otunbaa:

In June 2014, I moved into this house in ikeja while working with an oil and gas firm and my fiancé was living and working in the states and was planning to relocate back to Nigeria so we can get married and start our own family. In December 2014, same year I moved into the house, I got sacked by the company for no reason and this is a job I have been doing for almost 3 years and since then I have not gotten another job till this moment because I feel that someone with my experience shouldn't be finding it difficult to get another job because I have worked with 3 major oil and gas firms with close to 8 years experience. In 2015, my fiancé got back from the states hoping to start a business and before we know it we started spending the money on nothing tangible till it finished and ever since she tried going back but no luck due to no money to finance it and nobody is willing to assist us with money, it's like helpers are running away to assist. We struggled to pay this year's rent ( 300k ) which will expire by June next year. Just recently someone told us to move out of the house that the owner might have done something to hinder our progress while he progresses and also I was told by someone in the neighborhood that a labourer died in the building while building the house and we are the first occupant of this house. I and my fiancé have concluded to move out of the house.
So fellas what do you think?

Five senior lecturers and seven other workers at the Auchi Polytechnic have been sacked for offences bordering on sexual harassment and extortion of female students in the school.

Fifteen other lecturers and one instructor were also demoted in relation to the same offences.
The disciplinary actions were announced on Thursday by the Executive Secretary, National Board for Technical Education, Dr. Masa’udu Adamu-Kazaure, in Kaduna.

Adamu-Kazaure said the decision was endorsed by the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu.

The sacking and the demotion of the lecturers followed a Saturday PUNCH ’s story of April 9, 2016, entitled, “School where prostitutes assist male students to get marks.” (See the article here on Nairaland
https://www.nairaland.com/3038166/sexual-harassment-auchi-polytechnic-prostitutes)

The story had detailed how male students of Auchi poly hired prostitutes or begged their girlfriends to sleep with lecturers in order to earn higher grade in their courses.

It also narrated how some of the lecturers preferred to accept cash, ranging from N10,000 to N20,000, rather than sex to award grades, usually not above ‘C’ to male students.
Adamu-Kazaure commended Saturday PUNCH “for a job well done.”

He said, “When we saw the report, we promptly informed the Minister of Education, the ICPC, the EFCC and the Department of State Services and constituted a fact-finding committee with a view to getting to the root of the matter and proffering a lasting solution to the problem. Members of the committee included members of staff from the Federal Ministry of Education, the NBTE, the EFCC and the DSS.”

He said the report of the committee was submitted on June 14, 2016 at the 160th Regular Meeting of the NBTE where it was deliberated upon before being sent to the Minister of Education for approval.

The outcome of the committee’s report, he explained, was the dismissal and the termination of the appointments as well as other disciplinary actions taken against the culpable lecturers and workers of the institution.

He said, “The approval involved the dismissal from service of the polytechnic of two chief lecturers, two principal lecturers and one lecturer I.

“Also, four chief lecturers, one principal lecturer, one lecturer I, one lecturer II and one higher technician had their appointments terminated.

“The honourable minister also approved the demotion of one chief lecturer, four principal lecturers, three senior lecturers, three lecturer I, four lecturer II and one senior instructor.
“One chief lecturer, one principal lecturer I and one lecturer III were warned; while a chief lecturer and one senior technologist were advised on good conduct.

“Two senior lecturers were cautioned, an assistant lecturer is to be mentored; one ND student is to be advised, while another student, Gideon Adaengel, is denied admission into the polytechnic.”

He thanked Saturday PUNCH for putting the board, committee and the management of the institution on their toes to perform their statutory function better.

“I will write a letter commending The PUNCH editor,” he added.

GurlFriend:
Senator Ibn N'Allah, Deputy Senate Leader was the senator who raised the motion in the senate to quash the proposed data tariff hike.


But the irony is this same senator is one who, months back, proposed a bill to censor social media in Nigeria. Very ironic indeed.

http://www.lailasblog.com/2016/12/meet-senator-who-raised-nodatahike.html

THE National Assembly is set to grant financial autonomy to local government councils and state Houses of Assembly to reduce alleged influence of governors in their financial management.

Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, dropped the hint, yesterday, in an interview with newsmen in Abuja.

He reiterated the resolve of the National Assembly to grant financial autonomy to the 774 local government councils in the country.

Dogara noted that lack of elections at the local government level were crippling democracy and denying the much needed development at the third tier of government.

