Subsidy Bribery: Police Opens Investigation on Hon. Umar Abubakar Sade

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The gathering circus of the oil subsidy bribery shakedowns of the oil industry by members of the House of Representatives adhoc committee on oil subsidy probe appear stock in a continuous musical chairs threatening the unraveling of broader bribery scandals that may engulf the entire eight members of the adhoc committee on oil subsidy probe. This is as information available to 247ureports.com through sources close to the adhoc committee revealed that the Nigerian Police Force [NPF] has indicated interest in the bribery allegation leveled against another member of the adhoc committee, Hon. Umar Abubakar Sade representing Darazo/Ganjuwa constituency in Bauchi State.

Following a revealing report published on 247ureports.com titled Subsidy Bribe: Another Committee Member, Hon. Umar Abubakar Sade, In Trouble – where the honorable member of the house of representative was alleged to have engaged in the shakedown of the oil companies such as MRS and A. A. Rano – the men of the NPF who were already investigating the bribery allegation against the deposed Chairman of the adhoc committee, Hon. Lawan Farouk – have expanded their scope of investigation to include Hon. Umar Abubakar Sade and some of the members of the adhoc committee. According to a source from the police department, the activities of Hon. Sade and other members of the committee have since become an interest to the investigating team. “The team is working” said the police source.

Recent development indicates that the honorable representative from Bauchi – following the report – turned to two other members of the adhoc committee accusing them of having blown the whistle against him. The honorable member, in accusing his colleagues of having blown the whistle, threatened to ‘spill the beans’ should the ‘noose tighten’ from the investigating police team. The identities of the two accused members were not readily available to 247ureports.com but it was gathered that the eight members of the adhoc committee have been uneasy about the ongoing rounds of revelations and possible police investigations.

Particularly, reactions from the Darazo/Ganjuwa constituency serve one of the most worrisome aspects of the unfolding oil subsidy bribery brouhaha. As gathered, the residents of Darazo/Ganjuwa who placed numerous telephone calls to the publisher of 247ureports.com reveal that the community leaders have become concerned over the allegation leveled against the representative. Some of the stakeholders indicate that closed door deliberations are currently ongoing within some quarters over the matter.

It is recalled that the lower chamber of the National Assembly [NASS] had set up an eight person adhoc committee consisting of – Farouk M. Lawan, Ali Babatunde Ahmad, James Abiodun Faleke, Alphonsus Gerald Irona, Umar Abubakar Sade, Eucharia Azodo, Abbas Tajudeen, John Owan Enoh.

NIGER DELTA: 25 KILLED IN CULT UPRISINGS, SCORES ARRESTED BY SOLDIERS

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ALLEGED bitter clashes between rival cult groups, left more than 25 persons death in two oil and gas producing states in Southern Nigeria last week.

In the Cross River State axis of the volatile oil region, sources claimed that more than 15 persons were gruesomely murdered by dangerously armed youths said to be cultists in what is now known in some circles as ”one week of horror” in Calabar, the state capital.

The serial attacks allegedly got the state government napping. Concerned citizens in Calabar South Local Government Area, easily the hot bed of the cult uprising, told AkanimoReports that the killing spree was sparked by alleged murder of a student of the state-owned University of Technology, CRUTECH.

The claimed that the student whose name was not given, was shot death at an eatery. Guarded whispers in the city indicate that the killings was as a result of reprisal attacks.

But the chaos was rescued by soldiers who were poured into the streets to arrest the situation from degenerating into a state of anarchy. In the process, 93 suspects were picked up by troops, some of them caught with arms and ammunition.

In Rivers State, clashes between Deegbam and Greenlanders, suspected cult groups, snuffed life out of 10 persons in Omoku, in Ogba/Egbeme/Ndoni Local Government Area.

The killings allegedly took place in the night. Freely used were guns, axes and knifes which they allegedly employed to hack their victims to death.

For those who know that oil community better, over six local cult groups are operating in Omoku, the  headquarters of Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni area.

Since the resumption of  hostility among cult groups, Omoku is fast becoming a ghost of its usual lively and busy self as  social and economic activities are being paralyzed.

“Eight persons were killed as at last Wednesday, before the brutal killing of  another two on Old Oba Road in Omoku on June 27, 2012,’’ a source said, pointing out that it was as a result of the latest killing that prompted government to deploy the Joint Task Force, JTF, a special outfit of the armed security forces, to the area.

Local people in the area say raids by the JTF are inflicting more pains than relief to them,  because the security forces are allegedly ”cruel and merciless” on everybody sighted in their areas of operation.

