₦airaland Forum

ON AUGUST 13, 2018

By Omeiza Ajayi ABUJA- The All Progressives Congress APC has again dismissed claims by the Peoples Democratic Party PDP that it was planning to arrest the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu as a ploy to further weaken the opposition.

APC which said it had thought that by now, “the PDP would be tired of its lame opposition strategy of false alarms, baseless and frivolous accusations”, however added that both men were not above arrest should they be found to have ran foul of the law at any time.

“The Peoples Democratic Party PDP in its latest round of bogus claims has alleged that the Federal Government plans to arrest the Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki and his Deputy, Senator Ike Ekweremadu”, said Yekini Nabena, acting spokesman of the party.

He said the President Muhammadu Buhari administration has repeatedly demonstrated its strict adherence to the rule of law, therefore the alleged plan to arrest or harass the mentioned leaders is pure hogwash.

“Clear conscience fears no accusation. Why are PDP leaders afraid of arrest if their conscience is clear? All law-abiding citizens or resident of the country have nothing to fear about arrest. However, nobody no matter how highly placed will escape the full wrath of the law if he or she runs fowl of our laws.

“If the Senate President and the tree-climbing Senator are facing criminal charges in our law courts and his Deputy has explanations to make to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC for acquisition of numerous properties in Nigeria and abroad through questionable sources, the President Buhari-led APC administration has nothing to do with them. The laws of the country are only being applied and they should answer for their acts of infamy”, he added.

Chief Adeseye Ogunlewe, a former Minister of Works and chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), on Sunday called on party members in Lagos State to pray for peace and unity in their fold.

Ogunlewe, a former senator, said without peace and unity the party could not rise above its present “challenges” toward realising its goal of winning the state in 2019.

“What is needed in Lagos State PDP is prayers, prayers and prayers.

“Members in the chapter should pray together for peace and unity so that the goals of the party can be actualised.

“Members must particularly unite at this challenging period in order to get victory in 2019,’’ the PDP chieftain told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Ogunlewe who described the recent killing at the party’s rally in Eti-Osa area of the state as unfortunate, said divine intervention was needed to avert a recurrence.

NAN reports that some hoodlums had on July 21 invaded the party’s rally at Eti-Osa, killing the Chairman of the Apapa Chapter of the party, Mr Adeniyi Aborishade.

The invasion by the hoodlums and subsequent violence followed disagreements among members at the rally.

The Police arrested the State PDP Chairman, Mr Moshood Salvador and 10 other chieftains and on July 25, charged them with murder at a Yaba Magistrates’ Court.

They all pleaded not guilty to the two-count charge of unlawful killing and criminal conspiracy.

— 11th August 2018

– Woman sleeps with son to have a child for her husband

– I did it to save my 2nd marriage, she pleads

Linus Oota, Lafia


The story of a woman sleeping with her son from her first marriage in order to raise children for her husband from her second marriage sounds so strange. Unbelievable! Did we hear you say abomination of the highest order? Well, that’s exactly what happened when Mrs. Veronica Iorshe, 47, from Howe, Ugee Council Ward slept with her son from her first marriage in order to have children for her second husband, Sebastian Iorshe, 44, from Aliade, all in the same Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State.

Beginning of a tragic story

The tragic story started much earlier when Veronica got married, at 19, to Mr. James Hon (now late) from Gwer West Local Government Area of Benue state. The marriage was blessed with one child, a son. But eight months after, Hon died in an auto accident on the Makurdi-Enugu road while returning from a business trip. He used to trade in palm oil. After his death, Veronica summoned up the courage and continued with the business while staying in her husband’s house. But owing to some irreconcilable differences between her and her husband’s people, she returned to her maternal place but still continued with the oil-trading business, with her only son, Simon Hon.

But somewhere along the line Veronica switched to bushmeat marketing business. In her itinerary, she would travel to Awe Local Government Area of Nasarawa state to buy the meat and thereafter sell it to the people of Aliade in Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State. It was in the course of doing this that she met Sebastian Iorshe, a Tiv man from the area and a love relationship developed between the two. As it were, Sebastian had also lost his spouse two months after marriage in 1998.

So, given the mutual fate and feelings shared by the widow and widower, they did not see any reason not to marry and settle down as husband and wife. They did so about eight years ago. But the marriage ran into a big storm when it repeatedly failed to produce a child or children to cement the relationship. Matters were not helped much with Veronica’s movement into the second marriage with her only son, Simon, now 26-years-old. Sebastian’s mother who is not happy over the couple’s inability to produce children was said to regularly accuse Veronica of using her son’s wealth to train up her own son.

Descent into the abominable act

But amid the frosty relationship, suspicion, accusations and counter-accusations created by this development, the couple neglected to go for a medical check up to ascertain the source of the problem. Veronica put the blame on her husband. She claims that while she was willing, her husband was not. She said she suspects that her husband, said to be suffering from low sperm count, had, all along, known that he is unable to father a child.

