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Friday, April 17, 2015

Sule Lamido shines on the cover of Vanguard Allure

‘PDP Will Not Insult The office of the In-Coming President’ - Olisa Metuh

“The National Publicity Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olisa Metuh has said that the party will provide a decent and credible opposition that will constructively proffer sound alternatives to the policies and programmes of the in-coming administration without recourse to insults, propaganda and deceit.

Metuh who stated this at an FRCN political programme on Thursday evening said the PDP would never insult or denigrate the office and person of the Nigerian President.

“The PDP is a political party built on values, tradition and utmost respect for democratic tenets. Our manifesto and ideology center on national peace, stability and prosperity and we shall uphold this at all times. In this wise, the PDP as always, will continue to work in the general interest of the Nigerian people.

“We will not resort to insults, blackmail and lies with the aim to distract or ridicule the person or office of the President. However, we must state in very strong terms that we will not allow them to lead the nation astray. So we will firmly oppose any anti-people policy and programmes as may be introduced by the APC.

“We will do this by presenting sound alternatives in such a manner that Nigerians will be the utmost beneficiaries especially on issues that will lead the nation in the path of national unity and development”, Metuh said while responding to questions at the programme.

Commenting on the conduct of the April 11, 2015 governorship and state assembly elections, Metuh lamented that the process was characterized by brazen irregularities against the PDP in most states. He upbraided INEC and security agencies for the barefaced overzealousness on the part of some of their personnel to please the winners of the Presidential elections.

Metuh said concerns are already on the rise regarding the fate of the nation’s democracy under the APC especially given fears that the impunity that characterizes the local government elections it conducts in Southwest states may now be extended to other parts of the nation.

Noting that the elections witnessed massive conspiracy against the PDP, Metuh said his party would not complain in areas where the people clearly preferred the candidates of other parties, but will decisively pursue its mandate in places where there were clear infractions against the PDP. He said such instances abound in states such as Imo, Jigawa, Plateau, Adamawa, Lagos, Bauchi, Kano, Kaduna, Zamfara, Nasarawa and other concerned states.

He observed that in Imo state, authentic result sheets were replaced with those from Kaduna and Katsina states with fictitious figures awarded to APC. According to him, the most scandalous was in Ideato North Local Government Area where INEC awarded about 34,000 votes to the APC even when the number of PVCs collected in the area stands at about 26,000.

The PDP spokesman said his party is collating and analyzing reports of the elections from across the country and will take decisive actions within the ambit of the law to protect the interest of its candidates and the mandate of the people.

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CBN to prosecute proprietors, others demanding foreign currencies.

The Central Bank of Nigeria says it will not hesitate to prosecute persons, including school managers, who demand and accept tuition in foreign currencies.

A statement by the bank’s Director Corporate Communications, Ibrahim Mu’azu, noted that the CBN Act of 2007 criminalised the usage of other foreign denominations over naira.

“The attention of the bank has been drawn to the increasing usage of foreign currencies in the domestic economy as a medium of payment for goods and services by individuals and corporate bodies.

“It has also been observed that some institutions price their goods and services in foreign currencies and demand payments in foreign currencies rather than the domestic currency (the Naira), which is the legal tender in Nigeria.

“Furthermore, the Act stipulates that any persons, who contravenes this provision is guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a prescribed fine or six months imprisonment.’’

Meanwhile, some education stakeholders have frowned on the use of foreign currencies to pay for tuition, describing it as an act of indiscipline and betrayal.

They, therefore, urged relevant government agencies to take actions against schools found culpable in the act.

According to an educationist, Dr. Segun Omisore, a situation where the naira will be struggling with the dollar as the legal tender in Nigeria is condemnable.

He said, “I have never seen a situation where the national legal tender will be jettisoned. It is like surrendering our sovereignty. Why can parents not pay the naira equivalent of whatever they want in dollars? If our economy is faulty, why can we not work towards fixing it? It is morally wrong to demand payment of school fees in dollars. If the educational sector cannot build a sense of pride on our pupils, then we have a long way to go.”

However, the Lead Consultant, Child Centre Limited, Mrs. Ibiwunmi Akinnola, noted that many schools had stopped the practice.

