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Herdsmen kill royal father, nephew in Kaduna

GUNMEN, suspected to be Fulani herdsmen, on Sunday night, assassinated the District Head of Fadan Karshi, a busy commercial town in Sanga Local Government Area, southern part of Kaduna State. President Muhammadu Buhari The murdered District Head, Mr. Bala Madaki, 66, was killed alongside his nephew, Emmanuel Tanko. According to a community leader in the area, Pastor Mike Makarfi, the violence took place around 10:30pm Sunday night. He said: “It was very hot last night (Sunday night) and people were sleeping outside. Around 10 p.m., the chief moved into his house with his family. Then some gunmen who our people said were Fulani, stormed his compound and started shooting. “They went into his room and shot him point blank. They also shot a small boy, Emmanuel Tanko, who was writing his final year secondary school exams. The boy was the nephew of the late chief. “Right now, Fadan Karshi is deserted. Shops and service centres are shut. People are either staying indoors or are leaving town. No one knows what is coming next. “Police are patrolling the streets, but I am not sure if they have any clue about the murderers. I want you to recall that this was the District Head that received former Governor Mukhtar Yero on September 22, 2014, when our women protested half naked because of the scale of killings by Fulani going on at that time. “Today, the type of killings going on are those of isolated people. Cattle are also grazing freely on people’s farms in these areas of Sanga and people are afraid to do anything about it. Now they are targeting people and eliminating them. “What people are saying about the killings of our district head is that he may have been killed by Fulani who have a grudge against him and this community. “In May, 2014, some Fulani armed men invaded the police station here and seven people were killed. As they were escaping, two were killed in an exchange of gunfire between them and the Police. “The Fulani Association later petitioned the then National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd) and copied the governor. They said that our late District head should be arrested, dethroned and prosecuted for the death of the two Fulani. We still have a copy of the petition. We suspect that his death may be connected to that incident. “This is unfortunate, because in the past one week, we have had some respite, just for the violence to turn this way,” he said. The Kaduna State Police spokesman, DSP Zubairu Abubakar, told Vanguard that he was aware of the incident, but that he was waiting for the DPO from Karshi to furnish him with details. “I don’t have the details yet. When I do, I will surely give you,” he told Vanguard. However, at press time, he was yet to come up with any information. Disarm herdsmen now — Audu Ogbe Meanwhile, Minister of Agriculture, Chief Audu Ogbe, has said that the most potent strategy to end incessant attacks by herdsmen on farmers and other rural dwellers was for the military, police and other security agencies to immediately disarm them. This came as Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, said the National Assembly would not support the creation of grazing reserves anywhere in the country, noting also that there was no grazing bill before either arm of the National Assembly. Speaking exclusively to Vanguard in Abuja, weekend, the minister said no other strategy would end the attacks, if the herdsmen were allowed to go about armed, with impunity. According to him, herdsmen go about with automatic weapons and the nation’s security agencies must go after them wherever they are and take away the arms. Tackling the challenge On how to tackle the challenge of the widespread attacks by herdsmen, the minister said: “It is very difficult now. One thing I am going to suggest, which we are putting into writing to Mr. President, is that we must disarm all herdsmen. “The army and the police should find them wherever they are now and take all the guns from them, as the first step. They carry these AK-47s on their shoulders, they tie them around the bellies of the cows. They must be disarmed immediately.” He noted that the problem between herdsmen and farmers was more complex than it appeared, adding that only a well-designed government policy could bring it to an end as it had spread from as far as Zamfara, Katsina and Kaduna in the far North to the North Central states of Plateau, Nasarawa, Benue and now to the Southern states of Enugu, Edo, Oyo, Ogun and others. Blames community leaders Ogbe said community leaders often add to the complexities of the herdsmen/farmers clashes as some of them collect money and cows from Fulanis and enter into land