But not too sure of where the problem lay, Veronica decided to test her own virility or potency by luring her son into secret lovemaking (with a stem warning not to reveal the affair to anybody). Investigation by Saturday Sun reveals that the serial lovemaking session lasted throughout the month of March and April 2018. Each time Veronica came down to Lafia with her son to deliver dry meat to restaurants around the area, she would rent a hotel room where she would, time and again, lure her son into performing sexual acts with her. Her reason for doing so she said, was to ascertain whether the fault was from her or not. At the end of April the result came out when she missed her period, signaling that she was pregnant.

But when she broke to her husband, what ordinarily would have been good news, he denied being responsible for it and suspected foul play. Stating February 1, 2018 as the last time they had sex together, he wondered how that would have resulted in pregnancy two months after. He added that if she missed her period at the end of April, then he is not responsible for it. This development led to suspicion that created a big crisis in the family. On 2nd August 2018, both of them submitted themselves to a medical test in Lafia based on the advice of a close relation. The result showed that Veronica is three months pregnant and confirmed the fact her last lovemaking with her husband February 1, couldn’t have led to that.

Matters turned out worse when another test conducted on her husband showed that he has weak and low sperm count that would make it impossible to father a child. The moment these details were released by the hospital, the angry husband, accusing her of infidelity, asked his wife to pack out of his house to go and live with the man responsible for her pregnancy.

Confession and moment of truth

After persistent pressure from our correspondent, Veronica eventually opened up to tell her own side of the story. “I am not a loose woman,” she said. “I am just a woman who loves her husband very much and didn’t want to lose him. I did what I did to save my marriage even though I feel guilty about it. It was not easy but I slept with my first son from my first husband so that I could give my husband a child. But rather sustaining my marriage, the plan has scattered it and I have lost it.



“I got married to my husband eight years ago. We had no child. The worst was that I never got pregnant even for one day. When I discovered that I was no longer getting younger, I was worried as much as he and his parents were. His mother became so impatient that she started breathing down my neck as she gave me no breathing space at all. She said that I was cheating on her son, using his son’s money to maintain my son, that I’m older than his son.

“She moved in to live with us and practically made life in my matrimonial home unbearable for me. At a point, she stopped talking to me. The only time she would talk to me was when she wanted to insult me and remind me of how less a woman I was. I was confused, more so when my husband refused to submit himself to a medical test to ascertain the source of the problem, though we loved each other before the heavy pressure from his mum came. We used to have serious lovemaking sessions especially during my ovulation period all in the bid to get pregnant so that my mother-in-law could stop humiliating me. Yet, I couldn’t get pregnant. I started suspecting the problem could be from my husband when he refused to subject himself to medical test. But the insult from my mother-in-law was getting too much, too unbearable for me. She vowed to frustrate me out of her son’s home. To make things worse, she sent away my son saying that he has no business staying in the house. I had to look for a one-room apartment for him in Lafia.

“After he left, it was just three of us in the house in Awe, which is a distance away from Lafia. I was always terrified each time I heard her voice from a distance. She tried to frustrate my meat market in Awe. In fact, the only time that I had peace was when I went to the market. It is so agonizing to say this. Instead of testing someone else to ascertain my fertility, I seduced and slept with my son. Simon is a young man in his early 20s; he has not started sleeping with women before I lured him into making love with me.

“I started by buying good things for him, sleeping together on the same bed, playing with his manhood and gradually one thing led to another. There was a time I asked him if he had tested sex before and he said no. I compelled him to take an oath not to disclose it to anybody. I said I would teach him sex. I ensured that I did that during my ovulation period. I never disclosed the reason for this but deep in my mind, I wanted to test my fertility. I planned it during my ovulation so that I could get pregnant, although it was not easy sleeping with a son. I knew I was doing the wrong thing and betraying my husband but I saw it as a necessary action to save my marriage. I didn’t want to go out sleeping with another man outside. I knew it was wrong but I prefer it from my son than a man outside. After one month, I discovered that I was pregnant.”

Picking pieces of a broken life

Now that the deed had been done and her husband had sent her packing from matrimonial, you wanted to know what she was going to do. She responded that she would do nothing else but piece together the pieces of her broken life and move on. She would relocate to Markurdi, she said to continue the dry meat supply business with her son. But how about the pregnancy, you managed to ask. Is she going to abort or keep it? Though she regrets her action, she said, she had decided to keep it because “it is blood within my blood.” Saturday Sun understands that when the heat became unbearable, Veronica asked her son to relocate to Benue State to avoid unforeseen circumstances.

Husband’s reaction

Speaking on the issue Sebastian expressed his disappointment over his wife’s betrayal and vowed never to forgive her. “I don’t want to believe the story she is narrating to you that her son is responsible for it, though I have not suspected her or seen any sign that an outsider was dating her,” he said. “But the truth is that I’m not responsible for the pregnancy and will not allow her into my house. It is a shame for me to be associated with a mess like this. Please, I don’t want to talk about it anymore; she is no longer my wife.”