She said, “Many schools have stopped demanding tuition in dollars since last year but many expatriates convert such fees to their currencies for ease of transfer. They claim that their companies pay their salaries in hard currencies.”

The CBN recently frowned on such transaction by schools as well as property and business owners, describing it as the ‘dollarisation’ of the economy.

Its governor, Mr. Godwin Emefiele, while maintaining that the mode of business transactions in the country remained the naira, also threatened to take legal actions against those breach the act.

Buruji Kashamu reacts to AP's report on his alleged indictment in the US

Representative-elect, Prince Buruji Kuruji has reacted to Associated Press provide details regarding his indictment prosecution in the US distributed today titled – Man indicted in US for drug deal elected Senator in Nigeria.

The legislator and businessperson demands he was not the man prosecuted. His reaction bellow..

1. My attention has been drawn to a syndicated report by Associated Press (AP) entitled “A man indicted in US for drug deal elected senator in Nigeria”.

2. First, it should be noted that this is part of a renewed campaign of calumny and propaganda that I have anticipated and I am prepared for.

3. I wish to state for the umpteenth time that I am not man who was indicted in the said case. It was a certain “ALAJI” and not me, Prince Buruji Kashamu.

4. Also, contrary to the AP’s account, after the failed extradition attempts by the United States government against me in the United Kingdom – that has one of the best judiciary in the whole world – there has never been any request or court order to that effect in Nigeria. It only exists in the wild imagination of AP’s correspondent.

5. There cannot be an order of extradition of a suspect from any country to another country without extradition proceedings. It is trite knowledge that an order of court only arises from a court proceedings. If a court has not exercised its jurisdiction over a matter, it cannot make an order pertaining to that matter.

6. I, Prince Buruji Kashamu, between 1998 and 2003, was the suspect in the extradition proceedings instituted by the United States government against me in the British courts, and at the end of the trial, the British High Court per Justice Tim Workman, discharged and acquitted me on the basis of his findings that the US government suppressed information that exonerated me of the allegations that formed the basis of the extradition proceedings; precisely that it was a case of mistaken identity which the U.S investigators and prosecution team knew about but suppressed in their bid to secure my extradition from the UK to the US.

7. It is noteworthy – and this is a point which my detractors have deliberately chosen to ignore – that the facts constituting the extradition proceedings in the UK which I was subjected to, but eventually exculpated of, are the same facts which constitute the indictment in the US that my opponents and others acting out of ignorance of the true state of affairs have been trumpeting as if there are two sets of indictments – one in the UK and another in the US – and that having been discharged and acquitted of the one in the UK, I now have that in the US to contend with.

8. In other words, it is the same indictment that my opponents are talking about that the US government used as the basis for my extradition proceedings in the UK courts. So, if I was discharged and acquitted of the allegations in the said proceedings which other trial am I expected to undergo in the US when it was not a case of more than one set of indictment whereby I was tried and discharged in respect of one while another set is still pending in the US for which I am required to undergo trial?

9. To be noted also is the fact that the US government did not appeal the decision of the UK court that discharged and acquitted me in respect of the charges.

10. And as I have often stated, I have never lived in or visited the United States of America and have never been involved in any narcotics or criminal activities in the United States of America.

11. I am a free citizen of Nigeria, an employer of labour and a politician with legitimate sources of income. I do not have anything to hide. I am neither afraid of anyone nor am I running away from the law. I have lived my life in the open and will continue to do so.

The Background to the case

1. In 1998, as a result of my political activities in the Republic of Benin I was wrongly introduced into an indictment in the Northern District of Illinois, United States of America involving a group of drug pushers, members of which had been arrested and convicted in 1994 in the US and as a part of a plea bargain transaction had indicated that they had a West African link.

2. None of these confessed criminals mentioned my name (Prince Buruji Kashamu) and repeatedly indicated to their jailers that they did not know their West African accomplice by any other name than “ALAJI”

3. Apparently the US Embassy in Benin, which was facilitating the enquiry by the US Authorities as to who the “ALAJI” could be, somehow received information from some mischief-makers that it was me. That was how my name was introduced into the indictment in 1998 by the US authorities.

