Atleast twenty-seven (27) fishermen were slaughtered and three (3) others abducted by suspected members of Jamā’at Ahl as-Sunnah lid-Da’wah wa’l-Jihād, a.k.a Boko Haram terrorists group at the fringes of Lake Chad in the border between Cameroon- Nigeria.

According to VANGUARD, The incident took place last Sunday (few days ago), as it was gathered that the terrorists suspected to be from the Buduma faction of Abou Ummaymah, attacked a local fishing community harboring most fishermen from Nigeria at Kofiya Island near Darak in the Republic of Cameroon.

This is as the Islamic State of the West African Province (ISWAP) has yesterday executed a police officer abducted along the Damboa – Biu Road in Borno State.

Reliable sources informed that the Boko Haram Terrorists asked the fishermen to lie down, tie their hands behind their backs before they started slaughtering them without confrontation.

The sources said the terrorists also abducted four other fishermen after accusing them of spying for the ISWAP factional group.

“The bodies of the fishermen were later recovered during a search and rescue operation by troops, while their other colleagues fled the scene.” Sources informed.

In a related development, the Islamic State of the West African Province (ISWAP) has executed a police officer abducted along the Damboa – Biu Road in Borno State.

Sources reliably informed that on Sunday 7 April 24, at about 1000hrs, the police officer with wife and children, were on transit from Damboa to Biu for Eid break but unfortunately went through a banned route.

It was later reported that the deceased and his family were abducted by suspected ISWAP operatives around Shokotoko general area located approximately 73/km south of Damboa.

However, later in the evening , the wife and his children were released, while the police officer was executed by the terrorists.

A high court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, has granted bail to Godwin Emefiele, former governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), in the sum of N50 million.

Rahmon Oshodi, the judge, in his ruling on the bail application on Friday, admitted Emefiele on bail with two sureties in like sum.

The former CBN governor is facing trial in Lagos on a 26-count charge bordering on abuse of office.

Oshodi ordered the sureties must be gainfully employed and must have made three years tax payment with the Lagos State Government.

He also said that the sureties must show proper identification and that they must be registered in the Lagos State Bail Management System

The judge said he was satisfied with the bail conditions of N1 million, earlier given to Emefiele’s co-defendant, Henry Isioma-Omoil, who is facing another charge before Justice Olufunke Sule-Hamzat of Yaba High Court.

Oshodi, however, said the bail documents must be transferred to special offences court and registered in the Lagos State Bail Management System.

This is a developing story…

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, Atiku Abubakar, has described as wasteful and a highway to fraud the claim by Works Minister Dave Umahi that the 700km Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway will tentatively cost N15.6 trillion.

Atiku also knocked Mr Umahi for altering the project’s initial plan after Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech had been awarded the contract without any competitive bidding.

He said, “Umahi had announced that Hitech would fully fund the project, and based on this, there was no competitive bidding. He (Umahi) then said that Hitech could only raise just 6% of the money for the pilot phase. This smacks of deceit.”

Mr Umahi had, during his media rounds at select TV stations on Thursday, said the road project would cost N15.6 trillion ($13bn at an exchange rate of N1,200/$1) while the rail which will pass through the road would be costed separately.

The minister also said the project would not be PPP but that the government would be providing 15%-30% counterpart financing.

Responding to Mr Umahi’s revelation, Atiku said the tentative cost was the equivalent of the total budget of all 36 states of the federation combined.

He said, “The total budget of all 36 federation states for 2024 is about N14 trillion. If you add that of the FCT, the entire budget of all sub-nationals is N15.91 trillion. This is scandalous. Worse still, they have already awarded the contract but are still not sure of the level of the counterpart funding component of the federal government!

“Umahi had said in September 2023 that Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech had the money to construct the highway and would be PPP. Hitech was to build, operate, and transfer it back to the Nigerian government after years of tolling.

“It was reported by every media organisation, including those owned by Tinubu. It was based on this proposal that Hitech was picked. Why did Umahi then turn around to claim that it was not to be a PPP but that the government would pay 15%-30%?”

The former Vice President noted that in the 2024 budget, the project was captured as the Lagos-Port Harcourt coastal highway and was put at a cost of N500m.

“Although the National Assembly approved N500m for the project this year, the Tinubu administration has released N1.06tn. That is more than 200 times what is in the Appropriation Act. This is what happens when the National Assembly fails in its duties,” he added.

Atiku said it was curious that the N15.91 trillion announced by Mr Umahi did not include the cost of the railway component. He, therefore, wondered how much the project would cost if the railway component is included.

