Sahara Reporters Latest News Wednesday 1st May 2019
Sahara Reporters Latest News Today and headlines on some of the happenings and news trend in the Country, today 01/05/19
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target=_blank>As May 1 Beckons, Anything To Celebrate For The Average Nigerian Worker? By Zainab Sodiq
Nigeria, the giant of Africa indeed!
As we celebrate another Workers’ Day on May 1, 2019, with more or less zero improvement from the last celebration of Workers’ Day, one must wonder what exactly the point of the celebration is for the average Nigerian worker.
It’s no new thing to us that Nigerian workers are poorly paid and overused by their employers. Interestingly, even for government workers, it is still struggling to receive salaries as and when due.
I weep for a nation whose President has a nonchalant attitude to matters arising and is careless about the state of which workers are poorly paid. Recently, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria signed the N30,000 new minimum wage bill into law. Sadly, that’s still yet to be acted upon as an average Nigerian worker still earns less than N30,000 monthly in the minimum. In some cases, there are workers who earn much less than N15,000 monthly. And now, the Nigerian Governors’ Forum talks of a possible recession!
It bothers me to see that the Labour Union of this country could fight for an N30,000 minimum wage in a country where poverty romances the average citizen.
Despite the poor pay of workers, it’s sad to know that most states in Nigeria still owe workers salaries. Series of reports have shown that state governments owe workers between two years, one year and six months of unpaid salaries, despite the fact that they are paid peanuts.
If the country’s workers will not be properly appreciated and still cry to the government for salaries to be paid, then it is only in order to say that there is no use celebrating Workers’ Day.
Nigerian workers should be properly treated!
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target=_blank>Man Set Ablaze By Mob In Bayelsa While ‘Kidnapping’ A Child
Two middle-aged men met their waterloo on Tuesday over alleged stealing of a child at Edepie community, a suburb of Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.
The incident occurred at a private school where the child was being taken away from before nemesis caught up with them at the school junction.
While one was not lucky and got killed by an irate mob, the other two were thoroughly beaten and were only rescued from the angry crowd by the Police.
One of them allegedly confessed that they were sent by a politician, a confession that further infuriated the mob.
Meanwhile, efforts to speak with state police command on the current wave of jungle justice and insecurity was not possible, as the Public Relations officer did not answer his calls.
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target=_blank>Okorocha Storms Federal High Court Abuja Over Certificate Of Return
Governor Rochas Okorocha of Imo State has visited the Federal High Court in Abuja following the delay in re-assigning his suit over his Certificate of Return.
Okorocha, in company with some of his aides, arrived at the court around 4:20pm on Tuesday and went into a meeting with the Deputy Registrar, Litigation, of the court. He left the premises of the court roughly one hour after.
The outgoing Governor, who was the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Imo West senatorial zone election, had filed a suit against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), seeking an order of the court compelling the commission to issue him a Certificate of Return on the grounds that he was declared winner of the election by the Returning Officer.
The Governor had also petitioned Justice Abdu Kafarati, the Chief Judge of the court, for the reassigning of the suit out of the court presided by Justice Okon Abang after the case was moved out of the initial court presided by Justice Taiwo Taiwo.
Jones Onyeriri, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Osita Izunaso of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), had, in separate applications, requested Justice Taiwo to recuse himself from the matter because, according to APGA counsel, Orji Nwafor Orizu, he had “clearly prejudged the substantive issues that will be resolved in this matter and clearly showed he has taken sides with the plaintiff (Okorocha)”.
Before the suit was stalled, four other candidates and political parties in the election including — Nwachukwu Goodluck Clement of KOWA Party, Uche Onyeoma Ibe of Labour Party, Precious Nwadike of the United Progressive Party (UPP) and Izunaso of APGA — had objected to the suit being heard by the court. T
he parties accused Okorocha of holding the Returning Office under duress to declare him winner, adding that the matter could only be handled at the Elections Petitions Tribunal.
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E2%80%94-second-time-four-months target=_blank>China Sentences Canadian To Death For Drug Trafficking — The Second Time In Four Months
A court in China has sentenced, Fan Wei, a Canadian citizen, to death for producing and trafficking methamphetamine, a drug used for attention deficit hyperactive disorder, weight loss and improving athletic performance, according to the Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court.
