Metuh Requests For Variation Of Bail Conditions As Trial Begins, Witness Testify Confirms the PDP chief gave her $2m!

The trial of the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Mr Olisa Metuh, has started, with the opposition party’s spokesman requesting for a variation of his bail conditions. 

Mr Metuh made the request before his trial began on Monday.

However, because the prosecution was just served, the trial judge, Justice Abang Obong, deferred hearing on the issue to January 27.

Witness Testify

He, however, declined to adjourn the trial, asking the first prosecution witness to testify.

The witness, one Miss Nicole Ararume, claimed she was the wealth manager for Mr Metuh and his company Destra Investment Limited.

She narrated to the court how she received the sum of two million dollars paid in 100 dollar bills, which she took to a Bureau De Change for onward transfer to the Asset and Resources Management account of Mr Metuh and his company.

The lawyers to Mr Metuh, however, asked for an adjournment for him to prepare materials required for cross examination.

“Her allegations are serious and there is a need to get the necessary documents to enable me adequately cross examine her,” Mr Oyeachi Ikpeazu told the court.

However, the counsel to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Mr Tahir Sylvanus, objected to the application.

He said: “It has been known to the defence that trial will commence today, as such, it should have adequately prepared for the case”.

Mr Sylvanus also told the court that he had front loaded all the account details relating to the transaction as such there was no cogent reason why the hearing should be adjourned.

Again Mr Ikpeazu argued that he could not cross examine a prosecution witness based on its document.

He told the court that the defence would also rely on its own generated document to do so.

The council to Mr Metuh further complained that it had been difficult to adequately prepare for trial as the prison officials have made interaction with his client’s difficult.

On Friday, a Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court granted Mr Metuh bail in the sum of 300 million Naira and two sureties in like sum.

In the ruling, the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Ishaq Bello, stressed that the sureties must be resident in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital city.

Mr Metuh is facing a seven-count charge of criminal breach of trust, corruption and money laundering.

Source: ChannelsTV News

U.K. man must give cops 24 hours’ notice if he plans to have sex

LONDON – A British man has been ordered by a court to give police 24 hours’ notice if he plans to have sex with a female.

The unusual “interim sexual risk order” will be in effect until a further hearing is held in four months. A longer restriction may be sought at that point.

Sexual risk orders are used in cases where a person has not been convicted of a sex crime but is judged by police as posing a potential threat to the public.

The order was sought by North Yorkshire Police and issued by York Magistrates’ Court. It replaces an earlier order limiting the man’s sexual activity that was about to expire.

He must give police the name, age and address of any female he plans to have sex with at least 24 hours before engaging in such activity.

The man can be sent to prison if he does not provide proper notification or if he violates other terms.

He is also prohibited from using the Internet unless he uses a device equipped with police-managed software that is to protect against online offending.

The only exception to this rule gives him permission to access the Internet while seeking work at government-run employment offices.

The man cannot be named for legal reasons and his address cannot be revealed. Police declined to comment on the case Monday.

© The Canadian Press, 2016

Lagos gives 7-day ultimatum to residents on gated streets

• Ambode

Lagos State Government has given seven days ultimatum to residents to keep to the directives that gates or barricades leading to major roads in the state, is locked between 12 mid night and 5am with manned security guards to allow free flow of vehicular movement.

State Commissioner for Local Government and Community Affairs, Mr. Muslim Folami, who revisited the directive yesterday at a press conference, said the government will not hesitate to remove gates of streets where residents fail to comply.

According to him, “this is a serious issue and we are not taking it likely with anyone, residents have within seven days to comply with this directive or have their gates remove.”

He assured residents of security, saying that government officials will go round to make sure that people comply with the government directives.

Earlier, Special Assistant to the Governor on Community Affairs, Mr. Tajudeen Quadri, who addressed journalists alongside the commissioner and Special Adviser to the Governor on communication and Community Affairs, Mr. Kehinde Bamigbetan said recent trends revealed that some residents have abandoned the directives.