“If N15.6 trillion is for the road component alone, then the total cost could be far higher when the railway is included. We want to know the cost of the railway,” he said.

The PDP presidential candidate also lambasted Mr Umahi for admitting that the project was given to Gilbert Chagoury’s Hitech construction company without competitive bidding.

He asked Mr Umahi to stop trying to deceive Nigerians with the claim that only Hitech was competent enough to do the project, wondering if it is the same that has been grappling with the execution of its projects in Lagos.

The former vice president stated, “The essence of competitive bidding is so that Nigerians can get the best value for money. It is so that you can compare prices and pick the company that can afford the project. It is wrong for him to have concluded that only Hitech could handle this project when such a project has been done by other reputable firms in the United States, China and South Africa.

“He claims he didn’t know there was a business relationship between Gilbert Chagoury and Tinubu, but this is another lie because Tinubu has publicly acknowledged this fact.”

Atiku also accused the works minister of attempting to deceive Nigerians as regards the appropriation for the project.

He called on members of the National Assembly to be alive to their responsibilities instead of acting like an annexe of the presidency.

The PDP candidate stated, “Until I exposed the dubious nature of this project, no member of the National Assembly thought it wise to investigate. The total cost was never made known until now. The fact that there was no bidding was never made known until I blew the whistle.”

The former vice president also knocked Mr Umahi for claiming that no money had been released yet to Hitech, which he described as another lie.

“On March 31, 2024, Umahi came on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics programme where he pointedly said that the sum of N1.06tn was released to Hitech. Only for him to say on TVC on April 11 that the same money had not been released. Which one is true, and which one is false?”

Signed:

Atiku Media Office
Abuja
11th April, 2024.

Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu has claimed that the electricity tariffs that were recently increased, will reduce if the exchange rate falls below N1,000 to a dollar.

Adelabu made this comment when he appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday.

On April 3, the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission, NERC, announced the removal of subsidy on the electricity consumed by Band A customers.

Band A customers now pay N255/KWh, a hike from N68/kWh, while others maintain the old tariffs.

But Adelabu has now given conditions for a possible reduction.

“The tariff is flexible. I can tell you if the naira gains more and the exchange rate comes down below N1,000 to a dollar, it must positively affect the tariff; and the tariff, even for Band A, will come down below the N225/KWh that we are currently charging.

“There are variable factors that go into the composition of the tariff, and we are not closing our eyes to it,” Adelabu said.

Super Eagles forward; Ademola Lookman has said that his game style has been patterned after Senegalese forward, Sadio Mane.

Lookman played for Charlton Athletic, Everton, RB Leipzig, Fulham and Leicester City before moving to Serie A side Atalanta.

The Nigeria international joined Atalanta for a fee in the region of nine million euros paid to Leipzig at the start of the 2022-2023 season.

The winger has scored 24 goals and made 12 assists from 65 all-competition appearances.

The former England youth teamer has now revealed that his game is shaped on former Liverpool star Sadio Mane.

“The guy who I always looked at the most would have to be Sadio Mane,” Lookman told The Athletic.

“Looking at his threat in the box, his threat in those little tight spaces, his movement — I have watched a lot of his game in particular.

“I watch my clips back, and it’s nice to be able to see your performance from a different perspective.

“It gives you more belief in knowing that you’re getting better and developing in certain areas.”

Eddy Olafeso, the former National Vice Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the south-west, has said Nigerians have witnessed nothing but hardship under the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Olafeso, who stressed that there is no remedy in sight, maintained that when the opposition party was in power, life was more pleasant for the people.

Speaking in Akure, the Ondo State capital, he expressed optimism that Nigerians will smile when the opposition party returns to the helms of affairs.

The PDP stalwart said, “No matter the challenges we are facing at this moment, we are very sure and confident that the future will be better and that the PDP will take back power and connect to do what it did in the past to develop Nigeria. I am very confident that we will return.

“There’s no middle class anymore; there is poverty in the land; there is insecurity.

“What else can we hope for but the support of the people that will make the PDP’s dream of creating prosperity for this country happen as quickly as possible?

“We are sure that the future will take care of itself, and we are very resolute, and beside that, the future of Nigeria, especially the current situation that Nigerians are facing under APC, can’t continue forever.

“I’m very excited that we are going somewhere. We’re heading somewhere, and that is success; that is victory.”

Following the fire outbreak which razed over 14 buildings in Dosunmu Market on Lagos Island, Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu has declared that many buildings with structural defects around the site of the inferno and those that do not comply with the state government’s building regulations would be demolished.

