Armed AMF soldiers pose for a photo during a patrol of the jungle in Southwest Cameroon on Feb. 11.
The United States has indicted three Cameroonian-Americans over their sponsoring which included raising funds to buy weapons and laundering funds for Cameroon’s self-determination group, Ambazonia.
A federal grand jury in Kansas City, Missouri charged the trio of Claude N Chi, Francis Chenyi and Lah Nestor Langmi on a four-count indictment bordering on offering material support for the group.
This was made known in a press release by the US Department of Justice on Monday, adding that the defendants held senior level positions in the organisation and they risk a 38-year jail term if convicted.
It partly read, “Three defendants were arrested today and made their initial court appearances in connection with an indictment, unsealed today, charging them for their roles in a conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a conspiracy to kidnap persons and use weapons of mass destruction in a foreign country.
“Claude N. Chi, 40, of Lee’s Summit, Missouri; Francis Chenyi, 49, of St. Paul, Minnesota; and Lah Nestor Langmi, 46, of Buffalo, New York, all of whom are U.S. citizens of Cameroonian origin, are charged in a four-count indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Missouri, on November 18, 2022. The indictment was unsealed and made public today following their arrests and initial court appearances.
“The federal indictment alleges that Chi, Chenyi and Langmi have supported and raised funds for separatist fighters in Cameroon since January 1, 2018.
“As alleged, they each held senior level positions within an organization that supported and directed the militant separatist group known as the Ambazonian Restoration Forces and other separatist fighters in Cameroon’s Northwest Region.”
The Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU), Nnamdi Azikiwe University (Unizik) Chapter, Awka, Anambra State, on Thursday, barricaded the Enugu-Onitsha expressway, protesting the part payment of their October salaries, backlogs of 8-month salaries and other working conditions of its members, which they said are still under the Federal Government promising note.
Our Reporter gathered that the protest, kick-started at the Union Secretariat down to the University gate by the Enugu-Onitsha highway, where the road was barricaded by the protesters for some minutes as one of their ways to inform the public about their working conditions.
Speaking to Journalists, shortly after the protest, Comrade Stephen Ufoaroh, the chairman of ASUU-Unizik, said that the aim of the protest was also to remind the Federal Government to implement the agreement it entered with ASUU after the Union suspended her 2020 industrial action.
He demanded that the Federal Government should consider the re-negotiated document of the 2009 condition of services of its members, a payment platform for Universities workers to all public Universities in Nigeria, improvement of funds to the education sector especially, for public Universities, the white paper publication of the Judicial panel report to various Universities to enable us to know what the reports are all about and the Federal Government should enact a law to control the proliferation of State Universities by the State Government without proper funding.
He said “As I speak to you, the intervention of the Speaker, House of Representatives, Honourable Femi Gbajabiamila, has not yielded for any positive resort. We are yet to see the outcome of his intervention.
“What the Federal Government has been saying all this while is still under promising note.
“We suspended the strike because of individuals intervention and the Court of Appeal Judgement.
We are using this protest to ask the masses to appeal to the government to do the needful now, to avert a further crisis in the nation’s universities, Ufoaroh concluded.
The Vice Chancellor of the University, Prof. Charles Esimone, in his solidarity message, said his heart is currently bleeding because of the deplorable condition the Lecturers are working under in Nigeria’s education system.
According to the VC, “Nigerian professors’ salary is currently less than 500 dollars. That is terrible. The government knows that in terms of knowledge and human capacity, Nigerian lecturers can not be compared to other places in the World. So why should they be subjected to this kind of deplorable condition they found themselves?” he asked.
While declaring 100 per cent support for the ASUU course, Prof. Esimone, assured the lecturers that the University Management under his leadership will not take their welfare for granted.
He also assured the lecturers that he will minute their demands to the varsity’s governing council, which in turn the governing council, will make a strong statement to the Federal Government for urgent consideration.
The protesting members were with placards with different inscriptions such as; Nigerian professors’ salaries are less than 500 dollars, no to commercialisation of Nigerian public Universities, and stop casualisation of Nigerian academics, among others.
Management of College of Nursing Sciences, Iyienu Mission Hospital (CONSIMH) Ogidi, Anambra State has decried the rate of ‘brain drain’ among Nigeria nurses, revealing that over 7000 nurses have relocated from the county in search of greener pastures.
The concerns were raised during the 42nd matriculation/capping ceremony of 152 students comprising of the 2021 set of students nurses and 2022 set of students midwives at College of Nursing Sciences, Iyienu Mission Hospital,Ogidi, Idemili North Local Government Area, Anambra State.
