The opposition pose a formidable threat to the government of All Progressives Party (APC) because of the enormous looted resource in their possession, President Muhammadu Buhari has alerted.

President Buhari said on Friday that opposition was in possession of much resource that could sponsor mischief against his administration.

He made the allegation when he received members of Buhari Media Organisation (BMO) at the Presidential Villa.

He claimed that the opposition looted so much money before he assumed office, that his administration may not be able to recover all and might use same against his government.

The opposition, now, are sitting on incredible resources which I am afraid we cannot get at it all, President Buhari told the group.

For that reason, they are in a position to sponsor mischief from different angles which in spite of the incumbency of the government, we cannot absolutely stop.

President Buhari, however, urged members of the organisation to continue to support his administration in recovering the looted resources as much as they can.

He further praised the support group for its steadfastness, moral uprightness and sacrifice to the nation.

The group, formerly known as Buhari Media Support Group, was led to the Villa by its National Coordinator, Austin Briamoh.

It comprises retired and serving media practitioners among others, and was the media outfit of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council in 2015.

It was later converted to Buhari Media Support Group (BMSG) after the elections and was renamed Buhari Media Organisation earlier this year.

President Buhari met with the group in company with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Mr Boss Mustapha.

Others are Chief of Staff to the President, Mr Abba Kyari, as well as President Buharis Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Garba Shehu, and his Personal Assistant on Social Media, Ms Lauretta Onochia.

Source: NAN

In its plan to attract tourists, the Uganda government is building a war museum to showcase the darkest moments from its history, including the atrocities of former President, late Idi Amin.

Atrocities committed under Amins brutal eight-year rule and by the Lords Resistance Army (LRA) are to be documented.

We want to put the record straight, Uganda Tourism Board chief executive Stephen Asiimwe, said.

History gets richer, its like red wine it gets more interesting as the years go by, Mr Asiimwe said.

He said that the project was not intended to be insensitive or voyeuristic.

I lived through the Idi Amin era as a young boy, my fellow students lost their parents to the regime, he said.

However you cannot run away from history. These are facts.

Mr Asiimwe said every destination has its own traditional culture and attractions.

In Uganda we have wildlife mountain gorillas. But we are trying to retrace the past.

Showcasing Ugandas history would make the East African country a richer place for tourists to visit, he added.

More recently, Ugandans have had to deal with the LRA, which has claimed to be fighting to install a government based on the Biblical Ten Commandments.

Formed in Uganda more than two decades ago, the group became notorious for chopping off peoples limbs and abducting children to use as soldiers and sex slaves.

Its leader, Joseph Kony, is wanted for war crimes and the group continues to operate in northern Democratic Republic of Congo and eastern Central African Republic.

He was the subject of the #Kony2012 social media campaign six years ago which detailed his alleged crimes. An online video became a viral sensation with more than 100 million views.

The Uganda war museum will also showcase pre-colonial and colonial history.

Colonial records were systematically destroyed by Britain in a purge known as operation legacy. But the war museum is expected to document some events from the period.

Construction has not yet begun, but the museum already has its detractors.

John Sempebwa, the deputy executive director of the tourism board, told VOA he disagrees with his colleagues who suggest Ugandans are ready to revisit the more painful details of their past.

Society is divided. There are people who are still around who dont have good memories of Amin. Now, not only wont they come, they might burn this place down, he said.

Profile: IDI AMIN

Joined the army the Kings African Rifles in his 20s.
Seized power in 1971, less than 10 years after Ugandas independence.
Some 400,000 people are believed to have been killed under his rule.
Expelled Ugandas entire Asian population in 1972, accusing them of milking the economy.
A convert to Islam, he took five wives, fathered dozens of children and insisted on being called Big Daddy.
He declared himself King of Scotland, banned hippies and mini-skirts, and awarded himself the Victoria Cross.
Ousted by Tanzanian troops and Ugandan exiles in 1979.
Died in Saudi Arabia in 2003.

Read more:

Source: NAN

Ghanas High Commissioner in Nigeria, Mr. Rashid Bawa, has denounced ex-President Jonathan for misquoting President Nana Akuffo-Addo over security situation in Nigeria.

He said on Friday that Jonathan took the words of President Akufo-Addo completely out of context when he quoted the Ghanaian leader of mocking Nigeria.

The High Commissioner said Nigerias ex-President misquoted Ghanas Presidents speech delivered by at the Oxford African Conference.

He recalled the exact words of President Akufo-Addo: For most of you in the audience today, it is probably before your time. But in the late 1970s up to the mid-1980s, as a result of the discovery of considerable petroleum deposits, Nigeria was booming. It was the place to be.