Fan Wei is the second Canadian to be sentenced to death this year. Ten others, including five foreigners, were also sentenced on Tuesday.
Relations between Canada and China have been frosty since the December arrest of a Huawei executive in Vancouver.
Canada has accused Beijing of arbitrarily applying the death penalty,
In January, Robert Lloyd Schellenberg, another Canadian, had a 15-year jail term increased to a death sentence — prompting condemnation from Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Beijing rejected his comments, saying that Canada was practising “double standards”.
On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told journalists that Canada was “very concerned” by this latest death sentence.
“Canada stands firmly opposed to the death penalty everywhere around the world,” she said.
“We think that this is a cruel and inhumane punishment, which we think should not be used in any country. We are obviously particularly concerned when it is applied to Canadians.”
The latest case is likely to further inflame the months-long diplomatic row which started when Meng Wanzhou, the daughter of Huawei’s founder, was arrested in Vancouver on
the request of US authorities.
Two other Canadian citizens, former diplomat Michael Kovrig and businessman Michael Spavor, are also being held by China and face accusations of harming national security.
The Jiangmen Intermediate People’s Court in southern Guangdong province said that Fan Wei was the leader of an international narcotics syndicate working out of Taishan city
between July and November 2012.
Another suspect, Wu Ziping, whose nationality was not made clear, was also death-sentenced.
Nine others, including an American and four Mexicans, received varying jail terms.
All were detained in 2012 but the trial held the following year.
Drug-dealing is punishable by death in China, and at least a dozen foreigners have been executed for drug-related offences. Many more are on death row.
However, the execution of westerners is less common. One of the most high-profile cases involved Briton Akmal Shaikh, who was executed in 2009 despite claims he was mentally ill and an appeal for clemency from the UK Prime Minister.
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target=_blank>As Governor Ben Ayade Plunges Cross River Into The Atlantic Ocean (Part 2) By Elias Ozikpu
I read with sufficient laughter the doomed riposte issued by one Christian Ita, Governor Ben Ayade’s ‘Chief Press Secretary’, in his desperate attempt to misrepresent the submission made in my previous treatise. The principal aim of Christian Ita’s perfidious rejoinder was to further delude nescientCross Riverians who for so long have been deprived of a decent lifestyle and have consistently been inflicted with a five-star impecuniosity by a chain of disastrous leadership that has held the State hostage for a sustained period of twenty years.
In his statement, Mr Ita alluded to the completion or commencement of several projects by the Ben Ayade-led government. In fact, reading through that misleading statement, one would think he was responding to a citizen who has never resided in Cross River and therefore not knowledgeable about happenings in the State. Anyone who has been in Cross River State, with the exception of the state capital, will readily see that the projects referred to by Christian Ita, are mythical achievements. It is a trademark that is customary with media aides; they have the knack for inventing fictitious stories in defence of their principal. A difficult job I must say, one that has to do with the deliberate assassination of one’s conscience in defence of an anti-people policy.
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As Governor Ben Ayade Plunges Cross River Into The Atlantic Ocean By Elias Ozikpu
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Beyond the several mendacities in Mr Ita’s ‘purple prose’, it is important that the truth be laid bare for the sake of posterity, namely that Cross River is one of the most poorly governed states in the world, a State whose achievements are only confined in the imaginary realm without a physical effect on the lives of its people. It is a State dominated by a penurious population, a shambolic healthcare system, a collapsed education system, and other infrastructures that are perpetually in ruinous condition across the State. At the top is a culture of corruption combined with a political elite that is completely out of touch with the daily struggles and travails of the average Cross Riverian.
Education has been so paralysed and totally defeated in the State that Mr Ita does not believe there exists sensible Cross Riverians who can rise to question Governor Ben Ayade’s crumbling administration. So he resorts to make very laughable claims that I was sponsored by a certain Odey Oyama, whom I do not know and have never met all my life. So ludicrous and so unfounded was Ita’s assertion that he failed to present a single bank transaction of any payment made to me by the said Odey Oyama. He also failed to present any evidence of a meeting between Odey Oyama and I or even details of telephone call(s) between us. From that speculative submission, replete with invectives and whatnot, and hurriedly concocted to save a face, it is deducible that Governor Ayade’s administration is one that thrives in speculations and propaganda.
