Gist Arena

Austin Tam-George, the Commissioner for Information in Rivers State, has resigned his position, PREMIUM TIMES can report. His resignation, which was communicated to Governor Nyesom Wike on Friday morning, takes effect immediately. He said he handed over to the Director of Administration, Ministry of Information. “I wish to resign my appointment as Commissioner for Information and Communication with effect from today, June 23, 2017,” Mr. Tam-George said in the letter obtained by PREMIUM TIMES. “I have handed over officially to the Director of Administration of the Ministry.” “Thank for the opportunity to serve the state,” he added. The resignation letter Mr. Tam-George, a communication expert and former lecturer at Pan African University, was appointed in December 2015 to handle the public relations activities of the Wike administration, which was inaugurated in May 2015. It was not immediately clear if Mr. Wike accepted the resignation, which came ...

The Supreme Court has sacked Abubakar Danladi from the Nigerian Senate. Mr. Danladi represented Taraba North in the Senate. The apex court also ordered him to refund all salaries and allowances earned in the Senate within 90 days. Mr. Danladi was sacked by the Supreme Court on the same day a member of the House of Representatives, Herman Hembe, was also sacked by the apex court. Mr. Danladi’s political career was once saved by the same Supreme Court which ousted him today. In 2014, the court ordered him reinstated as Taraba State’s deputy governor after he was impeached in controversial circumstances. Mr. Danladi was the first deputy governor who ran on the same ticket with former Governor Dantata Suntai. He was impeached  on October 4, 2012 shortly before Mr. Suntai took ill after an air crash. He was accused of fraud and abuse of office. Another politician, Garba Umar, was then appointed deputy governor after his removal. And after then Governor...

A 42-year-old father-of-six was caught in Katsina having sex with a goat. Babangida Garba was arrested in Ungwar Mata, Funtua local government area after his pregnant wife saw him with a goat belonging to their neighbour and raised alarm, attracting residents. Garuba, a Goldsmith, was eventually handed over to the police and he allegedly confessed to the action, claiming it's because his wife starves him of sex. He was paraded  on Thursday  alongside other criminals at the headquarters of Katsina State police command by the state Commissioner of Police, CP Usman Abdullahi. Speaking to journalists, he said it was the second time he was sleeping with the goat. Garuba is yet to be charged to court but the state Police Commissioner, Aliyu Abdullahi, while confirming the incident, said that Garuba would soon appear in court.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Wednesday, June 21, 2017, arraigned one suspected Internet fraudster, Folusho Oguntoyinbo, also known as Sydney, before Justice Hakeem Olatunde Oshodi of the Lagos State High Court sitting in Ikeja on a three-count charge bordering on possession of fraudulent documents and obtaining money by false pretence to the tune of N700, 000(Seven Hundred Thousand Naira). One of the counts reads:  ''That you, Folusho Oguntoyinbo (a.k.a. Sydney) sometime in 2016 in Lagos within the Ikeja judicial division, with intent to defraud, obtained the sum of Seven Hundred Thousand Naira from Roy Torgerson by falsely representing to him that you were Sydney A., female, which representations you knew to be false." The 31-year-old suspected fraudster, however, pleaded not guilty when the charges were read to him. In view of his plea, the prosecution counsel, Ayanfeoluwa Ogunsina, asked the court for a trial date and...

INEC has written a letter to Senator Dino Melaye, informing him of receiving petitions for his recall from members of his constituency in Kogi West Senatorial district. A copy of the letter above. The petition signed by 188, 588 voters, was delivered to INEC office yesterday. In the INEC letter which was signed by the commissions National Commissioner and Member of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Mohammed Haruna, INEC says the next step is to verify the registered voters in the petition. “In accordance with the INEC guidelines for the recall of members of the National Assembly, the Commission has formally acknowledged the receipt of the petition to the petitioners’ representatives and has conveyed a letter notifying Senator Melaye of our receipt of the petition. The next step is to verify that the petitioners are registered voters in the Kogi West Senatorial District". To carry out the verification of the petitioners, INEC said...