We Ghanaians, who were going through very difficult times then, would arrive at Heathrow Airport, and be herded into a cage to be subjected to the full third degree by Immigration , and we would look on as our Nigerian cousins would be waved through, with a welcome sir and a welcome madam .

The newspaper headlines in this country were full of Nigerians leaving or forgetting bundles of money in taxis and telephone booths. Nigerians were the preferred tenants for those who had apartments to let. You could stop by any Thomas Cook shop on any High Street in this country and buy or sell Naira, the Nigerian currency, and you could do the same in New York, and I suspect in many other Western country cities.

I do not need to spell out todays reality to anyone in this audience. I cite this just to make the point that the the outside world is well able to tell that there are separate sovereign nations on the African continent. But when the news is not good, then Africa is treated as one entity.

Bawa disagreed also with Jonathans reference to Akufo-Addos purported disposition towards cattle-rearing.

The other alleged remark that Ghana is not Nigeria where cattle can roam about anyhow has never been made by President Akufo-Addo. That is not his way of speaking.

President Akufo-Addo, in many of the speeches he has made in Nigeria and elsewhere since becoming the President of Ghana, has described Nigeria as a country I describe as my second home in the world, and will never use Nigeria to make negative examples as the former President Goodluck Jonathan sought to portray.

President Akufo-Addo enjoys a very good relationship with President Muhammadu Buhari , as he has with many other Nigerian leaders.

Ghana and Nigeria are like siblings, and it would be most inappropriate, because of politics, for anyone, regardless of his or her status in society, to try to sow seeds of discord amongst the leadership and peoples of our two countries.

Jonathan had at the commissioning of a flyover in Ado Ekiti said that Nigeria had deteriorated so much that it had lost its respect in Africa.

Jonathan in his speech at the inauguration on May 25 said: A President of a neighbouring country, Ghana, recently made two negative remarks about Nigeria. First, the current Ghanaian President was addressing Ghanaians about the movement of cattle within their shores and he said openly that Ghana is not like Nigeria where cattle roam freely. That was quite uncomplimentary.

According to Jonathan, the same President was speaking in the United Kingdom when he made disparaging remarks about Nigerias currency.

If it has got to a level when the Presidents of neighbouring countries will cite Nigeria as a negative example, then we must know as leaders of this country that certain things are not going well, and we must change the way we do things.

Source: NAN

Three people with AIDS who were repeatedly forced to undergo a homemade herbal “cure” in a bogus clinic run by Gambia’s former dictator Yahya Jammeh have launched a case against him, in a rare example of victims bringing an African autocrat to book at a national court.

Lamin Ceesay, Fatou Jatta, and Ousman Sowe described a 10-year nightmare that began when ex-president Jammeh, a high school dropout who ruled the tiny West African nation with an iron fist for 22 years, in 2007 claimed to have found a secret concoction of boiled herbs that cured AIDS in three days— if applied on Thursdays. The then-president opened a clinic in the sleepy seaside capital of Banjul, and began conscripting Gambians living with HIV as patients. Those who entered were ordered to stop taking antiretroviral drugs and forced to stay in the hospital under the surveillance of armed guards.

A deep fear of the president, who was notorious for jailing and torturing those who criticized him, meant doctors and patients publicly praised his cures. Jammeh has no medical training. United Nations experts who questioned the legitimacy of his methods were booted out of the country. The “Presidential Alternative Treatment Program” — which also offered homemade cures for a long list of maladies ranging from obesity to erectile dysfunction — ran until 2016, when Jammeh lost his final reelection bid. He has been living in exile since.

On Thursday, the three former patients deposited their historic lawsuit at the 1970’s-styled High Court in Banjul, seeking financial damages for harm suffered and a declaration that their human rights were violated. The court will have to decide whether the trial can take place in Gambia under international fair trial standards.

“It was a disaster,” Jatta, 51, one of the claimants, told journalists of her nine months in the clinic, speaking from the capital. Although she grew progressively weaker during her stay, Jammeh pronounced Jatta cured and discharged her as she was near death. She recovered after going back on a course of antiretrovirals. “My experience in the presidential treatment programme was a horror. I could have lost my life.”

Many did die, among them the wife of 62-year-old Ceesay, after the couple began the procedure together. “I cannot even count the number of people that died during the treatment,” Ceesay said. “Jammeh must pay for what he has done to us.”