One of the fundamental problems confronting Cross River State is that Governor Ben Ayade and his predecessors have succeeded in creating mass illiteracy in the State to birth a population devoid of the needed intellectual capacity to ask crucial questions on government policies. They have succeeded in creating a people who have a defeated mentality and a self-esteem so battered that they must applaud their ruthless oppressors in the face of widespread illiteracy, underdevelopment, poverty and numerous other anti-people policies presently ravaging the lives of everyday Cross Riverians.
According to BudgIT, “The total debt of Cross River State as at the end of 2017 was approximately N177.16bn, with external debt growing to $167.9mn in 2017.In the whole of 2017 Cross River was only able to generate revenue of N41.6 billion, with its internally generated revenue accounting for 34.58% – N18.10 billion.”
Is it not preposterous, therefore, that Governor Ben Ayade, knowing the heap of debt on the weary shoulders of the State and with its thin revenue, should pass a budget of N1.043 trillion for the 2019 fiscal year without clearly stating how he intends to fund it? Now the Governor and his people are hell-bent on mortgaging the future of our people and several generations yet unborn for 180 years – approximately two centuries, in exchange for N648,870,730,739.23 (Forty Eight Billion, Eight Hundred and Seventy Million, Seven Hundred and Thirty Thousand, Seven Hundred and Thirty-nine Naira, Twenty-three Kobo), funds purportedly meant for the proposed “superhighway”.
The Governor ought to employ viable means of boosting revenue for the State, rather than accumulating debts large enough to last the people for close to two centuries! Cross Riverians are not asking for heaven on earth at the moment. They simply want a decent life, with reliable medical facilities, well-equipped schools, good water (most of the people presently journey to distant streams for water), good roads to go about their businesses, etc. Sadly, these cannot be achieved by issuing lengthy rejoinders with the aim of vilifying anyone who holds a view that is antithetical to those in Ayade’s-led administration. They can also not be achieved by pointing out projects completed in the imaginary realm.
It is an intellectual insult of monumental proportions to lead a people and expect them to not ask questions in the face of hostile economic policies. Public office is no private business enterprise. The people whose resources you manage have every right to ask questions, and you are without the competence to act as you please. A public official, paid from public coffers, is without the competence to acquire the status of a demigod over his employers. That will forthwith not be acceptable.
An important thing that must be made abundantly clear is this: Cross River State is not the same as Ayade & Co Limited. It follows therefore without saying that the people must have a say in the running of their State. If this is not acceptable to the Governor, he has the option of resigning immediately. But one thing is certain: the proposed “superhighway”, with a staggering budget of N648,870,730,739.23, seems totally fraudulent and therefore unacceptable. It is a project several miles away from the innumerable challenges presently haunting Cross Riverians.
Dear Governor Ben Ayade, attend to the relevant needs of the people and let the common man/woman for once enjoy the dividends of good governance. It is a right, not a privilege.
Elias Ozikpu is an activist and a professional playwright, novelist, essayist and polemicist
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target=_blank>APC Set To Compound Segun Oni’s Court Woes by Suspending him
Segun Oni, former Governor of Ekiti State, has been summoned by leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in his native Ifaki Ekiti in Ido/osi Local Government to defend himself against certain allegations.
This is following the dismissal of the suit he filed against Kayode Fayemi at the Supreme Court two weeks ago to quest his eligibility to be candidate of the party and subsequently Governor of the state.
After he initially congratulated Fayemi, Oni, a former Deputy National Chairman (South) of the APC, had challenged Fayemi’s victory at the May 12, 2018 governorship primary in which he came second.
In his suit, Oni had claimed that Fayemi was ineligible to stand as the APC candidate because he did not resign from office, as the law demands, as Minister of Mines and Steel Development 30 days before the shadow election.
Oni also claimed that the White Paper by a Judicial Commission of Inquiry raised by former Governor Ayo Fayose indicted Fayemi and barred him from holding public office for 10 years.
Prior to the judgement given by the Apex court, prominent party leaders, including the state APC Elders’ Forum, had begged Oni to withdraw the case after the suit was filed at the Federal High Court but the former Governor would not budge.
However, Oni failed in his bid to sack Fayemi from office, as his case was thrown out by all three court levels.
