...Urges Lawmakers To Insist on Oversight Functions
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counsels the leadership of the Senate to resist any forms of intimidation from the Buhari Presidency to surrender its independence and pass bills and requests without statutory legislative scrutiny and oversights.
The party’s position is predicated on the blanket comment credited to the Senate President, Senator Ahmed Lawan, that any request from President Muhammadu Buhari to the National Assembly is good for the nation, even without subjecting such requests to statutory legislative scrutiny.
The PDP describes such stance as unconstitutional and unacceptable as it amounts to relinquishing statutory powers of checks and balances of the National Assembly.
This, our party notes, will create an alarming impression that the present National Assembly has been annexed by the executive and reduced to a rubber stamp legislature.
The statement by the Senate President has heavily detracted from the expected independence of the legislature. It is fast eroding the confidence Nigerians have on the Senate and the National Assembly, as true representatives of the people at the national level.
The party notes that even if the Senate leadership believes in the import of any request or bill from the President, the 1999 Constitution (as amended) requires the legislature to pass such through its statutory checks and balances processes to ensure that the content and intent are in tandem with overall national interest.
Such legislative checks are enshrined in the constitution to curtail the excesses of the executive as well as create room for democratic tenet of citizens’ participation through their elected representatives.
Anything to the contrary is a direct suspension of our constitution, enthronement of dictatorship and a sidestepping of the legislative powers, which is capable of destroying the institution of the National Assembly.
Moreover, legislative processes for statutory interfaces with other arms of government, particularly the executive, is governed by the constitution, laid down legislative rules, practices and conventions and not by the narrow-minded assumptions of any single individual.
The PDP reminds the Senate President that the National Assembly is the very symbol of our nation’s democracy. It is an institution that belongs to the people and not to any political party or group. Ceding its independence therefore amounts to surrendering the sovereignty of the people.
Our party therefore charges National Assembly members to ensure they live up to their billings by insisting on their oversight functions as well as take immediate steps to reassure Nigerians on its capacity to protect their interests at all time.
Signed: Kola Ologbondiyan National Publicity Secretary
Allen Ifechukwu Athan Onyema, the Chairman, CEO, and founder of Air Peace, a Nigerian airline, has been charged with bank fraud and money laundering for moving more than $20 million from Nigeria through United States bank accounts in a scheme involving false documents based on the purchase of airplanes. The international airline’s Chief of Administration and Finance, Ejiroghene Eghagha, has also been charged with bank fraud and committing aggravated identity theft in connection with the scheme.
According to a press release by the U.S Department of Justice, “Onyema allegedly leveraged his status as a prominent business leader and airline executive while using falsified documents to commit fraud,” said U.S. Attorney Byung J. “BJay” Pak. “We will diligently protect the integrity our banking system from being corrupted by criminals, even when they disguise themselves in a cloak of international business.”
Nigerian pop singer, David Adeleke also knows as Davido has released his 3rd studio album titled “A Good Time” through Davido Music Worldwide (DMW), RCA Records and Sony Music. The album comes after his two albums released Omo Baba Olowo (2012) & Son of Mercy (2016) respectively.
Artist: Davido
Album Title: A Good Time
Released: November 22, 2019
Year recorded: 2017–2019
Genre: Afrobeats hip-hop
Record Label: DMW RCA Sony
Producers: David Adeleke (exec.) Asa Askia (exec.) Dr. Deji Adeleke (exec.) Shizzi Speroach Beatz Tekno
Length: 60:00
Features: Naira Marley, Zlatan, Summer Walker, Gunna, Peruzzi, Dremo, A Boogie With Da Hoody & Yonda).
Tracklists: 1 Intro
2 1 Milli
3 Check Am
4 Disturbance (feat. Peruzzi)
5 If
6 D & G (feat. Summer Walker)
7 Get to You
8 Risky
9 Sweet in the Middle (feat. Wurld, Naira Marley & Zlatan)
10 Fall
11 Green Light Riddim
12 Big Picture (feat. Gunna, Dremo & A Boogie wit Da Hoodie)
The 62nd Annual Grammy Awards ceremony is scheduled for January 26, 2020, at Staples Center in Los Angeles. It will recognize the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility year, running from October 1, 2018, to August 31, 2019.
