The Action Congress of Nigeria, Rivers State Chapter has tasked the State Governor, Rt. Hon Rotimi Amaechi on the provision of low cost houses for civil servants and generality of the people of the state.
The party stated this in Port Harcourt on the occasion of this year’s World Habitat Day.
The ACN message on the occasion was delivered by the Publicity Secretary, Jerry Needam.
The party regretted that the Amaechi led-government has failed in the areas of provision of housing, safe environment and potable water for the people of the State.
The ACN demanded to know what has become of tax payers’ money annually budgeted for the ministries of Urban Development, Water Resources, Lands and Greater Port Harcourt Development Authority.
“It has become very worrisome and sad too, that the Amaechi led-government cannot boast of a single room built and completed by government to alleviate the sufferings of thousands of civil servants and other Rivers people who are facing accommodation challenges in the State’’.
The party further regrets the inability of government to protect the environment.
The ACN also condemns the wanton destruction of houses in the name of demolition, without reclaiming the demolished sites, thereby making the city Port Harcourt extremely unclean.
The activities of the ministry of urban development are also not helping matters and negate the principles of the declaration of World Habitat Day.
The party therefore charges Amaechi-led government on the provision of low cost houses that shall be affordable to the people, cleaning of demolished sites that have turned to dump sites across the state, provision of potable water and the return of Port Harcourt to the garden city status.
The party regrets that six years down the line in the life of the Amaechi-led government, the administration is still understudying a Germany system of government to build low cost houses in the State.
The ACN describes the six year study as counter productive.
Lokoja / Abuja Bypass [October 2, 2012]Information available to 247ureports.com through eyewitness sources in Lokoja, Kogi State indicate that the Lokoja / Abuja bypass recently put in place by the Federal Ministry of Work as alternate route for vehicular movement around the flooded area.
On September 25, 2012, the Federal Minister of Works, Mr. Mike Onolemenen, following an onsite assessment of the flooding that divided vehicular movement from the Northern part of the country to south, instructed that an alternate route be sought – and constructed quickly as an emergency route to ease the flow of traffic. In particular, he charged three construction companies with the task; Julius Berger, RCC and Dantata and Sawoe.
In his words on September 25, “what we’ve been doing since yesterday is to identify a by-pass which we have created. As at this morning, we have attained about 60 percent completion. From the way we are going, by tomorrow the road should be opened to motorists. We have done a diversion at those drainage and vehicles will be able to drive normally through this by-pass without having recourse to canoes on our roads as a result of the flooding that happened”.
But the bypass held for five [5] days and failed – owing to a recent rainfall in the area.
According to eyewitness reports, the bypass which was quickly paved around the flood can no longer serve as a bypass – as the recent rainfall has rendered the road impassable and risky. “Only one partial lane is functional” and all the vehicles including trailers and tankers – going both directions are to use the single lane. As a result, the area has turned into a trailer park – stretching for miles from Lokoja towards Okene direction and miles towards the opposite direction.
“Okada ride across the flooding on the bypass cost N700”, noted our source who was also a passenger in one of the many stranded transport buses – today [October 3, 2012]. He observed that the disaster area has caused a makeshift economy to spring up near the failed bypass. Near the bypass is a new market consisting of merchants hawking emergency food and sanitary items, including cooked food. Also, transporters have devised a new means to earn benefit of out the disaster. They have shortened and/or divided their trips into two sections – a trip from Abuja to Asaba, Delta State will require a passenger to take one trip to the flooded area – and then board an Okada across the flooded area – and then board another vehicle to Asaba.
[A Syrian man walks past damaged buildings in the northern town of Atareb, 25 kms east of Syria’s second largest city Aleppo, on July 31, 2012. While fighting raged in Syria’s commercial capital Aleppo for a fourth straight day, clashes between the Syrian army and rebels also erupted in Damascus and other parts of the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. AFP PHOTO/AHMAD GHARABLIAHMAD GHARABLI/AFP/GettyImages] *** [] ** TCN OUT **
After countless speeches, meetings and behind-the-scenes discussions, the war in Syria remained the unsolved problem that loomed over this year’s gathering of world leaders at the United Nations.
As the week-long meeting of the U.N. General Assembly ended Monday, there were no breakthroughs on a civil war that has vexed diplomats, paralyzed the Security Council and raised new questions about the relevance of the United Nations.