“We the executive members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ifaki Ekiti hereby request your presence at the Ilero Town Hall, Ilogbe, Ifaki Ekiti to clear some allegations against your person by some members of the APC Ward II, Ifaki Ekiti,” read the summons letter from APC executives in Ifaki Ward 2, dated April 24 and signed by the Ward Chairman and Secretary.
“Kindly indicate by informing the Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Ward II, Ifaki Ekiti the convenient time and date to meet the executive members within the next seven (7) days of the receipt of this letter.
“Please treat as very urgent.”
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target=_blank>Fayemi Battles To Restore Values To Ekiti By Peter Claver Oparah
Somehow, I had come to develop a profound interest in Ekiti and this dates back to my early university days at the University of Lagos. Then, my sister was living in Ado Ekiti. On my first visit to that sleepy, sedentary state, I fell in love with it. The serenity, the calmness and the amity Ekiti enjoys with nature matches my own personal preferences. I was to visit the state many more times while still a student and I must confess, the state’s diametrically-opposite ambience with the combustible and chaotic Lagos really appealed to me.
I was to know that Ekiti is home to a huge density of educated Nigerians. In fact, the state is fabled to have the highest density of university professors in Nigeria so a state with such huge cache of human resources strikes a chord with me. I am from Imo, a state that boasts of similar pedigree that obtains in placing education at the apogee of human civilization especially in a nation where materialism and the pursuit of mundane interests have manacled the soul of its citizens and made beasts of people that should treasure values and mores.
I read that Ekiti is the home of the legendary Col. Adekunle Fajuyi who was then Military Governor of the Western region and who, when a band of mutineers led by the now-sulking Theophilus Danjuma stormed the state on July 29, 1966 to capture and murder then Head of State, Gen. JTU Aguiyi Ironsi, who was Fajuyi’s guest, decided to be killed alongside Ironsi rather than surrendering him to the blood-thirsty ghouls. For this, Ekiti has a special place in my heart. I know that Ekiti is home to such other revolutionaries like Femi Falana, Alao Aka-Bashorun and erudite scholar, activist and now Catholic Bishop of Ekiti, Bishop Felix Femi Ajakaiye. These deepened my love and respect for the state.
It was therefore understandable that I felt sorely pained when the PDP conquistadors rolled into Ekiti and laid bare all the values that made the state thick. When then marauding Olusegun Obasanjo overran the entire South West, removed its governors and imposed a crop of PDP governors in 2003, the amiable, gentle and urbane Niyi Adebayo was a casualty. Not because his people in Ekiti did not want him to continue but because he comes from the opposite angle of roiling Obasanjo’s political spectrum. Other casualties of this blitzkrieg include Aremo Segun Osoba in Ogun, the good old teachers, Lam Adesina in Oyo and Adebayo Adefarati in Ondo as well as the graceful Bisi Akande in Osun. Obasanjo had his kowtowing menservants to replace these governors in their respective states in compliance to his idiosyncrasies and elephantine ego and whims. The only state that never fell for his all-conquering do-and-die battle was Lagos under Bola Tinubu and with time, this proved his albatross which today has consigned Obasanjo to the valley of Nigerian politics where he bites his thick finger in pain and misery.
In Ekiti, the man Obasanjo put forth to replace Adebayo was the direct opposite of him. Tempestuous, crude, brash, ill-tempered, puerile and repelling, Ayo Fayose was the first direct assault that Ekiti and its age-old values faced. Not blessed with much education, which remain the prized heritage of Ekiti, Fayose was a self-fulfilled prophecy that violated and impinged on all that Ekiti people pride themselves for. Such values are the reason why they treasure education over the mindless pursuit of wealth and other cravings. Fayose was, to all intents, a rebuke on Ekiti and its foundation and for the nearly four years he was in power, the state witnessed a grand reversion of fortune and came to be known for all what it stood against.