Place on January 26 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles. They’ll be hosted by Alicia Keys and will air live on CBS.
Nigerian singer, Burna Boy, has made the list of nominees for 2020 Grammy Awards.
Album of the Year Bon Iver - i,i Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell! Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go H.E.R. - I Used to Know Her Lil Nas X - 7 Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride
Record of the Year Bon Iver - Hey Ma Billie Eilish - Bad Guy Ariana Grande - 7 rings H.E.R. - Hard Place Khalid - Talk Lil Nas X - Old Town Road Lizzo - Truth Hurts Post Malone - Sunflower
Song of the Year Lady Gaga - Always Remember Us This Way Billie Eilish - Bad Guy Brandi Carlile - Bring My Flowers Now H.E.R. - Hard Place Taylor Swift - Lover Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Love Lizzo - Truth Hurts
Best New Artist Black Pumas Billie Eilish Lil Nas X Lizzo Maggie Rogers Rosalía Tank and the Bangas Yola
Best Pop Solo Performance Beyoncé - Spirit Billie Eilish - Bad Guy Ariana Grande - 7 rings Lizzo - Truth Hurts Taylor Swift - You Need to Calm Down
Best Pop Duo/Group Performance Ariana Grande & the Social House - Boyfriend The Jonas Brothers - Sucker Lil Nas X - Old Town Road [ft. Billy Ray Cyrus] Post Malone - Sunflower [ft. Swae Lee] Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello - Señorita
Best Pop Vocal Album Beyoncé - The Lion King: The Gift Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? Ariana Grande - thank u, next Ed Sheeran - No.6 Collaborations Project Taylor Swift - Lover
Best Traditional Pop Vocal Album Andrea Bocelli - Sì Michael Bublé - Love (Deluxe Edition) Elvis Costello & The Imposters - Look Now John Legend - A Legendary Christmas Barbra Streisand - Walls
Best Rap Album Dreamville - Revenge of the Dreamers III Meek Mill - Championships 21 Savage - I Am > I Was Tyler, the Creator - IGOR YBN Cordae - The Lost Boy
Best Rock Performance Bones UK - Pretty Waste Gary Clark Jr. - This Land Brittany Howard - History Repeats Karen O & Danger Mouse - Woman Rival Sons - Too Bad
Best Metal Performance Candlemass - Astorolus - The Great Octopus [ft. Tony Iommi] Death Angel - Humanicide I Prevail - Bow Down Killswitch Engage - Unleashed Tool - 7empest
Best Rock Song Tool - Fear Inoculum The 1975 - Give Yourself a Try Vampire Weekend - Harmony Hall Brittany Howard - History Repeats Gary Clark Jr. - This Land
Best Rock Album Bring Me the Horizon - amo Cage the Elephant - Social Cues The Cranberries - In the End I Prevail - Trauma Rival Sons - Feral Roots
Best Alternative Music Album Big Thief - U.F.O.F. James Blake - Assume Form Bon Iver - i,i Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride Thom Yorke - Anima
Best R&B Performance Daniel Caesar - Love Again [ft. Brandy] H.E.R. - Could’ve Been [ft. Bryson Tiller] Lizzo - Exactly How I Feel [ft. Gucci Mane] Lucky Daye - Roll Some Mo Anderson .Paak - Come Home [ft. Andre 3000]
Best Traditional R&B Performance Bj the Chicago Kid - Time Today India.Arie- Steady Love Lizzo - Jerome Lucky Daye - Real Games PJ Morton - Built for Love [ft. Jazmine Sullivan]
Best R&B Song H.E.R. - Could’ve Been [ft. Bryson Tiller] Emily King - Look At Me Now Chris Brown - No Guidance [ft. Drake] Lucky Daye - Roll Some Mo PJ Morton - Say So [ft. JoJo]