Sanwo-Olu issued the warning yesterday in Lagos during the inspection and meeting with stakeholders, victims of the Dosunmu Market inferno which occured in the highbrow Lagos Island on Monday.

The governor, who said the state government would not shy away from its responsibility in ensuring that building standards are followed, added that, “I am going to shut down this place as long as it takes, there will be zero-tolerance all around here.

“It’s not by force that you have to trade. If you don’t have a conducive environment, go and look for something else to do,” he said.

The governor who condemned the avoidable fire disaster said, “We just finished on-the-spot assessment of the very unfortunate and preventable fire disaster here at Dosunmu Market.

“As you are all aware, this fire started on Monday and immediately, the first responders were activated and we thought it was something that we could bring under control in the first couple of hours.

“But unfortunately, as you can see, our people have been very extremely reckless and access was denied to first responders for a couple of hours. Even 48 hours after, the site is still a live site, we still have an isolated burning site and it is still an active disaster site.”

Sanwo-Olu continued, “This is a complete disaster. It is extremely unfortunate. As at the last count, we had about 14 houses in one form or the other that have been affected and a bit more might still go down after the extensive fit-for-purpose test that will be conducted over the couple of days here.”

“What I have seen here is what could have been prevented. We don’t have a full report yet, so I don’t want to speculate. But the initial report that came to us was just gross carelessness and people don’t understand what it means when we say keep your environment safe.

“We will conduct a proper extensive audit into what led to this. But as you see from the initial assessment, we have had an activation of an advocacy that indeed from the month of December and all throughout the month of May, these are high combustible weather that we have known will come year-on-year.

“We have been advertising on the media that people should know that during the harsh harmattan, the weather is not only hard, that you need to also stay away from combustible materials that can activate easy spread of fire and that is a kind of thing that we have seen here today,” Sanwo-Olu further warned.

He lamented that a lot of residential apartments had been converted into warehouses, as inflammable materials were kept in people’s sitting rooms.

Nigerian football star, Victor Osimhen could be heading to Ligue 1 champions, Paris Saint-Germain at the end of the season.

Osimhen, one of the most sought after strikers in football at the moment is wanted by Premier League giants, Chelsea and Arsenal.

But PSG are close to wrapping up a deal with Napoli for the talismanic forward, according to Caught Offside.

The French club are rumored to be willing to pay Osimhen’s entire release clause, which is estimated to be worth €120m.

In addition, they are eager to extend an offer of a four-year contract to the striker, who will make €13m a season at PSG.

Chelsea, unlike PSG, are not in a position to pay Osimhen’s entire release clause due to their financial state.

Osimhen, aged 25, has scored 14 goals in 26 appearances across all competitions for Napoli this season.

The Minister of Power, Adebayo Adelabu, said the Federal Government is still paying subsidy on electricity despite the recent hike in tariff paid by Band A customers.

Adelabu stated this in an interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday.

The minister said the government has about N1.8trn to pay in electricity subsidy for 2024.

Adelabu said the Electricity Act, 2023 made provisions for the review of tariff twice a year.

He said, “Review of tariff is actually legal once it is within the exclusive responsibility of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC). The Act actually provides for review twice in a year, every six months.”

“If we have been paying the tariff at the same level in the last two years, it logically means that someone has been paying the burden of all these increases.

“As it is today, looking at a total production, transmission and distribution cost, the Nigerian Government is bearing 67% percent of that cost before the increase in tariff for Band A customers.

“But when you look at generation cost, the Nigerian Government is paying 90% but in terms of total subsidy, it is about 67% of subsidy on the tariff.

“Last year, it was about N720bn which was not fully funded, we have about N305bn carried into this year. If we retain tariff at the current level, the Nigerian Government will be needing about N2.9trn to subsidise electricity but with the increase for Band A customers, we are going to have a reduction of about N1.1trn. So, we are looking at about N1.8trn in subsidy,” he said.

Recall that on April 3, 2024, NERC raised electricity tariff for customers enjoying 20 hours power supply daily. Customers in this category are said to be under the Band A classification.

The increase will see the customers paying N225 kilowatt per hour from the current N66, a development that has been heavily criticised by many Nigerians, considering the immediacy of the tariff hike and the current hardship in the land.

But, Adelabu said, “The fact that the tariff for Band A, which is 15% of the total consumers will increase by over 200%, does not necessarily translate into 200% increase in their electricity bill if power is properly managed in terms of consumption.”

