NEWS REEL:THURSDAY MORNING NEWS HEADLINES.

Igbinedion loses lawsuit to reclaim N3.3 billion lost to Venezuelan fraudsters

A legal bid by a former governor of Edo State, Lucky Igbinedion, to recover N3.3 billion he lost to Venezuelan fraudsters in a weird oil deal, has been quashed by a United States District Court.
The 2006 transaction, facilitated by former Venezuelan Ambassador, Enrique Arrundell, was enmeshed in a pile of intrigues so deep that the court ruled that the deal might not even have happened in the first place.
According to the court, beyond evidence of money transfers to New York and Swiss bank accounts, very little about the deal can be “established with any certainty.”
Part of the messy details surrounding the deal was the less-than-wholesome involvement of Nigerian oil and gas heavyweight, MRS Oil and Gas Limited, at a time when it had not even commenced business.
MRS is owned by Sayyu Dantata, cousin of Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, who is also believed to own up to 20 percent of the company.

In 2006, through his now defunct company, Skanga Energy and Marine Limited, Mr. Igbinedion, while still a sitting governor, tried to make a killing from the lucrative but fraud-tainted oil importation business. Mr. Igbinedion instructed his old secondary school friend and front, Chris Imoukhuede, to approach Mr. Arrundell to help pave way for the company to procure diesel and PMS from Venezuela.
Mr. Imoukhuede was the chief executive officer of Skanga at the time.
Mr. Arrundell on his part introduced Mr. Imoukhuede to a suspected Venezuelan conman, Francisco Gonzalez, who claimed that his fraudulent company, Arevenca, was a registered agent for Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, Petroleos De Venezuela S.A (PDVSA).
After several months of scheming that involved exchange of emails in broken English, dodgy shipping documents, and trips to Caracas, Mr. Igbinedion thought he was getting a deal made in heaven.
In fact, during one of such trips to Caracas in January 2007, the mustachios politician was ostensibly handed the key to the city of Caracas and announced as the “Alcaldía de Libertador”, the honorary Mayor of the central Caracas borough of Libertador in an elaborate event garnished with lavish dinner and expensive wine and attended by powerful Venezuelans.
The breakdown of the deal looked as glamorous: Averenca would initially send 35,000 metric tons of AGO to Skanga and later up it to three cargoes monthly. All that was required was for Skanga to pay for the freight and make partial payment for the consignment. It was only required to make full payment after three months of taking delivery of the full shipment.
Mr. Igbinedion authorised the transfer of about $22 million to Averenca’s Swiss and New York accounts. The consignments were supposed to be delivered in two ships – Digniti and Ventur. The shipments never arrived. The Nigerian Port Authority said it does not have any record of “Digniti” or “Ventur” entering Nigerian waters at the time it was billed to arrive.
PREMIUM TIMES investigation also revealed that there are no vessels named “Dignitii” or “Ventur”. Searches on Lloyds directories and other ship directories showed that the ships never existed anywhere in the world.
After it dawned on him that he had been duped, Mr. Igbinedion instituted a $600 million lawsuit against PDVSA arguing that Arevenca was its agent and thus PDVSA was liable for the actions of its agent.
Strangely, for a company that was duped such a huge amount of money, Skanga approached the suit in a near comical manner. Its lawyers put forward mediocre arguments. At one point, it even provided evidence that indicated that it might have forged its audit report.
Two reputable American law firms it initially contacted to handle the case left after being owed retainer. One of them, Robert Dunne LLC, quit because of the inability of Mr. Igbinedion’s Skanga to pay fees as low as $3,800.00 (N627, 000).
David Burger, a lawyer with the law firm of Robinson Brog, which was Skanga’s original law firm in the suit, said in a an affidavit before ditching the case that his firm had to withdraw following “the continued inability of my firm to have any adequate direct communication with Skanga, with delayed and inadequate communications only relayed through a two lawyer firm Located in Mississippi”.
Strangely, despite Skanga’s tenacious legal action against PDVSA, for some reasons only Mr. Igbinedion and Mr. Imoukuede can answer, it did not serve Arevenca or Mr. Gonzalez notice of the lawsuit, despite listing them as defendants.
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Ex-Justice Akanbi slams FG over ceasefire with Boko Haram