Best Urban Contemporary Album Steve Lacy - Apollo XXI Liz - Cuz I Love You Georgia Anne Muldrow - Overload Nao - Saturn Jessie Reyez - Being Human in Public
Best R&B Album BJ the Chicago Kid - 1123 Lucy Daye - Painted Ella Mai - Ella Mai PJ Morton - Paul Anderson .Paak - Ventura
Best Dance Recording Bonobo - Linked The Chemical Brothers - Got to Keep On Medusa - Piece of Your Heart [ft. Goodboys] RÜFÜS DU SOL - Underwater Skrillex and Boys Noize - Midnight Hour [ft. Ty Dolla $ign]
Best Dance/Electronic Album Apparat - LP5 The Chemical Brothers - No Geography Flume - Hi This Is Flume (Mixtape) RÜFÜS DU SOL - Solace Tyco - Weather
Best Comedy Album Jim Gaffigan - Quality Time Ellen DeGeneres - Relatable Aziz Ansari - Right Now Trevor Noah - Son of Patricia Dave Chapelle - Sticks and Stones
Best Remixed Recording Madonna - I Rise (Tracy Young’s Pride Intro Radio Remix) Miley Cyrus - Mother’s Daughter (Wuki Remix) Jorja Smith - The One (High Contrast Remix) Mild Minds - Swim (Ford. Remix) Maria Davidson - Work It (Soulwax Remix)
Best Compilation Soundtrack for Visual Media Various Artists - The Lion King: The Songs Various Artists - Quentin Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood Taron Egerton - Rocketman Various Artists Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - A Star Is Born
Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media Alan Silvestri - Avengers: Endgame Hildur Guðnadóttir - Chernobyl Ramin Djawadi - Game of Thrones: Season 8 Hans Zimmer - The Lion King Marc Shaiman - Mary Poppins Returns
Best Song Written for Visual Media Chris Stapleton - The Ballad of the Lonesome Cowboy Dolly Parton and Linda Perry - Girl in the Movies Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper - I’ll Never Love Again (Film Version) Beyoncé - Spirit Thom Yorke - Suspirium
Best Recording Package Voces Del Bullerengue - Anónimas & Resilientes Chris Cornell - Chris Cornell The Muddy Basin Ramblers - Hold That Tiger Bon Iver - i,i Intellexual - Intellexual
Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package Thom Yorke - Anima David Gray - Gold in Brass Age John Coltrane - 1963: New Directions Wilhelm Furtwängler & Berliner Philharmoniker - The Radio Recordings 1939-1945 Various Artists - Woodstock: Back to the Garden - The Definitive 50th Anniversary
Best Album Notes The Complete Cuban Jam Sessions - Judy Cantor-Navas The Gospel According to Malaco - Robert Maravich Pedal Steel + Four Corners - Brendan Greaves Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection - Jeff Place Stay ’68: A Memphis Story - Steve Greenberg
Producer of the Year, Non-Classical Jack Antonoff Dan Auerbach John Hill Finneas Ricky Reed
Best Music Video The Chemical Brothers - We’ve Got to Try Gary Clark Jr. - This Land FKA Twigs - Cellophane Lil Nas X and Billy Ray Cyrus - Old Town Road (Official Movie) Tove Lo - Glad He’s Gone
Best Music Film Beyoncé - Homecoming David Crosby - Remember My Name Miles Davis - Birth of the Cool Various Artists - Shangri-La Thom Yorke - Anima
Best World Music Album:
Gece — Altin Gün What Heat — Bokanté & Metropole Orkest Conducted By Jules Buckley African Giant — Burna Boy Fanm D’ayiti — Nathalie Joachim With Spektral Quartet Celia — Angelique Kidjo
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party for the Kogi West senatorial rerun, Dino Melaye, nephew Olorunjuwon was shot yesterday at governorship elections conducted in Kogi State, Mandy News report.
