₦airaland Forum

Hundreds of millions of pounds of British foreign aid given to Nigeria to help combat Boko Haram terrorists is instead being used to fund a witch-hunt against opposition politicians, it is being claimed.

Britain has committed to spending £860 million in foreign aid to Nigeria, which now boasts Africa’s largest economy, to help support the country’s efforts to crush Boko Haram terror group, which has been responsible for a spate of outrages, including the kidnapping of hundreds of Nigerian schoolgirls.

But Western officials are now raising concerns that the government of the country’s recently elected leader, President Muhammadu Buhari, is misusing the funds to persecute political opponents.

Since Mr Buhari came to power last July, a number of prominent members of the former ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have been arrested and imprisoned without charge. Among those detained was the party’s official spokesperson.

Most of the arrests have been sanctioned by the government-controlled Economic and Financial Crime Commission, which was set up to tackle corruption and receives funding from the Department for International Development.

But while Mr Buhari’s government continues to use British aid money to target his political opponents, it is proving less effective at tackling the Islamist-run Boko Haram terrorist group.

Much of the aid Britain provides to Nigeria is aimed at helping the country’s security forces to become more effective at tackling Boko Haram, which boasts of its links with Islamic State (Isil) and achieved international notoriety two years ago after kidnapping 276 schoolgirls in northern Nigeria two years ago.

Scores of British military personnel – including members of the Special Forces – are based in Nigeria helping to train the military to tackle Boko Haram. But despite Mr Buhari’s pledge during last year’s general election campaign that he would make tackling Boko Haram one of his top priorities, there is growing concern among Western officials that the Nigerian military is failing to take effective action against the terrorists.

This has resulted in Boko Haram now being regarded as the world’s deadliest terrorist organisation, responsible for more deaths than Isil. There are now reports that the group is trying to train kidnapped children to act as suicide bombers.


“This is a scandal in the making," explained a senior U.S. official. "There is no doubt the growing strength of Boko Haram is because President Buhari is far more interested in settling scores with his political opponents that concentrating his energy on defeating terrorists,” “The result is that Nigeria is starting to look more and more like a police state while Boko Haram just goes from strength to strength.”

Another Western diplomat added: “If Buhari was serious about fighting corruption he would be focusing all of his efforts on targeting corruption that is impeding Nigeria’s ability to focus its efforts on tackling Boko Haram.”

Accusations that Nigeria is abusing British aid will add to the growing controversy over Downing Street’s commitment to spend 0.7 percent of GDP on the foreign aid budget. Last week the Telegraph reported that DFID was under pressure to cancel £200 million of foreign aid to Tanzania following concerns over a widely condemned election.

This resulted in Dr Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, accusing the government of “spraying money around” simply to achieve the 0.7 per cent target.
Western officials have expressed concern about Mr Buhari’s increasingly autocratic style of government since he came to power last year. A retired major-general, Mr Buhari, 73, previously headed a brutal military dictatorship following a coup in December 1983, which lasted until he was overthrown by another coup in 1985.

Now political opponents claim he is returning to his old dictatorial ways, abusing British aid meant to improve Nigeria’s ability to tackle Boko Haram to consolidate his hold on power.

Apart from the concerns over British aid, American officials are also angry that $2.1 billion of aid given to the Nigerian military to tackle Boko Haram has not been properly accounted for.
Mr Buhari’s claim that he is winning the war against Boko Haram - recently claimed the group no longer poses a serious threat - has been undermined by recent revelations the Nigerian authorities have tried to cover up the fact that hundreds more schoolchildren have been abducted by Boko Haram.

Human rights activists have no confirmed that around 400 women and children were abducted last year by militants from the Nigerian town of Damasak.

It is now believed that some of these children may have been trained as suicide bombers. U.S. counter-terrorism experts say at least 105 women and girls trained by Boko Haram have taken part in suicide attacks since June 2014.

http://www.euphemiaudanoh.com/2016/04/nigeria-using-uk-aid-to-persecute.html

Via Telegraph UK

Nigeria is the only country where an accused is guilty before the end of trial going by the comment I see here. When did it become illegal for an accused to oppose a judge handling his/her case by demanding for a change of judge when there is bias?
How can anyone claim that Olisa is a looter when he did not head any government parastatal nor handle any contract for the government? He got money to execute party business and which he did to the satisfaction of his party. Why is EFCC not prosecuting all those who got money from the office of the NSA, including Buhari and those in APC today?
Why is the EFCC not questioning the directive that ordered the money to be released to Olisa?
Why is the judge so bent on handling the case even after his lies were discredited?

