A 300 level University of Lagos (Unilag) student has died after ingesting the local insecticide popularly known as ‘Sniper.’
The student of Microbiology, Eniola Jacobs died after almost a day of battling for his life at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH).
Circumstances surrounding his death were unclear as at the time of filing this report as some sources claimed he wanted to commit suicide while others claimed he was forced by cultists to take the insecticide.
No official comment has been put forward by UNILAG authorities. The only statement from the Deputy spokesperson for the University, Mrs. Nonye Oguama was: “I have heard about it, but until I get to the office tomorrow (Monday), I cannot tell what really happened.”.
More details surrounding this tragic incident later.
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Rivers Re-run: Police Arrest Wike’s Aide, Four Others
Following Saturday’s legislative re-run election in Rivers State, men of the Nigerian Police have arrested one Cyril Dum Nwite, said to be the Special Adviser on Special Projects to the State Governor, Nyesom Wike.
He was reportedly arrested and paraded alongside four others for allegedly disguising on fake Police and Military uniform near INEC office.
Meanwhile, the Governor had earlier expressed his satisfaction with the security arrangement for the election.
Wike said, “I am impressed with the security arrangement for the election.”
2016 UTME Exercise Is A National Embarrassment, Says MURIC
The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has described the 2016 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) exercise as a colossal fiasco, a monumental scandal and a national embarrassment.
The group made this known in a statement on Saturday, by its Director, Professor Ishaq Akintola. He denounced the timing of the CBT examinations, noting that candidates were forced to start in their centres from 6.30 am in compliance with JAMB timetable.
He said, “This arbitrary timing is also responsible for the absence of a whopping 23,577 candidates on the day of the examination. In a country where power supply is epileptic and security of lives and properties cannot be guaranteed, this is strange, shocking, callous, insensitive and irrational. The examination body unnecessarily exposed our young ones and our future leaders to danger. Some candidates allegedly lost their belongings when they were attacked by hoodlums on their way to the examination ccenter,” he noted.
MURIC also condemned the banning of hijab by female Muslim candidates at the examination centres.
Akintola suggested that JAMB should consider giving extra 25 points each to all candidates across the board in view of the fact that undermarking is the major flaw in the last exercise.
His words: “Candidates should be given the option of taking computer-based or written tests using paper and pen. Ad-hoc staff must be properly briefed and must not stop religious profiling of hijab-wearing female Muslim candidates. JAMB results should be valid for three years. The examination body should co-opt security experts to its planning committees when preparing for examinations.”
The group also urge universities within the country to lower their cut-off points and rely more on their internally conducted post-JAMB examinations for admitting students into their various programmes.
Kano APC Suspends Chairman
Kano State chapter of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano state has suspended its chairman, Haruna Doguwa, for alleged gross misconduct.
Also suspended was the party’s organizing secretary, Sunusi Suraj.
According to Abbas Sani-Abbas, the party’s secretary, while addressing a news conference in Kano on Saturday, the party took the decision in order to allow the seven-man disciplinary committee it set up to investigate the alleged misconduct.
He said the party had appointed Abdullahi Abbas, special adviser on political affairs to Abdullahi Ganduje, governor of the state, as the acting chairman.
Sani-Abbas said the suspension was endorsed by the former and serving members of the national assembly and all the chairmen of the 44 local governments in the state.
The suspension, he added, was equally endorsed by 30 out of the 39 members of the house of assembly, vice chairmen and secretaries of the local governments.
He said the committee had been given one week within which to submit its report to the executive committee of the party for further action.
“If the disciplinary committee establishes any evidence to the fact that the suspended officials were culpable or not, it is left to the executive committee to take appropriate action,” he said.
Sporadic Shooting In Port Harcourt
As the results of the federal and state legislative rerun elections are being expected in Rivers State, gunmen, believed to be political thugs Sunday, shot sporadically at Abonnema area of Port Harcourt.
The shooting which lasted for 40 minutes caused pandemonium around Mile 1 and Azikiwe as residents scampered to safety.