.Tells Saraki, Your time’s over, Resign Now or be impeached

.Says Saraki won’t return to Senate in 2019

.Why Party moved against Senate President

.Lists his sins to include:-

*Emerging Senate President in Violation of Party Guidelines

*Appointing opposition Senators to head Sensitive C’ttees

*Delaying 2018 Budget till the Rainy Season

*Re-writing the budget

*Failed plan to truncate APC National Convention

*Conspiring to factionalize the Party

*Illegal defection from the Ruling Party

*Illegal adjournment of the Senate

*Non-Consideration of Virement, INEC Budget


By Omeiza Ajayi

ABUJA: The ruling All Progressives Congress APC has expressed confidence in the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara in spite of recent defections in the National Assembly including that of the Senate President, Dr Bukola Saraki. At a news conference Friday in Abuja, National Chairman of the party, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole also asked Mr Saraki to resign or be impeached.

“I have absolute confidence in Right Honourable Yakubu Dogara. I said something earlier that it was Sen. Saraki that complained. He did not only complain that he was not given juicy appointments but that Rt. Hon. Dogara was also not given and I wondered aloud whether Saraki thought that Dogara is not capable of speaking for himself, afterall he is the Speaker.

So, if those were the views of Rt. Hon. Dogara, it was not for Sen. Saraki to parrot because Hon. Dogara is capable any day of speaking for himself. The point I tried to make is that Saraki wants to drag everybody along with him.

The APC as a party and myself as Chairman, we have confidence in Hon. Dogara. I have had very useful interactions with him. We have had couple of meetings.

He has shared with me in trust, his concerns that have to do with issues in Bauchi state and I have taken steps to address those issues to the best of my ability and I have shared with him that I am excited that we are getting very positive results.

So, Hon. Dogara has no problem whatsoever with the APC and he did not do anything similar to what Sen. Saraki did. He emerged as Speaker and he also ensured as a patriot that an APC member emerged as Deputy Speaker.

He was not so desperate as to mortgage that position to PDP in order to cling on to his speakership. He knew the difference between personal interests and his party interests”, Oshiomhole said.

Accusing Saraki of always placing personal interests over and above national interest or that of his former party, Oshiomhole said the ruling party will mobilize the electorate in Kwara Central to ensure that Sen. Saraki does not return to the Senate in the 2019 general elections.

In what however looked like a catalogue of the “sins” of the Senate President, the APC said Saraki’s emergence as President of the Senate was in clear violation of Party Guidelines.

Other infractions of the Senate President according to Oshiomhole include appointing opposition Senators to head sensitive and strategic committees, delaying the 2018 Budget till the Rainy Season, re-writing the 2018 budget and his attempted plan to truncate the June 23 National Convention of the party.

Other are conspiring to factionalize the Party, illegally defecting from the ruling party, illegal adjournment of the Senate as well as the non-consideration of a Proposal for Virement from President Muhammadu Buhari and the budget of the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC.

“It is important that we respond to some of the issues he canvassed so that the public is not misled into turning villains to heroes and twisting the facts. There are really no secrets to the Nigerian public but it is important that we help the public to refresh their memories and arrive at their own individual judgment.

“First, the Senate President raised the issue that he has always acted, not on the basis of his own personal interest, but in the national interest. The truth is, it is doubtful if the Senate President has ever acted either in the national interest or in the interest of his own political party before his defection recently”, Oshiomhole began.


We will impeach him

“There is the futile attempt he has made to suggest that the Tuesday’s incident was an attempt to carry out an illegal impeachment. How can a presiding office arrive at such a conclusion that there was a plan to carry out an illegal impeachment?

Until an action takes place, you cannot determine the outcome. If impeachment itself is unlawful, then you can understand where he is coming from. It is lawful to impeach anyone, including the President of the Senate and his deputy if the number required to do so is present. So, he cannot preempt that.

From their own statement, they claimed to be aware that the Senate President was going to be illegally impeached and so mobilized thugs to the senate. They told the world that they have adjourned till 25th September. But meanwhile, about 15 PDP Senators were in the Senate and imported thugs that molested two of our members they sighted in the senate.

Did you find any APC senator in the senate? If APC senators were not in the senate and it was PDP Senators that were there, what is the basis of the false claim that there was an attempt to carry out an illegal impeachment?

In any case, Saraki is not going to be the first senate president to be impeached and I doubt is he is going to be the last. But definitely, he will be impeached according to law and democratic norms. The only way he can avoid impeachment is for him to do what is honourable. We saw Sen. Akpabio who was the PDP leader in the senate.

Once he made up his mind to leave the PDP, he wrote to inform the PDP even before his defection that he was resigning. So, Senator Saraki has demonstrated neither character nor being a man of honour. I told him when we held a meeting that he came to join the APC as a senator and it is on our platform that you became senate president.

Once you made up your mind to leave, the honourable thing to do is to resign as senate president. If he does not resign, he will be impeached according to law and not by thuggery or by mob or anything that is undemocratic. He cannot sustain a minority rule in the senate and that is what is haunting him in the senate.

“When I say that the senate president will be impeached, let me emphasise that he will be impeached properly according to law. The constitution is clear how a presiding officer can be impeached and because several impeachment have taken place, we are not about to witness what has not taken place before.