Spokesman for JTF, Captain Sunday Samuel,  has confirmed the deployment of the special security outfit to Omoku, explaining that the deployment was as a result of incessant cult-related killings reported in the area.

Samuel added that 19 suspects were arrested during their raids, pointing out that after  interrogation, ”JTF will hand the suspects to the police for prosecution”.  

Any attempt to rig Edo gubernatorial election will be cataclysmic – ACN warns

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The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has warned that any attempt to
rig the July 14th gubernatorial election in

Edo State will trigger a chain of cataclysmic reactions, the end of
which no one can predict.

In a statement issued in Lagos on Sunday by its National Publicity
Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party said

the warning became necessary in view of the desperation of the PDP to
capture Edo State at all cost, first as a trophy

for its new Chairman who is bent on ensuring his party wins the first
election under his chairmanship, and also as a

foothold for the President’s presumed ambition for 2015.

It said events leading to the election have shown that the PDP is bent
on creating an atmosphere that will be hostile to the

holding of a free, fair and transparent poll.

ACN therefore called on its members and supporters in Edo State to
resist any attempt by the PDP to rig the forthcoming

poll, saying they must not only turn out en masse to vote for Gov.
Adams Oshiomhole, on the basis of his performance in office,

but must also stay behind until the votes have been counted and the
result announced, contrary to the ‘vote and go’ rigging

strategy of the PDP.

”In the years since Nigeria’s return to democratic rule in 1999, the
PDP has evolved from bare-faced rigging on election

day to a new system in which the ruling party, in collusion with
malleable and unpatriotic security agencies, makes free and

fair elections impossible by intimidating the opposition and
instigating violence ahead of voting, thus paving the way for the

imposition of a ‘curfew’ on election day that will ensure voters only
come out to vote and return home, handing the PDP and

its cohorts in INEC and security agencies a carte blanche to determine
the outcome of the voting.

”Already, the trend is glaring: At least two attempts have been made
on the life of Gov. Oshiomhole, first when a truck

rammed his convoy and killed many after narrowly missing him, and then
last week when suspected political thugs

attacked the Governor, top government officials and ACN stalwarts in
Usen town. Add that to the cold-blooded killing of

the Governor’s Principal Private Secretary Olaitan Oyerinde, and the
evil machinations against the Governor and his party

begin to manifest.

”The strategy is simple: Go after the Governor and scare off his
teeming supporters, and then hope they will fight back, thus

precipitating chaos that will then be capitalized upon by the PDP
federal government to declare a curfew, at best, and a state

of emergency, at worst. But while we urge our members and supporters
to be peaceful and to resist playing into the hands of the

PDP, they must be vigilant, they must know that it is against the
Electoral Act for anyone to ask them to leave the polling

station after voting. They must not leave until the votes have been
counted and the results announced,” the party said.

ACN said what happened in 2011 must not be allowed to repeat itself,
when gullible international observers, after witnessing a

seemingly orderly process in which patriotic voters queued and cast
their votes, then returned to their hotels to declare the elections

free and fair, without witnessing the events at the collation centres
where most of the rigging took place.

The party said the PDP is even more emboldened to manipulate elections
now, knowing full well that it has almost emasculated

the judiciary, which gave respite to some of the candidates who were
robbed in the previous elections, and also because it has

muscled through a constitutional amendment that prevents robbed
candidates from getting justice after 180 days.

It advised President Goodluck Jonathan to pull the brakes on the
runaway rigging train of his party before it derails the nation’s
democracy

under his watch.

”If the PDP is as popular and acceptable to Nigerians as it claims,
why is it afraid of a free and fair election? If President Jonathan

believes his party is the only truly national party that can meet the
yearnings and aspirations of Nigerians, why is he unwilling to call

his party to order now that it is bent on pushing the nation into the
abyss of violence through election rigging?” ACN queried.

Alhaji Lai Mohammed

National Publicity Secretary

Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN)

Lagos, July 1st 2012

Jonathan receives draft of new Petroleum Industry Bill

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President Goodluck Jonathan on has received the long awaited draft of the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB).

The Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Alison-Madueke presented the draft to the president before a number of senior government officials at the State House on Friday.

The new draft of the PIB is the end product of work done by several committees and task forces set up by Mrs Alison-Madueke.

Speaking to state house correspondents after the presentation Mrs Alison-Madueke noted that the technical teams have done their work and that the president and the Federal Executive Council (FEC) may also wish to have a say on the draft, before it is then sent to the National Assembly by the president.

The much awaited PIB is expected to enthrone more transparency in the oil industry.

Experts and technocrats have expressed worry about the declining fortunes of the Nigerian petroleum industry because of the non-passage of the PIB.