Presenting a paper titled, ‘brain drain amongst Nigerian nurses and its implications,’ the guest speaker, Dr. Chikaodili Ihediebube-Splendor, a senior lecturer, Department of Nursing Sciences, University of Nigeria, Enugu Campus, said brain drain was a threat to the sustainability of the healthcare industry in Nigeria.
She described brain drain as the movement of relatively well educated persons/professionals from developing countries to developed countries, saying that in the healthcare sector, nurses inclusive, have been migrating in search of greener pastures.
“Constant migration of trained healthcare professionals erodes the healthcare delivery, leaving the healthcare of the citizens of the developing countries, Nigeria inclusive in jeopardy. Hence, getting adequate specialists care from trained healthcare personnel becomes a mirage.
During the national nurse leaders’ summit held between September 27 and 30, at Lagos, the secretary general/registrar of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, Dr Faruk Abubakar, reported that over 7000 nurses have relocated from Nigeria in search of greener pastures.
“A newspaper of October 4 reported that there are only 35,000 doctors practicing in Nigeria out of 80,000 doctors registered with the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria as at 2021.
“Within a space of 100 days- June 10 and September 20, it was reported that at least 353 Nigerian-trained doctors were registered with Britain’s General Medical Council as medical practitioners in the United Kingdom,” cited Dr Ihediebube-Splendor.
According to the provost, CONSIMH, Ogidi, Mrs Ngozi Nduka, the major cause of brain drain for healthcare workers, bankers and other professionals include unstable political and economic environment, understaffing, devaluation of naira, supremacy in healthcare sector.
“Poor working conditions, poor salaries coupled with the hyperinflation experienced in Nigeria. Today a dollar is equivalent to almost N1000 unlike in the 1970s when a dollar is equivalent to one naira or less. Then, nobody was thinking of leaving the country for greener pastures,” Mrs Nduka said.
Mrs Nduka advised Nigerian government to strengthen the economy to be at par with the economy of UK or America, urging authorities of both the private and public health facilities to increase the salaries of nurses up to international standards.
Mrs Nduka congratulated the 152 matriculating students and their parents/guardians for successfully pulling through the Preliminary Training Session (PTS) examination.
She enjoined the tutors, academic and non-academic staff, to continue giving the students unabated and steady coaching, monitoring and mentoring, saying that anything on the contrary may mean a disservice to the nursing profession.
“This College has maintained a lead in the results of the final professional qualifying examinations of the Nursing and Midwifery Council of Nigeria, making a 100 percent pass in the last results released in May,” said Mrs Nduka.
However, the provost, Iyienu Mission Hospital and the hospital administrator, Rev Canon Okwuchukwu Tochukwu and secretary, Nonso Anene eulogized the Anglican Bishop on the Niger, Rt. Rev. Owen Nwokolo and his wife Dr. Elsie for ensuring that Vision 2030 would be achieved in their health institutions.
“Our Lord Bishop’s Vision 2030 for education and healthcare services is that IMH will metamorphose into a teaching hospital and the schools or college therein which now offer Higher National Diploma programmes will become degree awarding programmes probably affiliated to University on the Niger.”
The chairman of the occasion, Mr Chukwuagozie Eze, advised their wards to be focused in their studies and shun any form of vices during their academic pursuit.
Some of the matriculating student nurses, Precious Eze, Stephanie Nwachukwu, Favor Evuka and Peace Agbo all pledged to be law abiding and were thankful to their parents/guardians for supporting their dream courses promising to study hard to make them proud by graduating in flying colours.
Vice-Presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 elections, Senator Datti Baba-Ahmed, has said candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and that of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are fighting for the second and third position in the 2023 elections.
Addressing a press conference in Abuja on Thursday, Senator Baba-Ahmed also called on the Vice Presidential candidate of the APC, Kassim Shettima to tone down his attacks on individuals and their lifestyles.
According to Baba-Ahmed in the “squabble for second and third positions, some erstwhile major political parties appear to have crossed the boundaries of decency to transgress our peaceful activities and our focus on political schedules.
An eminent group of statesmen under the aegis of the National Peace Committee, brought together all the Presidential Candidates to sign a Peace Accord, which represents an agreed code of conduct for the 2023 Presidential Elections.
“It is unfortunate that despite the noble objectives of this initiative, disinformation and misinformation about the Labour Party and its candidates have become fashionable in this election season.”
He also debunked as false narrative insinuation that Mr Peter Obi is against the production of oil in the north, saying “nothing could be farther from the truth.”
According to him, the APC strategy against Peter Obi now appears very clearly centered on promoting falsehood, in addition to empty and derogatory personal attacks, and of course this is because they can find no contentious points of negativity to push.