We have enough precedents to fall back on. I have looked at the constitution which does not say that an impeachment is illegal. Until it is done, you cannot arrive at the conclusion that it is unlawful.

How can we be accused of planning an illegal impeachment when it has not commenced? If he thinks that by saying that he will preempt the APC from having him impeached, he is deceiving himself.

I think that the time of Saraki is over, the way he has manipulated the politics of Kwara state, he failed to understand that the Nigerian project is far more complicated than being at the mercy of his own dynasty.

He will not only be impeached, we will work hard to have him defeated as a senator in his own Senatorial zone come 2019 by the people of Kwara state who are fed up with Saraki.

Go and check the results of the elections that made him a senator and you will find out that the President got more votes from Kwara Central than Saraki got for himself.

So, he can’t claim that the vote the APC got from his Senatorial zone was because of him. They were in spite of him and that is why his leaving is of no political consequence as far as electoral issues are concerned. We tried to talk to him, not out of fear, but out of conviction that as a presiding officer, there are rules of engagement and we don’t want him to get so emotional as to affect those rules of engagements Saraki connived with PDP to frustrate us.

“Without going back to ancient history, it suffices to start by looking at how in the first instance, Sen. Bukola Saraki became the President of the Senate.

He decided, clearly against the party position to enter into a deal with the opposition Peoples Democratic Party PDP and got a faction of the PDP, and taking advantage of the provisions in the constitution to side with him while majority of the APC senators were having a meeting at the International Conference Centre ICC in order to resolve the issue of leadership of the senate that was expected to be produced by the ruling party with majority senators in the senate.

Because he had put his personal interest over and above the interest of the party, he went into an alliance with the PDP and conceded the position of Deputy Senate President to the opposition in order to obtain the support of the opposition for him, Saraki, to become the Senate President.

And so, for the first time in our democratic history in Nigeria, we have a situation in which whereas the APC have the majority in the Senate, the senate went on to elect a PDP member as Deputy Senate President. This action alone portrays Sen.

Saraki for who he is. His personal interest comes before any other interest, including national interest and including the interest of his political party.


Opposition Senators as head of sensitive C’ttees

“Having went into this unholy alliance with the opposition and mortgaging the right of the ruling party, he proceeded to appoint opposition senators to head strategic committees whose activities can affect, either for good or for bad, the fortunes of the government and the relationship between the government and the legislature.

By trading off sensitive and strategic committees to the opposition, Sen. Saraki did that in order to continue to protect himself against the wish of his party as Senate President.

Again that shows that the only thing that was ever constant in the mind of Sen. Saraki was how to cling on to power even if it means at the expense of his party or even of the country.


Passing the budget in the rainy season

“You do not have to be a political activist or a politician to know that in an election year, every democratic government around the world would do everything possible to ensure that in an election year, it is seen to be working for the people of the country.

So, like any other political party, the APC administration under President Muhammadu Buhari…Nigerians expected that it would do everything possible this year to make up for lost time in terms of budget implementation and addressing critical infrastructure without which sustainable development is impossible.

The Senate under Sen. Saraki choose instead to delay the budget up to the end of the first half of the year to coincide with the rainy season such that those aspects of the infrastructure such as roads for example, cannot really be constructed during rainy season.

These were not errors of the head on the part of Sen. Saraki’s leadership. They were clearly designed to frustrate the capacity of President Buhari’s government to address critical infrastructural deficits without which the ordinary man on the streets cannot experience or feel the impact of governance.


Re-writing the budget

“Again, I want to plead that I am not about to reveal anything. On receipt of the budget by Mr President, after going through it, he cried out that the budget that was handed over to him by the National Assembly under the leadership of the Senate President was a clear distortion of the well-thought out budget proposals that he had submitted to the National Assembly.

Whereas, Mr President appreciates that the National Assembly could make some alterations on the budget, it did not expect that the budget would be completely rewritten and so grossly distorted as to make far more provisions for recurrent expenditure such that there is very little left for capital projects without which the Nigerian people cannot benefit from governance.

And the president, putting it mildly, said this budget will be difficult to implement. We have all heard of stories of budget padding or no budget padding. On this occasion, I would rather not delve into those.

So, when I say the Senate President has never put Nigeria first, I support this statement with reference to the deliberate delay in the budget and the deliberate manipulation of provisions in the budget in a way that will compromise the commitment of the government to address critical infrastructure.


Creating a perception of faction in the APC

“It is by now not a secret that as Senate President, he conspired with others to try to create a sense of division, a perception of division within the ruling party, having failed to truncate our national convention when they assembled a handful of people who were neither delegates nor aspirants to any of the offices during the convention to purport to form a political party.

There is nothing for me to add to the illegality of this action and the false foundation that Senate President Saraki tried to lay. I would rather adopt in toto, the illuminating submissions of Mr Femi Falana SAN.