acquisition agreements with them, which often turn awry and end in violence. His words: “Communities sometimes play a role in this. Sometimes community leaders see herdsmen arrive and the local chiefs collect money, collect cows and tell them to go on grazing and when they wander onto people’s farms and troubles start, such community leaders go into hiding or go silent and the Fulanis bring out a receipt of the agreement they have with these chiefs, claiming that they bought the land for grazing. “It is all very complicated but the President has given instructions that the army and police should find them and neutralise them, which is the first step.” FG to check influx of foreign herdsmen Ogbe, who is considered a key member of President Muhammadu Buhari’s cabinet, argued that the escalating attacks on villagers by Fulanis was a recent development and that Nigerian Fulanis were not known to usually attack host communities. Consequently, he said the Federal Government would take practical steps to check the influx of foreign herdsmen into the country. His words: “The Fulanis we knew never attacked any farmer, it is a rather recent phenomenon and they have done killings in Zamfara, Katsina, Kaduna, Plateau Enugu, Ondo, Ogun and Benue. “After disarming the herdsmen, the next step is to shut our borders from entry of cattle from foreign countries into ours.” 5,000 hectares already acquired for ranching Responding to calls for grazing reserves, grazing routes or ranching as a way out of the current violence, the minister said the only viable option open to the nation’s cattle business was ranching. “The question is the (grazing) route is a passage leading to where? To grassland or to someone’s farm? Grazing routes are not the issues; ranching, yes, on the scale we are talking about now, spread across many states. “We have already acquired 5,000 hectares of land from nine states. We wrote and the governors gave us land but we have to farm them out to private sector investors who will prepare the land and make sure they can harvest grass six to seven times a year, dry or rainy season, and the cows have fresh grass to eat.” He argued that the nation’s cattle were about the worst cared for and could not, therefore, give optimum yield in terms of milk and beef because of movement from place to place in search of food and water. The Buhari administration’s plan, he revealed, was to see that the cattle and herdsmen were saved from having to go about looking for food and water by keeping them in ranches, provide water boreholes and earth dams to ensure the cattle produced more milk and more beef for the nation. Rice up-scaling programme He also outlined the rice up-scaling programme and other agricultural produce, with a view to achieving self-sufficiency, save foreign exchange and even export to other countries of the world. The minister said Nigeria currently fed many African countries and had no other option but to significantly increase food production. He said:  “We consume seven million tonnes of rice annually. A million tonnes will fill up 33, 334 trailers. You need to put this into figures for people to know what a million tonne amounts to. 33, 334 trailers of 30 tonnes each multiplied by seven. ‘’One million tonnes loaded in trailers will stretch 495 kilometres which is Lagos-Benin but that isn’t all. “We are also feeding Sudan, sometimes Libya, Chad, Mauritania, Mali and Burkina Faso. They come to buy from Nigeria and recently we had a request of 37,000 tonnes of maize from Central African Republic because there was a drought there.’’ No grazing reserve bill anywhere — Ekweremadu Meanwhile, Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, has said the National Assembly will not support the creation of grazing reserves anywhere in the country. Addressing journalists on Sunday after a meeting of the South East governors and stakeholders in Enugu, Ekweremadu said there was no bill on the creation of grazing reserves before the National Assembly. He said the purported bill for the creation of grazing reserves was a “hoax,” urging the press to stop such rumours. He said: “There is no such proposal or bill on the creation of grazing reserves, either in the Senate or House of Representatives. Nobody is considering it; not even at the executive level. I do not think they are considering it but we will not support it, even if it has been considered.” Ekweremadu said the meeting was convened in reaction to the attacks on the people of Uzo-Uwani by suspected herdsmen. He said the meeting reviewed all that happened since then and thanked all stakeholders who had shown sympathy to victims of the attack.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/05/herdsmen-kill-royal-father-nephew-in-kaduna/