The Rivers state Governor Nyesom Wike visited the Mile 1 police station this morning.
The situation in Rivers is reportedly tense, according to residents.
CBN Secret Recruitment: ‘There Must Be Equal Opportunities For All Nigerians’
The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG), a coalition of over 400 civil society organizations, weekend, described the recent shady recruitment exercise conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) as a grand betrayal of a change mantra of the Buhari’s administration.
The Chairman of TMG, Com. Ibrahim Zikirulahi, in a statement in Abuja, said that the scam is a clear manifestation that vestiges of the discredited and corrupt old guard still dominated the system in the country.
The group called on President Muhammadu Buhari to fish out the perpetrators and punish them according to the law of the land, adding that the reasons given by the apex bank to embark on secret recruitment exercise was not acceptable.
The statement reads: “TMG is dismayed by recent revelations of outright cronyism and favouritism in a shady recruitment exercise conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It is indeed very strange that impunity of this magnitude would be associated with the nation’s apex bank at a time Nigerians are hoping that the change mantra of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari, would translate into better ethical standards for conducting government business.
“TMG is not unmindful of the fact that this scandal is a clear manifestation that there remains within the system vestiges of the discredited and corrupt old guard, which would always be against a people centred philosophy of governance. For us, the recruitment scandal points to a culture of lax corporate governance, which has seen the CBN under the leadership of Godwin Emefiele canonize itself as a do-nothing institution in the face of criminal assaults on due process.
“The CBN which has elected to sacrifice openness, merit and fairness in its recruitment is the same institution, which silently conspired with looters and plunderers of the nation’s financial resources, during the locust years of the last administration.
“TMG is amazed that the current government has not deemed it a matter of utmost urgency to halt the desecration of an institution as vital as the CBN. On the basis of the litany of sleazes that were made possible by the acquiescence of the current CBN leadership alone, it is crystal clear that a clean sweep of leadership at the apex bank, is long overdue.
“TMG is unimpressed by the lame excuse the CBN spin doctors are adducing for deciding to embark on a secret recruitment drive. Even if ‘targeted’ employment or head hunting was the basis for making the process secret, there are thousands of young Nigerians who need jobs, who could have been targeted. But because the CBN was working towards a pre-determined outcome, it filled the list with names of children and relatives of prominent politicians, government officials and other influence peddlers.
“We insist this is not the proper way to do things; the outcome of the recruitment must therefore be immediately jettisoned.
“TMG calls on President Muhammadu Buhari to intervene and put an end to the attempts by well-heeled people in government to rubbish his efforts at rescuing Nigeria from the abyss of corruption, nepotism and favouritism.
“There must be equal opportunities for all Nigerians” TMG added.
Emir Sanusi Lists How Nigerians Contributed To Economic Crisis
The Emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II, on Saturday listed some of the ways Nigerians contributed to the present economic downturn, saying that Nigeria must stop importing what it has in order to boost local industries and create jobs.
He stated this in Kaduna while inaugurating the new Council Secretariat of the Kaduna Chamber of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (KACCIMA).
Sanusi, a former Governor of Central Bank, CBN, said the current economic crisis induced by the crash in global oil price, should serve as a wake up call for the country to utilise its resources judiciously.
“Nigeria is full of experts in importing what we have and exporting what we do not have.
“We have cotton but we import textile materials from China; we have crude oil but we import fuel refined from our own crude from Russia and other countries.
“We have gas but we let it flare away instead of utilising it to produce power, yet import generators from outside.
“We eat our hides and skin and import shoes from outside, and we eat our tomatoes and import canned tomatoes paste from China.”
The Emir said things must change, and advised the Federal Government to give priority to education, industries, power and agriculture.
Sanusi noted that the textile industries in the past had employed more than 600, 000 people at a time.
He further advised industrialists to always draw the attention of government when it derails from targeted national goals.
The Emir stressed that the persistent conflicts in the country were largely due to economic hardships and not religion or tribal sentiments.