According to Dino, 'My nephew Olorunjuwon who was shot at my pooling unit yesterday died this morning. My brother your death is a Supreme sacrifice in the struggle for the liberation of our people. Rest in peace aburo... So sad.'
Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates overtook Amazon.com Inc.’s Jeff Bezos as the world’s richest person on Friday, reclaiming the top ranking for the first time in more than two years.
Gates may have been helped in part by the Pentagon’s surprise decision announced Oct. 25 to award a $10 billion cloud-computing contract to Microsoft over Amazon. Shares of Microsoft have since climbed 4%, giving Gates a $110 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Amazon’s stock is down about 2% since the announcement, putting Bezos’s net worth at $108.7 billion.
Gates, 64, had briefly topped Bezos, 55, on an intraday basis last month after Amazon posted its first profit drop in two years, but shares of the world’s biggest online retailer pared the decline. The index, which tracks the wealth of the richest 500 people, is updated each trading day after U.S. markets close. Europe’s richest person, Bernard Arnault, is third with $102.7 billion.
Welcome to MANDY NEWS live upates for the 2019 Kogi And Bayelsa Governorship Elections.
Tomorrow is our long awaited election day, between the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Kogi State, Musa Wada and All Progressives Congress, APC's Yahaya Bello.
We also have PDP's governorship candidate in Bayelsa State, Senator Douye Diri and the APC governorship candidate, David Lyon.
The Calabar Division of the Court of Appeal on Wednesday reaffirmed the victory of Governor Udom Emmanuel of Peoples Democratic Party , PDP, as duly elected. Mr Nsima Ekere of the All Progressives Congress (APC) appeal challenging the result of the March 9.
The Governor said, "Today, the Court of Appeal sitting in Calabar overwhelmingly reaffirmed the victory you gave me at the March 9, 2019 Gubernatorial elections. I am hugely indebted to you my dear people for your support and prayers and of course, our ONLY GOD who made this all possible."
Nigerian musician, singer-songwriter, Dare Art Alade popularly known as Darey was pictured with Jack Patrick Dorsey an American computer programmer and Internet entrepreneur who is the co-founder and CEO of Twitter, and the founder and CEO of Square, a mobile payments company in Lagos, Nigeria.
A member of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator and member of the 9th National Assembly, representing Kogi West Senatorial district. Dino Melaye has warned John Olukayode Fayemi, the Governor of Ekiti State and Mohammed Badaru Abubakar the 4th democratically elected Governor of Jigawa State.
According to the series of tweets sighted by MANDYNEWS.COM, Dino wrote; "Governor of Jigawa chaired a meeting at Adams Oshomole's residence 2days ago. Where APC leadership in Kogi were invited. Comrade Adams was also in attendance. The governor of Jigawa categorically said in the meeting we don't want Dino back. We will stop him. And I Laugh.The Governor of Jigawa has murdered sleep... Gov Fayemi I also warn you, the activities of your militias in Kogi is known to us. Your CSO and Security Adviser are waiting to be jailed. Retract or you get the shock of your life. No plot hatched that is not known to me.I come against Gov Fayemi and Badaru in the name of the Most High God. Your evil enterprise shall fail and the people of Kogi shall be free. The people's will in Kogi shall prevail I promise you. God is God and only Him is above all men."
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission says it will need a petition in order to commence a probe against social media celebrities such as Ray Hushpuppi, Investor BJ, Baddy Osha, Opa6, Bayo Otunola and others who were mentioned in the song titled ‘Living Things’ by hip hop artiste, Abolore Akande aka 9ice.
The EFCC was responding to a suggestion by one of its followers on Twitter that the commission should go after all those hailed by 9ice in the song.
Twitter user, @onlydotcom, told the EFCC, “EFCC, sit down and listen to the song, Living Things, by 9ice and do your work with the fear of God. Nigeria will be better for it.”
The EFCC, while responding on Twitter,“Do you mean that (song) could be a petition? Not enough anyway.