“Regular insults which have now become his (Shettima) trademark, have not spared the current Vice President whom he directed to go and sell ice cream, nor the former Vice President whom he described as a pure water seller, a noble venture which serves the populace better than a certain white substance.
“We congratulate Mr. Shettima on having improved his dressing, but equally remind him that he needs to improve on his public composure and discipline in communication.”
The LP vice presidential candidate also asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to address the Nation on what it intends to do with ungoverned spaces that elections were supposed to be conducted in next year.
Another history has been made in Anambra State, as five thousand newly recruited Teachers receive appointment papers to assume work in the State Schools System.
Sequel to dearth of Teachers in schools as inherited by the present administration on assumption of office, Mr. Governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo immediately approved the recruitment of the five thousand Teachers, following a process which Observers have described as most credible and transparent in recent times.
Out of the 40,120 candidates who responded to the initial advertisement, 13,500 scaled through the first Computer Based Test which had 60 as the cut off mark.
Later, in search of Core Subjects, a supplementary list took the cutoff down to 55, thereby adding additional 2000 candidates to the number scheduled for the last CBT. The last CBT was scheduled in 6 centres. The cutoff point was 55. The successful candidates (8120)were scheduled for Oral and Written Interview.
Success was determined by adding the last CBT scores and the Oral/Written interview scores and dividing by simple average. The cutoff was set at 60.
The Commissioner for Education, Prof. Ngozi Chuma-Udeh said that Mr. Governor of Anambra State, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo will on Friday, 2nd December 2022, address the newly recruited Teachers in a ceremony designed by the Ministry of Education, to get the new Teachers in tune with what Gov. Soludo’s administration expects of them, in the drive to provide quality and value based Education for Anambra children.
The event is scheduled to take place at the International Conference Center Awka. The invitees are expected to be seated before 9am.
Meanwhile, the people of Anambra State have continued to eulogize Governor Chukwuma Soludo, Commissioner Ngozi Chuma-Udeh and the Education team, for bringing transparency and credibility to bear in teachers’ recruitment process.
Osun State Governor Ademola Adeleke said yesterday his administration has not sacked any worker and dethroned three monarchs.
Adeleke spoke against the earlier announced Executive Order 3, 4 and 5, which stated nullification of employment, appointment made by former Governor Adegboyega Oyetola from July 17, 2022 till his inauguration and vacation of the throne of three monarchs appointed by past administration.
The order states: “All employments in the service of Osun State Government made in any capacity into any capacity in all the ministries, departments, agencies, commissions, boards and parastatals after July 17, 2022 are hereby nullified.
“All appointments in the service of Osun State Government made in any capacity into any capacity in the ministries, departments, agencies, commissions, boards and parastatals after July 17, 2022 are hereby reversed.
“All appointments of traditional rulers made by Osun State Government after July 17, 2022 are hereby ordered to be reviewed to ensure there was strict compliance with due process of chieftaincy declarations and native law, custom and tradition relating to such chieftaincies. In the case of Ikirun, Iree and Igbajo, to avoid further breakdown of law and order, the appointments of Akinrun of Ikinrun, Aree of Ire and Owa of Igbajo are hereby put on hold pending review. Subsequently, the palaces of Akinrun of Ikirun, Aree of Iree and Owa of Igbajo should remain unoccupied, while security agencies are hereby ordered to take charge.”
However, the governor through his spokesperson, Olawale Rasheed, speaking yesterday on a private radio station, Rave FM, in Osogbo, during a talk show programme, ‘Frank Talk’, said Adeleke had not sacked any worker.
He said the appointment and employment made by the Oyetola administration would be reviewed to ensure legality and due process, stressing that nobody had been sacked, the executive order was misquoted.
All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State has described the setting up of review panels by Governor Adeleke as an afterthought designed to arrive at predetermined outcomes.
The party urged the governor to settle down to study the handover notes, so as to prevent the blunders he was committing.
In a statement signed by its Director of Operations, Sunday Akere, APC said: “We told you from day one that these people have nothing to offer. We can all see from their first action that they are even confused.
“They had told us long time ago that they were coming to sack. They came and announced it. Why set up a panel after taking a decision? What they are doing can be likened to doing ablution after observing prayers. Who does that?”
Governor Adeleke has ordered the dissolution of non-statutory boards.
Spokesperson Malam Olawale Rasheed said in a statement that the directive was conveyed to heads of ministries, departments and agencies by Mr. Teslim Igbalaye, the Secretary to the State Government.