He has spoken extensively on the illegality of Sen. Saraki’s action, whether in terms of purporting that there is a faction in his own political party, as he then was in the APC or basing his decision to encourage defections on the basis of his own imagined faction in his party that is unknown to all and unknown to INEC.

Again, those ones do not portray him as someone who is concerned about sustaining democracy.

“Upon his illegal defection, which he had to do hurriedly because the number of senators who he was preying on their fears that they will not be able to return to the senate and or that if they return, they will be heading to prison if President Muhammadu Buhari is reelected…and so, he had at a point, up to 36 senators who were on his list to defect.

But consequent upon our election and assumption of office, we took preemptive steps to reassure those senators. “When he defected, however illegal the action was, he went to Ilorin to tell the people part of the truth when he said that among other things he was leaving for two reasons.

But I think the Governor of Kwara state, Abdulfatai Ahmed was more explicit in corroborating Sen. Saraki’s claims when he said that he as a governor and Sen. Saraki as Senate President were being linked to an armed robbery case as part of their reason for defecting. Again, nothing to do with the Nigerian project or the people of Kwara state.

However, who linked Sen. Saraki to armed robbery? Was it the federal government or arrested armed robbers? It was the armed robbers who were arrested who alleged that the weapons with which they carried out their heinous crime, including the killings of about 35 people of Kwara state in Offa, that those weapons were procured for them by the senate president.

They made these allegations according to police report which is now in the public domain. He has not denied knowledge of these people since some of them were captured on camera in his entourage when he went, ironically to pay condolence visit to the survivors of the robbery. So, if armed robbers linked the name of the Senate President to the robbery, should the federal government or the APC be blamed?

A crime that led to the killing of about 35 persons cannot be dismissed with a wave of hand and in any jurisdiction, when your name is linked to such heinous crime, people don’t clap for you.

It is the duty of the security agencies to investigate and establish whether they are valid or invalid. So, if he was linked to armed robbery, that cannot be an offence of the government or the APC. The best defence I have heard is that the robbers said that he did not ask them to use the weapon for armed robbery.


Illegal adjournment of the Senate

“In support of my thesis that Saraki has never acted in the national interest, my final submission is on the way he adjourned the senate. The senate calendar is not a secret to the presiding officers and the calendar that was known was that the senate was going to adjourn on a Thursday.

But by Monday night, Saraki used his Guest House, wrote out names of senators with provision for them to sign for senators to decamp from the APC to the PDP, but some of the senators refused to sign.

That was what frustrated his calculations to turn the APC to a minority party in the senate. Is it a coincidence that as he was reading the names of defectors in the senate, his counterpart in the House was also doing same.

There was a coordination for defection day. But happily, the preemptive measure we have taken to address genuine grievances frustrated their numbers such that from 36, he could not get more than 14 senators to decamp Including one that subsequently overcame the manipulation.

“Between Tuesday and Thursday, the senate was expected to discuss the supplementary budget for INEC. INEC requirement are not things that you buy from the shelf. You have to order them from the manufacturers and so, time is of the essence. But the senate under Saraki adjourned without considering the matters before it including the budget for INEC.

So, if Saraki adjourned the senate ahead of schedule to resume towards the end of nominations, can that act be said to coincide with national interest? If you decide to frustrate INEC by denying it the funds that it requires, can you be said to be a defender of democracy?

If INEC do not get their funds and therefore are unable to conduct a credible election, will that not lead to further consequences for our democracy? So, I submit that Saraki’s actions were calculated to undermine democracy. Those who fought for democracy did not do it so that it can be run at the mercy of a senate president whose interest is clearly at variance with national interest.

There was a request for Virement which was also not considered. “A substantial part of the 2018 budget meant for capital project was supposed to be sourced through loan and under the constitution, you cannot borrow from foreign countries without the express endorsement of the national assembly.

Without those loans, the budget cannot be implemented. While this was pending, Senator Saraki put his personal interest above his office and choose to adjourn the senate , leaving this huge national issues unattended to.

So, for an officer that behaves like that, how can he argue that anything he did was not about himself? Everything he did has never been informed by national interest. There are also allegations of lack of transparency and we have seen Nigerians trying to demystify what they earn. We have an arm that is completely unaccountable because of the way he has presided.

Therefore, his attempt to use the incident at the National Assembly on Tuesday to portray himself as the conscience of the nation is to insult our collective intelligence as a people”, he declared.

AFP•August 10, 2018

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New York (AFP) - The Slovenian-born parents of Melania Trump became US citizens at a naturalization ceremony in New York on Thursday, reportedly taking advantage of a family reunification program President Donald Trump has vehemently denounced.

Trump's in-laws Viktor and Amalija Knavs took the oath of citizenship, their immigration lawyer Michael Wildes confirmed to AFP.

Asked by the New York Times if they had obtained citizenship under a program derisively branded "chain migration" by the president, Wildes replied: "I suppose."

He said chain migration, which allows naturalized US citizens to sponsor close relatives for permanent residency, was a "dirtier" way of characterizing what he called "a bedrock of our immigration process when it comes to family reunification."

Trump has taken a hardline on immigration policy, criticizing so-called chain migration.