“However, the Eagle still requests a written statement to support any allegation that has been made.”
One of the persons hailed by 9ice in the controversial song is Ismail Mustapha aka Mompha, who was arrested by the EFCC for alleged N14bn fraud last month.
Nigerian singer and rapper, Divine Ikubor, known as Rema, left Twitter fans in disbelief after he shared Halloween photos with American rapper, Jaden Smith.
The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), has detains 16 local goverment chairmen in Kwara state Sixteen Local Government Chairmen of Kwara State are presently being interrogated by the Ilorin Zonal Office of the EFCC over alleged misappropriation of part of N4 billion (Four Billion Naira) Loan & ten percent of State IGR.
The Local Government Chairmen include, Risikat Opakunle, Saidu Yaru Musa, Umar Belle, Ayeni Dallas, Fatai Adeniyi Garba, Lah Abdulmumeen, Raliat Funmi Salau, Aminat Omodara, Muyiwa Oladipo.
Others are, Oladipo Omole, Abdullahi Abubakar Bata, Saka Eleyele, Lateef Gbadamosi, Oni Adebayo Joseph, Omokanye Joshua Olatunji and Jibril Salihu.
Human rights activist and social media influencer Segalinks with real names as Segun Awosanya has reacted to the report that Abdulmumin Jibrin demanding N3bn compensation for ‘defamation’
He tweets;
"In the exaggerated valuation of self, the personal ego (hubris) of people drowning in impunity is sawing off the branch on which he is sitting, and then getting more anxious about the impending crash! You need to first have a positive reputation before suing for defamation. Your lawyers have been served. You see, I don't need to send emissaries to bully anyone when I can serve you directly myself. Public officers must be accountable to the people and not attempt to intimidate ordinary citizens asking critical questions."
A member of the House of Representatives, Abdulmumin Jibrin has sued human rights activist and social media influencer Segalinks with real names as Segun Awosanya over defamation of character.
According to the lawmaker, Segalink had tweeted about him having foreign accounts and hiding it.
Jibrin through his lawyers have asked Segalink to publicly apologise for the statement and pay a sum of N3,000,000,000 as damages, else they would be heading to court.
When Cynthia (name has been changed) went out with a group of her friends in Abuja on April 26, 2019, she probably envisaged a nice Friday night out with the girls after a hard week at work. Like many other single women living in Abuja, Cynthia was attracted to the relatively dynamic economy and vibrant, cosmopolitan lifestyle available in the federal capital. Unlike many other places in Nigeria where simply coming out at night is an extreme sport, the seat of Nigeria’s federal government offered a semblance of normalcy.
The group of friends settled for a club called ‘Cloud 9’ at the Nadrem Emporium on 3rd Avenue, Gwarimpa. Suddenly the party was broken up by a large group of men who barged in, demanding that Cynthia and her friends stand up and follow them outside immediately. When they naturally resisted this unwanted intrusion on their evening outing, they were dragged outside along with the other women in the club. Outside they saw a convoy of law enforcement and armed forces vehicles including police, NSCDC, army, immigration and even the prisons service.
Cynthia didn’t know it yet, but this would be the start of a 4-day ordeal in the hands of the police at the behest of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB), a hitherto little-known agency which has since gained a fearsome reputation in the city, for its singular commitment to rape, extortion and harassment of young women. Over the ensuing 96 hours, she and at least 70 other young female detainees were tear gassed in a locked police cell, denied food, water or sanitary provisions and raped by police officers if they could not pay for their freedom.
Abuja’s Targeted Female Raids: Officially Sanctioned Rape and Extortion Racketeering
While putting this story together, I spoke to six different victims of these raids, all of whom came from markedly different backgrounds and circumstances. While Cynthia was hanging out with her friends Patricia, Mary and Judith at a club (all names have been changed), Mercy was standing at the roadside waiting for a “keke” while Peace was at a hotel for a friend’s birthday. None of these women was doing anything particularly out of the ordinary, much less wrong. Yet they all had more or less the same story, give or take a few details.
