₦airaland Forum

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The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has accused National Assembly members of stealing billions of naira in the name of constituency projects. The ICPC, in a report tagged “Constituency Projects Tracking Group”, tracked 424 projects from 2015-2018 constituency projects between June and August 2019 across the 12 states of Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bauchi, Benue, Edo, Enugu, Imo, Kano, Kogi, Lagos, Osun and Sokoto as well as the FCT, accused the lawmakers of duplicating of contracts using the same description, same narrative, same amount, same location and awarded by the same agency.

The ICPC, in the report signed by its chairman, Bolaji Owasanoye, alleged that the lawmakers did this to bring the amounts allocated to them within certain approval threshold of executing agencies to avoid ministerial tenders. It also alleged insertion into budgets of constituency projects under the guise of “capacity building and empowerment projects”.

“These Capacity Building and Empowerment projects have become a convenient conduit for embezzling public funds by the sponsoring legislators and the executing agency as they are difficult to track and verify due to their “soft” nature,” the report, President Muhammadu Buhari had in November said there has been very little benefits to the grassroots from the ₦1 trillion that had been earmarked for constituency projects in the last 10 years. “This is so in spite of the wide disproportionality between appropriations for constituency projects and statutory projects of some implementing agencies, especially those of Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency and Border Community Development Agency.

“For instance, in 2015, while the total mandate allocation for SMEDAN was N1,592,323,599, constituency projects allocation was N5,814,369,579,” the report said. “95 per cent of these constituency projects allocations were for empowerment and capacity building projects. This appropriation jumped up in 2016 to N11,120,099,958; 741 per cent of mandate budget with empowerment and capacity building projects taking 99% of the amount.”

“The size, number and types of zonal Intervention projects domiciled in SMEDAN and BCDA, for instance, have turned them into conduits for, and means of abuse of constituency projects and therefore vulnerable to corruption.” The ICPC recommended that empowerment and capacity building constituency projects be temporarily suspended as “they are just free money without accountability, aside from being difficult to track. If however they must go on, the implementation process and mechanism must be completely overhauled to put it strictly under absolute control of the executing agency.”

It also recommended that “In order to reduce the influence of the sponsoring legislators on the emergence of a preferred bidder and strengthen the bidding process, project sites must be determined and given by legislators before advertisement for, and award of contract so that award letters will be specific and particular about projects locations”. The spokesman of the Senate, Godiya Akwashiki, did not answer phone calls by Daily Trust seeking his reaction to the allegations.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/constituency-projects-how-senators-reps-steal-billions-icpc.html

A human rights and good governance advocacy-led civil society, Make A Difference (MAD), has advised the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Tanko Muhammad, to hands-off cases involving the Department of State Security Services (DSS). In a statement by the Advocacy and Communication Director of MAD, Lemmy Ughegbe, the group said the CJN needs to rise to the challenge and give the directive nationwide to help protect the sanctity of the court.

MAD condemned the action of the DSS in forcing a judge of an Abuja Federal High Court to scamper to her chambers while it effected the re-arrest of the convener of #RevolutionNow protest, Omoyele Sowore and his co-defendant who were earlier granted bail by the court. Ughegbe said the action of the DSS in court on Friday surpassed the “draconianism of the darkest days of Nigeria’s military rule.”

“The gestapo invasion and desecration of the court by agents of the Department of State Security (DSS) is a sad and debasing testament of how deeply Nigeria and the people have retrogressed into darker ages worse even than the military era,” he said. “When law officers and security agents act with such barbaric impudence and insufferable arrogance as though they cannot be called to question for their action, one cannot but agree with those who say Nigeria is a zoo and we are hyenas, baboons and sundry animals in it.

“I challenge the Chief Justice of Nigeria to order the courts nationwide to suspend hearings of all cases brought by DSS until the deviant organisation purges itself of its sins and complies with all orders of courts issued against it.”

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/desecration-of-court-group-asks-cjn-to-bar-judges-from-dss-cases.html

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has demanded that an independent panel of inquiry be constituted to identify and probe those who invaded a Federal High Court Friday in Abuja, and the maltreatment meted out to Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu. According to a statement by his Media Office, those found guilty of the offence must be sanctioned to the highest extent permissible by Nigerian laws.

“Today (Friday) I am in extreme anguish of spirit having watched the unfortunate drama that played itself out at the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, in which agents of the state not only caused a commotion in court in order to frustrate a judgment of a court of competent authority.

“Never in the history of Nigerian democracy has a judge been treated in such a disdainful and brazen attack on not just her person and office, but on the entire judiciary. This is unacceptable. “It is a rape on the sanctity of the court. Nigeria is not a dictatorship. We are a democracy, no matter how inconvenient this fact is to the powers that have forced themselves on us.

“I further call for all law enforcement agencies in Nigeria to immediately respect not just the court order made by Justice Ojukwu, but the order of any court in Nigeria, on any detainee, be it Omoyele Sowore, Sambo Dasuki or Ibrahim Zakzaky, among others. “We cannot have a situation where our government is quick to obey foreign court orders and even quicker to disobey domestic court orders. This is symptomatic of a mindset that is servile to foreign powers and brutal to Nigerians,” Atiku said.