Former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Mustapha Akanbi (retd), has expressed disappointment over the negotiation for a ceasefire between the Federal Government and the Boko Haram sect.
Akanbi, a pioneer chairman of Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, spoke in an interview with journalists yesterday on the occasion of the 30th Convocation lecture of University of Ilorin.
He said it was wrong for the government to have waited till now when the election was fast approaching before negotiating with Boko Haram.
According to him, ”I have said it before. Government must harness its people and overcome the Boko Haram sect. We cant go on like this. Elections are coming up in February and we are still fighting.”
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NLC, others threaten strike over national minimum wage rejection





The organised labour on Wednesday threatened to go on strike to protest the decision of the National Assembly to move the minimum wage from the exclusive legislative list to the concurrent list.

The Nigerian Labour Congress, the Trade Union Congress and the Association of Senior Civil Servants of Nigeria said they had rejected the planned deregulation of wages.

They argued that if allowed to succeed, it would be akin to a declaration of war on Nigerian workers and would complicate the already bad security challenges in the country.

They threatened to commence an indefinite strike following the planned exercise.

The NLC General Secretary, Dr. Peter Ozo-Esan, said in a telephone interview with one of our correspondents, that the organised labour would resist the move with all the resources at its disposal.

Ozo-Esan said that the NLC had called an emergency meeting of its National Executive Committee for Monday to take a final decision on the next plan of action.

Ozoesan said that the decision was retrogressive and not in line with best practices and must be resisted.

He said “Clearly, we are opposed to the movement of the labour issues to the concurrent list. You know that the Senate President (David Mark) gave a promise to revisit the issue during a protest organised by the labour unions on this issue to the National Assembly. And the House of Representatives voted against it so it is a surprise to us.

“We are opposed to it, we think it is retrogressive, it is not an issue we will allow to stand, we are going to contest it with all the resources at our disposal. You will be hearing from us on that.

“As we speak, we have conveyed an emergency NEC meeting on it for Monday next week; it is the organ that will take the NLC’s next position on the issue…

“We have always taken a position that we require autonomy for local governments, we are ok with that, we have canvassed that position for some time. What we are opposed to is a situation, where autonomy will now affect payment of teachers’ salaries.”

Earlier, in a statement signed by the President and Secretary-General, the ASCSN, Mr. Bobboi Kaigama and Mr. Alade Lawal respectively, the association had said it would not hesitate to call its members out on strike.

The group called for “a total resistance to the move by the National Assembly to further impoverish Nigerian workers by outlawing the meagre national minimum wage through the backdoor.


Serena beaten 6-0, 6-2


Ecstasy and euphoria are the usual emotions world number one Serena Williams experiences on a tennis court. On Wednesday, she encountered a different one – embarrassment.

One of the game’s all-time greats, a winner of 18-grand slam singles crowns, 63 WTA titles; the owner of four Olympic gold medals, Williams has become accustomed to success.

But on Singapore’s purple indoor hard court on Wednesday, Simona Halep took her back 16 years to a time when, as a teenager, she was trying to make a name for herself, Reuters reports.

Halep’s 6-0 6-2 success in their Red Group clash at the WTA Finals was the worst defeat Williams had experienced since she was crushed 6-1 6-1 by Joannette Kruger in the quarter-finals at Oklahoma City in 1998.

Halep served well, pushed her opponent around the court and went for her shots, but Williams, by her own admission, was woeful.

“Yeah, my forehand was off today again. I guess it went on an early vacation,” a sombre and downbeat Williams told reporters.

“Lord knows my serve was as well. My serve, I don’t even know. My serve was at best in the 10 and under division in juniors.

“Yeah, it was actually embarrassing I think describes the way I played. Yeah, very embarrassing.”

Williams had shown no sign of what was to come on Wednesday as she held of the feisty challenge of Ana Ivanovic to start her campaign on Monday with a 6-4, 6-4 victory, her 16th consecutive win in the season-ending championships she has won the last two years.