Mercy was accosted while waiting for a keke and abducted by a group of touts working for the AEPB. From going about her normal business, she found herself in police detention facing verbal and physical violence for no reason at all in the space of a few minutes. Even worse as she said to my mounting amazement, she has been abducted under similar circumstances three times this year alone. For added incredulity, she revealed that on one such occasion, she was taken to the FCT High Court at Zuba and instructed to plead guilty to whatever she was charged with, lest she risk going to Suleja prison.
My mouth nearly fell open when she said that she actually did so. Apparently, it really was a choice between pleading guilty to a nonsensical charge or finding herself remanded in a notorious prison in Niger State – for absolutely no reason. It did not escape my notice that this practise of scaring innocent people into pleading guilty to charges they do not understand could mean that a significant population of Suleja prison probably consists of innocent young women abducted from the streets of Abuja and forced to plead guilty to…anything including murder, terrorism and robbery.
Mercy got off fairly lightly, because she was charged only with “causing nuisance” – an offense which, while completely nonsensical, at least let her regain her freedom immediately. Peace on the other hand, was not so lucky. Of all the victims; horrible stories, hers perhaps was the most pitiful of the bunch because of how unlikely it was. A regular middle-class professional working a 9-5 job, she was lodged in her hotel room celebrating a friend’s birthday when she decided to buy water from the reception. Nobody answered the intercom, so she stepped out of her room to go downstairs herself. She did not even lock the door.
Describing what happened next she said:
Immediately I got to the reception, one woman came and held my hands and insisted that I should follow her and I was like “Ma, what happened?” She then said I should just respect myself and follow her, she continued dragging me until when we got outside, I saw cameras and a large crowd with people videoing with their phones, I saw so many hilux [sic] with police, immigration civil defence, military, etc. They were just so many along with touts in reflective jackets. I saw other girls being dragged into the buses. They even went to the extent of knocking the hotel rooms, they will knock the hotel doors and if you open the door and you happen to be a lady, they will drag you out of the rooms into the buses, it got to one girl, they did not only drag her out of the hotel room, they dragged her and pull her clothes before the cameras and took a naked picture of her, they took her clothes off and she was naked and took pictures of her.”
PEACE
The Curious Case of “Hajiya Safiya,” Mastermind Behind the Abduction of Abuja women
Through the course of the difficult conversations with all six women, one name kept coming up persistently as a chief protagonist of the newfangled rule-of-rape regime – a certain “Hajiya Safiya.” A search on Google reveals some important things about this person. First of all, she appears to be a ghost. Despite currently being a high profile public servant in the nation’s capital, Acting Secretary to the FCT Social Development Secretariat (SDS) Hajiya Safiya Umar, alias “Hajiya Safiya” has no pictures online, in the time honoured tradition of human rights luminaries like Col. Frank Omenka.
Second, Mrs. Umar appears to be something of a hypocrite. She is on record for criticising Senator Elisha Abbo for assaulting a woman in July this year. Three months before that episode however, she directly and openly coordinated one of the worst human rights violations in the history of Nigerian democracy. Under her instruction, hundreds of women including nursing mothers were raped, assaulted, kidnapped and unlawfully detained in filthy conditions. She continues to defend her actions, while publicly condemning a woman-beater.
I mentioned that to properly contextualise the type of human being Mrs. Umar is, to all intents and purposes. One of those people.
Cynthia’s description of her encounter with Hajiya Safiya mentioned that while she was lucky enough to get out on Friday night, she came back on Saturday morning to bail out her friends, only to be thrown into the cell on the orders of this “Hajiya Safiya.” Describing how it happened, she told me that upon getting to the station, she spotted a livid woman only known as “Hajiya Safiya,” who wanted to know why the police granted bail to some of the girls from the previous night’s raid. The lady did not want to know how the police did it, but she had one simple message for them:
Due to the sheer misfortune of being present at the police station then, Cynthia was promptly rearrested, notwithstanding the N3,000 she had already paid to bail herself out the previous night – a sum that was not refunded to her.. Later that night, the police went out again on Hajiya Safiya’s orders, abducting and detaining more women including a nursing mother with a two-month old baby.