While we support the fight against corruption, we must not loose our common sense out of hate because what goes around certainly will get to all.

Now the Panama papers is out and soon it will die down because top APC men are indicted in it.
There's more than one Petition with the EFCC against Amaechi and Fashola yet, they are walking free today.
Is the fight against corruption only against the PDP members?
Is your support for the fight against corruption of hate that you cannot call for the prosecution of Tinubu, Amaechi and Fashola whom every ant in Nigerian knew to be corrupt while in government.

If the EFCC is sure that they have not agreed with Justics Abang to hang Olisa for nothing, why can't they grant the suspect his request like it was granted many others in the past?
Why must it be Justice Abang whose lied under oath just to hold on the the prosecution of his common enemy with Buhari?

SELECTIVE JUSTICE IS INJUSTICE......

http://www.punchng.com/cj-dismisses-metuhs-petition-asks-judge-to-continue-trial/

Pathetic! And the investigation is slow

The PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh has fought many political battles, but this time he it appears that he is up against powers that detest his guts.
Indeed, by every available indication, the APC-led establishment appears to be in a frenetic mode to jail the garrulous opposition spokesman, who in the last nine months, has continued to give them sleepless nights with his steady criticisms on the sudden decline of the state of the nation under their watch.

Since his arrest on January 5, 2016 and prolonged detention by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), the media choreographies, the controversial impossible bail condition imposed by the Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court, Abuja, and subsequent dramatic galloping of the case; the critical question has been the actual reason the system is after Metuh.

The EFCC is insisting that Metuh was wrong to have received the sum of N400 million from the office of the office of the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki on the orders of former President Goodluck Jonathan to execute publicity related assignments.

According to the charge, the N400 million is a “proceed from the unlawful activities of the former NSA”. Analysts finds this flimsy and a no case for that matter given that no court of competent jurisdiction has convicted Dasuki for unlawful disbursement or declared the said N400 a proceed of unlawful activities.

However, it is a suppressed general impression among the populace that Metuh have been singled out for scourging for other reasons, especially given that though there are over 300 companies indicated by the Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA) and though there are others arrested and arraigned well before Metuh was arrested, only him and his company have their case being galloped in the court.

Perhaps the answer has to do with his guts as the spokesperson of the opposition PDP, who has started taking the nation by the storm and put the government on its toes with his constant criticisms on the state of affairs of the nation.

It was no secret that Metuh spared no lines in heaping blames on the present administration for the sudden decline of the nation’s economy and attendant hardship on the citizens as well as challenging the government on issues of constitution violations and infractions of rights, critical positions that rapidly spread among the citizenry.

Could this be the reason for his present ordeal? Pundits appear to be persuaded that the system may be on a self-preservation mission requiring to find a quick way to rein-in, mortify, scourge and ultimately silence the loquacious opposition spokesperson who appeared to be rapidly getting Nigerians to accept they made a huge blunder in their voting preferences in the 2015 Presidential election.

Political watchers indeed find it an interesting coincidence that Metuh was arrested by operatives of the EFCC, who swooped on him on the morning of January 5, 2016, as he was about leaving his house for a scheduled world press conference on the state of the nation and violation of human rights in the country.

Also interesting is the fact that Metuh was arrested barely three days after the APC National Chairman Chief John Oyegun issued a press statement directly warning the PDP spokesman for criticizing President Muhammadu Buhari’s stand December 31, media chat, stating that the ruling party might no longer condone such.

In his response to Oyegun, Metuh insisted that the President was wrong in pronouncing a guilty verdict on Col Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu of Radio Biafra while they are still facing trial, as well as approving their continued incarceration despite being granted bail by the courts. Metuh forcefully contended that such smacks of totalitarianism and utter disdain for the nation’s constitution and the rule of law. Metuh ended by saying that Buhari was not God and that he would not be worshipped by Nigerians. Two days later, the EFCC came for him.