He said the development have given rise to come back of street gates even streets that never had them before are now erecting theirs fortified with all manner of objects.

Quadri recalled that before 2009 when the government came up with the directive, it was observed that streets where gates are under lock and key constitutes serious bottleneck and makes it difficult for police, fire service and vehicle on emergency to go through when carrying out their legitimate duties.

He said it also constitutes obstructions to traffic, especially in areas where such streets gates or barricades are on the roads meant to serve as thoroughfares or alternative links.

Also affected are pregnant women in Labour and sick people of which some has lost their lives because they were unable to get through to hospitals because their gates where lock with no security guards to attend to them.

He recalled the inconveniences the situation has cause, stressing that henceforth leaders of community must ensure that residents comply with the directives to avoid pulling down their gates.

He recalled the inconveniences gated streets have caused residents who have to walk round to access their area, while adding that some gates are deliberately locked for purposes of allowing roads to be used for parties.

He said government is revisiting the directives on the gates and barricades, with the aim of solving the challenges posed by the unrestricted erection of street gates all over the state.

Source: The Nation

Fashola to PENCOM: invest N5tr pension fund in real sector

Tweet0

Minister of Power, Works and Housing Babatunde Fashola has urged the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and other operators to invest the over N5 trillion pension fund in construction of infrastructure.

He mentioned such infrastructure as roads, housing, Fourth Mainland Bridge, coastal road linking several coastal states from Lagos to Bayelsa and the new seaports in Lekki and Badagry.

The minister spoke in a keynote speech at the Nigerian Pension Industry Strategy Implementation Roadmap Retreat organised by the National Pension Commission (PenCom) and pension operators at the weekend in Abuja.

His paper was titled: “Overcoming the Challenges and Managing the Risks and Constraints that Inhibit the Investment of Private Capital and Funds in Nigeria’s Infrastructure Landscape to Make a Visible Economic Impact”.

He also recommended investment of the fund in refineries, such as Dangote’s, Ajaokuta Steel, petrochemical plants, resuscitation of textile mills; prisons to strengthen justice system and decongest prisons; hostels for universities, power plants for universities, especially those with teaching hospitals, health care and others.

To sceptics, who may be scared to invest pension assets in the real sector, Fashola said “diversification has forced itself on us as a nation and those investible vehicles exist”.

The minister said he could see a future of Africa, where Nigeria is leading in the use of people’s resources to build a future that includes the people.

He said he developed a topic from the challenges encountered by the pension regulator and operators in finding suitable investable vehicles to invest.

Fashola noted that the risks that stand in the way of the pension managers in investing the fund without any hitch were caused by some businessmen, who for their selfish reasons ensured that projects and contracts were tied down in courts.

He identified five areas that needed to be addressed to assure investors of low induced risks and these included politics, government’s action, socio-cultural, legal and judicial factors.

He stated that while the journey of a new pension system started with the coming together of some Nigerian minds like President Olusegun Obasanjo and Fola Adeola and was nurtured by the dedicated hands of men and women, it has reached a major milestone from where it must reinvigorate itself.

The minister, who said it was time to invest in the real sector, added that the biggest opportunity presented itself for the nation to act towards diversification rather than sloganeering it.

Fashola, who lamented infrastructure deficit in Africa, said: “This is the time to show that our nation and our national economy is bigger than the challenges posed by dwindling oil prices. This is the time to diversify and change the face of our economy. But the risks that stand in the way of investing the fund are caused by us and they must be changed by us.

“Perhaps, the appropriate starting point will be to acknowledge that pension reforms are just beginning to gain a foothold across most of Africa in jurisdictions as Nigeria, Ghana, Botswana, Kenya and Uganda, to mention a few.

“Perhaps the biggest and most advanced of the pension funds, especially in sub-Saharan Africa is the South African Pension Fund. But while the sizes of these funds are happily growing, and the number of contributors increasing, the impact in the quality of life on the continent is not yet anywhere near minimum globally acceptable standards.”