That was her first action since pulling out of the Wuhan Open because of illness then the China Open with a knee complaint earlier this month.

Characteristically, she didn’t blame the knee ailment, which had required extensive rest, for Wednesday’s meltdown.

“I’m definitely not 100 percent okay. I’m just here playing, but I’m nowhere near 100 percent,” she said.

“That has nothing to do with today’s match. I think Simona played really well and the best match of her career.

“To be quite frankly honest, I’m looking forward to our next meeting because she is making me going to go home and work hard and particularly train for her.”

Fayose at war with Ekiti speaker?, seals his filling station





The confrontation between   Ekiti State Governor Ayodele Fayose and the state   House of Assembly heightened on Wednesday with the government sealing off a filling station belonging to the Speaker, Adewale Omirin.

The speaker’s filling station, T. Five Integrated Service, is one of the four the government closed down in Ado-Ekiti to avert “unimaginable fire accident with attendant fatalities.”

The government, in a statement by the Chief Press Secretary to the governor, Idowu Adelusi, directed all the owners of the affected filling stations to report at the Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and Urban Development with letters of approval.

Reacting to the closure,   Omirin alleged that the governor ordered the closure of the filling station in order to intimidate and coerce him.

Omirin,   a member of the All Progressives Congress and Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party are believed to be at loggerheads.

The speaker vowed in a statement by his Special Adviser (Media), Wole Olujobi, not to “buckle under undue political pressure to abandon his party for the PDP for selfish and pecuniary motives.”

He said that he met all the necessary environmental laws and got the necessary approval for   the station.

The speaker     wondered why the governor would start victimising those who did not share his political belief.

The statement quoted Omirin as saying that another assembly member, Joseph Olugbemi, had told him   that the governor had made up his mind to close the filling station over his refusal to join the PDP.

Olugbemi is one of the six APC members that defected to the PDP on the day Fayose was   inaugurated as the new governor of the state.

Omirin recalled that he had earlier promised the governor that the   assembly would work with him in the interest of Ekiti people, to deliver dividends of democracy.

He said, “I called the governor to confirm what the honourable member told me about the plan to close my filling station. The governor denied any such plan, swearing that he would not pursue any victimisation agenda against his opponents.

“But only yesterday(Wednesday), the governor ordered the closure of the filling station, citing environmental factor.”

Omirin said he had a background of political fidelity anchored on progressive democratic practice and so would not abandon the principle in pursuit of selfish agenda .

According to him, the present atmosphere in the state does not call for high-handedness and persecution of opponents.

He warned that attacks on the opponents, particularly the lawmakers, would only smear the relationship between the Executive and Legislature.

But Fayose’s media aide denied that the decision to seal off the speaker’s filling station and others had any political undertone.


B’ Haram abducts 60 women in Adamawa



Sixty women were reportedly abducted by suspected members of the deadly Boko Haram sect at Waga Mangoro and Garta villages, both in troubled Adamawa State during a fresh attack.

Forty of the women were said to have been abducted in Waga Mangoro and the other 20 were forcefully taken away from Grata.

Some of the fleeing residents from the area, who called journalists in Yola on the telephone lamented that scores of insurgents riding motorcycles and driving vans had invaded their towns.

The fleeing residents while lamenting the capture of the two towns, said they were able to sneak out of the captured towns on Tuesday, but disclosed that their villages were ravaged on Saturday.

One of those that was about to flee the area, Tizhe Kwada told journalists that the area had been under the control of the insurgents for about two months now.

He said that though one of the attacked towns, Garta had been under what could be termed as the control of the insurgents for sometimes now, but that did not stop them from overrunning it and carting away the young women.

Kwada claimed that the insurgents cordon off the entire town and went from one house to another in Garta in search of young women who they took in their vans to an unknown destination.

He said, “The insurgents are still in the area. And they have slaughtered many men in Garta and abducted many young women. We also heard from residents of Wagga that they killed two men and took 40 women away from there.”

A community leader from Michika, a neighbouring town to the two attacked towns, Emmanuel Kwache, while confirming the incident to journalists in Yola on Wednesday said, “I got the information from villagers in the area that the rampage was still in progress.”