What many Nigerians do not know is that before the EFCC arrested Metuh, there have been other moves to silence him including a N500 million suit by Kaduna state Governor Nasir el Rrufai and another N500 million suit by then APC National Publicity Secretary and now Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed for comments made in his press statements.

Also many Nigerians did not know that at the time Metuh was picked, the EFCC actually had nothing against him and kept him while looking for anything that can be used to nail him.

The fact is that Metuh became the only voice in the opposition circle speaking the minds of not only his party members but that of other Nigerians who are not happy with the goings on in the All Progressives Congress APC-led Federal Government.

Metuh made it a daily routine to pick hole in virtually all steps taken by President Muhammadu Buhari that tended to blackmail the immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan and PDP Federal Government.
Metuh became a sort of a tormentor-in-chief of President Buhari administration and through that he brought back life to his dying party through his convincing content delivery in arguments raised in his various statements and press conferences.

When the President appointed his brother who was a card carrying member of APC Lawan Daura as the head of the nation's secret police, the DSS, which was supposed to be detached from politics, Metuh cried blue murder. When they challenged him to produce evidence that Daura was a member of APC, he went further in proving it with pictorials showing that he was a security member of the APC Presidential committee. Nothing again was heard on that matter.

Again when Hajia Amina Zakari, who is related to the President was made the Acting Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Metuh shouted and revealed the fact of nepotism, a noise which helped to frustrate her elevation as substantive Chairman of INEC. Aside being a relation of the President and this did not go down well with many powerful entities in the system.

When the the APC drew up a master plan to take over some PDP states in the South South and South East through the judiciary using the security agencies especially the DSS, he was on hand to bring the hatched plan to the fore and vanquished them.

It was also Chief Metuh who exposed the apparent unpreparedness of this government in handling serious economic challenges facing the nation. When the government presented its first budget, it was Metuh who saw the tomorrow in it and declared it a fraud long before the rest of Nigerians discovered the huge mess in the budget.

It became obvious that Metuh became the conscience of the nation because of the convincing deep contents contained in all his views for which people from the ruling party was not happy about.

Ostensibly unable to contain him, a conspiracy to take him out of circulation was hatched and when it was discovered that he received some money from the former government for PDP campaign publicity hell was let loose. Several other allegations were bandied by the EFCC including that he was given N1.4 billion and receiving monthly N4 million. When such could not be substantiated, they settled for the sum of N400 million which Metuh had earlier on his own announced to Nigerians that he collected from former President Jonathan for his job as the spokesman of the party ahead of the general election.

But to ensure that Metuh was taught a lesson, he was detained for 23 days; kept in EFCC cell and Kuje prison, handcuffed to a court and arraigned before a Judge, his former classmate with past frosty relationship and who appears to be in a hurry to jail him.

The question is; can the judiciary be bold to defend their independence and stand for truth and the law?


Opinion expressed above is from Zainab Baba, a social activist

http://www.euphemiaudanoh.com/2016/04/why-must-olisa-metuh-face-scourge.html

*Military extra judicial killing in a community, Arepo in Ogun state.

Arepo is a community on the express between Wawa and Magboro community. It is a community known for pipeline vandals activities for years now.

The military moved in after Buhari became president to protect the pipelines and according to residents, since then these so called military guys have made living in a once peaceful community unbearable.

The recent protest started after some young innocent guys were abducted by a group of drunk military personnel 5 days ago and got fierce after their bodies was found lifeless.

Protester at the Arepo community gate

Before the protest broke out, the residents alleges that the military guys has been harassing everybody in the community. From the commercial bike operators to the landlords and business owners. They ride on bikes without paying and molest young men they think are not looking godly/tidy.

How the 3 boys were killed

It all started on sunday which was easter sunday. It was said that the 3 boys now late, went to one nearby joint to have some bottles of beer.

The boys names are Abiodun, Lukman and Chicago as he's popularly called.

While the 3 friends sat drinking their beer, 2 naval officer came into the bar to have some drinks too and they asked the boys to buy them some drinks which they did without intimidations.

After they finished drinking at around 6pm, the naval officers asked the 3 boys to follow them without saying to where, which they did without hesitation.

The 2 naval officer where identified by the owner of the bar and others who were present in the bar as Jason or Jesse and Ola

From that day, 6pm on the night of Easter Sunday, that was the last day their friends and families heard from the 3 boys. Calls made to their phones didn't go through as their phones were switched off.