When she appeared before the National Human Rights Commission on May 16 to explain the events of April 26, Mrs. Umar delivered the dismissive, nauseatingly self-righteous performance typical of Nigerian public office holders who think they are doing the country a favour by being in office. Responding to the well-established and widespread reports of rape and brutality that accompanied the Abuja raids, she flatly denied them and conveniently feigned ignorance of any such possibility. Presumably, it was a stretch to imagine that the famously professional and well-behaved lower ranks of the police could do such things when given free reign and assisted by civilian touts.
In between the gratuitous dishonesty though, she did freely admit to being one of the principal brains behind the April raids that launched the AEPB into its ferocious new phase of existence as a sort of female-focused SARS. In her view, these raids were necessary to tackle “social vices” like prostitution. In practise, that means carrying out the fool’s errand of trying to group young women into “prostitutes” and “not prostitutes.”
One might imagine that the Acting Secretary to the SDS – an institution that supposedly exists to help vulnerable women and children – would have a more nuanced and intelligent view of the world. Researching Hajiya Umar revealed however, that she has all the nuance and finesse of a chainsaw in a hardwood forest. To her, everything she considers a problem must be chopped down forthwith. Like prostitutes. Especially prostitutes. Actually only prostitutes. Also whoever she decides is a prostitute. Did I mention prostitute?
Prostitute.
According to her, the SDS and the AEPB collaboration was to preserve the “norms and values” of society, or at least the subjective ideas thereof held by she and her colleagues. In the face of several women who recounted their traumatising and dehumanising experiences, Mrs. Umar denied that any such things could have happened, even though she also admitted that she had left the police station before the women were released – so she obviously had no way of confirming that.
I was at Nadrem for a birthday and all of a sudden we saw some guys asking ladies to stand up and one guy walked up to me and insisted I should stand up, he said common will you stand up there, he then came and dragged me, inserting his hands in my buttocks in his attempts to drag me he was putting his hand in my ass and pressing my buttocks, and this was the hired touts they brought along to harass us.
PATRICIA Meanwhile, as everyone struggles to identify precisely what “norms and values” Mrs. Umar and her syndicate are “preserving” in the federal capital by running an industrial harassment of women (with some repeatedly raped by Police) and extortion machine, it is very important to note that these raids were not a one-off event. They had been happening before April, albeit on a smaller scale, and they are still happening now, six months later. I may have addressed the stories of my six sources using the past tense, but the risk of abduction, sexual harrassment, rape, torture and wrongful imprisonment is very much a present and ongoing risk for young women in Abuja.
Banana seller, office worker, shop owner, teenager, 30-something year-old, single, married – it doesn’t really matter anymore. Young women in Nigeria’s federal capital are now fair game for Safiya Umar and her motley crue of sexual perverts, rapists, sadists and dirty cops to do absolutely whatever they want to, with no consequences. Hajiya Safiya belongs to a school of binary thought that divides all young women into “prostitutes” and “not prostitutes.” Apparently if you are a young woman in Abuja right now, who dares to breathe oxygen and exhibit bipedal motion, Hajiya Umar thinks you are a prostitute. And since you are a prostitute, you clearly deserve to be abducted, raped and extorted – maybe even killed.
The Unanswered Legal and Political Questions Amid the outrage that surrounded the initial story of the AEPB raids earlier in the year, something that repeatedly kept coming up was the possibility that the AEPB was actually acting under the legal remit of what we euphemistically call the ‘Penal Codes’ – Sharia Law, to those who don’t know. The idea that Sharia Law could be enforced in opposition to the country’s national constitution in the federal capital did not make any sense to me, so I took professional legal advice from a respected friend and colleague who would be in a position to know. His answer was short and simple.