He assured Band A customers of value for their money. He also assured Nigerians that consumers on other bands won’t be shortchanged by distribution companies as the regulators won’t hesitate to wield their big stick on any of such discos.

Adelabu said the government has shifted its attention on discos inefficiently ran and won’t hold back in taking the appropriate steps in the interest of consumers.

He said by cutting down the inefficiencies of some operators in the sector, couple with the gains by the naira against the dollar in the last few weeks, tariff paid by Nigerians should moderate positively.

“The tariff is flexible and I can tell you that even if naira gains more and the exchange rate comes down below N1,000, it must positively affect the tariff and the tariff even for the Band A will come to down below the N225 kilowatt per hour that we are currently charging,” he said.

The minister further said the government has been working on ramping up power generation from about 4,000 megawatts to 6,000 megawatts in the next six months.

He said 25% of Nigeria’s power generation is from hydroelectric power while the remaining 75% is from gas plants.

The minister said “the gas that is supposed to be the raw material has not been coming in adequate proportion” but the government has been working with electricity generation companies to ramp up power generated for the benefit of Nigerians.

According to Adelabu, President Bola Tinubu administration plans to decentralise power generation across states of the federation and strengthen transmission and distribution of the energy to power Nigeria’s industrial transformation.

The impeached Deputy Governor of Edo State, Mr. Philip Shaibu has said that his removal by the state House of Assembly will not stand the test of the courts, noting that the entire exercise was because of the September 21 governorship election in the state.

Shaibu stated this in a viral video released yesterday, when he received the acting State Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Jaret Tenebe in his Abuja residence on a solidarity and sympathy visit.

This is as the APC chieftain described the impeachment as a sham and urged Shaibu to use all legal means to upturn the action.

This position came barely 24 hours after some APC faithful in Etsako West local government area protested against a planned return of the former deputy governor to the APC.

But speaking, Shaibu said: “We have shared a lot of things both good and bad together. I am deeply humbled and happy that even this situation has brought us together as one that we are. You are one person that I have always admired, someone that I grew up with.

“The person that actually separated us has also united us and that is the beauty of what has happened. I want to assure you that as we move on, just like you said this whole thing happened between the lent and Ramadan and the lessons of lent and Ramadan are obvious. I am not ready to change my attitude, I am ready to be a friend, a loyal friend and partner.

“What has happened will not change my quest to be loyal to anybody that I will work with and I will encourage anybody to be loyal to their boss. I was a loyal person and I am still loyal, the price of loyalty is success.

“The impeachment that has happened is because God wants to open a new chapter and I see that new chapter, that new opportunity and I can assure you, my chairman.

“ I call you my chairman because you are already my chairman and I think you are also one of the reasons why they hurriedly did what they did because they know what it takes for you and I to be together and they thought they could use impeachment to get me to succumb but you know that I won’t succumb.

“I am somebody that is strong willed and when I mean something, I mean it and when I look at the whole thing, I am paying the price, I also believe that it is only the man that God impeaches that is impeached.

“By the grace of God, I know the judiciary will do the needful because it is an impeachment that I have not been served, so I want to assure you of my cooperation and my loyalty will remain my weapon and I will definitely be there at all times. I think our next target is September 21 and by the grace of God we will get there.”

Earlier, Tenebe assured Shaibu that he would not be abandoned, adding: “I am here to pay you this solidarity visit because I still regard you as the deputy governor of Edo State.

“That sham they did in the Edo state House of Assembly is a disgrace to the governor and it is an aberration to our democracy which I know that the court will not allow to stand.

“You are somebody who stood out, the price you paid is the price of loyalty, you were loyal even to the detriment of people you started with, you paid that price.”

Tenebe added: “We just celebrated Easter and we know the price Jesus Christ paid. He died for our sins, what has happened is a replica of what Jesus Christ did for humanity.

“ Today, they have removed you as the deputy governor but we still regard you as the deputy governor, it is the price that you have paid to ensure that Obaseki and his semblance are rooted out of Edo state and I can tell you that we will not allow you walk alone, we are with you in spirit.”

The Edo APC boss advised Shaibu to put on the spirit of an average Uzairue person which epitomises willpower all the time, believing that when a door closes, many are opened.

“You are a strong man and I am here as the chairman of APC in Edo state and I am also an Uzairue indigene. Where we both come from, we should be strong and I implore you to continue to pursue this matter in court and we will be with you all through and God is your strength.

“When one door is closed many more are opened and many are opened for you from today. That is what the detractors don’t know, be strong and we will match on together,” Tenebe declared.