Anyone willing to look closely, however, might spot a few signs of movement. The new international envoy to Syria, Lakhdar Brahimi, said he saw an “opening” for a solution and was working on a new approach after visiting Syria. The Emir of Qatar and other leaders in the region called for some kind of Arab-led intervention. But details were hard to come by.
Talk about Syria, however, was heard everywhere.
Over seven days of speeches, Syria was discussed by one country after another, from Albania: Syrians “are suffering a primitive bloodshed by a regime that has irreversibly lost its legitimacy to lead;” to Zambia: “Humanity has again been embarrassed by this unnecessary carnage.”
Dozens of nations excoriated the regime of President Bashar Assad for its role in a conflict that has killed at least 30,000 Syrians, according to activists.
Even the world’s top diplomat joined in. After Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with Syria’s foreign minister Monday, the U.N. chief’s press office issued a blunt statement.
“The Secretary-General raised in the strongest terms the continued killings, massive destruction, human rights abuses, and aerial and artillery attacks committed by the government,” it said. “He stressed that it was the Syrian people who were being killed every day, and appealed to the government of Syria to show compassion to its own people.”
Ban again went after Syria in a meeting later Monday on the threat of chemical weapons, alluding to the widely held belief that the Assad regime has stockpiles of them. Ban warned that the “use of such weapons would be an outrageous crime with dire consequences.”
Assad had a few defenders, like Iran, Cuba and, most notably, Russia. Moscow, Syria’s biggest protector, has joined with China to block three attempts by the U.S. and European Union nations to pass Security Council resolutions aimed at pressuring the Assad regime into negotiating a peace deal. The last threatened sanctions.
As the General Assembly wound down Monday, Syria got its chance to defend itself.
Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem described a vast global conspiracy bent on bringing down his government.
The media was provoking extremists, al-Moallem said, and inventing a refugee crisis — 300,000 Syrians have fled, according to the U.N.
The Americans, Europeans and fellow Arabs were all to blame for meddling in Syrian affairs by calling on Assad to step down. Neighbors like Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey were arming and financing “terrorists” who were trying to overthrow Assad, he said.
“This terrorism which is externally supported is accompanied by unprecedented media provocation based on igniting religious extremism sponsored by well-known states in the region,” the minister said.
After mentioning “terrorist” or “terrorism” 24 times in his speech, al-Moallem then said the government was ready to negotiate with the opposition and “work together to stop the shedding of Syrian blood.”
“Propaganda” was the swift response from the chief opposition group, the Syrian National Council, which released a statement saying the latest offer of peace talks came from a “brutal and delusional Syrian regime” that “continues to pay lip service to diplomacy.”
Members of the opposition acknowledged that neighboring Arab countries are supporting the rebels but said the Assad regime has only itself to blame after its bloody response to protests that began peacefully 18 months ago.
“It is the regime’s mindless, brutal and criminal military crackdown that pushed the Syrian people to ask for help from the international community, from NATO and from the devil himself if necessary to protect them,” Haitham Manna, a Paris-based Syrian dissident and senior member of the National Coordination Body opposition group, told The Associated Press.
The entire week at the U.N., which included a high-level meeting of foreign ministers on Syria, amounted to little more than “handwringing,” said Andrew Tabler, a senior fellow and Syria expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Time would have been better spent planning for a transition if and when Assad finally falls, he said.
“It’s those who are taking the shots against the Assad regime that will be calling them after Assad is gone,” he said. “How will the U.N. deal with that?”
Information available to 247ureports.com indicates that the Mobile police [MOPOL] officer arrested and detained for the murder of an Okada man, Umar Danmichika, on the hot afternoon of Wednesday September 26, 2012 at the Kaduna Stadium roundabout – has yet to be presented to the Courts for arraignment.
According to an official of the Kaduna State government, the MOPOL officer remains in the custody of the police in Kaduna pending the completion of an ongoing investigation. He assured that once the investigation is completed, the MOPOL officer will be presented to the courts for further legal actions.
The police commissioner of Kaduna State had pledged justice will be served. In his words, “We are doing something about the police man that killed the okada man. The culprit will be charged to court for murder. The law must take its full course; I have already briefed the Inspector General of police who have given me the mandate to go ahead with full investigation into the matter. We don’t train officers to kill innocent people in the society and take the law into their hands. We however appeal to law abiding citizens of the state to go about their normal activities as we are on top of the matter”.