The minister advocated the adoption of a collective national attitude to make it possible to invest the over N5 trillion  fund constituting the contributions of the nation’s working class into real sectors as a means of diversifying  the nation’s economy and achieving inclusive growth.

He noted that the attitude that once mired pension funds management in scandals and lack of transparency, had led to stringent legislative interventions that limited the scope of activities that pension funds could participate.

Fashola acknowledged the amendments being made to address the situation.

Source: The Nation

Jonathan holds world press conference in Geneva, Wednesday

Former President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan, will on Wednesday, hold a world press conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

The press conference, which holds at 3pm local time, is part of activities lined up by the Circle of Diplomats (Circle Diplomatique), Geneva in honour of Jonathan, which would be concluded with a dinner same day.

According to a statement by Guy Mettan, Executive Director, the Geneva Press Club, Jonathan will address two most crucial topics in Nigeria and West Africa at the press briefing.

Mettan said the former Nigerian president will talk about security and civil peace in Nigeria and West Africa, on one hand, as well as improvement of health and education of children, on the other.

He said accredited United Nations correspondents and Swiss journalists are expected at the press conference, which will most likely see Jonathan talking about Boko Haram activities in Nigeria and the fight against insurgency.

The Circle of Diplomats will also host a dinner in honour of Jonathan on Wednesday night at the Intercontinental Hotel, Geneva.

Since leaving office on May 29, 2015, Jonathan has engaged in peace missions and election monitoring on behalf of the United Nations. He has also received global awards and acclaim for peacefully relinquishing power after losing the presidential election last year.

Jonathan had conceded defeated to President Muhammadu Buhari last year even before the final results of the 2015 Nigerian presidential election was announced.

Vanguard

NITEL/MTEL: A second coming

• Ayeni

From the ashes of the fallen telecommunications behemoth, NITEL and its late kid brother, MTEL, has arisen a world class brand that promises to take telecommunications services to the next level in Nigeria come March this year. Welcome to the world of ntel, the brainchild of NATCOM, the corporate vehicle that acquired the telecommunications assets of the NITEL and MTEL, under a guided liquidation process supervised by the Bureau of Public Enterprises, BPE

At a recent Public Hearing on the acquisition of NITEL/MTEL by the House Committee on Telecommunications in Abuja, Olatunde Ayeni, the Chairman of NATCOM disclosed to the committee members that his company’s first “mass market offering will comprise high-speed mobile broadband services over a brand new 4G/LTE network providing coverage to suburban communities in Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt”.

In addition to this, NATCOM will offer high definition voice and high speed data services over direct fiber connections (freshly laid by NATCOM), to enterprise customers where locations are adjacent to this new metro fiber network.

A Phase 1 market launch of this network is scheduled for March, this year.

For NITEL/MTEL and, indeed, for NATCOM, to say that the journey to the present destination has been tortous is to put it mildly. For an entity with a record of five failed privatisation attempts between 2001 and 2011, NITEL’s misfortune has been multi-dimensional and truly troubling.

Having come to terms with the fact that this former sole national telecommunications provider could end up as mere scrap unworthy of any investors fleeting attention, the National Council on Privatisation, NCP in February 2012 approved the privatisation of NITEL/MTEL through a guided Liquidation process.

This strategy, proposed 12 years after the first in the series of earlier failed five attempts of privatization, was adopted in recognition of the huge liabilities of these companies, recorded at over N350 billion, a monumental burden the Federal Government was not prepared to bear.

Ayeni painstakingly took the Honorary Committee members through the guided Liquidation process; an explanation that was in agreement with those of the Bureau of  Public Enterprises (BPE) and the liquidator appointed for the two critically ailing entities.

Earlier in April, last year at the official NITEL/MTEL handing Over Ceremony to NATCOM, BPE had disclosed that the process commenced with the selection of Otunba Senbore as Liquidator for NITEL/MTEL in a very competitive process. The National Council on Privatization, NCP, approved the appointment on November 11, 2013. After a review of the procurement process, a certificate of No Objection was issued by the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) on  December 17, 2013.