The herbal brew Jammeh, or doctors under his orders, fed patients at the clinic often made them violently ill. At other times, they massaged the mixture onto patients’ partially nude bodies while chanting prayers. Sessions were sometimes broadcast on state television without the consent of the victims, some of whom hadn’t yet informed friends or family of their HIV status. The stigma attached to the illness meant many lost jobs or were kicked out by landlords after becoming publicly recognizable.

But others, desperate for cures, were persuaded by the broadcasts, including Sowe, the third plaintiff in the case. The 64-year-old former university lecturer initially believed in Jammeh’s methods, and went on to become a spokesperson for the center. Eventually, he realized it was a hoax. “I believe that it is my responsibility to see that justice be done,” he said ahead of the lawsuit being filed.

It’s not known how many people underwent the treatment. In January 2016, the director of Jammeh’s treatment program claimed that 9,000 had been cured, the majority of them HIV patients. In April, he told a commission of inquiry examining his role in the “cure” that just 311 HIV and AIDS patients were treated, according to the US-based charity AIDS-Free World, who are assisting the victims in their case.

“This case will advance human rights protection in the Gambia, particularly with respect to people living with HIV, who are highly stigmatized and marginalized,” said Oludayo Fagbemi, legal officer with the Banjul-based Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa.

It’s a strange crime to accuse an ex-dictator of committing, but Jammeh’s regime often bordered on a caricature of dictatorship. The exiled autocrat was a 29-year-old officer when he overthrew the president, the sole ruler since the country’s independence, in a coup that was welcomed at the time. In the early days, literacy levels rose and basic services and infrastructure improved for the coastal country’s 2 million residents. What began then as a hopeful revolution soon morphed into something much darker.

Jammeh soon cracked down on those who disagreed with his increasingly repressive regime, enforcing his rule with a feared private army. Nicknamed the “black blacks” for their black fatigues and balaclavas, the group reported directly to the president, and reportedly kept a list of regime opponents to assassinate.

The strongman stepped down after a shock election loss in December 2016 and fled to nearby Equatorial Guinea, from where he said he planned to concentrate on chicken farming.

Since his departure, the list of state-sanctioned crimes uncovered — or openly spoken about — has grown. But many are still hesitant after years in a country where the slightest hint of dissent could land residents in jail.

“The thing that was most moving was none of them ever imagined that there would be a Gambia without Jammeh,” said Sarah Bosha, a legal researcher with AIDS-Free World, who traveled to Gambia to help gather evidence against Jammeh in June last year. “This was just a few months after he had gone. It just struck me how despite lingering fears — people didn’t know if he was plotting some kind of return — they’re feeling empowered about finding a space where you can speak out the truth after so many years of not being able to speak out.”

The court case is significant well beyond Gambia, too. For decades, the only recourse for those seeking justice against the continent’s leader accused of rights abuses has been the International Criminal Court, which was set up in 2004 to try those accused of the worst international crimes. But all eight people indicted by the Hague, Netherlands–based institution so far have been African, prompting accusations of bias toward the continent. In 2014, African governments set up a proposed alternative in the African Court of Justice and Human rights — then promptly stripped the court of power to prosecute leaders for genocide, war crimes, or crimes against humanity.

“It’s invigorating to me on a personal level to know that people can say [to their leaders], ‘you know that what you did was wrong, it’s time for you to account for that,'” said Bosha, who is from Zimbabwe, where the president was pushed out last year after almost four decades in power.

Source: Buzz Feed

A 38-year-old man, Godfrey Sibanda, from Kwekwe in Zimbabwe has dodged jail time for stabbing his wife to death with a kitchen knife after he “mistook” her for a lion.

Sibanda was spared imprisonment after the Gweru High Court ruled that he was mentally insane, reports iHarare.

“I saw her appearing as a lion, so, I grabbed a knife and stabbed the lion; I then realised later that I had killed my wife,” Sibanda said in his defense.

Justice Mathonsi said, “Sibanda should not be held responsible for his actions because of his mental condition.

“Instead, he should get some serious help. Therefore, I see it fit not to send him back to jail but instead should be transferred to a mental institution.”

It was also confirmed that Sibanda’s family had a history of mental illness.

Source: Punch NG

Gareth Southgate has revealed Manchester United forward Jesse Lingard will start for England in Saturday’s friendly against Nigeria.

Lingard is competing for a place in Southgate’s starting line-up at the World Cup and he has been handed an opportunity to impress at Wembley this weekend.

With only two friendlies before England kick off their World Cup campaign in Russia, Lingard is battling with Tottenham’s Dele Alli and Manchester City’s Raheem Sterling to fill the roles as support for star striker Harry Kane.

Lingard had an inconsistent season with United, but Southgate is a fan of the 25-year-old.

