The Vice Principal of Community Secondary School, Noyo Alike in Ikwo LGA of Ebonyi state, Mr. Benedict Kalu at the weekend slumped and died along the Gunning road meat market square, Abakaliki.
Confirming the incident on Saturday, the State Police PPRO, ASP George Okafor said when the command got hint of the incident, some policemen from the Ekumenyi Police Division were sent to the scene for help but the policemen met Kalu already dead before their arrival.
According to the PPRO, the man had been sick for five years and that he died of high blood pressure. Okafor added that the deceased immediate family members had been contacted and that they revealed that the man was very sick and had suffered high blood pressure for five years.
The PPRO maintained that the corpse had been deposited at the Federal Teaching Hospital Abakaliki (FETHA).
SON Gives Fake Tyre Dealers 24-Hour Ultimatum Or Go To Jail
Standards Organisation of Nigeria, SON, has given Tyre dealers in the country a 24-hour ultimatum to destroy the fake products in their stores or risk a 10-year jail term.
Acting Director General of SON, Paul Angya, gave the warning after the Federal government recently empowered the agency by giving it the backing to jail dealers in substandard products.
It will be recalled that a report released by the Federal Road Safety Commission, FRSC on causes of accidents in 2015, hinted that the fake Tyres were responsible for most accident. The report stated that out of 8,986 accidents recorded in 2015, 722 were caused by tyre bursts, resulting in the death of 446 persons.
Angya’s position on the report is that the fake tyre dealers are directly responsible for these deaths. He has therefore threatened that dealers of fake tyres would equally be charged for murder.
“We are going to stamp out corruption among the tyre dealers. We are going to set up a taskforce and we will not sleep until we confirm that accidents in this country are not traced to substandard tyres again,” says the SON acting DG who also made it known that the agency also has the legal authority to close any outlet or store displaying substandard tyres for at least three months without taking the matter to any court.
According to him, the ultimate punishment for such dealers has now been upped to 10 years imprisonment. “If you have fake tyres in your shop, make sure you get rid of them before the next 24 hours before our team visits you and we proceed go ahead to charge you for murder,” Angya warns.
Being fully aware of corruption within the system at SON, he disclosed that it would soon be eliminated when e-payment, e-invoice and e-receipt is introduced.
Before now fake tyre dealers had only gotten slaps on the wrist punishment for their actions by having their fake goods destroyed.
Troops kills 7 terrorist recovers 20,000 litres of fuel
Troops of 7 Brigade have ambushed and killed 7 Boko Haram terrorists at Dawashi early this morning. The gallant troops that laid in wait at the terrorists suspected crossing point engaged them on sight, killed the 7 terrorists and recovered 1 Peugeot Station Wagon loaded with 2,010 litres of Premium Motor Spirit packed in 67 Jerri cans, uniforms, some materiels and Improvised Explosive making Devices (IEDs). Others items recovered include, dry cell batteries, 1 AK-47 rifle, tools and fish.
Colonel Sani Kukasheka Usman
Acting Director, Army Public Relations.
Poor Nigerians Still Have Faith In Buhari’s Government – Senator
Senate Leader, Senator Ali Ndume representing Borno South has said that suffering citizens of the country have faith in President Muhammadu Buahri-led administration.
In a recent interview with Daily Trust, Ndume stated that, “If you go to various churches and mosques, you’ll still find people saying, “We are suffering but we should endure because the result will come”.
He further stressed that, “If you say the popularity of government has gone down from those you’ve access to get their responses, well, I agree with that, but the majority of Nigerians, who are the poor, still have faith in this government, and that is the most important thing. Yes, people are going through hard times but the government is working; working in the sense that it’s still focused on the three key issues that it came in with, and is still focused to address.
“One is security, and you’ll agree that it is not only in the Northeast in terms of winning the war against insurgency and specifically Boko Haram, the government is fighting other wars in terms of kidnapping, armed robbery and vandalization of pipelines.
“The bunkering of our crude oil has gone down, but nobody is talking about that. The vandalization of oil pipelines you will now only hear intermittently, which is normal in every society. The militancy in the Niger Delta has gone down tremendously.
“Even the so-called Biafra struggle is personalized and centered on Kanu, and when Kanu was arrested – and he is presently going through trial – it went down. So, government is working in the area of security.
“Government is also working in the area of putting certain infrastructures on ground; government is working and fighting corruption which is a big problem. Government came in and removed subsidy indirectly and yet, petroleum products are available all over the country at a lower price”.
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Iain Duncan Smith quit due to Treasury refusal to consider pensioner cuts
Iain Duncan Smith resigned from the cabinet because he was frustrated that Downing Street and the Treasury refused to consider controversial cuts to universal pensioner benefits, it has been claimed.
Friends of the former work and pensions secretary said he was fed up of being asked “again and again” for cuts to working age benefits and those for disabled people, while the money spent on older voters remained untouched.