According to the chairman of NATCOM, following the liquidator’s advertisement in Local and International publications in June 2014, calling for Expression of Interests (EoIs) from prospective bidders, NATCOM threw its hat in the ring.

Said Ayeni: “NATCOM’s submission clarified that its interest covered the intention to bid for ALL and ANY COMBINATION OF NITEL and MTEL ASSETS, Specifically: (a) The combined business, assets and licences of NITEL and MTEL;(b) The business, assets and licenses of NITEL and MTEL separately; (c) Percentage interest held in SAT-3 Consortium;(d) Identifiable assets capable of generating viable business units.”

NATCOM was one of the companies prequalified for the bid, with the liquidator releasing a Request for Proposal (RFP) to the company. In response to the Liquidator’s invitation to submit a technical and financial bid for the companies, NATCOM’s full submission was made to the liquidators and BPE                on November 7, 2014. The submission was accompanied by the Bid Bond, in the amount of $10M USD, in accordance with the liquidator’s RFP.

On completion of the evaluation of bids submission by the liquidators and BPE, NATCOM got an invitation to be present at the opening of its financial bid at a public ceremony which held December 3, 2014. Officials of BPE, NCP, EFCC and Ministry of Communications Technology attended the event.

At the Public Ceremony, NATCOM offered to buy the businesses and assets of NITEL/MTEL for $221million United States Dollars. But the offered price was below the liquidator’s reserve price. NATCOM was given a short break to consult and revise the bid price. NATCOM resumed the session with an offer of $252.25million US Dollars.

The NATCOM boss explained that what informed the decision to settle for that figure was his group’s resolve not to bid higher that the value of Orascom’s 2005 bid of $256million US Dollars.

He explained further: “ This is because, one, NITEL/MTEL was at that time (when Orascom bided) fully operational, with revenue; two, Nigeria’s tele-density was less than 20 per cent, and three, the portfolio for sale included core and non-core assets the later of which has since been completely stripped along with a substantial part of the former.”

A telecommunications analyst, Otunba Biodun Ajiboye, agrees with the NATCOM boss. “if you factor in the fact that by 2005 when ORASCOM offered N256million, NITEL/MTEL was jointly a vibrant entity with a lot of core and non-core assets, and then add the fact that the companies equipment had become obsolete, and valueless by 2014 you will agree that at $251million US Dollars, the transaction weighed heavily in favor of Nigeria. It was a good transaction for the country.’

As stipulated by the liquidators, not only did NATCOM pay 30 per cent of the bid price within 14 days of the approval, it also met the 90 days deadline set for the payment of the balance of 70 per cent. But even then, the tortours journey to the acquisition of NITEL/MTEL was far from over.

The liquidator insisted that the decline in the value of naira from N168 to N197 to a US Dollar, had created a payment short fall which NATCOM most cough out. It was a tidy sum of N6.6billion. NATCOM’s compliance with the additional payment instruction by the liquidator brought the deal to a close with acquisition of NITEL/MTEL by NATCOM.

Ayeni told the committee members: “We therefore state categorically, and with all humility, that NATCOM faithfully followed the rules laid down by NITEL/MTEL’s liquidator and BPE in all aspects of its participation in the guided liquidation process. In addition, NATCOM believes that the guided Liquidation process, as executed by the liquidator and supervised by the BPE, followed the best practices, globally, for privatization and complied fully with due process.”

And following the handover of NITEL/MTEL businesses and assets to NATCOM, the company has continued to play by the rules. The chairman noted: “that NATCOM, via its well-advanced business start-up and network roll-out activities, is faithfully executing its understanding to BPE, as defined in the Sale and Purchase Agreement’s Post-Acquisition plan, to establish and sustain a new Telecommunications operator and to deploy the assets acquired wholly and exclusively within the enterprise.”