Dogara said the House under his leadership, was in the process of granting financial autonomy to 36 State Houses of Assembly.

He decried a situation where governors had constituted themselves as middlemen that continuously hijacked funds meant for the councils in the name of joint account, describing the arrangement as “evil”.

Dogara described the existence of caretaker committees manning the affairs of the local government councils in some states as an aberration and illegality which must stop.

He revealed that new clauses might be introduced in the constitutional amendment bill that would not only outlaw caretaker committees but also stop allocation of funds from the federation account to local governments with no democratically elected councils.

As a step to end the alleged illegality perpetrated by state governments, the speaker disclosed that the parliament would consider abolishing States Independent Electoral Commissions, SIECs, and empower the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to take over their functions.

ABUJA— AGAIN, President Muhammadu Buhari’s nominee for the position of chairman of the Nigeria Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Professor Akintunde Akinwande, yesterday failed to present himself for Senate screening.

For the second time in one month, the nominee shunned the Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe-led committee on Power, Steel Development and Metallurgy.

The committee had, last month, invited Akinwande and other nominees for screening, but the screening was put on hold due to failure of Akinwande to appear, just as he failed to fill all the columns where he ought to have provided his needed information for the committee.
But in a swift reaction, the Presidency denied the reports, saying Akinwande was simply trying to formalise his resignation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he works.

But at a second screening session convened yesterday by Senator Eyinnaya Abaribe and other members of the committee, Akinwande was not just absent, but informally told the committee that he was not available for the job.



A source in the committee disclosed that Akinwande sent a text message to a member of the committee that he was not interested in the job.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on National Assembly Matters (Senate), Senator Ita Enang, who tried to persuade the committee not to interprete Akinwande’s absence to mean that he had declined the President’s nomination, said: “I would want to plead with the committee that the nominee was simply absent. I will communicate with the President and get more information about him and get back.”

This remark was quickly rebuffed by members of the committee, who openly declared that they had tried enough and would not be ready to reconvene a third screening session for Akinwande.

At this point, a member of the committee, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi (APC, Kaduna North) who threw a question at Ita Enang, querried: “But if somebody says I will not be able to make it, what does he imply?”
Apparently confused about the development, Enang could not respond to Hunkuyi’s question.

Meanwhile, the committee has disclosed that it would prepare its final report and submit to the Senate which will take final decision on Akinwande’s nomination.
According to a source, Akinwande turned down the nomination “because he was not consulted before the nomination was made and was not ready to leave his present businesses to take up the job.”

Nominee calls for thorough monitoring of DISCOs
Meanwhile, Sanusi Garba, the Vice Chairmanship nominee from Katsina State during the screening, yesterday, lampooned the power sector, saying to say it was in bad shape was simply an understatement, even as he said that deficit revenue in the sector was approaching one trillion Naira.

According to him, the sector is that bad because it lacks a good regulator, promising that the new board, when put in place, would right the wrongs, adding that Electricity Distribution Companies, DISCOs, went into agreement to run the sector, but noted that because of lack of proper supervision, they had failed to function properly.

He said it had become imperative for the sector to be overhauled, if Nigeria must attract foreign investors.
Others who appeared for the screening were Nathan Rogers Shatti; Professor Frank Okafor; Musiliu Olalekan Oseni and Dafe Akpeneye, among others.

A former Minister of State for Defence, Senator Musiliu Obanikoro, on Monday returned N30m to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission. This brings the total amount of money he has returned to the EFCC to N134m.

A source at the EFCC said, “Obanikoro came on Monday and presented a draft of about N30m. Initially we did not want to collect it because it is small compared to what he is supposed to have given us. However, the legal department advised us to collect it.”

Obanikoro had in October returned N104m to the commission. The ex-minister, who returned to Nigeria last month after spending about 15 months in the United States, was accused of receiving N4.7bn from the Office of the National Security Adviser under the leadership of Col. Sambo Dasuki (retd.).
Obanikoro had said in his statement of oath at the EFCC that after receiving the money in 2014, he gave N1.219bn to the then governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Ekiti State, Mr. Ayodele Fayose, while N1.3bn was given to the PDP candidate in Osun State, Senator Iyiola Omisore.

He also confessed to giving Fayose a separate $5.377m at Spotless Hotel in Ekiti State in the presence of party leaders including the then PDP Secretary, Mr. Tope Aluko.