Most of the major oil companies in Nigeria are reported to have ceased to invest in the sector, waiting for clarity of the bill and how it would affect the industry because the PIB is an attempt to bring under one law, the various legislative, regulatory, and fiscal policies, instruments and institutions that govern the petroleum industry.

It aims to introduce new operational and fiscal terms for revenue management, to enable the Nigerian government retain a higher proportion of the revenues derived from operations in the petroleum industry.

The PIB is also expected to herald a new era of reform in the oil and gas industry that will instill transparency, establish and clarify the rules, procedures and institutions that will entrench good governance and accountability in the oil and gas sector. It is expected to facilitate a thriving industry and overall economy.

Former President Olusegun Obasanjo in 2000 constituted the first Oil and Gas Reform Implementation Committee (OGIC) to recommend a policy for reforming the sector. The recommendations defined the need to separate the commercial institutions in the sector, from the regulatory and policy making institutions.

In 2007, the Yar’Adua administration reconstituted the OGIC under the chairmanship of Rilwan Lukman, to use the provisions of the National Oil and Gas Policy to setup legal, regulatory, and institutional structures for managing the oil and gas sector.

The Lukman Report, submitted in 2008, recommended regulatory and institutional frameworks that when implemented would guarantee greater transparency and accountability.

This report formed the basis for the first Petroleum Industry Bill (HB 159) that was submitted in 2008 as an Executive Bill.

But series of controversies raised by the bill prompted the constitution of a federal inter‐agency team, to review the Bill that is yet to see the light of the day before this administration came on board.

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Source: ChannelsTv

Mugabe wants 100 percent local control of economy

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Harare – Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Friday said the country wants 100 percent control over the economy by local people while foreigners come in as  partners.

Mugabe said Zimbabwe must get the lions share from the exploitation of its natural resources, arguing the 51-49 percent ownership model was no longer acceptable as it was leaking the  country. Foreigners benefits must be minimal, around 10 percent, he stressed.

He said this when addressing his ZANU-PF party’s central committee.

Zimbabwe’s Indigenization and Economic Empowerment Act, passed into law over three years ago, says that Zimbabweans must be majority shareholders with a minimum of 51 percent in  major companies across the economy.

“It is a leakage, the 49 percent. Now we want the 100 percent to remain in the country,” Mugabe said, reiterating that Zimbabweans must be in control of the economy while foreigners come in  as partners.

“That is why we are talking of ownership and not mere participation. We are no longer inviting outsiders to come and do business for us, we want to do business ourselves. Outsiders must come as participants, as workers or as employees. Even if they come as companies, we hire them to do our own business,” he added.

Mugabe said Zimbabwe with the highest literacy rate on the African continent Zimbabwe had trained enough people to be able to run the economy. He however said there appeared to be a “lack of zeal” among locals to run the economy.

He said professionals in various fields must form ventures that will participate in different sectors of the economy.

Mugabe said after successful conclusion of the land reform program, it was now time to venture into other sectors to empower locals.

He said the West had adopted covert means to take over control of the continent’s resources. “They also use, subvert and twist international law and even twist the charter of the United Nations, ” he said.

Mugabe said the West was also using ‘gullible’ African leaders in pushing forward their agenda.

He warned members of his party to be wary of being used in the quest to take over Africa by the West.

Barack Obama’s bad month turns good

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On paper, June looked like a bad month for President Obama. It began with a gaffe, his lighthearted comment that “the private sector is doing fine.” Then the Federal Reserve revised its growth forecast downward, making it clear that 8 percent unemployment is likely to linger past election day. Consumer confidence has sagged to a five-month low, and in one poll released this week, 61 percent of Americans said they think the country’s on the wrong track.

On top of that, Mitt Romney is out-raising the president in campaign donations, an unusual problem for an incumbent to face.

So how, amid all that bad news, has Obama clung to a narrow lead of about 3 percentage points in an average of major polls? And how has he built a more impressive margin in the 12 swing states that will actually decide the election, 50 percent to 42 percent in an NBC News-Wall Street Journal Poll released this week?

Part of the reason is that Obama has the incumbency advantage, and he’s been using it in a blur of executive action to remind the Democratic electorate that he’s their guy. He has made it easier for students to repay their loans. He endorsed gay marriage after years of waffling, a decision one Romney advisor privately conceded was “a net plus for the president.” He announced that the government would stop deporting most undocumented immigrants who entered the United States as children.

Romney, who doesn’t have the ability to change government policy with a signature, has had a hard time competing.