World Bank moves to disclose more information on Abacha’s loot

The World Bank is set to release more information on how the recovered loot from late General Sani Abacha was expended by the government of Nigeria. To this end, the bank has referred the appeal by a civil group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, to the Bank Archives Unit for processing for public access. The disclosure was made, yesterday, by SERAP in a statement by its Executive Director, Adetokunbo Mumuni. The development is coming on the heels of the appeal the organisation lodged with the bank in February 5, 2016 on the ground that its earlier decision on its initial request did not reveal “important portions of the information requested on how Abacha loot was spent.”

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/05/world-bank-moves-to-disclose-more-information-on-abachas-loot/

According to Mumuni, the Bank Access to Information Committee, AIC, in its decision on appeal issued in case number AI3982-A dated April 29, 2016, to SERAP, disclosed that “although the appeal by the organisation was not filed within 60 days of the bank’s decision as required by its Access to Information Policy, SERAP appeal nonetheless “contains a request for additional information, not previously submitted by the requester and which the bank has neither considered nor denied.” It, therefore, referred the matter to the Archives Unit to process the request for public access. The request is expected to address such areas as the portion on-”evidence and list of the 23 projects allegedly completed with recovered Abacha loot, and whether the 23 projects were actually completed; and what became of the two abandoned projects; evidence and location of the eight health centers built with recovered Abacha loot reviewed by the World Bank; and evidence and location of the 18 power projects confirmed by the World Bank.” Other aspects of the spending of Abacha’s  loot the bank referred for processing are information on how the $50million Abacha loot received before 2005, kept in the special account, was spent, evidence and location of schools, which benefited from the Universal Basic Education, UBE, programme in the amount N24.25 billion and evidence and location of the 13 road projects completed with the recovered Abacha loot, including the names of three of the largest road and bridge projects in each geo-political zone.” In his reaction, Mumuni said: “It’s trite law that no procedural requirements should ever be made a tool to deny justice or perpetuate injustice. “SERAP, therefore, welcomes the decision by the World Bank not to allow technicalities (regarding its requirement of 60 days within which to file an appeal to it) stand in the way of substantial justice, and truth on the spending of recovered Abacha loot, adding that to do otherwise would have amounted to a miscarriage of justice for millions of Nigerians who are victims of corruption. “We now hope that the Bank Archives Unit will move swiftly to allow public access to the information requested, as directed by the Access to Information Committee. “Any further delay in disclosing the information will delay justice to the Nigerian people. And justice delayed is justice denied. In this respect, SERAP calls on Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, former Finance Minister, who coordinated the bank’s report to assist the Archives Unit in its task for speedy disclosure of evidence and locations of projects on which recovered Abacha loot was spent.” He called on the government of President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately obey the judgment by Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court, Lagos, which ordered publication of the spending of recovered stolen funds by the governments of former President Olusegun Obasanjo, former President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, and former President Goodluck Jonathan.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2016/05/world-bank-moves-to-disclose-more-information-on-abachas-loot/

N23bn scam: Fidelity Bank names acting MD

The Board of Directors of Fidelity Bank Plc has appointed the Executive Director, North, Alhaji Mohammed Balarabe, as the Acting Managing Director/Chief Executive of the bank with immediate effect subject to regulatory approval.

The appointment, according to a statement by the bank on Monday, follows the absence of the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Nnamdi Okonkwo, who was last week arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission alongside some officials of the bank for allegedly receiving $115m (N23bn) from a former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke, to prosecute the re-election of former President Goodluck Jonathan.



The bank, however, reassured the over 400,000 shareholders and 3.4 million customers of its continued seamless services.

The EFCC also arrested the bank’s Head of Operations, Mr. Martins Izuogbe, for his role in the alleged scam, which the anti-graft agency described as unprecedented.

During the build-up to the 2015 presidential election, Alison-Madueke allegedly invited Okonkwo to help her handle some cash, which would be disbursed to electoral officials and groups.

A source disclosed that the fraud was uncovered when the EFCC began investigations into how officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission in Rivers, Delta and Akwa Ibom states received N675.1m.

The detective said, “The MD of Fidelity Bank has been arrested and is currently in our custody. During investigations into the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners, we got a major breakthrough as funds disbursed were traced to Fidelity Bank.

“We invited the MD, who then confessed to us that during the build-up to the presidential election, Diezani invited him to a meeting in Abuja. Diezani told him that some companies would deposit some funds in his bank and that she would give him further instructions on how the funds would be disbursed.

“The first company, Auctus Integrated, deposited $17,884,000 into the bank. The second company, Northern Belt Gas Company, deposited $60m, while another company, Midwestern Oil and Gas, deposited $9.5m. A fourth company, Leno Laitan Adesanya, deposited $1.85m, while the MD himself received $26m in cash.”

The source alleged that Diezani’s son, Ugonna Madueke, later served as a middleman between the former minister and the MD of the bank.

He said it was Diezani’s son who forwarded the names of the beneficiaries of the funds, which included INEC officials and several interest groups as well as election monitors, who were expected to compromise the electoral process.

Fayose is an ingrate, says Bode George

A former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Bode George, has described Governor Ayodele Fayose as an ingrate for saying that he would not support him (George) to become the national chairman of the party.

George also slammed Fayose for saying that PDP elders must take the backstage in the party’s affairs.



Speaking during an interview with Channels Television on Sunday, Fayose had blamed the loss of the 2015 general election on the elders of the party.

Fayose also dismissed the report that he was supporting the acting National Chairman of the PDP, Modu Sheriff, so that he (Sheriff) could pick him as his running mate when Sheriff finally declares his intention to run for the presidency.

The Ekiti governor had said, “Chief Bode George told me personally that he wanted to be the national chairman of the party, I told him no, that I won’t support him. With all due respect to the elderly people in this party, they must take the backstage. People are tired of seeing the same old faces again.”

But speaking in an interview with our correspondent on Monday, George said Fayose was opposing the interest of the South-West in the party, adding that his comments showed that he was an immature politician.

While stressing that the party needed experienced and matured leaders to pilot its affairs, George said age was not a barrier to good leadership but an asset.

He said the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, was older than him.

George said if the chairmanship position was eventually zoned to the South-West, he would consult with family and friends on whether or not to contest, adding that politics was not a do-or-die affair.

“The kind of chairman the PDP needs is someone that has integrity, one that is trusted and established,” he said.