In line with that agreement, NATCOM has since recruited a team of world class executives and senior managers, led by Kamal Abbas, a former top official of Ericson; it has executed a comprehensive technical sites survey and audit of its towers and masts across Nigeria.

It has completed the digital mapping of NITEL duct network in Lagos State; contracted the services of Fort Knox Guards, a security services company with nationwide presence, to provide static and patrol based security and access control services at NATCOM’s locations and commissioned an ongoing refurbishments to derelict buildings so that they may be reused for business purposes. Since NATCOM took over NITEL/MTEL, it has expended about $1billion US Dollar in getting the moribund former National teleco back to work, about 100 Nigerians have been employed. Hundreds more will be engaged, directly or indirectly, by NATCOM in the months ahead.

It is in the light of the above that Ayeni submitted to the Honorable Committee members that “the objective of the NCP, which was to execute the full and final privatisation of NITEL/MTEL and in doing so to resolve these companies liabilities of some N350billion without recourse to the Federal Government’s coffers, was successfully achieved in full and should not be reversed or undermined in any way’’.

Indeed, after the presentation, one went away with the conclusion that the honorary members and other citizens who witnessed the hearing are in agreement with Ayeni’s parting shot: “That NATCOM should be commended and encouraged in its efforts towards reviving NITEL/MTEL’s dormant assets and creating a new Nigerian-Owned Telecommunications company of which the nation can be justifiably proud.” He could not have put it better.

• Adedoyin wrote in from Ikeja, Lagos.

Source: The Nation

#IDOMAAGENDA: NO AMOUNT OF SPONSORED LIES WILL SAVE MARK FROM DEFEAT – DANIEL ONJEH

All Progressives Congress, APC’s Comrade Daniel Onjeh has warned that no amount of deception will save his Peoples Democratic Party, PDP opponent and Former Senate President, David Mark from imminent defeat in the forthcoming Benue South rerun senatorial elections.

Comrade Onjeh was responding to a Twitter campaign #IdomaAgenda in which some allegedly sponsored social media heavyweights highlighted his opponent’s achievements during his 16 year spell at the senate.

” #BenueSouthReRun: No amount of sponsored lies or deceit will save #DavidMark from his imminent colossal defeat come Feb,13th ! #IdomaAgenda ” He tweeted.

Similarly, a group, under the aegis of Ogigo K’Idoma, has warned the media team of immediate past Senate President, David Mark against using the social media to feed Nigerians with lies.

The group accused Mark of resorting to social media campaign in a desperate move to save his already sinking political career.

Ogigo K’Idoma was reacting to a social media trend, #IdomaAgenda, which has been highlighting the achievements of Mark on Twitter.

The group said it was unfortunate for Mark “to stoop so low by using the social media platform to feed the world with imaginary achievements that never existed in the constituency.”

A statement by secretary of the group, Maria Adoyi, said Mark’s decision to settle for social media campaign where he does not even have an account shows how desperate he had become.

According to her, “our attention has been drawn to an online trend, #Idomaagenda, which has been projecting the non-existing projects of Senator David Mark in Benue South on Twitter.

“It is laughable that the former Senate President and his team have resorted to social media to save his career by sending out lies to the general public.

“The money he used to start up the trend can feed over 100 families in our community.

“The faces behind trend claimed Mark single handedly tarred the Ochi’Idoma road and as well renovated the palace; meanwhile, the Och’Idoma Palace and the road remain in a sorry state. This can be verified.

“They claimed Mark has sponsored over 200,000 Idoma students in school without proving it. Where are the students?

“It is sad and unfortunate that Mark has refused to step down despite the advice from his kinsmen after 16 years.

“Anyone who cares to know more about Mark’s monumental failure should take a walk to Otukpo round about, Otukpo general hospital, Otukpo Otukpa road, Aho-Ukwo Owukpa road and see what they call Idoma agenda,” the group said.

Adoyi enjoined Idoma citizens to liberate themselves by voting out Mark in the forthcoming rerun.

Source: Benue News