England boss Southgate told a press conference on Friday that Lingard will face Nigeria, insisting he hadn’t made up his mind who will feature when his team face Tunisia in the World Cup opener on June 18.

“I don’t see it as a straight contest between any individual, absolutely they could play together,” Southgate said.

“All of our attacking players have different attributes or strengths.

“Jesse is a fantastic player at recognising the space, working away from the ball, a great link between midfield and attack.”

Lingard took the opportunity to slam stories claiming he said he is more comfortable playing for England than United.

“It’s all misquoted. I’m playing regularly in the England team and I feel comfortable,” he said.

“Jose (Mourinho) has given me opportunities to play week in week out at Manchester United and it’s up to me to deliver performances.

“I’m as comfortable with United as I am with England.”

Southgate declined to reveal which of his three inexperienced goalkeepers — Jordan Pickford, Jack Butland and Nick Pope — will face Nigeria.

With Joe Hart dropped, England’s keepers have only nine caps between them, but Southgate isn’t worried about that lack of experience.

“We know what we want to see in that area and we’re clear on what we think. There’s no need for me to say too much on that publicly,” he said.

“I’ve told the players what we’re looking for in these two matches and haven’t told them the team yet.”

Southgate put his squad through their paces on Friday, with United defender Phil Jones absent after leaving the camp to attend the birth of his child.

Jones is set to sit out Saturday’s game and the partner of England’s Fabian Delph is also due to have the couple’s first child soon.

Southgate insisted the births wouldn’t be a distraction.

“It’s not an inconvenience, it’s a brilliant part of life and our group’s experience over the next months,” he said.

“A couple of boys have got engaged and are going to be fathers for the first time or again and it’s great to celebrate. The shared stories make us closer.”

Source: Punch NG

A man in Liyang, Jiangsu province, China was finally able to inherit his deceased father's cellphone numbers after a two-month struggle with notaries and the phone company - prompting another round of debate over the inheritability of virtual property.

Liu Weijun's father, who ran a company and did most of his business using two cellphones, died in a car accident in March.

"It would be inconvenient to communicate with all of the customers using a new cell number," said Liu. "But inheriting the numbers turned out to be more difficult than I expected."

According to China Mobile, both the owner and the person inheriting the number should be present at the company with their ID cards, otherwise the numbers cannot be passed on even if the inheritor has the owner's death certificate.

After trying in vain to get the numbers at the phone company, Liu consulted Liyang Notarization Office to see if notorized certificates will legalize his inheritance of the cell numbers.

Wu Caifang, a worker at the office, said that unlike real property, cell numbers must be shown to have value and be designated as virtual property.

To get notarized certificates, Liu first proved that the two numbers belonged to his father, and then asked all the people who qualified as inheritors - such as his sister and grandmother - to abandon their rights to the numbers.

"With the certificates we notarized on May 18, Liu could go to the phone company and legally inherit the cell numbers," Wu said.

The case has aroused debate over the inheritability of virtual property. Many people said they value their social media accounts and want them to be inherited by loved ones.

"I have accounts with all the popular social media," said Kong Heyang, a 36-year-old who lives in Nanjing. "Take my QQ account for example. I have been using it for about 15 years and it conveys many of my best memories. I want my son to inherit my social media accounts and remember those moments."

Wang Jinhua, a lawyer at Grandall Law Firm, said that inheritability of virtual property concerns not only the owners and inheritors but also the phone company and social media companies.

"For example, the companies have the right to close the accounts if the users refuse to pay the fees or violate regulations. So the accounts cannot be simply classified as the users' virtual property."

"Many similar disputes over the inheritability of virtual property have emerged with the rapid growth of telecommunications and the internet," he said. "The government needs to make laws and regulations to straighten out the problems of inheriting virtual property."

Source: ECNS

Xiaomi Corp unveiled a flagship smartphone with a transparent glass back panel on Thursday, as the world's fourth-largest smartphone maker by shipments started putting finishing touches to its mega-sized Hong Kong initial public offering.

Priced up to 3,699 yuan ($578), the Mi 8 Explorer Edition is equipped with a transparent glass back panel that allows consumers to peek into the insides of the phone. The move is part of Xiaomi's broader push to build up its image as a pioneer keen to experiment with cutting-edge smartphone design.

Lei Jun, founder and CEO of Xiaomi, said it is also the first Android smartphone that comes with infrared cameras for face unlocking and gesture controls, a method that is used in its rival Apple Inc's iPhone X.

"We are constantly pushing the technological envelope of smartphones. That is what drives us forward," Lei said at a product launch event in Shenzhen, Guangdong province.