Equally important, though, Obama and his campaign have waged an effective and ferocious battle to define Romney as a heartless capitalist whose former company, Bain Capital, has sent jobs overseas.

Characteristically, Vice President Joe Biden delivered the attack in its purest form: “You’ve got to give Mitt Romney credit,” he said in Iowa on Tuesday. “He is a job creator – in Singapore and China (and) India.”

Romney’s representatives hotly deny the claim that Bain-owned firms ever shipped any U.S. jobs overseas, and they insist the company created jobs here too. But that’s not an argument that’s easy to win, and it’s not a debate the GOP wants its candidate to get tangled up in.

The Obama campaign’s strategy is straightforward. It wants to impeach Romney on what he cites as his main qualification for the presidency: that he’s a successful businessman who knows how to create jobs in the private sector.

Voters know Obama, but many of them don’t know Romney yet; in one recent poll, only 57 percent of respondents knew he was a Mormon. The Obama campaign realizes it has a brief window when it can shape how people see the GOP candidate.

And the strategy may be working, at least in the short run. The NBC-Journal poll found that in the 12 swing states, where the Obama campaign has been running television ads, the percentage of voters saying they have an unfavorable view of the Republican grew from 36 percent a month ago to 41 percent now.

Romney advisors point out that when Newt Gingrich attacked Romney’s record as a capitalist in the primary campaign, the gambit backfired. But Democrats say that was because the message sounded anti-capitalist to GOP primary voters; the public at large, they hope, will be more receptive.

We’ll see. Obama’s chances this fall are still, in large part, hostage to events, from the voters’ reaction to this week’s Supreme Court ruling on healthcare to whether the latest economic crash in Europe spreads to our shores as well. And once the GOP and its “super PAC” allies start spending in earnest, they’ll be hitting the president hard with negative messages of their own.

At this point, Romney campaign officials don’t sound terribly worried. “Obama is doing better … because he’s outspending Romney” on television advertising,” one Romneyite told me. “The attacks on Romney’s wealth and Bain are not sticking.”

But they are probably relieved, nevertheless, that Romney has decided not to fly to London to watch his wife’s very expensive horse compete in the Olympics; it wouldn’t have played well in Ohio.

Is that unfair? Probably. But politics ain’t beanbag – and it’s certainly not dressage.

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Doyle McManus is a columnist for The Los Angeles Times. E-mail: doyle.mcmanuslatimes.com.

Iran Calls for Extraordinary OPEC Meeting

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Sanctions-hit Iran on Saturday called for OPEC to hold an extraordinary meeting to rein in output going over its agreed total quota because oil prices have dipped to a “critical level” under $100 a barrel.

“We have asked the secretary general to set up an extraordinary meeting as prices have become irrational,” Iranian Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi was quoted as saying on his ministry’s official news website Shana.

He stressed that the last Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries meeting, on June 14, had decided the cartel’s overall quota would be 30 million barrels but “members’ production has reached 33 million barrels a day.”

OPEC had agreed that “when the prices go below $100 a barrel, they have reached a critical level,” and therefore an extraordinary meeting was needed before the next scheduled OPEC meeting in December, he said.

Iran is suffering under tightened Western sanctions aimed at severely restricting its all-important oil exports.

Those sanctions will get tougher from Sunday, when an EU oil embargo — which will also block most insurance for tankers carrying Iranian oil anywhere in the world — comes into full effect.

Tehran had been banking on the sanctions to cause oil prices to spike higher, off-setting their impact.

But quota-busting production by OPEC members Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, coupled with the European Union’s debt woes and slowing growth in China have tilted the global oil supply-and-demand balance out of its favor.

Iran, along with Venezuela, an OPEC member that is also strongly anti-U.S., are pushing within OPEC for production to be cut to boost prices.

The price of Brent crude, a reference on the market, slipped from a four-year high of $128 a barrel in early March to less than $100 a barrel.

On Friday, Brent North Sea oil for August delivery was selling for $97.80 a barrel — a big jump over previous days’ trading but still under the $100-a-barrel target set by OPEC.

The price issue has exacerbated tensions in OPEC between top producer Saudi Arabia and Iran, the second-biggest producer.

The two countries are also vying to grab the seat of the cartel’s secretary-general after the current holder of the post, Abdullah El-Badri of Libya, steps down this year.

Ecuador and Iraq have also put forward candidates for the job, which is to be decided in OPEC’s December meeting.

Labour rallies for Oshiomhole, tasks Jonathan on free polls

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EDO, GOODLUCK, SAMBO AND ADAMS

The Organised labour movement has held another rally for  Comrade Adams Oshiomhole for his second term bid as governor to enable him complete the projects he has started, even as the labour unions said July 14 will determine if President Goodluck Jonathan is ready or not for transformation in the country.