Similarly, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said the “furious invasion” of the sanctity of the Federal High Court by the Department of State Services (DSS) further confirmed that Nigeria, under the Buhari Presidency, was finally sliding into a frightening dictatorship.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/atiku-wants-probe-into-dss-court-invasion.html

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The Minister of Finance Budget and National Planning. Zainab Ahmed, has said that the Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) would be in charge of sales and collection of stamp duties. This is coming despite the Senior Staff Association of Statutory Corporations and Government Owned Companies (SSASCGOC) and NIPOST workers got the assuarance of the senate that they would carry out the mandate.

The Minister while addressing the press in Abuja said “by the passage of the Finance Bill it will be the Federal Inland Revenue Service that will be collecting the Stamp Duties.” S “It is a revenue for the government, it is a form of tax for every financial transaction that goes on.

For example, you send a transfer, you see the bank charges you N50, FIRS is going to be the collection agency,” she added. However, SSASCGOC had in a letter signed by the president of the union, comrade Mohammed Yunusa and the general secretary comrade Ayo Olorunfemi, which was copied to President Muhammadu Buhari, the Senate president Ahmed Lawan and the Speaker House of Representatives Femi Gbajabiamila and made available to Daily Trust stated that “The provisions of Stamp Duties Act Cap S8 Laws of the Federation 2004 and the NIPOST Act Cap N127 LFN 2004, has given the sole power to collect stamp duties to NIPOST.” Comrade Ayo stressed that it is the ‘core mandate’ of NIPOST to collect stamp duty after which five percent of what was collected is used for the development of NIPOST infrastructures Nationwide.

He further noted that “it is no longer an attempt, but is now clear that the Federal Ministry of Finance in collaboration with Federal Inland Revenue Service (FIRS) are ready to take over the responsibility of Nigeria Postal Service by influencing the House of Representatives to insert that they should be responsible for the collection of stamp duty. He lamented that “Once this is done, NIPOST is finished and the staff is gone, there is no source of revenue and therefore, the financial inclusion programme of this government will go into extinction. Because it is only NIPOST that has a federal presence in all the villages across Nigeria.”

Daily Trust gathered that the problem started when in line with the digital economy of the federal government, NIPOST sponsored a bill to migrate from manual to digital on the collection of stamp duty. He said from the analysis, about N500 billion would be collected from the first year with an electronic collection of stamp duty, adding that subsequent years the amount would run into trillions.

“Now that the federal government announced the establishment of Ministry of Communication and Digital economy you don’t expect NIPOST to continue to be analog. So we sponsored a bill to give us the power to do electronic stamp so that we can use the electronic stamp to denote our receipt and other business transaction.

“And all of a sudden because we put the financial implications, the huge revenue derivable from the project, the Federal Inland Revenue Service connived with the minister of Finance to corner the process. “Ours is a business, we produce stamp and sale. The inland services don’t produce, what we produce is a stamp and if it changes from manual to digital, that shouldn’t be their business.” He said.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/contestation-as-finance-minister-insists-firs-will-collect-stamp-duties-others-disagree.html

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The newly appointed Archbishop of the Abuja Catholic Archdiocese, Ignatius Kaigama, has formally assumed office as substantive Archbishop after taking over from John Cardinal Onaiyekan who retired on the attainment of the mandatory 75 years of age. The event was held at the Cathedral of the Twelve Apostles, popularly known as the Papal Ground, Kubwa in Abuja.

In his goodwill message, Pope Francis said that Archbishop Kaigama’s appointment was based on merit having been found capable of holding the exalted position. Francis, whose message was read by Papal Nuncio to Nigeria, Most Rev. Antonio Filipazzi, said Kaigama possesses all the qualities and pastoral experience needed for the job.

Many dignitaries, including, Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, Secretary to the Government of the Federation Boss Mustapha, top government officials, church leaders from various denominations and others were in attendance. Kaigama, born on July 31, 1958 in Kona, Taraba State, had his secondary school education at St. Augustine’s Seminary in Jos before proceeding to Pontifical Gregorian University where he earned a doctorate in Theology in 1991.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/kaigama-assumes-duty-as-abuja-catholic-archbishop.html

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Plateau State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Damishi Sango has resigned from his position following the recent crisis that rocked the party and corruption allegations against him. Speaking at a farewell press conference in Jos, the state capital, Sango said his deputy, Amos Gombi, will take over as acting chairman.

He said: “You are all aware that since April this year, the state chapter of our great party has been rocked by a tsunami-like crisis that has threatened its very existence as one united political party. ADVERTISEMENT HOW “This followed my purported suspension along with my deputy as chair and deputy, respectively, by some members the executive committee on trumped up allegations of mismanaging funds meant for the party’s logistics arrangements in the 2019 presidential election in the state. “Following the unfortunate incident, determined to resolve the crisis and get the chapter moving again, the national leadership of the party, led by Prince Uche Secondus, set a three-man committee under the chairmanship of Senator David Mark, to look into the said allegations and advice it accordingly. “

He said Secondus communicated that the Senator Mark committee did not find him guilty of any financial impropriety, “and so I was exonerated of all allegations against me. “Pursuant to my being exonerated, the group of 16 executive committee members should write to the NWC, withdrawing their allegations.

Upon the withdrawal of the allegations, in consideration of the fact that there’s bad blood between me and most of my colleagues in the executive committee, particularly the group of 16, and to pave way for peace in the state chapter, I should step aside as chairman. “In line with provisions of the party’s constitution, my deputy, Hon. Amos Gombi, shall be acting chairman,” Sango said.

Read more: https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/why-i-resigned-as-plateau-pdp-chair-sango.html

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