4. All this happened without reference to the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency in Nigeria or in the other relevant West African countries in which the enquiries were being made and unknown to me who at the time regularly visited the United Kingdom in pursuit of my cotton trading business in Liverpool.

5. On one of such trips in 1998, I was accosted at the City Airport in London and eventually informed that there was an international warrant for my arrest issued by the United States.

6. I was therefore detained and an application for my extradition to the US was made to the British Courts by the US authorities through the British Crown Prosecution Service.

7. I declared from the moment of my arrest that I was not the person involved in the alleged narcotics business and that this was a case of mistaken identity.

8. As a result, an identification parade was conducted by the British authorities in which the leader of the confessed criminals in the US, one Nick Fillmore, clearly stated that I was not the man they knew as “ALAJI”

9. However, the US authorities decided not to reveal this information to the British court and were able to secure an order in their favour in 1998 for my extradition to the US.

10. Fortunately for me, the result of the identification parade came into the hands of my lawyers early in 1999 before I could be shipped off to the US and they immediately commenced an Habeas Corpus action in the English High Court, Queens Bench division, for my release and the vacation of the committal order made by the Court.

11. The English High Court in December 1999 delivered its judgment read by Lord Justice Pill, and summarized the facts as follows:

“What has now emerged, with a letter from the United States’ Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, is a report of an investigation into the case against the applicant conducted on 9 February 1999. The report stated insofar as material, that on 8 February 1999, Fillmore viewed a photo lineup for the purpose of identifying Kashamu. The meeting was held in the US Attorney’s office. An officer of the Attorney had received a copy of an arrest photograph of Kashamu from another officer. The report continues that the officer

‘…took the copy of the arrest photograph and placed in a DEA form 470, photo identification folder, with seven photographs of black males. These black males had similar facial hair and were the approximate age of Kashamu. This photo lineup was shown to Fillmore. Fillmore provided the following statements: ‘it is not jumping out at me, I know what the man looks like.’ Fillmore further stated that photograph #03 looked like a bad photograph of him. Photos #02, #04, #06, #07 and #08 did not look like him at all. Fillmore stated that #05 looked a lot like him but did not look like him. Fillmore ruled out photograph #01. Fillmore stated that #05 looked the closest like Alaji’

That is the name by which Fillmore knew his co-conspirator. ‘The arrest photograph of Kashamu was placed in position #07 of the photo lineup.’

I add by way of comment that that was one of the photographs which Fillmore said did not look like the co-conspirator at all. A photograph of the applicant, the arrest photograph, taken upon the applicant’s arrest about three years after the events relevant to the alleged conspiracy, had been shown Fillmore on 8 February, with that result.

No reference was made to the 9 February report in the Statement prepared by the United States Government for the application for extradition. It was mentioned neither in the United States Attorney’s statement nor in the Statement signed by Fillmore. The arrest photograph was disclosed but no reference was made to its potentially exculpatory effect.”

12. In that judgment the judges then proceeded to set aside the committal order having further found as follows in the judgment: “The committal order, must in the circumstances, be quashed by reason of the unfairness of the proceedings resulting from the non-disclosure of crucial evidence, as accepted by the government. The writ of habeas corpus will, accordingly issue”.

13. The US authorities did not appeal that decision but immediately had me rearrested and commenced a second extradition process against him at the Bow Street Magistrate Court in England before District Judge Tim Workman.

14. In his judgment, delivered in the second extradition proceedings on the 10th of January 2003, District Judge Tim Workman found as follows: “As a result of the evidence that the Defence has placed before me and the evidence which the Government has tendered in rebuttal, I find the following facts: that the defendant has a brother, Alhaji Adewale Adeshina Kashamu who bears a striking resemblance to that of his brother; I am satisfied that the defendant’s brother was one of the co-conspirators in the drugs importation which involved Catherine and Ellen Wolters; I am satisfied that the defendant informed both interpol and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency of the activities of this group.”