Their families started asking around and also reported their disappearance at the police station in Wawa. The Police suggested that they go to the military base in arepo and ask the soldiers since the boys were not with them.

When they got to the military base, Abiodun's wife identified one of the naval officer but immediately, other officers at the base protested and covered up the soldiers to the point where they had to send the police officers and families away.

So the residents formed a search party for the boys sake and that took them to the swamps, inside the bushes in the community.

At around 10am yesterday 30/3/2016, their bodies were discovered all faced down with bullet wounds all over, socked in their own blood. The position they laid showed that they were kneeling down when they were shoot and killed, allegedly by the naval officers who took them away on Sunday night.

Residents were shocked by the discovery and within minutes they took over the streets, protesting.

"Abiodun's father is a very gentle and quite man. i have known him for over 4 yrs now and Abiodun is just like his father. He made all the furnitures in my house" said a resident who was amongst the search party that found the bodies.

"I may not be able to lead nor participate in the rally to government house, But this is the best i can do so as to raise the awareness for their crimes and through this get justice for these 3 bright boys" said another resident among the protesters as he showed me the pictures of the victims.

As at the time of filing this report, Abiodun's body has been deposited at OSUTH sagamu.


Police from Abeokuta were said to have visited the community today to open up investigation on the gruesome murder of the 3 young boys.

I m calling on the Ogun State government, the Police and the Military in Ogun state to please investigate the above story and restore peace in Arepo community by ensuring that the culprits will be apprehended and punished.

http://www.euphemiaudanoh.com/2016/03/bodies-of-3-boys-allegedly-killed-by.html

By Chuma Okafor

The Office of the National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Olisa Metuh has read the Tuesday, March 29, 2016 editorial (Our Stand) of the Leadership Newspapers, titled “Justice Abang, Metuh and the Rule of Law”.

Whereas Chief Olisa Metuh has refrained from making comments in the media on his case before the court, we are, however, persuaded after reading through the editorial that the authors are not adequately informed about the developments in the case, hence our brief response.

First, we want to state that the issue of Chief Metuh and the judge being classmates in the Law School and their past encounters have never been the exclusive reasons his lawyers wrote to the chief judge of the Federal High Court requesting for transfer of his case, as being portrayed by the judge and a section of the media.

In actual fact and for the records, the ‘Letter of Transfer’ which was brought to the public domain by Justice Abang when he invited anybody that is interested to access same in his court as they are now public documents, raised 16 salient points bordering on bias and infractions of rules of judicial process (though the judge, for reasons best known to him, chose to disclose only three in the open court).

Top on that list is the trial judge’s refusal to release the record of proceedings of the court to Chief Metuh, thereby denying him his constitutionally guaranteed right to appeal interlocutory decisions taken by the court. The said record was released immediately he knew about the Letter of Transfer.

Chief Metuh, in his letter was clear in stating that he applied for the records on the 8th of February 2016 but that the judge refused to release the document until March 15th 2016, by which time his rights to appeal (within 2 weeks) had been denied him, thereby prompting his letter to the chief judge. This serious infraction, which betrays the determination to frustrate Metuh’s defence and possible appeal has not been explained by Justice Abang.

The question is, why would a judge refuse to release the record of proceedings to an accused in a criminal trial and in a trial he sits day to day?

Another salient point raised by Chief Metuh is that Justice Abang, in ruling on his No-Case Submission on March 9, 2016, surprisingly descended into the arena and imported other issues that were not in the original charges brought against the defendant by the EFCC.

For instance, Justice Abang, even after warning himself of the need not to go into the substance of the case, he went on in the open court to state with respect to Counts 5 and 6 (which deal with transaction with regard to the sum of USD2m (two million dollars) with a non-financial institution), that even if the origin or source of the money was not part of the charge, the defendants must prove same as that forms the basis of money laundering offence. By this, the judge took sides and got himself assisting the prosecution to explore new opportunity. Such obvious bias had occurred severally in the course of the trial prompting the amendment of charges by the prosecution, a development that calls to question the detachment of the judge?