Titi Atiku Abubakar, wife of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, has stated that Nigerians should not fidget on her husband, Atiku Abubakar, becoming the president due to his tribe.
According to Titi, her husband is a civilised Fulani man, not the ones that stay in the bush.
She stated this on Wednesday during the campaign rally of the party held at the Democracy Park in Ondo State.
When Atiku becomes the president, Nigeria will definitely be better than what it is now.
“We won the last election, but we were rigged at the polls. Truly Atiku is a Fulani but he is not a bush Fulani but a civilised one. I have been with him for over 40 years.”
During Obasanjo era, Atiku gathered the best brains for the administration. To all Yorubas, Atiku is for you and he will develop the country.
When I become the first lady, I will take care of the youths and children. Scholarships will be given. Votes for Atiku because he knows the way. There is hunger in the land.”
Meanwhile, Atiku, urged Nigerians not to repeat the mistake of 2019 when they voted the ruling All Progressives Congress into power.
Atiku said “We started our campaign rally in Ondo State as the first state in the Southwest because of the support you gave us in 2023.
We will make all the federal roads motorable. We will set aside enough money for the youths for jobs. In our policy document, we set aside $10billion dollars for youths. We must empower them.
“We will provide funds for universities, not what APC is doing. No one wants the repeat of APC again in Nigeria.”
A former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, on Wednesday expressed optimism that the 2023 general elections would be successfully conducted.
He spoke in Abuja at a colloquium in honour of a senior fellow of the Centre for Democracy Development (CDD), Prof. Adele Jinadu, on his 79th birthday celebration, organised by the Electoral Hub.
His comment was against the background of increasing attacks on INEC facilities of and violence at political campaigns.
He said while he had fears about the outcome of the elections, “I remain hopeful that in spite of the recklessness that we see, in spite of the vandalism that we see perpetrated by many of our so-called leading politicians, we’re hopeful that people will mobilise and become effectively engaged in the electoral process so that we have a good outcome in 2023.
We can’t give up hope. We still have to engage because the more we engage, the more the possibility of change happening,” Jega said.
He described Jinadu as a beacon of hope for the next generations passionate about the need to reform Nigeria’s electoral process.
He noted that Nigeria is at a very critical junction when the promises of democratic development are being systemically undermined and eroded.
Director, The Electoral Hub, Hamman-Obels, described Jinadu as an icon of democracy who worked tirelessly in reforming the nation electoral integrity.
A former INEC National Commissioner, Prof. Okey Ibeanu, said the 2023 elections would be very important in defining the future of the country.
On his part, Jinadu expressed concerns over the growing vicious attempt to discredit the leadership of INEC.
He said, “It must be realized that INEC is not the enemy of democracy but those who are afraid of INEC’s daring attempt to routinize electoral integrity as the core of our country’s electoral process and electoral governance and whom we must expose for their diversionary tactics to shift attention from their undemocratic, unpatriotic agenda.”
The news report flying around the social media that Soludo Government has directed all the markets in Anambra State be closed for one month starting from 15th December,2022 has been confirmed to be fake. In a statement issued by Mr Paul Nwosu, Commissioner for Information and made available to BVI Channel 1 . The statement stated ‘ My attention has been drawn to a fake notice flying around the social media wherein it was alleged that Government has directed that all Schools and Markets in the State be closed on the 15th and 20th of December.
Let me state clearly that;
Both information are very much untrue, false and misleading.
That I have not issued any such release.
That the fake news did not emanate from my office nor any other government information unit.
The public is hereby called upon to dismiss the information as fake, false and misleading.
This is the handwork of mischief maker” . the statement concluded.
As the 2023 election approaches, the National Director of Publicity and Advocacy of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF), Dr. Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, on Wednesday said the rest of the world has “virtually given up on Nigeria”.
Writing in his weekly column on Vanguard, Baba-Ahmed said Nigeria needs to have elections that are “substantially uncontested by the streets”.
We have never had an election in which we are more on our own to make or mar than the 2023 elections. The rest of the world has virtually given up on us,” Baba-Ahmed said.
He added: “The country has already been wrecked by the outgoing administration of President Buhari. There is not much left to wreck. The best elections will not assure people primed to resist the results.
The elections are unlikely to be the best. Voting is scheduled for February 2023, but the elections have started.
INEC is being burnt down in many areas with greater impunity.
Agents are buying up huge quantities of PVCs across the land, presumably with the goal of voter suppression, as well more sinister motives.
“Endemic insecurity is likely to keep large numbers of voters away from polling stations, but results will be written and submitted.
Many supporters are being prepared to insist that their candidates will only lose rigged elections.”