“Actually, the Penal Code is supposed to be subject to the constitution, which could always be interpreted to supersede such provisions.”
FIFEHAN OGUNDE PHD, SENIOR LEGAL CONSULTANT, WEMIMO OGUNDE & CO In other words, we can discount legal backing from the Sharia penal codes as the basis for Hajiya Safiya’s FCT rape gang. At best, there is a measure of ambiguity about whether or not these penal codes can be enforced where they contradict the constitution directly, but there is simply no legal basis at all for having a gang of brutal rapists masquerading as a sort of morality police outfit, terrorising young women in their 20s and 30s across the nation’s capital.
Thus in addition to merely being morally abominable, grotesque and disgusting, Hajiya Safiya’s rape-enhanced war on Abuja’s women is also plainly illegal. She is breaking the law and so she and her gang of morality rapists must be stopped and held to account immediately. In any case, the point is moot, because surely Sharia law does not prescribe rape as a punishment for boarding a keke or attending a birthday party or going for a night out with friends.
From a political perspective, what is playing out in Abuja right now at the behest of Safiya Umar and her colleagues is also more than just a group of officially-sanctioned gangsters organising an extortion racket, as is usually the case elsewhere in Nigeria. Hajiya Umar plainly fancies herself a champion of a notoriously parochial ethnoreligious elite with designs on remolding the Nigerian State and Nigerian society at large in the image of a terrified feudal society with a small everlasting elite and a sprawling, unquestioning everlasting underclass.
To this end, Hajiya Umar’s SDS and their brutal AEPB enforcers are testing the waters through the blatant illegality of subjecting Nigeria’s capital to an undemocratic pseudo-dictatorship and an accompanying culture of sexual violence to instill fear, shame and silence in a population that does not satisfy her cultural expectations. It is no coincidence that this is happening alongside the ongoing SARS menace because as with all wannabe dictators who have no capacity to lead independent, vocal and confident populations hungry for more democracy, the strategy is to break the spirit of the young people.
It is important to understand that kite-flying about so-called penal codes, AEPB-facilitated mass rapes, abductions, extortions and gratuitous violence are not mere by-products of Hajiya Umar’s social cleansing campaign – they are the point. The policy direction of the SDS and the AEPB is now determined by a mafia with a blatant and undisguised cultural agenda seeking to modify Nigeria’s federal capital into something closer in character to Gusau or Damaturu.
The good people of Gusau and Damaturu are no doubt happy enough with their societal arrangement, as the people of Benin, Jos, Lagos, Enugu, Port Harcourt, Ibadan and Abuja are with theirs. Nigeria is nothing if not a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi religious and generally heterogeneous country. One of the best things about Abuja historically is that it is one of the few truly cosmopolitan melting pots in Nigeria, which is how it attracts Nigeria’s best talent away from the afore-mentioned urban centres.
Using vicious sexual violence as a vehicle, Hajiya Safiya Umar and her co-travelers are slowly but deliberately destroying the social and cultural fabric of Nigeria’s second most important city. This must be robustly challenged and blocked at every turn. Abuja is Nigeria’s federal capital territory. It does not belong to Safiya Umar, neither does it belong to the gang of uniformed and civilian rapists she is willfully and knowingly empowering in pursuit of a parochial, anachronistic agenda. We need to remind people like Mrs. Umar that whether they like it or not, Nigeria is not – and can never be – the feudal society of their fantasies. My starting suggestion for doing this is simple: take a picture of her and thus demystify the ghost behind the rapists.
In so doing, we will once again reaffirm that Abuja belongs to all Nigerians from all 930,000+ sq km of this country, including Cynthia, Peace, Mercy, Judith, Patricia, Mary, and every other young Nigerian woman.
“I want Justice, If they’re pursing us in another country, they’d now be pursuing us in our own country also. we are Nigerians why will they be treating us like we don’t deserve rights?”
Politics › PDP Tells NASS They Shouldn't Surrender Their Independence by Mandynews(op): 7:13pm On Nov 24, 2019