In the same vein, though Chief Metuh in his statement at the EFCC stated that he received the contentious N400 million from the then leader of the PDP and former President Goodluck Jonathan, after a presentation with top level PDP functionaries — a position that was corroborated by a prosecution witness, Justice Abang, in delivering the ruling on the No-Case Submission again descended into the arena and pronounced a guilty verdict ahead of defence by directly querying Chief Metuh why he did not inform the police or the EFCC when he received the money.

Another important point raised in the letter is that Justice Abang on several occasions stated in the open court that he had no discretion to exercise one way or the other where the prosecutor opposed the defendant’s applications. (Please note that Chief Metuh’s lawyers are not insisting he rules in his favour but that his discretion cannot be denied by the prosecutor’s objection). The contention by Chief Metuh is that it is wrong for a trial judge in a criminal case to tie his discretion to the prosecution’s disposition and as such cannot guarantee justice.

Also, earlier in his letter, Chief Metuh lamented that after the stringent bail conditions imposed on him by Justice Abang, for which he spent nine days in prison detention, the judge refused to give him enough time to prepare for his defense in line with Section 36(6)(b) of the Constitution.

On the issue of being classmates, it is instructive to note that we find Justice Abang’s continuous denial rather demeaning even when he admitted in his response to the letter of transfer that he was in the recent re-unions of the class in Lagos, Enugu and particularly that of Abuja, an event where Chief Metuh was called out and conferred with an Achievement Award for his election as the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP.

This took place in a hall that can barely take 150 persons at the Hilton Hotel.

While we agree that the state reserves the right to bring charges against any citizen suspected of wrongdoing, we posit that it remains the inalienable right of the citizen and indeed all Nigerians to have unfettered access to justice derived from fair hearing as guaranteed by the constitution, and this right should not be denied especially where the arbiter shows that he has pre-judged the defendant.

From the foregoing therefore, it is obvious that Chief Metuh is not in any way employing any delay tactics whatsoever, but rather seeking fair hearing and justice especially upon the evidence of manifest bias exhibited in the course of the trial.

The crux of the matter is that the ability of the judge to do justice and be seen as having done justice has been strongly called to question. Our take here therefore is that in all, justice should not only be done but must always be seen to be done.

—Hon. Okafor is personal assistant to Chief Olisa Metuh

http://www.euphemiaudanoh.com/2016/03/re-justice-abang-metuh-and-rule-of-law.html

These uniformed boys have become a regular sight at most of the road junctions in the city of Abuja, the capital of Nigeria.

Their presence has left many Nigerians asking who they are and why they are in Abuja controlling traffic when their mates are in school.

Many Nigerians took to Facebook to voice their fears. Many sees them as security threat with what Boko Haram has been doing in Nigeria for the past 6 years.

Read what Nigerians think about them:

http://www.euphemiaudanoh.com/2016/03/scary-almajiris-used-as-traffic-warders.html

The immediate past chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Chidi Odinkalu, has stated that Justice Okon Abang of the Federal High Court Abuja knows the spokesperson of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olisa Metuh, as a former classmate.

Mr. Metuh, who is facing trial over corruption charges in the court sitting under Mr. Abang, had written to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Ibrahim Auta, demanding that the case be withdrawn from Mr. Abang and assigned to another judge.
Mr. Metuh’s grounds were that Mr. Abang and he were classmates at the Nigerian Law School, Lagos. He also said he feared he might not get fair trial from Mr. Abang because of some views expressed by the Judge when they met at a function in Akwa Ibom State last year.
In reaction, Justice Abang, on Thursday, said he was not aware Mr. Metuh was his classmate.
“I am not aware that the first defendant was my classmate, he said he is my classmate,” the judge said.
However, checks by PREMIUM TIMES revealed that Messrs. Abang and Metuh graduated on the same day, November 3, 1988 from the law school.
In a short reaction to our story on Sunday, Mr. Odinkalu said Mr. Abang “surely knows that he and Olisa went to school together.”
The former human rights chief said he was also in the same class with Messrs. Metuh and Abang as well as some other prominent Nigerians.
“We were all in the same law school set in 1988. We were all admitted to the Bar same day on 3 Nov 1988.
“Fashola, Anyim, Godswill Akpabio, Liyel Imoke, Nnia Nwodo all were in that set.
“I know Olisa and Abang have been together at more than two class reunions. In Lagos, Uyo. Someone isn’t being totally candid,” Mr. Odinkalu said.