15. The judge in concluding his judgment went on to state as follows: “certain of the assertions made by the government are untrue ……I am satisfied that the overwhelming evidence here is such that the identification evidence, already tenuos, has now been so undermined as to make it incredible and valueless. In those circumstances there is no prima facie case against the defendant and I propose to discharge him”

16. The US authorities did not appeal this decision and have not pursued me or made any other attempt to extradite me since that decision.

17. All these facts are now matters of public record and the relevant documents (including the judgments of the courts are available for scrutiny by anyone who is interested in knowing the truth.

18. In 2008, some politicians (in a bid to neutralize me, perceived as a threat to their ambitions) commenced a campaign of calumny against me alleging that I was a convicted drug dealer who had been jailed in the United Kingdom for 5 years for drug-related offences and was wanted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States of America for similar offences.

19. The Interpol department of the Nigerian Police Force conducted investigations upon the allegations and published a report dated 4th March, 2008, and signed by ACP Haruna H. Mshelia, in which it stated inter alia

“That all our letters written to Interpol London, Lyon, Washington and Cotonou relating to enquiries on criminal/drug/conviction records of the suspect were returned negative to the effect that the suspect was never convicted of such offence in their territory.”

20. I commenced several lawsuits as a result of this attack on my person. Most of the lawsuits were commenced in 2010 in Libel.

21. Faced with these circumstances, and in a desperate bid to find justification for their false allegations, these politicians began to pressurize the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) to resuscitate the misdirected US indictment against me in Nigeria and to instigate an extradition process against me on the baseless accusations.

22. When I became aware of these moves, I commenced an action at the Federal High Court in Lagos against the AGF seeking an interpretation of the Nigerian Extradition Act and determination of some questions as to whether the AGF could exercise his powers under that Act against me in the context of the findings of the British Courts that I am not the person involved in the alleged narcotics transaction and in view of a decision of the US Court of the northern District of Illinois, delivered in 2009 (upon my application to the US court to remove my name from the indictment) confirming that I was not a fugitive from justice in America.

23. The Federal High Court in this Suit No. FHC/L/CS/938/2010 in its judgment found that the AGF could not exercise any power against me under the Nigerian Extradition Act when I had been found not to be involved in any alleged crime in the US and because I am not a fugitive.

24. The AGF appealed against this judgment on the ground that he had received no request from the U.S. Government for my extradition before the suit was filed and therefore, since none of my rights had been breached, the action was pre-mature.

25. The decision of the Court of Appeal was based on this narrow issue and it agreed with the AGF that since I did not prove that a request had been made against me to the AGF, then my personal right had not been breached and therefore the court action was pre-mature.

26. I have been advised that the decision is erroneous in law and an appeal was therefore filed to set it aside and restore the decision of the Federal High Court. That appeal is still pending at the Supreme Court.

27. A second action filed against Nigerian law enforcement agencies, including the Nigeria Police Force and the AGF in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/49/2010, eventually went on to judgment delivered on the 6th of January 2014. In that judgment, the court found that in view of the judgments of the British courts and the Interpol investigation report, the law enforcement agencies and the Attorney-General of the Federation could not act against me on any of the allegations being made by the politicians against me.

28. That judgment is still valid and subsisting and binding on all the law enforcement agencies.

29. With regard to the indictment and ensuing litigation in the United States District Court of Northern Illinois; this has also been used by my detractors to give the false impression that I am actively being pursued by the U.S. authorities to face trial in the U.S.

30. In reality, I am the one who has been actively pursuing the dismissal of this insupportable indictment against me.

31. It is important to bear in mind, first of all, that an indictment is not a conviction or finding of guilt of any offence, it is merely an accusation based on suspicion and is a framed charge, which is brought before a competent court which must proceed from the fundamental premise that the accused is innocent until proved guilty.

32. Normally, in American Criminal Procedure Law, an indictment is framed by a grand jury (a body of 23 laymen chosen at random) before which the investigation results of the relevant law enforcement agency is placed by the prosecutor in order that the Grand Jury may determine if there is sufficient evidence to base a reasonable suspicion upon which the persons accused of an offence may be charged to court to face a criminal trial.

