ATTENCAO

The Federal Government has hit back at the Senate President Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu, over statements they made last Tuesday after they were arraigned for allegedly forging the Standing Rules of the upper legislative chamber. The government said it would be better for Saraki and Ekweremadu to either honourably resign or face the judicial process. The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir Lawal, said statements issued by both Senate leaders targeting the government and President Muhammadu Buhari as an individual as if the executive arm was the initiator of the forgery case against them was not acceptable. Lawal who also signed a statement yesterday said the separate comments by “the two leaders of the Senate also gave this erroneous impression that by their arraignment, it is the entire Senate and indeed, the legislative arm of government that is on trial. They want the public to believe that their prosecution is in utter disregard by ...

This is to apologize to our readers, friends and associates   for our absence over the last few weeks (without prior notice), for reasons which are pinned to unavoidable circumstances. Although some of these issues have not been amply   resolved but we will do all within our power to facilitate significant engagement as we have done in the past. We are glad o return. Thank you.

Emmanuel Ogebe, a United States-based civil rights lawyer and social welfare campaigner who had been caring for 10 escaped Chibok girls in the US since 2014, has expressed shock over reports that President Muhammadu Buhari had ordered the Nigerian embassy in Washington to take possession of the girls from him. Ogebe said the move was emblematic of Buhari’s “government of photography and press statements,” given that “no official communication” had been channeled to him to that effect. The federal government had on Tuesday night announced a takeover of the girls, who were amongst the lucky ones that escaped after suspected Boko Haram operatives invaded Government Girls’ Secondary School, Chibok, Borno State, in April 2014. In a statement issued by the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs, the government said the move was approved by the parents of the girls in Nigeria. “Following a meeting held on May 25, between parents of the escaped Chibok girls studying in America and offic...

Germany expects up to 100,000 undocumented migrants to leave the country in 2016, a number Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere Wednesday hailed as high but insufficient after last year’s record influx. “If the current trend continues then we will reach a total of between 90,000 and 100,000 deportations and voluntary returns,” de Maiziere told reporters. “That is good but not good enough. That is why we must continue to work to ensure that those who must leave our country actually do so.” Between January and April of this year, some 20,000 foreign nationals without permission to stay in Germany returned to their countries of origin voluntarily under government programmes. Those totals marked a strong increase from 2015, when 37,220 returns were recorded during the year as a whole, and 13,574 in 2014. German authorities said 9,280 were deported during the first four months of 2016, compared to 22,369 in all of 2015 and 13,851 in 2014. De Maiziere did not provide a breakdow...

The crisis rocking the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday, reverberated on the floor of the House of Representatives as two members of the party,Tony Nwoye and Emmanuel Udende, announced their decampment to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on the floor of the chamber. The defection, the first in the 8th Assembly, slightly altered the numerical standing of the parties in the lower chambers as the APC now has 215 lawmakers, while the PDP members stand at 138. The All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), has three members. The Accord Party, Labour Party and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) have a member each while the one seat, the Nasarawa/Toto federal constituency of Nasarawa state is vacant following the death of the erstwhile representative, Hon. Baba Musa Onwana. Nwoye, is a former chairman of the PDP in Anambra state and member representing Anambra east/west federal constituency of Anambra state, and Hon. Emmanuel Udende representing Katsina-A...

In line with the agenda of the 8th Assembly on the introduction of a full scale e-parliament, the House of Representative has adopted the e-voting system, thereby throwing away the controversial and much criticised manual voting where members shout ‘aye’ and ‘nay’ to support or oppose an issue on the floor. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, who made this known in Abuja said he approved the modern voting system to be in line with the agenda of the 8th Assembly. We are committed to the use of Information and Communications Technology in the daily conduct of legislative activities of the House. E-parliament and e-voting platforms will be made a regular feature of the House,” Dogara said. In order to kick-start the e-parliament, forms had been distributed to the 360 members of the House “to collate their data ahead of the production of e-voting Cards.

In spite of military presence in presence around oil installations in the Niger Delta, the Niger Delta Avengers (NDA) early on Wednesday blew up oil wells belonging to Chevron. “With the heavy presence of 100 Gunboats, 4 Warships and Jet Bombers NDA blew up Chevron Oil Well RMP 23 and RMP 24 3:44am this Morning,” the group announced on Twitter, claiming that oil wells RMP 23 and RMP 24 are Chevron’s highest producing wells.

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekwerenmadu advised security agencies to handle various unrests in the country with caution to avert persistent and unnecessary waste of innocent lives. Ekweremadu, who gave the advice while raising a point of order on the confrontation between security agents and pro-Biafran protesters in the South-east and South-south on Monday, said the brutal attacks against civilians who were staging peaceful protest were misplaced. According to him, the protests by members of MASSOB, which were followed by the onslaughts of security agents in Delta and Anambra States on Monday ought to have been handled with extreme caution as he lamented the uncivil approach of the agents to the matter. He said: “I will like to use this opportunity under Order 43 to say that the security agencies must apply caution in trying to quell disturbances. We have had so much of blood bath in this country under different circumstances and we cannot continue to lose young men and women be...

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has said that Nigeria’s total trade volume for first quarter of 2016(Q1 2016) is valued at N2.72 trillion. According to Q1 Foreign Trade Statistics report made available to journalists in Abuja yesterday, the N2.72trillion Q1 total foreign trade value is 22.6% less than total trade volume recorded in Q4 2015 and 38.0% less than same quarter in 2015. In the report, Nigeria’s largest import partners in Q1 2016 are: China, India, and the USA, while on the largest export table, India, Spain, and Netherland contributed the highest even as the United Kingdom was conspicuously missing in Nigeria’s top import or export table. Total import from China, which is the highest in the period under review, is 23.8%, representing 6.7% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and-12.2% year-on-year import volume. This is followed by India with a total of 6.5% volume of trade, with 7.30% contribution to the GDP, and -7.5% year-on-year. This was then followed by U...