But when he was contacted, the Chairman of Madagali Local Government Area, James Watharda, said “I had all along been in Yola since the insurgents took over the area and as such I can speak little of happening in the area.”

APC governors back consensus candidacy.


The Progressives Governors’ Forum on Wednesday declared its support for consensus method of choosing presidential and other candidates for the All Progressives Congress.

The PGF Chairman, Rochas Okorocha, who announced this to journalists after the forum’s meeting in Ilorin, Kwara State on Wednesday, added that neither the forum nor the party  had adopted any candidate for the 2015 general elections.

He said the forum which comprises APC governors   was in support of consensus method of choosing candidates so long as there would be no imposition of anyone on members of the party.

Okorocha, who is also the governor of Imo State, added that in the event of a consensus not being reached, the APC could go for credible and transparent primaries.

The governor said, “On consensus, our forum is in full support of consensus as one of the ways to produce our presidential candidate or any candidate in the party for as long as it is done with regard to respect for internal democracy. There will be no imposition of candidates in our party.

“Our party has   not adopted any candidate neither has the forum but we shall encourage consensus and dialogue within the leadership of the party and aspirants to see how we can come up with a candidate but where that is not possible, like true progressives, we shall have a free and fair primary.”

Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State, who also attended the meeting, is the only progressive governor that had openly kicked against a consensus arrangement. He however made a U-turn recently.

It is widely believed that the APC leadership and many of the governors are rooting for a former Head of State, Maj.Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, as the party’s consensus candidate.

During Buhari declaration last week, many of them attended unlike when another aspirant and a former Vice-President, Atiku Abubakar, joined the race.

Kwankwaso and the publisher of Leadership newspaper, Sam Nda-Isaiah, are the other known APC presidential aspirants.

When contacted, the Atiku Campaign Organisation said there was nothing   alien about   the PGF decision on consensus candidacy.

The organisation however argued that “the best form of consensus is the decision of voters in a free and open contest.”

Its Director-General,   Mallam Garba Shehu, in an email to one of our correspondents,   noted that information available to the organisation , was that the governors reiterated what was already in the APC constitution.

It said “The information we got from the PGF secretariat is that they said   that the APC should explore the option of consensus as provided for by the constitution but where that fails, it should carry out a free, fair and transparent election for a candidate to emerge.

“As far as we are concerned, there is nothing new that has emerged from the meeting. The highest office in a democracy is the office of the voter.


“We have always said that the best form of consensus is the decision of voters in a free and open contest. Who is afraid of the voter? Consensus is a willing process. People must subject themselves to it. It can’t be imposed.”

read full story and more at punchng.com

Senator falsely accuses journalists of stealing his phone, orders them searched

Journalists who attended an event at the headquarters of the Kano Electricity Distribution Company [KEDCO] in Kano on Wednesday felt deeply embarrassed when the visiting Chairman of the Senate Committee on Power, Gbenga Obadara, raised a false alarm that his telephone set was missing and that reporters might have stolen it.
Once Mr. Obadara made the claim, officials of KEDCO quickly locked up the venue of the event and ordered that all journalists at the event should be thoroughly searched.
Police officers were asked to block the entrance to the hall to prevent any reporter from leaving even while officials of KEDCO and some officials who accompanied Senator Obadara to the event were allowed to go free without being searched.
At a point, more fully armed police officers were brought in to join in frisking the journalists.
At the height of the embarrassing situation, somebody knocked on the door of the hall and announced that the senator, who was now outside the hall, had recovered his phone.
The announcement angered the journalists and embarrassed the management of the company who apologised profusely to the reporters.
The company’s Principal Manager, Corporate Communications, Mutari Usman, said the journalists should overlook the incident and continue to see KEDCO as partners in progress.
The senator did not personally apologise to the journalists.
But the Chairman of the Kano Correspondents Chapel of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, Edwin Olofu, rejected KEDCO’s apology and directed his members to commence an immediate boycott of the company’s activities.
He said journalists in Kano would not report the company’s activities for three months unless they receive a formal unreserved apology.
“This is very embarrassing! How can a Senator of the Federal Republic belittle himself by raising a devastating false alarm like this,” Mr. Olofu fumed. “It is a slap on our face.”