33. Therefore, the fact that a person is indicted does not make him/her a criminal.

Signed

Prince Buruji Kashamu

Senator-elect, Ogun East Senatorial District

16th April, 2015

REVEALED: How President Jonathan's Supporters Planned To Kidnap Jega Using Orubebe

This is coming from one of the most foreign news agencies in the world , Reuters .

Read their report below :

As Muhammadu Buhari closed in on Nigeria’s presidency, an aide to election commission chairman Attahiru Jega sent a text message to an independent voting monitor, warning of an imminent threat to the electoral process.

The aide had unearthed a plot by supporters of President Goodluck Jonathan to disrupt the public announcement of the national election results and kidnap Jega in a bid to wreck the count, according to pro-democracy advocates and a Nigeria-based diplomat.

Central to the plan, they said, were Jega’s security detail and Godsday Orubebe, a former cabinet minister from Jonathan’s Niger Delta, an area whose leaders feared a change of power would mean an end to the perks it enjoyed under Jonathan’s presidency.

Orubebe’s role was to cause a disturbance at the headquarters of the commission as cover for the abduction of Jega. Orubebe did not respond to requests for comment on the details of the plot.

The commission, called INEC, also declined to comment and turned down requests for an interview with Jega, whom Reuters was unable to reach independently. Reuters found no evidence to suggest that Jonathan, who conceded defeat in the election, was involved. His spokesman and his party, the PDP, did not respond to requests for comment.

While the plot would likely not have changed the result, it could have unleashed fury among Buhari supporters in the north, where 800 people were killed in rioting after his last election defeat in 2011.

But the plot’s failure enabled Africa’s most populous country to complete its first credible vote since independence in 1960.

“NIGERIA ON TRIAL”

The plot to derail the election in its closing moments was pieced together by Reuters from the text message, events on the ground and interviews with democracy advocates and diplomats in the capital, Abuja.

When he sent the SMS, the election official, whom the sources declined to name for his own protection, hoped the outside world would hear of the plot, the text of the message made clear.

“Fellow countrymen, Nigeria on Trial,” read the SMS sent on the morning of March 31 to Clement Nwankwo, head of the Situation Room, an Abuja-based coalition of human rights groups and democracy advocates monitoring the polls. Reuters later saw the SMS.

“Plans are on storm [sic] the podium at the ICC Collation Centre and disrupt the process,” it continued, the official dropping words and letters in his haste.

“Nobody is sue [sic] what will happen. Please share this as widely as possible.”

At that moment, INEC chairman Jega was about to preside over the announcement of results.

TALLY COUNT

Since the end of army rule in 1999, all four previous votes had been marred by violence and ballot-rigging.

The 2015 poll was different in two crucial aspects.

It was a genuine race, pitting Jonathan, saddled with an ailing economy and an Islamist insurgency, against a former general promising to get tough on corruption and the Boko Haram insurgents.

Voters had also been given biometric ID cards linked to their photographs and fingerprints, making it hard to inflate voter numbers significantly.

As tallies from around the country showed Buhari on course for a win, unidentified PDP hard-liners started to panic, seeking ways of manipulating the count, Nwankwo and the diplomat said, citing political contacts in the Delta and Abuja.

Realising they could not engineer an outright win, PDP agents set about doctoring the tally at collation centres in pro-Jonathan areas to ensure Buhari failed to meet a requirement for 25 percent support in two thirds of states, Nwankwo said, citing reports from election monitors on the ground.

A Reuters reporter witnessed and photographed one tally list in Port Harcourt with suspiciously similar totals for registered voters at polling stations: 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 500, 450. In another tally centre in the city, 17,594 valid votes were recorded out of a registered voter population of 11,757, the Reuters reporter said.

Foreign election observers also noted the peculiarities – and contacted diplomats in Abuja who called in international intervention.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and his British counterpart Philip Hammond – in Switzerland for talks on Iran – issued a tough statement saying vote counting “may be subject to deliberate political interference”.

“CREATE A FRACAS”

But as Buhari’s lead grew, some PDP supporters from the Delta, including Orubebe, decided on a final gamble: to create a disturbance in the main INEC hall and have thugs snatch Jega from the stage, according to Nwankwo and the Abuja-based diplomat.