Earlier in the week, Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike alleged that each commissioner and local government chairman in Rivers State paid Amaechi's wife, Judith, the sum of N3m and N2m monthly while he was in office. Amaechi has already come out to deny this claim. Now, the former chairmen and commissioners in the state during Amaechi's tenure have released a joint statement denying Wike's claim... The statement was signed by the former chairman of Asari-Toru LGA, Ojukaye Flag Amachree and the former Commissioner of Sports, Fred Mbombo-Igwe. Read the statement below... The attention of former Chairmen of Local Government Councils and Commissioners in Rivers State during the administration of former Governor Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi have been drawn to a recent media interview granted by current governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, where Wike falsely accused Dame Judith Amaechi, the wife of our boss of extorting and collecting monthly, bet...

Ghana's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration is investigating the circumstances surrounding the Ghanaian passports issued to Nigerian kidnap kingpin, Chikwudubem Onwuamadike aka  Evans' and his family. Ghana's Deputy Foreign Affairs Minister, Charles Owiredu told Joy News  Thursday  that any persons found to have played a role in the issuance, would be duly dealt with according to the law. According to him, preliminary investigations into the matter have revealed, two children of the kidnapper received their Ghanaian passports in 2010 while the wife had hers in 2013. He also confirmed that the arrested kidnapper was issued a passport from the Accra Passports Office on 10 January 2013 under the fake name 'Asare Nelson'. Mr. Onwuamadike who happens to have relocated his family to Ghana because of the nature of his business was recently arrested in Lagos. He's responsible for coordinating several high-profile...

In a new article titled 'ABUJA: The City of the Emperor', Doyin Okupe writes on the growing agitation of the Nnamdi Kanu led IPOB Groopu and why elder statesmen are all keeping quite in the face of the looming disaster. Read his article below.... There is indeed a "god" in Abuja. He is a very prideful and powerful god and his head office is in the Villa, the seat of power. Unlike Jehovah God, it does not give liberty to his subjects to exercise their will. He is captivating, imposing and compelling, forcing his will at random on his subjects and their subordinates. During President Obasanjo's tenure, a very senior minister and a distinguished gentleman, during a period of national crisis, got up and with all his weight slammed the Presidents table and retorted vociferously " Mr President, after God in this country, it is you,your word is law.!" When I heard that statement I knew it was god of Abuja that was speaking through the Hon. ...

Since inception, Facebook's mission statement has been, ' give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected'. Now the Mark Zuckerberg led company has just changed it's mission statement to read, 'to give people the power to build community and bring the world closer together'. Speaking in why there was need to change it, Zuckerberg said: 'We used to have a sense that if we could just do those things, then that would make a lot of the things in the world better by themselves, But now we realize that we need to do more too. It's important to give people a voice, to get a diversity of opinions out there, but on top of that, you also need to do this work of building common ground so that way we can all move forward together'. He adds that, 'a lot of what we can do is to help create a more civil and productive debate on some of the bigger issues as well'.

Human rights lawyer, Femi Falana who is the legal adviser to the Nigeria Labour Congress, NLC, on Thursday revealed that the person behind the quit notice given to the Igbos in 19 states in the Northern part of the country, does not even live in the north. Falana revealed that the person actually lives in Lagos.   Speaking at a media briefing organized by the NLC on the current agitations by the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB and the quit notice given to the Igbos to vacate the 19 states of the north before 1st October by 16 northern youth groups, Falana said the ultimatum had the backing of Prof. Abdullahi. Prof. Ango Abdullahi was a former Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, ABU, who made some inciteful untternaces during Gen. Ibrahim Babangida's regime over the brutal killings of four ABU students, which led to disruptive protests by the students of the school.  Falana said Proof Abdullahi's ut...

2017 Anambra Governorship election: Chudi Offodile, UPP and the new narratives When Hon Chudi Offodile, Awolo-Awka, was elect­ed into the Federal House of Representatives in May 1999, as the representative for Awka North and South Federal constituency of An­ambra State, he was just 34 years old. He served as the Chairman of the Spe­cial Committee on Joint Venture Oil Operations [2001-2003] and Chair­man of the Public Petitions Committee [2003-2006]. He is also a businessman, lawyer and notary public. He ran for senate in 2007 and 2011 unsuccessfully and called it quits with “electoral politics”. Then he bounced back with the best seller ‘’The Politics of Biafra and the Future of Nigeria’’ pub­lished by Safari Books Ltd in 2016. The book has seven “Parts” that are sub-divided into twenty “Chapters”. Part One titled “Prelude To War” contains four chapters: Pre­view; Igbo identity Crises; The 15th January 1966 Coup; The 29th July 1966 Counter Coup. Part Two titled, “Pe­riod of...