The Republican president has said such a system steals jobs from Americans and threatens national security, calling for a merit-based system that gives preference to more educated, English-speaking professionals.

- 'NOT ACCEPTABLE!' -

Writing on Twitter in November, Trump made his views on the system clear.

"CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE!"

He frequently cites the example of Sayfullo Saipov, a naturalized immigrant from Uzbekistan who drove a rented truck down a busy bike path in New York in October, killing eight people and injuring 12, to illustrate why the family reunification program must be ended.

Highlighting the administration's approach to immigration, the naturalization took place as a Washington federal judge threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of court after the government moved to deport a mother and daughter, despite an order halting such a move.

The woman, referred to as "Carmen," and her daughter were part of a group of immigrants who had fled "extreme sexual and gang violence" in Central America, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

It is not clear when the Knavs couple obtained their green cards, though their status as permanent residents was first revealed by Wildes in February.

Melania Trump, the 48-year-old first lady, was their sponsor, Wildes told the Times.

Under US law they must have been permanent residents for five years before applying to become citizens, and the time to process an application can take several months thereafter.

Viktor Knavs, a car salesman in Slovenia, and Amalija, who worked in a textile factory, are over 70 years old, retired and pass much of the year in the United States, where they regularly spend time with their daughter and grandson Barron.

Biola Azeez - Ilorin

A leader of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kwara State and minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that he will not run for any office in 2019 general elections, calling on members of the party to subordinate individual ambitions to collective efforts.

Speaking at a political summit organized by the party in Ilorin on Thursday, Alhaji Lai Mohammed charged people of the state to resolve to take their destiny into their own hands and take back what rightly belongs to them.

“And I can tell you that if we all remain united, we can’t and we won’t lose the looming battle for the survival of our dear state. All that is required is for us all to subordinate our individual ambitions to the collective efforts work to wrest our state from the hegemony of a set of people. On my own part, I can say here, without equivocating, that I won’t be running for any office during the forthcoming elections. For me, it is not about any clamour for office. It is about working with all like minds for the greater benefit of our people.

“Make no mistake about it, the battle ahead will be tough. No one with power will ever give it up easily. But the power of the people supersedes all powers. That’s why I am delighted and indeed encouraged, that the good people of our state, whether from the North, South or Central, are all united in their singular determination to rescue their state from the grinding poverty, monumental misgovernance and the general state of funk that has enveloped it.

“The fightback has already begun, in the form of blackmail and fake news. They say I do not like Ilorin people. But what they do not know is that no amount of cheap blackmail will deter us. The people of Ilorin should know who their friends are. I do not hate the good people of Ilorin. Perhaps many of you have forgotten that in 2011, I supported, on my platform, an indigene of Ilorin to run for the governorship of this state. Even when my kinsmen were not happy with my decision, I was undeterred. Even when the PDP sponsored someone from my own constituency, I insisted on the Ilorin candidate as a matter of principle, upon the conviction that that was what we needed to do at the time to effect the necessary change. For the blackmailers, it is convenient to forget that now.

“Also, one of my first duties as a Minister of the Federal Republic was to pick a candidate from each geopolitical zones to head some of the agencies under my ministry. For the North-Central, I was instrumental to the appointment of an Ilorin man as the Director-General of the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). In a related development, when Prof. Raheem Oba, an Ilorin man, sought a second term at the Federal Character Commission, we know those who worked against him. They will do this and many more acts of blackmail to divide us, to drive a wedge between us. Don’t let us succumb to their antics.

“In this new dispensation, every Kwaran counts and will have a voice. The resources of Kwara will be used for the development of the state and its people. Never again will our people be turned to panhandlers, never again will our people be made to eat crumbs from the master’s table. We must become the masters of our own destiny”, Alhaji Lai Mohammed said.

Other speakers apart from Alhaji Lai Mohammed at the event also called on leaders of the party to find a measure to discourage disunity and acrimony that usually occur after party primaries by selecting qualified and winnable aspirants for 2019 general elections in the party.

cococandy:
why can’t she keep the first husband and add another one to him?

cococandy:
Practical? Lmao

Try sexist , entitled or selfish. Those are better descriptions.

Stop using words you don’t know the meaning of

Bridget95:
you seem to me like an African traditionalist or muslim.

pocohantas:
What exactly do you call AFFORD TO TAKE CARE OF THEM?
Money right? That's the typical Nigerian father mindset. Taking care of a child goes beyond money. What of bonding with these "lots of kids", creating a right environment.

Please, it takes more than affording it.

IMASTEX:
It's a good idea. But what if the man has the infertility challenge will the woman share from this your idea?

miqos02:
you must also be ready for the consequences of a polygamous marriage

ON AUGUST 8, 2018

*My husband didn’t tell when he sold my 4 months old baby – Wife

By Chinonso Alozie, Owerri

A suspected couple Ugochukwu Nwachukwu 28-yr-old man and Mrs. Glory Ugochukwu 30-yr-old woman, Wednesday claimed that they sold three different babies including their own child, for N600,000. They made this confession at the Imo state Police Headquarters, when they were paraded by the state Commissioner of Police, Mr. Dazuki Galadanchi, alongside 17 other suspects in other offences.