What the group planned to do after the abduction is unclear, the diplomat and Nwankwo said, but the confusion could have triggered nationwide violence.

“It was a desperate thing, mostly by a group of people from the Niger Delta who were in the room,” Nwankwo said, describing events that unfolded publicly in the minutes after he received the SMS.

When Jega opened proceedings on the morning of March 31, Orubebe, the former Niger Delta minister, grabbed a microphone and launched into an 11-minute tirade accusing Jega of bias.

“Mr. Chairman, we have lost confidence in you,” he shouted, pushing away officials trying to make him surrender the microphone. “You are being very, very selective. You are partial,” he continued, surrounded by three or four supporters. “You are tribalistic. We cannot take it.”

Nigerians watched, aghast, on live television.

Meanwhile, Jega’s security detail was approached by unidentified individuals telling them to stand down, according to Nwankwo and the diplomat.

But the bodyguards refused.

“Some of the guards who had been guarding Jega for years demanded a written order,” Nwankwo said. “But it didn’t exist.”

Jega then rebuked Orubebe: “Let us not disrupt a process that has ended peacefully,” he said as Orubebe slumped in his chair.

“Mr. Orubebe, you are a former minister of the Federal Republic. You are a statesman in your own right. You should be careful about what you say or about what allegations you make,” he said.

Later, Orubebe congratulated Buhari on Twitter, expressing his “apologies to fellow Nigerians”.
— Reuters

Why I Conceded Defeat To Buhari - President Goodluck Jonthan

President Goodluck Jonathan has defended his decision to concede defeat to Muhammadu Buhari in the March 28 election, saying he was concerned about allowing his personal ambition scuttle a democratic system he helped nurtured, with the likely consequence of a “collective tragedy”.

Mr. Jonathan said Thursday that he needed to check his ambition, as the consequences of not doing so may have been dire not only for Nigeria, but Africa.

The president made the remarks during separate meetings with the new ambassadors of France, Senegal and Ethiopia. He was responding to commendations for his decision to promptly accept defeat after it became clear Mr. Buhari had won the polls.

“Democracy has to be nurtured to grow. Strong democratic institutions are the backbone and future of our democracy. They must be protected and nurtured. As for me, as a matter of principle, it is always the nation first,” Mr. Jonathan said.

“You need to have a nation before you can have an ambition. It should always be the nation first. You don’t have to scuttle national progress for personal ambition.

“Since I assumed duty, I have been involved in quelling political crisis in some African countries and I know what they passed through and what some are still going through. If you scuttle a system for personal ambition, it becomes a collective tragedy,’’ President Jonathan declared.

Mr. Jonathan urged world leaders and international institutions to give their fullest possible support to the incoming administration of Buhari.

He also called on all Nigerians to do their utmost best to help the incoming president succeed in leading the country to greater heights of accomplishment.

The president appealed for patience, understanding and cooperation, which, he said, Mr. Buhari will need to move the country forward to greater, peace, security and progress.

Speaking with the new French ambassador, Denis Guaer, President Jonathan urged France to extend the support and assistance it gave to his administration to Mr. Buhari’s government.

“President Francois Hollande was our guest in Nigeria during the celebration of Nigeria’s centenary. He has been very supportive of the country in the fight against terrorism. I expect that the same warmth and goodwill will be extended to the incoming government. I expect that France will continue to work with the new administration, especially on issues of terrorism.

“The United Nations has been supportive as well. Our troops, supported by regional forces, have done very well in fighting the terrorists in recent times. What we need now is support to help our people get back their lives,’’ he said.

The ambassadors commended President Jonathan for setting a record of humility, patriotism and courage in safeguarding the democratic process in Nigeria and Africa.

“Nigeria is not only an economic power in the world today, but also a great democratic example. And it is all by your effort, Mr. President. The last elections and your response was truly a great achievement and you will always be remembered for it,” the French ambassador told the President.

Mr. Guaer, the new Ambassador of Senegal, Baboucar Sambe, and the new Ambassador of Ethiopia, Samia Zekaria Gutu, who were at the Presidential Villa to present their letters of credence to President Jonathan, also assured him that they will do their best to strengthen relations between Nigeria and their countries during their tenure.