How Sule Lamido helped me in 2011 — Jonathan


President Goodluck Jonathan said on Tuesday that there is no feud between him and the Jigawa State Governor, Sule Lamido, contrary to insinuations in some quarters.
The president also said the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, to which both of them belong was proud of Mr. Lamido’s achievements, especially in the development of the infrastructure in the state.
There were speculations that Mr. Lamido was planning to run for president and would therefore oppose Mr. Jonathan’s bid for second term in office.
But speaking at an interactive forum in Dutse, the Jigawa state capital after commissioning the Dutse International Airport, the president praised the governor denied any friction with him and that there would never be one in the future.
“Sule Lamido is a man of his word,” Mr. Jonathan said. “In terms of what people say about frosty relationship, sometimes it is issues of interpretation.
“I remember reading one book sometimes ago where one philosopher said the disagreement between people is caused by when people use different words to describe different scenario or use different words to describe different thing.
“That will cause primary disagreement which will begin to expand. In some cases where people have problems if you go deeply you discover that it is not really a problem but it becomes a storm when people begin to hear.”
The president said Mr. Lamido played an important role in his election in the 2011 elections, noting “I assessed my governors then on how many scores I got during the primaries because if a governor means well for you, even if he is unable to control the total number of votes during the general elections, in the primaries which are party issues, which the governors have a control of about 70%, the governor controls what happens.”
Mr. Jonathan said until the delegate pattern was changed, the governors would continue to dictate what would happen.
According to him, going by the current delegate pattern for national elections, a state governor had control of about 70 percent.
He said, “I always tell our party that until we change our delegate pattern, the governors must dictate what happens. The present delegate we have for all national elections, any governor that is fit to be a governor have control of about 70% whether we like it or not.
“So if you don’t get up to 70% or 60% from a state, you know that that governor no matter what he says is not for you. In the general elections, the governor cannot control all the state. In the two options, Sule Lamido was totally committed. He is not somebody that talks from the two sides of his mouth. That is the good thing about Sule Lamido. He does not deceive himself or deceive you. I used to tell people I don’t have a problem with Sule Lamido.
“Even if there is a problem today, Sule Lamido is somebody I trust. He does not deceive. Let me reassure you that we have no problems; myself and Sule Lamido and definitely I will not have problems with the people of Jigawa state. All we have to do is to strengthen our relation more and more and work together.”
On the federal government projects in the state, the president said the government would continue to collaborate with the state government to improve on the development of infrastructure and other projects such as the Almajiri schools, the agricultural development and other sectors.
While commissioning the Dutse International Airport earlier, President Jonathan praised Gov. Lamido for building the facility and that it had added value to the state and Nigeria.
Describing an airport as an indispensable facility for business transaction, Mr. Jonathan said it would attract investments to Nigeria and generate jobs for the citizens.
Mr. Lamido, in his speech, said he was proud of the president’s transformation agenda, which he noted had made it possible for the governors in his party to render quality services to Nigerians.
He said he decided to work quietly for the transformation of the state rather than making noise.
“We are working silently for the interest of our people because we know what they need while those opposed to us are making noise. We will continue to stand by the people and try to meet their yearlings and aspirations,” he said.
The National Chairman of the PDP, Adamu Muazu, noted that it was only the governors of the party that had been providing dividends of democracy to their people by building seven airports since the advent of democracy in 1999.

IG orders audit of Nigeria police armouries




The Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, on Wednesday ordered an audit of the Nigerian Police armoury across Nigeria.
A statement by the police spokesperson, Emmanuel Ojukwu, said the IGP’s order was “part of measures to strengthen accountability of the stock of weaponry of the Nigeria Police Force.”
Mr. Ojukwu said the exercise will enable the Nigeria police review the current state of arms and ammunition in stock at various police armouries.
He said the ongoing exercise will demand a thorough check of all police commands, formations, stations and unit in Nigeria.