Dazuki said: “The above suspects were arrested by operatives of Anti Kidnapping Unit of the command on 20/07/2018 at Umuokai Owerri -Nta in Isiala Ngwa South Local government of Abia state.

“Suspects conspired and lured one Jovita Aloka female, of Irette in Owerri west local government of Imo state to Naze Owerri North local government of Imo state. “Where they tactically disposed her of her two children Adaugo Oliver, 3 years and 6 months and Daniel Oliver 6 months and sold them to unknown persons.

“Suspects have confessed to the crime and other child trafficking within Imo state and its environs. Operatives are trailing other fleeing members of the syndicate.”

While narrating her role in the said child trafficking, to Vanguard, Glory, “I asked my husband where is my child and he told me he had sold my child. I was not happy with him. He never gave me even one naira. It is just 4 months old baby boy. He is my first child. I am not happy with what my husband did.”

Also, speaking to Vanguard, Ugochukwu the said husband to Glory, said: “I discussed with my wife before selling the child. I sold the child N400,000. “My reason is that I wanted to join the Army and I did not have money to process it. The bill they gave to me was high and I went to the point of selling my properties after that I could not make it.

“What I did was to use the remaining money to buy a motorcycle and start fishery business. “I was arrested through the person who linked me to selling my son. He connected me to another person. This second one is a boy and a girl and they sold them N400,000. They gave me only N200,000. It is this second business that exposed me.”

BabaCommander:
Interesting to note that the Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun is from Osun state.
We have a long way to go in Nigeria.

But the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP, said it’s not an emergency agency that rushes to urgently required sites for salvation.

By Dennis Agbo AUGUST 8, 2018

ENUGU - WITH the rainy season at its peak, most landscapes are giving in to degradation in most parts of Enugu State, same as other states in the South-East with porous soil formations.

Worst affected places in the state are road sides that are being cut off due to either poor or complete lack of drainage on the sides.

There are numerous sites of such degradation but prominent among them are the Enugu end of the Enugu-Onitsha road, particularly along the 15 kilometres Abakpa Junction-9th Mile section of the road which the Federal Government neglected until it’s now about to cut-off.

Travelling the short distance between Enugu and 9th Mile is a nightmare, not just for the road that is impassable but for the fear of skidding into deep gullies that have chopped off major portions of the road.

At Ekulu bridge, just behind 82 Division Abakpa Barracks, is an erosion gully that is not only risky to commuters but is also a threat to the bridge that serves as a connector for Abakpa and the two lanes of the federal highway.

At Ugwu Onyeama proper, a section of the road with undulating hill formation where coal was mined, the portion is almost cut-off with more than 60 per cent of one lane barricaded to avert tragedy occuring there.

An alternative route to avoiding Ugwu Onyeama which is the Milikin Hill-Ngwo Road is also being threatened by the same erosion despite the recent rehabilitation of the colonial road by Enugu State Government.

Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, however, went back to the site to check the threatening portion and the road is presently being made safe for passage.

In a similar situation, even within the Enugu City are some forms of degradation threatening establishments such as industrial complexes. At Rico Industrial site at Ngenev near Coal Camp, massive gully is about to sack part of the industrial complex, with Chairman of the Group, Chief Eric Chime calling on all authorities to come to its aid.

But the Nigeria Erosion and Watershed Management Project, NEWMAP, said it’s not an emergency agency that rushes to urgently required sites for salvation. While agreeing that all the erosion sites in the state required urgent attention, including the Enugu-Onitsha highway, NEWMAP regretted that the process of its intervention takes time.

Enugu State coordinator of NEWMAP, Mr. Egechukwu Obetta said that despite the protocol involved before its intervention, it has done much work in the state and named sites where it has done enormous works to include Ajali Water Works erosion site, Udi-Ozalla, Imiliki, Onuiyi Nsukka and Ohom Orba erosion sites.

Obetta after visiting the new erosion sites made barricade sign at the dangerous gully that has entered into the Enugu-Onitsha highway at Ekulu bridge behind 82 Division. He stated that Enugu State Government has paid over N200 million counterpart fund to enable the state source World Bank NEWMAP facility to combat further degradation in the state.

Obetta disclosed that because of the counterpart fund it paid, the state was able to commence work at Umuavulu-Abor erosion site among other sites it has been working on.

Obetta said: “Erosion is closing in on all our roads and people want NEWMAP and the Federal Ministry of Works to do something about them because they are all emergency situations.

“As NEWMAP, we take proactive measures to respond to erosions. We take damage control and have less time for proactive analysis like we just had in Nsukka.

“Erosion projects are gigantic projects and that is the reason why we’ve been able to complete only two projects in the state but our major impendement which was counterpart fund, has been resolved.” Obetta also hinted about four fingers of heavy gullies in Ngwo community, noting that an edifice is about being submerged at Amauzam-Ngwo. On the perennial Nsukka flood which has consumed may lives due to large quantity of rainfall, Obetta said that a pool that would look like a lake is being designed for Nsukka to serve as a collection centre instead of channeling all the water through long distances that brings about the flood.