Stephen Crabb appointed new work and pensions secretary
That led him to write a furious resignation letter, pointing the finger at the chancellor, George Osborne, and questioning his claim of “we are all in it together”.
David Cameron responded by saying he was “puzzled and disappointed” because reforms to personal independence payments (PIP) had been accepted by the Department for Work and Pensions.
The prime minister said a decision to back down on the changes was also “agreed” after Tory MPs threatened to rebel. The ally of Duncan Smith said: “The letter is insincere in saying that ‘we’ve agreed not to go ahead’ – they have been very clear that they still intend to make those savings from welfare.”
On Saturday, Cameron replaced the Eurosceptic Duncan Smith with the Welsh secretary, Stephen Crabb, who supports Britain’s membership of the European Union.
Philippa Stroud, who co-founded the Centre for Social Justice with Duncan Smith and worked by his side implementing welfare reforms in government, said the minister felt the time had come to consider cutting pensioner benefits. She said his resignation should be seen as a “clarion call” to ministers to rebalance their cuts.
“It was not appropriate to be giving away tax incentives to the middle classes, freezing fuel duty and protecting universal benefits and pensioner benefits at the time that you were making cuts to disability benefits,” Lady Stroud told the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. She said Duncan Smith had come into government to “deliver a social agenda ... to protect the poorest”.
He wanted to protect pensioners, she said, but the degree to which they were being supported at the expense of the poorest workers and disabled people had become too extreme.
She also argued the cuts were still going to fall on the DWP, despite yesterday’s backing down on the policy. “The way the Treasury score these savings is that £1.3bn is still sitting on balance sheet. They would be coming back for more.”
Senior figures inside the DWP said the PIP reforms were the “least worst” option handed to the department. The Guardian understands that one of the possibilities being discussed was a cut to benefits for disabled children that would have saved £0.5bn.
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Frank Field, who chairs the work and pensions select committee, agreed the balance had become difficult for Duncan Smith to stomach. “The pensioner element of that very large [DWP] budget – the biggest part of budget – was safeguarded and increased and therefore all these cuts were on people of working age and it is this point that Iain felt the social contract was being broken,” said Field.
But campaigners and Labour MPs asked why Duncan Smith had supported policies for so long – arguing he had been a driving force for many of the cuts. Rachel Reeves, who was shadow work and pensions secretary under Ed Miliband’s leadership, tweeted: “Man who introduced bedroom tax, tax credit cuts and 10 fold increase in food banks finds conscience? Or maybe this is about Brexit.”
George Osborne is regarded as being damaged by Duncan Smith’s resignation.
Certainly many in Downing Street believe that Duncan Smith has walked out in part because of tensions over the EU referendum, in which he is opposing Cameron by calling for Brexit. They have previously criticised his dismissal of government reports into the impact of leaving the EU as “dodgy dossiers”.
Michael Fallon, the defence secretary, also questioned Duncan Smith’s resignation, calling it a “puzzle” because the PIP reforms had been agreed. He defended Osborne’s claim that “we’re all in it together” when it comes to austerity.
Fallon said: “In two weeks’ time, everybody’s tax-free allowance goes up to £11,000 ... Every pensioner is getting biggest ever real-terms increase in pension ... Everybody under 40 is entitled to the lifetime savings allowance, everyone on low incomes will get a new living wage.
“We weren’t taking more money away from poorer disabled money – the budget on disability has been increasing.” Thanks for reading.
Brazil judge strips Lula of office amid mounting political crisis
A supreme court judge in Brazil has blocked the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s appointment to cabinet, paving the way for him to face corruption charges in court.
Judge Gilmar Mendes wrote that Lula’s appointment to cabinet was clearly designed to allow him to avoid possible imprisonment by a lower court judge.
Lula’s appointment to cabinet on Wednesday, which sparked protests in several cities, means only the supreme court can investigate him, placing him beyond the reach of a crusading judge heading Brazil’s biggest ever graft probe into corruption at state oil company Petrobras.
“The goal of the falsity is clear: prevent the carrying out of preventative arrest order” against Silva being considered by a lower court, Mendes wrote in his ruling.
“It would be plausible to conclude that the appointment and subsequent swearing-in could constitute fraud of the constitution.”
It puts an end, temporarily at least, to the legal ping-pong of the past 36 hours that saw Lula win and lose ministerial status several times, as judges from across Brazil filed over 50 injunctions against his appointment to cabinet
The solicitor-general, José Eduardo Cardozo, said the government would appeal Mendes’ decision to the entire supreme court.
The court’s next meeting is scheduled for 30 March.
The ruling to block Lula’s appointment came minutes after he rallied tens of thousands of supporters behind his embattled successor Dilma Rousseff.
In front of a crowd of 95,000 in São Paulo’s Avenida Paulista, Lula made a conciliatory speech that eschewed criticism of his opponents and called on his supporters to avoid provocations. He said said that he only accepted the government position to help Rousseff for the remaining two years of her mandate.
“I want a country without hatred,” he shouted over the crowd’s chants of “there’s not going to be a coup.”