Fayose was to run foul with Obasanjo, his godfather’s interests and this ensured he was impeached in such ugly manner that befits his ascendancy. In the subsequent 2007 election, Obasanjo was to put forward, Segun Oni who was of a more refined and nobler birth but still a stooge of the byzantine Obasanjo order. He contested against erudite scholar, activist and redoubtable strategist, Kayode Fayemi who was coming from a rich activist and anti-military struggle that midwifed the democratic dispensation in Nigeria. Ekiti people saw it as the right time to assert their preference for all that is noble and valuable as they voted for Fayemi but Obasanjo, who deigned the election as a do or die battle, would have none of it and tele guided the defeat of Fayemi. A tortuous journey to the courts and a macabre supplementary election that saw all the ugliness of PDP in display at the polls, however ended in returning the stolen mandate to Fayemi in October 2010 thus re-establishing an order that conforms with the desires of Ekiti and the core values the state and its citizens pride themselves on.
Fayemi, knowing what the people desired from him, went to work to not only re-create Ekiti but also re-impose those values that had given Ekiti its place in pride in the nation’s history. Education, health, infrastructure, social welfare, agriculture and urban refurbishment were hitherto neglected areas that received heightened attention when Fayemi was in his first term. What was even more pronounced was that the state went back to its natural order that was violated when the PDP and Fayose rumbled into the state with a queer regime that flaunted its control of power and its apparatchiks as dividends of democracy. The people of Ekiti once more relished an ordered and normal flow of life and governance where things happened in such sequence as they had been used to. They recovered their lost gait in the comity of states and held their heads high in the larger Nigerian space.
But this was to be crudely interrupted when the erstwhile Jonathan regime exhumed Fayose and deployed every crude force and tactics it can retch up to impose him on the people once again during the farcical 2014 election. Fayose was not the choice of Ekiti people in that election and faced with the paradoxical case of a notorious ex-governor, defeating a preforming incumbent Governor that had stamped his imprimatur in various critical sectors of governance in four years, the PDP came up with the anomie of ‘stomach infrastructure’. In this quaint philosophy, the party said it was able to scoop victory by attending to the stomach needs of Ekiti people against a Fayemi that was building urable, life-changing infrastructures. As strange as this was, it was chorused by the party and its supporters who had no credible explanation to justify the electoral heist it carried out in Ekiti in 2014 and which is still ricocheting today as Fayose risks jail for the huge money the Jonathan government leveraged to his government to rig the election.
The stomach infrastructure cliché finished what was remaining of Ekiti values and as Fayose resumed as Ekiti governor, it played out in a governor that was outstanding for his nuisance values. For the four tortuous years he was in power, Ekiti people suffered the meretricious degradation of having a government that was prominent for negative values, truants and stunts. For a state with a hefty chunk of educated people, a governor that courts cheap street popularity by storming drinking joints, beer parlors, amala and gbegiri joints, selling fish and ponmo in the market was a huge aberration. Simply put, Fayose forced Ekiti to share in the vicarious wreckage he was as governor. While this parody lasted, Ekiti State, her people and her age-old values became butts of unending ribaldry and scorn. There was no escaping this humiliating downturn as the proud Ekiti man buckled under the weight of Fayose’s crass pranks to become objects of jest and scoffs The State became one huge reference case in anomie and what more, the huge fireballs of crime, violence, protests, unpaid wages and salaries that marked Fayose’s first term, came back in full swing and overwhelmed the state. The developmental strides Fayemi charted were halted and in their stead, reigned an era of masking and reveling on the streets in abject search for transient cheap plaudits and street acceptance.
It was therefore understandable why Fayemi was to anchor his comeback bid n reclaiming the values of Ekiti State and in this loaded statement of intent lies the rediscovery of the soul that had been battered and laid bare by pedestrian governance since 2010. In the cerebral thinker’s mind, Ekiti needed its values to take its place of pride in Nigeria for the values are the undergirds for its noble heights in education and human resources. His message resonated with the traumatized and serially abused Ekiti people who returned their votes for his re-election in October and since he came, Ekiti has harvested the fruits of the investment they made with their votes.
The state has returned to its serene and orderly form. Workers have been paid the huge backlogs they were being owed, education has resumed in its rightful place as the number one priority of Ekiti state, health is receiving needed attention and infrastructural expansion has restarted. What more, the agricultural sector has been reflated and an expansive social scheme that targets the elderly, the weak and the vulnerable has resumed. These and many more have gone to rebuild the values the people cherish for ages and have lowered discontent in the state. Ekiti people have an idea of where they are and where they are heading and with such, the pride of the Ekiti people have been restored because the people feel proud with a governor that knows the needs, the priorities, the values and more of the state and how best to attend to them. The task of restoring what was damaged is great but it is a winnable battle as Fayemi has succeeded in little time to re-set governance to emphasise on what Ekiti holds dear and what gives the state its proud mien among states in Nigeria. There is no doubt that in the remaining parts of his government, Fayemi will succeed in etching back Ekiti to its hallowed place amongst Nigerians and he will surely succeed if he continues with the way he is going.
