FASHOLA URGES BAN OF SIREN ON GOVS’ CONVOYS

Due to constant road accidents involving public office holders, Lagos State Governor  Babatunde Fashola yesterday pleaded with other governors to  get rid of sirens in their convoys.

Fashola made the plea at the ongoing 13th National Council on Transport in Lagos.  He said such practice amounts to oppressing members of the public who elected them into office, noting that this is the reason why he barred all his commissioners from using siren.  The governor condemned the use of sirens by the political office holders and reckless driving by government convoy drivers.

Aregbesola campaigning for Ngige in Anambra

Gov Rauf Aregbesola of Osun State campaigning for candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Chris Ngige ahead of the November 16 governorship election in Anambra state

MEMORIES OF PROF FESTUS IYAYI

The death yesterday of Prof Festus Iyayi in a car crash in Kogi State would cause great pain and anguish throughout the academic community in Nigeria but also to all the people who have known and stood with him in the trenches of revolutionary struggle in Nigeria. In my own brief stint as a university lecturer and also a member of the secretive Communist underground in the 1980s, I got to know Dr. [as he then was] Festus Iyayi quite well. Even though I have not seen him for many years now, we spoke on the phone as recently as two months ago.

YOUTHS DISRUPT BAUCHI APC CONGRESS

APC

Hundreds of youths suspected to be supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Monday disrupted a meeting of the party meant to elect an interim leadership committee for the party in Bauchi State.

The congress which was attended by party stalwarts in the state had hardly begun when the hall was thrown into chaos by angry youths who came to witness the proceeding.
Convener of the meeting and national officer of the party Captain Bala Jibrin, confirmed the incident while speaking with our correspondent in Bauchi.
He said, “We had summoned a meeting of all stakeholders of the party in the state to elect the interim leadership but it was disrupted by political thugs among them responsible persons.”
Cpt. Jibrin said the meeting was organized in order to have a free and fair election by inviting all relevant stakeholders and neutral persons of integrity to monitor the election and to conduct free and fair election, but that before the commencement of the election, some youths broke the door of the venue of the meeting and came in to disrupt the convention.

AREGBESOLA MOURNS PROF IYAYI

Osun State Governor, Rauf Aregbesola, on Wednesday saluted the courage with which the late former President of the Academic Staff Union of Universities, Prof. Festus Iyayi confronted forces of under-development in his contribution towards the growth of Nigeria.

Aregbesola said the sudden and tragic death of Iyayi made a sad statement on how quality lives are wasted under very avoidable circumstances of bad roads and other infrastructure decay in Nigeria.

Describing the death as a sad loss to the academic world and the nation, Aregbesola, in a statement by his Director, Bureau of Communications and Strategy, Mr. Semiu Okanlawon, said Iyayi’s death has not only robbed the academic world of an intellectual of uncommon repute, it has depleted the ranks of truly committed agitators for common good in Nigeria.

PDP Leaders Ask Court To Restrain Jonathan From Contesting 2015 Election

A Federal High Court sitting in Kaduna has slated the 20th of January 2014 for hearing a petition brought before it by two leaders of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who are seeking a court order to restrain President Goodluck Jonathan from contesting the 2015 presidential election.

The plaintiffs, Richard Tersoo and Shuaibu Lilli, had filed a suit at the Federal High Court, Kaduna asking it to disqualify Jonathan from presenting himself as a presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2015 election.

They also want the court to order the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to restrain the PDP from accepting any nomination of Jonathan as a presidential candidate in 2015 election.

In a suit filed on 7th October, 2013, they insisted that President Jonathan had completed his first tenure in office as President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria having expired at the end of the four year tenure calculated from 29th May, 2007.

They said the tenure of Jonathan has expired at the end of the four year tenure calculated from 29th May, 2007, being the date the last holder of the said office was sworn in.

Part of the originating summons reads: “A declaration that President Jonathan is not entitled to tenure of office as President exceeding eight years calculated from 2007, till last holder of the said office”.

At the first sitting where the case was mentioned on Monday, the presiding judge, Justice Evelyn  Anyadike after hearing the submissions made by counsel to the plaintiffs and INEC,  Tony Agaga and Hauwa Habib respectively, adjourned the case to 20th January 2014 for hearing due to the absence of the counsel to President Jonathan and PDP in court.

The judge stated that he will give the petitioner accelerated hearing if the defendants fail to show up by the next adjourned date.

However, one of the petitioners, Shuaibu Lili told journalists that he has the right to challenge the eligibility of President Jonathan to seek for another term in office based on  the provisions in the country’s constitution and Electoral Act which bars a president from exceeding more than eight years in office.

Nigeria Police Is Incapable of Providing Security- Ngige

The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 16 Anambra elections, Dr. Chris Ngige has declared that the Nigeria Police “as presently constituted, incapable of providing security to everybody”

Ngige, who was speaking during the Channels Television’s organized Town Hall Conversation with candidates of contesting political parties, added that this is so because “they are poorly funded”.

As a member of the Senate Committee on Police Affairs, he revealed that “30 per cent of police budget in the state formations are funded by the respective state governments” adding that “the Council of state and the National Economic Council have a proposal that two per cent of the revenue of the country be used for the police”.

He also noted that the conditions, welfare, logistics for work and the working equipment of the Nigeria Police is nothing to write home about insisting that “you don’t give what you don’t have”.

He also debunked the notion that state policing is usually used for political reasons insisting that “times have changed”.

Using an English adage “Necessity is the mother of all inventions”, Ngige said the security challenge the state is facing made him to invent “a vigilante services that comes up from the community level to the local government level and up to the state level and trained them in the conventional police system” to curb the security challenges the state was facing in 2003.

He argued that if he is voted into office, he will do it again noting that “that is what my security votes is for” insisting that the main function of government Is to protect its citizens.

ISLAMIC SIM TO BE SHOWCASED IN AFRICA

A new SIM-based application designed to offer a range of functions to users of even lower end feature phones will be showcased at Africa Com in Cape Town this week.

The Islamic SIM Service (ISS), designed by Greek electrical engineer Yiannis Hatzopoulis, enables users to track the direction of the Kaa’bah, receive accurate prayer timing, convert dates between Gregorian and Arabic calendars and automatically ban incoming calls during prayer time.

The SIM will be showcased at Africa Com in Cape Town from 12 – 14 November.
Hatzopoulis says the Islamic SIM Service is currently under scrutiny by mobile operators in several countries, but that it would be premature to speculate on its distribution in Africa.
He says the ISS came about after he noted the success of LG’s Islamic phones in 2009, and saw a gap in the market for good Islamic services running on generic feature phones. He says: “I realised that I could pack most of the functions of an Islamic phone inside a SIM card, to turn any casual feature phone into an Islamic phone, simply through the swap of its SIM card.”