All Progressive Party leader and former Governor of Lagos State Senator Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, was at the Redeemed Christian Church of God 66th Annual Convention of RCCG, Tuesday to felicitate with his wife, Senator Remi Tinubu who was ordained as an Assistant Pastor of the RCCG.

By CHIKA OKEKE

There are indications that the nation’s capital, Abuja, is currently witnessing appreciable decline in payment of tenancy fees. LEADERSHIP findings showed that there is a 30 percent decline in the rent in major areas of the FCT including some high brow areas.

Our correspondent reports that drastic change in purchasing power of most middle and low income earners which led to the increased number of unoccupied houses in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), could be partly responsible for the drop in rental value.

Statistics revealed that the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) currently has over 7 million population that were not hitherto captured in the master plan.

Regrettably, the low income earners who constitute over 80 percent of the workforce in the city are battling to meet up with their tenancy fees. Further investigation by LEADERSHIP revealed that default in payment of annual rental fees as agreed between landlords and tenants cuts across every location in the FCT except the slum settlements where houses are poorly priced.

According to findings, in satellite towns of Kubwa, Lugbe and Jikwoyi, the inability of tenants to meet up with their rental obligation have forced few landlords to cut down the rent by significant percent even though some inflated the fees, citing economic reasons, old tenants maintained the old rent while the new tenants benefitted from the cut.

For instance, a one room self-contain that was rented for N250, 000 to N300, 000 in 2016, now goes for between N200, 000 and N250, 000. Also, a 1-bedroom flat now goes for between N400, 000 to N500, 000 while a 2-bedroom flat goes for between N600,000 and N700, 000 depending on the location and facilities available in the property as against the initial price of N450, 000 or N550, 000. However, the major crux of the matter is the default in payment of rent.

It was also discovered that landlords have been forced to collect the annual rents in two or three batches as tenants battled to contend with the economic hardship.

One Mrs Martha Joshua, who resides in Aco estate, Lugbe area of the FCT commended her landlord for accepting the rental fees in two batches, describing him as a man with a heart of gold.

Also, one of the landlords who preferred anonymity said that instead of leaving the house vacant for a long time, he has reduced the rental fees to accomodate new tenants, saying that he warned them never to disclose it to the old tenants.

“This is because of the state of economy and instead of living the houses vacant, I collected the rent in two to three tranches,” he said.

The default is also minimal in highbrow areas of Maitama, Asokoro, Gwarinpa, Wuse 2 among others, a situation that has led to growing number of completed and vacant houses. An on the spot assessment revealed that over 30 percent of the houses in these areas are vacant while some remained unoccupied since it was completed in 2015.

For instance, a room self-contain that was hitherto rented for N300, 000 to N350, 000 in 2016, now goes for N400, 000 to N550, 000 depending on the type of facilities in the houses.

The same rule applies to other categories of housing in the area, even as old tenants have splitted the rental fees into two to three tranches in order to meet up with other pressing needs. They said this has further forced many civil servants to seek alternative shelter at the suburb or slum settlements.

A resident of Gwarinpa in Abuja, who gave his name as Mr Kennedy wondered why federal government could not pass a law mandating landlords to create uniform rates in all the houses.

He called on FCT administration to seek for alternative means of building for low income earners. A Cross section of stakeholders who spoke with LEADERSHIP described the decline in payment of tenancy fee to the wobbling economy even as they pegged the sharp drop at over 40 percent.

Managing director of Justin Okpu & Co limited, a facility management company, Prince Justin Okpu said that since rental fees are artificially fixed, tenants could no longer meet up with their obligation. “The prevalent fees do not reflect the actual currency of the economy and failure of tenants to pay has affected rental responsibilities like renovation of the houses.

Okpu listed the implications of default in rental payment as overbearing pressure on the courts brought by landlords and tenants dispute, biased justice on dispute issues, high rate of vacant properties, increase in redundancy in real estate investments.

He said this would lead to a shortfall in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) even as he pegged the decline on payment of rent to 40 percent. He emphasised that low-wage regime among the able work-force of the population and high rate of unemployment are the major reasons for the decline.

The expert said that high-rate of rental default are more prevalent in high-brow areas and middle-class neighbourhood as well as some sizeable number of low-income neighbourhood. In his contribution, a former president of Nigerian Institute of Town Planners (NITP), Tpl.

Steve Onu stated that the decline in tenancy rate is as a result of low disposable income and very high rental outlay. He noted that the implication for the built sector is that there would be low rate of returns to the property owners as well as high vacancy rates.

A developer, Arc Adewunmi Towolawi Okupe noted that if the cost of houses are moderate and targeted towards particular income group, affordable housing would be achievable.

He stated that a tenant who lived in a rented apartment for over 20 years must have paid more than enough to build the house. Okupe blamed the decline on the ailing economy which has adversely affected household income as well as rental capacity of tenants.