure that we are not associated in any way with anything that might have to do with scarcity of petroleum products.

"The second reason we vacated the premises was that we don’t want a situation where we are there and people are saying we are not obeying court order. Even though our legal position is strong, we don’t want to be seen as somehow defying the court decision.

"Another reason is that we were also worried about liability. So, having considered all the issues, we have decided that while pursuing every legal action, we will vacate the premises until we get another order that is specifically asking us to take over the property Then we will take action."

The AMCON boss also justified the decision to shut down capital Oil’s premises: "Let me give you the chronology of events. We acquired these loans in December 2010 and we have been talking to this gentleman since then. He has signed 2 or 3 agreements with AMCON and he has reneged on all of them for various reasons.

"He was on the news recently of some civil dispute with Coscharis/Access Bank for which they had gone to the UK and obtained a freezing order worldwide. Some of the assets that were under that freezing order were assets that AMCON has the legal mortgage to for the debt it possesses. So, we felt it was important for us to protect or indicate to the world our interest in those assets and that’s what we did."

On whether the value of Capital Oil and Ifeanyi Ubah’s assets could pay the company’s debt, Chike-Obi said he believed so, "but we cannot be sure until we get the full extent of the assets and value."

He said further: "Capital Oil assets are impressive. He has trucks and depots all over the country; a jetty that is world class and includes vessels. But he owes other people and so we do not know how all of that will sort out. But we hope we can recover much of our money one way or another."

The AMCON managing director disclosed that Capital Oil’s debt was now N65 billion: "It was N53 billion plus N12 billion of interest accumulated over the last 2 years and the interest is accruing at the rate of about N800 million to N900 million a month.

"This is a situation where people owe that kind of money (and I am not passing judgement) but the lifestyle of the person that owes does not demonstrate that they are indebted to Nigerians. It was Nigerian depositor’s money that was used to build those facilities and it is AMCON’s responsibility to the depositors to get that money back.

"We have a lot of other debtors in the oil and gas downstream industry. In fact, many of them have come and have settled in good faith and they have been restructured. We have found Capital Oil and Gas to be recalcitrant, reluctant and unwilling to pay. I believe that his case is more of an unwillingness to pay than inability to pay and that is very unfortunate."

He also said the loss declared by AMCON for the 2011 financial year was expected: "it was anticipated and it did not come as a surprise to AMCON because it was planned for. The loss came about because we had to restore the depositor’s funds that had been lost in the banks.

"So, 90 per cent of that loss is a one off event based on the restoration of deposits to the banks and that was N2.1 trillion of the loss. The rest of the loss comes as a result of accounting. We issued bonds to buy the non-performing loans and replace these depositors’ funds."

ThisDay

Pastor, three others arrested over disturbance of public peace

The Pastor of the Mountain of Sinai Prayer Church, Oko-Irese, Kwara, and three other persons have been charged to court over an alleged public incitement and disruption of peace.
The accused, 40 year old Pastor Emmanuel Adekoya, appeared before an Omu-Aran Area Court yesterday, on a two-count charge with Emmanuel Jimba, 51, Emmanuel Ruth, 30, and 65-year-old Victoria John.
The prosecutor, Cpl. Oni Ayodele, told the court that Adekoya on Wednesday reported to the police that one Jimba of Oke-Ayo compound at about 5.30 p.m brought an unusual and fetish substance into his church.
He however said further investigation into the case revealed that Adekoya with the assistance of Ruth and John engaged in a scuffle with Jimba over the allegation leading to the alleged breach of peace.
Ayodele also told the court that Adekoya was being charged with the three other persons for taking the laws into their hands instead of promptly reporting the alleged discovery to the police.
The prosecutor said the offence contravened Section 114 of the penal code.
The accused persons pleaded not guilty to the charge.
The judge, Abolade Banigbe, granted bail to each of the accused persons in the sum of N20,000 with one surety each and adjourned the case till Jan. 24 for further hearing.
DailyPost