“What we need to do is bring back peace and hope, and to prove that this country is better than anything on earth,” he said.
One of those listening was Marilia Fernandes, a 37-year-old history teacher: “There are criticisms to be made against the [ruling] PT [Partido dos Trabalhdores],” she said.
“A lot of the left was forgotten. But they improved the lives of the neediest. I was an adolescent in the 1990s. Brazil was a very different place back then. Brazil managed to eradicate starvation and infant mortality,” Fernandes said.
Many of those present at the rally criticised the coverage of this week’s developments by TV Globo, Brazil’s dominant television network that thrived during the country’s period of military rule from 1964-1985. In contrast to the extensive airtime given to the opposition protests over the past week, the coverage of Friday’s demonstrations – thought to have included 275,000 people across the country – was relatively low-key.
Earlier in the day, police had used water cannon to clear anti-government protesters from the street in São Paulo in an attempt to avoid confrontation between competing groups of demonstrators.
But opposition activists were largely absent from the streets, though one government sympathiser was punched in the face on his way home by a man claiming the crowd were all thieves.
In the capital, Brasília, a crowd of government supporters and sympathisers marched towards congress, which held its first session to discuss the impeachment of Rousseff earlier in the day.
The president has 10 sessions in the lower house to present her defence and the decision to hold a session on Friday meant the clock has started on those, even though the special impeachment committee did not meet.
A vote on Rousseff’s fate is expected by mid April.
The case against her centres on allegations that Rousseff broke budget rules to boost spending as she campaigned for re-election in 2014. Lula and Rousseff both deny any wrongdoing.
Rousseff’s main coalition party, the fractious Brazilian Democratic Movement Party (PMDB), has brought forward to March 29 a meeting of its executive to decide whether to break with her government and seek her impeachment.
Amongst the crowd of government supporters outside congress in Brasília was 29-year-old teacher, Rodrigo Santaella, who said that he had never voted for the ruling party, Partido dos Trabalhadores (PT), but that he was participating in support of democracy.
“I consider myself left-wing, but I am not here to support the government,” he said. “I am here to deter fascism and the rise of the right in Brazil.” Thanks for reading.
Jacob Zuma denies influence of wealthy Gupta family in South African cabinet
The South African leader, Jacob Zuma, has denied letting a family of wealthy industrialists hand out posts in his cabinet, as he battles to contain a snowballing corruption scandal that could threaten his presidency. Ahead of a key meeting of the ruling party’s leadership this weekend, a top power-broker from Zuma’s own African National Congress has warned that the country risks becoming a “mafia state” if corruption is not tackled. At the heart of the controversy is the relationship between Zuma, his allies and associates, and the wealthy, influential and colourful Gupta family, who once used a military airforce base to fly in guests from India for a glitzy wedding. On Wednesday the country’s deputy finance minister, Mcebisi Jonas, said in a public statement that members of the Gupta family had offered him the ministerial post in December, after the incumbent, Nhlanhla Nene, was abruptly sacked. He said he had rejected the job “out of hand”, because the offer of a cabinet post from someone outside government “makes a mockery of our hard-earned democracy”. The Guptas denied the allegation, saying it was “totally false” and “just more political point scoring between rival factions” within the ANC. Nene, who had a combative relationship with Zuma, was instead replaced by a virtually unknown backbencher, but he lasted for less than a week. As the rand and government bonds were battered on global markets, top ANC powerbrokers reportedly forced Zuma to backtrack and appoint an experienced former finance minister. Jonas’s claim this week prompted one of the ANC’s top power brokers to warn that the country risked sliding into a “mafia state” if a web of corruption and influence peddling that critics say has been spun around the government was not untangled. “We need to deal with this. It will degenerate into a mafia state if this goes on,” the ANC secretary-general, Gwede Mantashe, told Bloomberg. “The fact we are talking about this so boldly now shows that things are going to change.” But in a combative appearance before parliament, Zuma rejected accusations that he had delegated control of the finance ministry to the Gupta family. “I am in charge of the government, I appoint in terms of the constitution,” Zuma said, to cheers from ruling party parliamentarians. “There is no minister who is here who was ever appointed by the Guptas or by anybody else.” Jonas is not the only politician to allege the Guptas brokered top jobs in South Africa. Former ANC member of parliament Vytjie Mentor earlier this week said in a posting on Facebook that she had been offered the post of minister of public enterprises while she was in the Gupta mansion in 2010, when Zuma was in a nearby room. Zuma’s office have denied this, Reuters reported. Opposition party members have also claimed that the sports minister was helped into his job by the Guptas, allegations he has denied. The Gupta family emigrated from India in 1993, seeking business opportunities in post-apartheid South Africa, and now preside over a wide range of corporate interests from mining to IT and media. They have denied any role in deciding any ministerial jobs. In their statement on Wednesday they said: “Any suggestion that the Gupta family or any of our representatives or associates have offered anyone a job in government is totally false.” Thanks for reading.