It is recalled on the day of the incident eyewitness on the ground indicated that the murdered Okada rider, Umar Danmichika, had parked his motorcycle briefly to collect money from a customer when he was shot in the head in close range by a police officer in a moving vehicle.
Other witnesses indicated that the deceased had just finished eating from a local restaurant, and had yet to pay for his food when he saw a passenger, and rushed to drop the passenger before coming to effect payment, but unfortunately could not come back. In his words, “wallahi, he was deliberately shot because the boy was not on the road, he was just by the road side parked and sitting on the motorcycle, so how could he have committed any offence that will warrant him be killed like that. Infact he died instantly”.
Also, the woman who sold the food to the deceased, Mrs Aderonke Taiwo told our correspondent that the deceased “is my regular customer, he bought 80 naira food, he has not paid me when he left to drop the passenger, but I knew he would have come back to pay me, until I heard that he was the one that was killed by the gun shots I heard shortly after he left my place. He is my very good customer and his death is very painful and unfortunate. In fact, God will punish the police man that killed that innocent boy for nothing”.
It remains uncertain when the MOPOL officer will be arraigned in court for murder.
HARARE — Zimbabwe’s High Court ruled Tuesday that President Robert Mugabe does not have to immediately call by-elections, which a superior court had ordered the goverment to do. The ruling follows Mugabe’s argument the county does not have enough money to run the polls.
The legal battle started after three former members of parliament said Mr. Mugabe was taking too long to call by-elections to fill seats which have fallen vacant since Zimbabwe held its last elections in 2008.
Last week, Mugabe said Zimbabwe cannot afford to hold the elections to fill about 200 vacant municipal and parliamentary seats.
The Supreme Court, which is Zimbabwe’s highest court of law, ruled that Mugabe’s reason for delaying the polls had no legal standing.
However, the High Court said Tuesday that the president has until March 31st to comply with the Supreme Court’s order.
Tawanda Zhuwarara, the lawyer for the three former MPs, is not happy with the ruling, and says he wants to appeal.
“Primarily because we believe that the High Court made a gross, gross error of law. Basically we are also of the view that no state can plead poverty and escape its obligations,” said Zhuwarara.
The judge who issued Tuesday’s ruling once headed a Mugabe-appointed electoral commission that withheld election results in 2008 for about a month.
That delay was one of several factors that cast doubt on those polls, along with a campaign of violence by Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party against supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change.
The parties later formed a unity government under intense pressure from regional leaders.
The scheduling of elections has become the latest of many issues dividing the coalition partners.
Mugabe and his ZANU-PF party have been pushing to hold general polls in hopes of winning a majority and establishing their own government.
The MDC insists that a new constitution be adopted before the elections take place, in hopes of making the polls free and fair.
Four suspects have been arrested in connection with this morning’s massacre of innocent students of the Federal Polytechnic at Mubi in Adamawa State, North East Nigeria, according to reports from the area.
The reports are however sketchy and did not give details of the identity of the arrested suspects.
Meanwhile, an indefinite curfew has been imposed on the town even as the school authorities have closed down the institution and panic-stricken students are finding their way to their various states.
As previously reported by News Express, the police has confirmed that 26 people were killed when unknown gunmen invaded off-campus blocks, opening fire on defenceless students. No less than 15 others were reported injured in the attack.
Reports have it that the gunmen knew the victims by name and called out a list of names that before mowing down the students at the Yelwan Tsamiya of the polytechnic’s off campus accommodation area.
No group has claimed responsibility for the horrendous act but fingers are pointing in the direction of the Islamic terrorist sect, Boko Haram.
Men of the Joint Military Task Force hunting Boko Haram members in the terrorist-prone northern states are reported to have cordoned off the school as investigation continues into the gruesome killings.
The U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was in flames during a protest by an armed group angry over a film ridiculing Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
As al-Qaida has fragmented, U.S. officials have turned their attention to loosely affiliated groups that present threats of their own. Officials tell The Washington Post that among the steps being considered are drone strikes aimed at terrorists based in North Africa.
During a “series of secret meetings in recent months,” the White House began to “consider for the first time whether to prepare for unilateral strikes” aimed at terrorist groups operating in North Africa, The Washington Post writes this morning.
As NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston has previously reported, while al-Qaida has “fragmented” in recent years because of U.S.-led efforts against the network responsible for the Sept. 11, 2011, attacks, U.S. officials’ attention has turned to “a loose affiliation of groups that present a diffuse and entirely different threat.” Those include “al-Qaida’s arm in Yemen or Islamic militias in Somalia such as al-Shabab … [and] in Nigeria, a local separatist group called Boko Haram.”
The Post adds today that according to “U.S. officials” involved in the discussions, there have been talks about terrorists in Mali and other parts of North Africa who have been linked to al-Qaida, have been “acquiring weapons from post-revolution Libya” and have been tied to last month’s attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans dead. The newspaper writes that:
“U.S. officials said the discussions have focused on ways to help regional militaries confront al-Qaida but have also explored the possibility of direct U.S. intervention if the terrorist group continues unchecked.
According to the Post, White House officials declined to comment on the record about the discussions.
Copyright 2012 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.
President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan told five new Ambassadors today that Nigeria wants increased trade and economic activities with their countries.
President Jonathan received the Ambassadors, Mrs. L. Ann Scott of Jamaica, Mr. Hoand Ngoc Ho of Vietnam, Mr. Jean-Marie Mowelle of Congo, Mr. Zsolt Maris of Hungary and Mr. Rolf Kristian Ree of Norway, at different audiences in State House.
‘Nigerian citizens have been trading with the citizens of Congo, but this has been mostly informal. We should make this formal, so that our relationship will become even stronger’,he told Mr. Jean-Marie Mowelle of Congo.
President Jonathan told Mr. Hoand Ngoc Ho of Vietnam that Nigeria had set a target of 2015 for self-sufficiency in rice production, and urged him to work hard to increase the current $700m trade between the two countries.
The President said Nigeria had opened up its economy to private sector participation, and invited Norwegian businessmen to take advantage of the opportunities, adding that both countries are already cooperating at global for a such as the United Nations.
President Jonathan welcomed the interest shown by Hungary in Nigeria’s gas, and said he wanted Jamaica to become observers in the Africa-South America Summit, in order to further strengthen economic relations.
The new Ambassadors expressed appreciation to President Jonathan for receiving them, and promised to do their best to improve relations between the two countries during their tenures.
Information reaching 247ureports.com indicates that the Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC] has given its final approval for the United Peoples Party [UPP] to operate as a full-fledged political party. The authorization came today October 2, 2012 following a board meeting that ended at about 3pm.
The UPP will be the first political party registered under the watch of the INEC Chairman, Professor Attahiru Jega.
The founder of UPP, Chief Chekwas Okorie, was also the founder of the All Progressive Grand Alliance [APGA].
The new party, UPP is expected to be the new party for the south east and south south political region. The logo of the party is the head of a Tiger.
After the nationwide broadcast by President Goodluck Jonathan to mark this year’s independence anniversary yesterday, our nation was abuzz with speculations that the President’s claim that Transparency International had placed the country as second most improved nation in the fight against corruption was a declaration falsely manufactured to boost the ego of his administration. Besides, some newspapers reported that Premium Times had contacted the Transparency International to ascertain the veracity of the President’s claim, and the TI flatly disowned Mr President, saying it had no such report. In effect, President Jonathan said, ‘‘…in its latest report Transparency International [TI] noted that Nigeria is the second most improved country in the effort to curb corruption.’’; Transparency International replied, ‘‘Transparency International does not have a recent rating or report that placed Nigeria as the second most improved country in the fight against corruption.’’
Our great party recalls that just a couple of months ago, the same Transparency International, in an open letter to President Jonathan, had expressed worry over the scope and speed of corruption in Nigeria this year, saying it is beyond what it has ever dealt with. The letter said, inter alia, ‘‘The problem, Your Excellency, has to do with the rate and scale of scams and corruption probes coming out of Nigeria in 2012. The scope and speed of corruption in your country this year is beyond anything our client has ever dealt with.’’ So we wonder how this international graft-watch outfit had made a somersault within such a short time, with no visible commitment on the part of the government to fight graft.
The All Nigeria Peoples Party [ANPP] believes it is unreasonable for the number one citizen of this great nation to misrepresent statistics as this is a strong message of support to corrupt people and those planning to obfuscate the citizens for their own personal gain. Words and body language are potent enough to aggravate corruption just as corrupt practices would. When a leader embellishes a story, he is inadvertently telling his subjects to turn the truth on its head whenever they find the opportunity.
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