President of the Nigeria Labour Congress NLC  Comrade Abdulwaheed Omar who disclosed this  during a rally organized by the Youth Wing of Organized labour in Benin City  Saturday said the labour movement is proud of Comrade Oshiomhole’s performance in three and half years in Government House.

On his part, Governor Adams Oshiomhole, challenged the PDP candidate, Maj.-Gen Charles Airhiavbere (rtd) to join him on a walk round the markets in Benin City to test their popularity with the electorate.

According to the NLC President, “we will rally round Oshiomhole because he is not an ordinary politician who diverts the money of the state for personal reasons but rather he has proved that union leaders can be good administrators. We have every right to rally round him because he has not failed us, we are proud of him  and we will match our words with action,” he noted

According to him, the Peoples Democratic Party  set up a 49-member team to ensure victory for their candidate but the entire workers in the state will rally round Oshiomhole.

The NLC president who disclosed that Nigerians are watching if  President Jonathan will allow the people to determine who rules them in Edo State noted that an injury to one is an injury to all.

Similarly, President of the Trade Union Congress, TUC, Comrade Peter Esele said the people want continuity of progress, that is why they are behind Comrade Oshiomhole who has delivered the dividends of democracy.

“Oshiomhole is excellent. If he has delivered why do you want somebody else,” he asked the large turnout of youths organized labour that defied the heavy downpour.

While challenging the PDP candidate to a popularity test, Oshiomhole said “let them come and we will go to the Oba market together to buy tomatoes and pepper, let us go to Uwelu market together and buy spare parts without policemen, without soldiers, just the people and let’s see if they won’t put pepper in their eyes.”

He praised the leadership of the labour unions for the rally saying “the presidents of the NLC and TUC  who are the genuine commanders of the productive forces are here today to give us the support as we take Edo State from the ashes of old to a new Edo State. I am protected by the forces that matter,” he noted.

Comrade Oshiomhole said how come those who are celebrated as godfathers of Edo politics have been demoralized and they now concede they need external help from Abuja and they have denied themselves, saying they are no longer old PDP.

While urging the people of Edo State never to be afraid because they are the landlord when the oppressors run to seek federal might, the governor said those feasting on their wealth are now in trouble.

In his words, “July 14 will determine if President Jonathan is ready for transformation. The people will know if they have a president of Nigeria or President of the PDP.”

He however noted that the good news is that President Jonathan knows he is President of the nation and he will not allow a godfather to allow him to derail.

Highest HIV/AIDS infected state in Nigeria: Benue top the list

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The Benue State Commissioner for Health and Social Services, Dr. Oduen Abunku, has disclosed that over 600,000 persons are currently living with the dreaded HIV/AIDS in the state. Abunku lamented that skyrocketing figure had left the state on the top of chart of available statistics of the most endemic states in the federation. The Commissioner, who spoke at the joint Memorandum of Understanding, MoU, signing ceremony between the Benue State Government, the NKST Health Services and the Nigeria Indigenous Capacity Building Project, regretted that HIV/AIDS infestation in the state was destroying and eroding the state’s capacity in the food and agriculture. He said: “In Nigeria, Benue State has for many years topped the chart of the prevalence of HIV/AIDS with over 600,000 persons living with the virus in the state.

“The virus is destroying our farms, schools and churches and that is why we will continue to partner organisations who are providing services to the infected and affected in the state.”

He called on all development partners in the current war against the virus in the state to redouble their efforts at curbing the prevalence of the virus in the state.

In his remarks, Governor Gabriel Suswam, who was represented by the Secretary to the State Government, SSG, Dr. David Salifu, said his administration would continue to partner relevant agencies and international partners to ensure that the scourge of AIDS in the state was effectively checked.

Suswam, who disclosed that at the inception of his administration, the state had only one HIV/AIDS treatment centre, however, noted that his administration had established 20 more centres for the benefit of the infected.

The governor urged the people of the state to put aside their socio-political differences and join forces against the virus in the state, adding: “We must put aside our socio-political differences and stand up against the virus, so that our people will be able to lead a normal live.”

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Source: hotnaijanews

Happening now: Explosions, gunfire again in Damaturu

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Sounds of several explosions and gunfire are being reported by residents of Nyanya, a suburb in the heart of Damaturu, the Yobe state capital.

It is not known at this time where is being targeted but state commissioner of Police, Mr. Patrick Egbenife has told Weekly Trust that men of the Joint Task Force have been deployed to the troubled location and are trying to repel the attackers.

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Source: Weekly Trust

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