News
Nigeria is at war, seek external help, Soyinka tells FG
- ‘Don’t use youths as sacrificial offering’
Nobel laureate, Wole Soyinka, has asked the Federal Government to seek foreign assistance to tackle insecurity in the country.
He said this in a statement he issued on Sunday.
Referring to the killing of three students abducted from Greenfield University in Kaduna by gunmen on Friday, Soyinka said youths should not be allowed to “serve as ritual offering on the altar of a failing state”.
Soyinka said the government should not “continue to pretend” that the rising insecurity in the country was “mere birth-pangs of a glorious entity”.
He added, “Abukakar Atiku has summed up the nation’s feeling – this most recent savagery against our youth is heartbreaking.”
Part of the statement read, “More than the heart is broken however; more than millions of individual hearts that still lay claim to bonds in a common humanity.
“The already over-stretched sinews of moral restraint have been snapped off the casing of nation being, and nothing is left but the collective wails of impotence.
“Not for the first time, what many hoped was a Natural Law of Limitations has been contemptuously, defiantly breached.
“We need to remind ourselves of hideous precedents. We must remember Chibok. And Dapchi. And numerous antecedents and after, unpublicised, or soon relegated to the sump of collective amnesia. The wages of impunity never diminish; on the contrary, they distend.
“One’s greatest fear, with this latest feat of cowardly savagery is that the nation must brace itself for a Beslan scenario, yet strive to avoid Nigeria become Africa’s Cherchnya.
“Those who have been proven weak and incapable must learn to swallow their vain pride and seek help. Again, this is no new counselling, but of course the dog that will get lost no longer heeds the hunter’s whistle.
“I envy no one the task ahead, terminating the toxic harvest of past derelictions. Blame laying is for later. Right now is the question of – what needs to be done, and done urgently.
“We keep avoiding the inevitable, but that very unthinkable now hammers brutishly on our gates, the blood ransom arrogantly insatiable.
“This nation is at war, yet we continue to pretend that these are mere birth-pangs of a glorious entity. They are death throes. Vultures and undertakers hover patiently but with full confidence.
“The dogs of war stopped merely baying years ago. Again and again, they have sunk their fangs into the jugular of this nation. The plague called COVID has met its match on the earth of some nation space once known as Nigeria.
“I grieve with the bereaved, but mourn even more for our youth so routinely sacrificed, burdened with uncertainty and traumatised beyond youth’s capacity to cope. To this government we repeat the public cry.
“Seek help. Stop improvising with human lives. Youth – that is, the future – should not serve as ritual offering on the altar of a failing state.”
News
Late COAS Lagbaja gets CFR honour, buried amid tributes
Late COAS Lagbaja gets CFR honour, buried amid tributes
The late Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lt. General Taoreed Lagbaja, was on Friday laid to rest in Abuja, amid tears and tributes.
President Bola Tinubu conferred a posthumous award of the Commander of the Federal Republic (CFR) on the late Chief of Army Staff.
The burial took place at the National Cemetery in Abuja to end two days of funeral rites that began in Lagos earlier in the week.
His body was lowered into the grave at exactly 4:41pm after the ceremony that lasted over two hours.
Lagbaja’s casket, draped in Nigeria’s green and white colours, arrived at the cemetery around 3pm in a white funeral wagon after a funeral service at the National Christian Centre in Abuja.
Dignitaries were led to the event by President Bola Tinubu. Others are Vice President Kashim Shettima; the Acting Chief of Army Staff, Lt.Gen. Olufemi Oluyede; the Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Christopher Musa; Minister of Defence, Abubakar Badaru, and other top government officials and military brass.
President Tinubu announced the conferment of the CFR on the late COAS during the interment at the National Cemetery in Abuja.
The President extolled the virtues of the late warrior, especially his contributions to national security.
According to him, the appointment of Lagbaja as the COAS was one of his finest made so far.
“As an eternal symbol of our appreciation, I have granted the late Chief of Army Staff, the posthumous national honour of the Commander of the Federal Republic of the Niger (CFR),” Tinubu declared.
He thereafter invited the wife of the late COAS, Mariya, to collect the award on behalf of the Lagbaja family amid applause from the congregation.
News
Supreme Court dismisses 16 govs suit challenging EFCC legality
Supreme Court dismisses 16 govs suit challenging EFCC legality
The Supreme Court has dismissed the suit by 16 states challenging the constitutionality of the acts establishing the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and two others.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the other agencies are the Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and the Nigerian Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).
In the lead judgment by Justice Uwani Abba-Aji delivered on Friday, the Supreme Court resolved the six issues raised for determination in the suit against the plaintiffs.
The court held that the laws establishing the anti-corruption agencies were validly enacted by the National Assembly within its legislative competence.
It faulted the claim by the plaintiffs that the EFCC Act, being a product of the United Nations convention on corruption, ought to be ratified by majority of the state houses of assembly.
Delivering judgement on Friday, Justice Abba-Aji ruled that “the EFCC Act, which was not established from a treaty but a convention, does not need the ratification of the houses of assembly.”
News
Executive Secretary FCDA Hadi Ahmad suspended indefinitely
Executive Secretary FCDA Hadi Ahmad suspended indefinitely
Executive Secretary, Federal Capital Development Authority FCDA, Engr. Shehu Hadi Ahmad, has been suspended indefinitely.
His suspicion was on the order of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike.
Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media to the Minister, Lere Olayinka, disclosed this in a statement on Thursday evening.
No reason was given for the suspension.
Ahmad was directed to hand over to the Director, Engineering Services in the FCDA.
The statement read: “The Executive Secretary, Federal Capital Development Authority FCDA, Engr. Shehu Hadi Ahmad, has been suspended indefinitely.
“According to a statement on Thursday, by Lere Olayinka, Senior Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media to the Minister of Federal Capital Territory FCT, Nyesom Wike, the suspension of Engr Hadi Ahmad is with immediate effect.
“The suspended Executive Secretary has consequently been directed to hand over to the Director of Engineering Services, Engr in the FCDA.”
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