Peter Claver Oparah
Ikeja, Lagos.
E-mail: peterclaver2000@yahoo.com
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target=_blank>Politicians Trust ‘Marabaouts And Babalawos’ More Than Security Officials, Says DSS DG
Yusuf Bichi, the Director-General of the Department of State Services (SSS), has ascribed some of the security challenges in Nigeria to politicians’s distrust of security officials.Bichi was speaking Tuesday at a retreat for incoming governors organised by the Nigerian Governors Forum (NGF).He said: “I joke with politicians that you people trust the marabouts and babalawos more. Once someone tells you nothing will happen to your seat and it happens, you just trust that person in all crisis.” He said there was no lack of Intellegence in the country but rather a lack of will to act to combat the security challenges.He noted a disconnect at the grassroots in intelligence gathering due to the disconnect between the formal and traditional leadership structures.The SSS boss also lamented the disregard for security issues at the local government level, saying most local government chairmen do not hold security meetings to know what is happening in their localities.
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target=_blank>PHOTO: Zainab Aliyu Poses With Nigerian Officials In Jeddah After Release From Detention
The release of innocent Nigerian detainee Zainab Aliyu from detention in Saudi Arabia was completed on Tuesday, after which the Maitama Sule University, Kano student posed with Nigerian officials before the cameras, as captured above.
The picture was taken in Jeddah, a Saudi Arabian port city and modern commercial hub and gateway for pilgrimages to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina.
Zainab had been in detention since her arrest in December when a banned drug, tramadol, was found in her bag on arrival in Saudi Arabia.
Aliyu’s continued detention sparked widespread sympathy all over the country, on the back of claims that she was innocent and only fell victim to a drug cartel at the Mallam Aminu Kano International Airport, Kano, that specialises in keeping hard drugs in travellers’ bags.
Earlier on Tuesday, the Office of the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirmed that the Nigerian government had succeeded in establishing her innocence, hence her freedom had been secured.
Also, Ibrahim Abubakar, the second Nigerian implicated in the case, will be released to the Nigerian Mission in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
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‘Are Some Nigerians More Equal Than Others?’ CAN Queries Buhari After Securing Zainab Aliyu’s Freedom
The Christian Association of Nigeria, Northern State chapter, has congratulated the parents of Zainab Aliyu for their daughter’s release from Saudi Arabia detention.
However, it expressed concerns over the continued detention of Leah Sharibu.
Leah was among the 110 school girls kidnapped by Boko Haram in Dapchi, Yobe State in Febuary 2018. After a government negotiated release, Leah remians the only girl in capitvity from the incident on account of her christian faith.
On Tuesday, Rev. Joseph Hayab, Public Relations Officer of the Christian Associaton Of Nigeria, conveyed the church’s position on her continued detention, saying: “CAN Northern states rejoices with the parents of Zainab Aliyu and the government of our country for securing her release after she was arrested and detained in Saudi Arabia for allegations of drug trafficking.
“It is sad that many innocent Nigerians are suffering for a crime they know nothing about. This prompt effort by government is commendable and should be sustained for all and in the future, because this is what we want to see from our leaders in this country.“But as we rejoice about this development, we are also compelled to ask this important question: Are all Nigerians equal or some are more equal than others?“We are aware that many innocent citizens of our country have been arrested, some killed and others are still in detention; but we have not heard any directives from Mr. President to his Attorney General to take action about them with this kind of urgency.“If we want our citizens to be proud of their government and country, then we need to show equal concern about what happens to everyone in this country. We cannot also celebrate the release of Zainab and forget Leah Sharibu who did not commit any crime but has been in captivity for over a year now.“We, therefore, appeal to President Buhari to direct his security agencies to double their efforts and get Leah released and reunited with her parents. Leah, too, wants to enjoy the protection of her leaders.”
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