Obanikoro was said to have kept about N785m for himself, which he allegedly spent while campaigning ahead of the PDP governorship primary in Lagos State. Mr. Jimi Agbaje won the primary.

However, the EFCC asked Obanikoro to return about N584m out of which he had already returned N134m.
At the EFCC office on Monday, Obanikoro promised the detectives that he would return the remaining N450m in 2017.

The source said, “About N450m is remaining and Obanikoro has promised to pay the rest in 2017. He will also be reporting at our office every two weeks.”
At the Federal High Court in Abuja presided over by Justice Nnamdi Dimgba last week, Mr. Alade Sunday, a manager at Zenith Bank, narrated how Obanikoro delivered about N1.219bn to Fayose’s aide, Abiodun Agbele, for onward transmission to his boss.
He had also said it took the cashiers about 10 days to count the money.

Sunday had said Obanikoro flew with the cash to Akure Airport and the money was loaded into bullion vans.
He had said, “When we got to the airport, we waited for some minutes before the aircraft arrived. When the aircraft offloaded its passengers, one of them appeared to me to be Senator Musliu Obanikoro and the other one appeared to be his ADC, Adewale.

“Agbele walked up to them and had a discussion with them. Thereafter, he signalled me to bring the van. Bags loaded with cash were loaded into the van and Obanikoro’s ADC, Agbele and I drove back to the bank.”
Meanwhile, it was learnt Omisore had appealed to the EFCC to return his passport to him to enable him to travel out of the country.

A source at the commission said, “We cannot return his passport to him now because he has not yet returned half of the money. He has returned only N350m out of N1.3bn. When he returns half, then the EFCC can consider returning the passport to him.”

TWELVE days after the Senate cleared Chief Okoi Ofem Obono-Obla, Cross River, South South, as a non-Executive Commissioner on the governing board of the Nigerian Communications Commission, NCC, it has made a dramatic turn by dropping his name from the list of successful nominees sent to President Muhammadu Buhari.

Obono-Obla’s name was removed in the letter transmitted to Buhari as one of those confirmed by the legislature.

In the letter dated November 22, signed by Senate President Bukola Saraki, a copy of which was obtained yesterday, Obono-Obla was listed as one of the three whose nominations were rejected by the Senate.
It would be recalled that Oboni-Obla was among the five whose nominations by President Buhari were approved by the Senate on November 17, 2016, while two of the nominees were dropped.

At the plenary, those whose appointments were confirmed were Senator Olabiyi Durojaiye (Chairman/Ogun/South-West), Senator Ifeanyi Ararume(Non- Executive Commissioner/Imo/South East), Sunday Dare (Executive Commissioner, Stakeholders Management/Oyo/South-West), Okoi Ofem; Obono-Obla (Non-Executive Commissioner/Cross River/South-South) and Clement Omeiza Baiye (Non-Executive Commissioner/Kogi/North-Central).
The lawmakers, however, dropped Aliyu Abubakar (Non-Executive Commissioner/Bauchi/North-East) and Pastor Ezekiel Yissa (Non-Executive Commissioner/Kwara/North-Central).
According to the report of Senator Gilbert Nnaji led Committee on Communications, Pastor Ezekiel was rejected because of his background as a nursing officer.
The second nominee rejected by the Senate, Alitu Abubakar, had repeatedly called for the scrapping of the Senate, even when he appeared before the Senate for screening, saying the existence of the Senate was not justifiable.
He also pointed out that the upper chamber was only wasting the nation’s resources by its existence.
Obono-Obla, who is the Special Assistant to the President on Prosecution, attached to the Ministry of Justice, protested in an email sent yesterday against what he described as back-door removal.
The mail was titled, Can the Senate President unilaterally overrule the confirmation of a nominee by the Senate?
The nominee, who asked why he was removed after the Senate had confirmed his nomination, simply said: “The entire major electronic and print media organs in the country, on November 17 and 18, 2016, carried the confirmation by the Senate of the Board of Nigerian Communications Commission.
“Surprisingly and curiously, the Senate President, Senator Abubakar Bukola Saraki, in a letter dated November 22, 2016, to President Muhammadu Buhari, titled ‘Confirmation of Appointments,’ falsely stated that the Senate did not confirm the following nominees: Aliyu Saidu Abubakar; Pastor Ezekiel Yissa and Chief Okoi Ofem Obono-Obla.”