George added, “Fayose spoke very immaturely during the interview. For him to have said that the founding fathers of the party should take the backstage in the party’s affairs was very disgusting and self-deceitful. I actually told him at an old meeting of the party that if the chairmanship of the PDP was zoned to the South-West, that I would show interest. He told me he had heard.

“Fayose is an ingrate because when the world was against him during his first term in office, God used me to give him support. I contributed N250,000 to purchase his campaign clothes. We must defend the interest of Yoruba because we have been sidelined in the party’s leadership for too long. Fayose and Senator Buruji Kashamu cannot continue to decide for the Yoruba people in the PDP.”

George also said Fayose lied that South-West PDP leaders did not show interest in contesting the national chairmanship position.

He added that Fayose’s claim that he reached out to Senator Bode Olajumoke to contest the chairmanship position was not true.

He said, “Fayose claims to be a Christian. Let him go and read the book of Micah, chapter 7, from verse 1-10 to learn more about leadership.  Many people showed interest from the South-West, even Prof. Tunde Adeniran showed interest. Bode (Olajumoke) knows that Fayose is playing around. Bode and I discussed because we are friends.”

Lawsuit To Prosecute CBN Governor Emefiele Falls Apart As Plaintiffs Reportedly Collect N350m Payoff

An acclaimed lawsuit filed by 10 constitutional lawyers about 10 days ago at the Federal High Court in Abuja to prosecute Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) governor Godwin Emefiele has been sold and bought, according to sources involved in the case.

Ezenwa Ibegbunam, a lawyer who was initially hired by the group, confirmed to SaharaReporters today that he withdrew from the case after the media reported it.

One barrister Achilike Anderson and 9 others had filed the aggressive lawsuit to prosecute Mr. Emefiele for money laundering and other offenses.

The other defendants in the suit are President Muhammadu Buhari, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, and the Nigeria Senate.

As was widely reported, the suit sought, among others, an order to compel the President to initiate the constitutional process of the removal of the Governor of the CBN for Abuse of Office, Money Laundering and Gross misconduct.

The group said it wanted to be nullified the sham CBN Employment exercise which was blown open by SaharaReporters, arguing that it was in violation of all recruitment laws and due process.

The hearing of the case was then scheduled for tomorrow, May 3.

SaharaReporters has however learnt that the case was originally filed with the sole intent of extorting money from the CBN governor, whose job remains shaky.

Our sources affirm that those involved have reportedly received an N350million settlement from Mr. Emefiele to withdraw the case.

Asked if he was threatened on bribed by anyone for that action, Mr. Ibegbunam replied that his withdrawal was necessitated by personal reasons as he had issues with his clients as well as his family members.  He did not disclose what those issues are

Leicester City wins first ever English Premier League title

Leicester City are on course for a windfall of more than $220 million for winning the English Premier League, a new study said.

The money would come from the Premier League’s huge television revenues, playing in the Champions League, new sponsorship and higher gate receipts, the Repucom sports data firm said.

Leicester became England’s most unlikely champions after Tottenham Hotspur failed to get the win at Chelsea on Monday that would have extended the Premier League race for another weekend.

According to the study, Leicester are set to make over 150m pounds ($220 million/191 million euros) from claiming the Premier League title.

The cash would come from:

— Potentially more than 90 million pounds from winning the Premier League against 72 million pounds when they came 14th last season.

— They would get 33m pounds just for appearing in the group stages of next season’s Champions League, with another 3m pounds waiting in performance bonuses.

— A third place finish in their group would guarantee a place in the Europa League and another 20m pounds.

— Higher match day and commercial revenues could bring another 10m pounds-15m pounds.

Repucom said: “Leicester City FC’s real commercial potential will become clearer in the season break as brands vie to associate themselves to the club and in turn, the league winners aim to maximise the returns their status could command.”

The spectactular rise by Claudio Ranieri’s side has seen their TV audiences increase by more than 23% around the globe, which increases their value with potential sponsors, the study said.

British television audiences have risen 29% from 785,000 to more than one million a game. In Italy, Ranieri’s home country, television viewing of the team has doubled.

Repucom said increasing its worldwide fan base “remains central to realising the club’s full potential”. It said Leicester’s social media growth highighted how much the club could increase earnings.

The number of followers of Leicester’s Facebook page has risen 540% over the season to more than three million “representing one of the fastest growing accounts of any sports team globally.”

The 500,000 followers in Algeria — the home country of star player Riyad Mahrez — represents Leicester’s largest fan base, having risen from 23,000 at the start of the season.

The 221,000 followers in Thailand — home country of Leicester owner Vichai has grown 117% over the season.

The 155,000 in Italy has risen from 6,000 when the campaign began.