The new handset came as Xiaomi is gaining strong momentum in overseas markets. In the first quarter of this year, it saw an 88 percent year-on-year growth in global shipments to 28 million units, with the uptrend rising to more than 999 percent in Europe, according to data from market research firms IDC and Canalys.

Source: ECNS

Nigeria’s Presidency has released a Factsheet outlining the policy and programme achievements of the Buhari Administration since it assumed office three years ago, on May 29, 2015.

The 41-page document highlights successes in the Economy, Security and the fight against Corruption – the three priorities of President Buhari’s Change Agenda.

It is organised into the following sections: Resetting the Economy; Restoring Growth, Growing What We Eat, Making Business Work, Doing More With Less, Investing In People, New Vision for the Niger Delta, Plugging Leakages and Justice Reforms.

The Factsheet, which will be updated regularly, showcases improving economic indices, rising investment in agriculture and infrastructure, successes in the fight against terrorism, and ongoing efforts to improve security in the North Central.

In addition, it lists the several measures taken to promote transparency and accountability in government finances.

Here are some of the highlights of the Factsheet:

· Nigeria’s economy is back on the path of growth, after the recession of 2016-17 (1.95 percent growth in Q1 2018)
· The Buhari Administration’s priority Sectors of Agriculture and Solid Minerals maintained consistent growth throughout the recession.
· Inflation has fallen for the fifteenth (15th) consecutive month, from 18.7 percent in January 2017 to 12.5 percent as of April 2018.
· External Reserves of US$47.5 billion are the highest in 5 years and double the size as of October 2016.
· Total exports in 2017 were 59.47% higher than for 2016
· The first quarter of 2018 saw the fourth consecutive quarterly increase in capital importation since Q2 2017. The total value of capital imported in the quarter stood at US$6.3 billion, which is a year-on-year increase of 594.03%, and a 17.11% growth over the figure reported in the previous quarter.
· The new FX Window introduced by the CBN in April 2017, now sees an average of US$1 billion in weekly turnover, and has attracted about US$25 billion in inflows in its first year (and a total turnover of $47.14 billion) – signalling rising investor confidence in Nigeria.
· Nigeria’s Stock Market ended 2017 as one of the best-performing in the world, with returns in excess of 40 percent.
· Five (5) million new taxpayers added to the Tax Base since 2016, as part of efforts to diversify Government revenues.
· Tax Revenue increased to N1.17 Trillion in Q1 2018, a 51% increase on the Q1 2017 figure.
· N2.7 Trillion spent on Infrastructure in 2016 and 2017 fiscal years, an unprecedented allocation in Nigeria’s recent history.
· Fourteen (14) moribund Blending Plants revitalized so far under the Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI); with a total capacity of 2.3 million MT of NPK fertilizer
· In May 2018, the Federal Government launched the Presidential Infrastructure Development Fund (PIDF), under the management of the Nigerian Sovereign Investment Authority. The PIDF is kicking off with seed funding of US$1.3 billion.
· Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA) in March 2018 invested US$10m to establish a world-class Cancer Treatment Centre at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and US$5m each in the Aminu Kano University Teaching Hospital and the Federal Medical Centre, Umuahia, to establish modern Diagnostic Centres. These Centres should be completed before the end of 2018.
· The Buhari Administration issued a N100 billion Sukuk Bond in 2017, Nigeria’s first sovereign Sukuk Bond.

Proceeds from that Bond are funding 25 major road projects across the six geopolitical zones of Nigeria.

Source: NAN

Comrade Innocent Nduanya, an aspirant to the seat of the president, National Youth Council of Nigeria (NYCN), has commended President Muhammadu Buhari for assenting to the Not Too Young to Run bill.

Nduanya, who spoke with newsmen at the Youth House, Abuja urged the President to do more for the youths by appointing youths into his cabinet.

He said that the position of youth minister in Nigeria was occupied by somebody above 35 years.

The bill which was signed on Thursday was passed by the National Assembly in July 2017 to alter Sections 65, 106, 131, 177 of the Constitution to reduce the age qualification for president, from 40 to 30; House of Representatives membership, from 30 to 25 and State House of Assembly membership, from 30 to 25.

President Buhari, however, noted that the new bill did not tamper with the age qualifications for governor and the senate, which remained at 35.

Nduanya said President Buhari had achieved so much in the last three years but could have achieved far better if youths were appointed into various position in his cabinet.

Nigerian youths supported President Buhari and voted him massively in 2015 election but got less or nothing in terms of appointment in his cabinet.

80 per cent of the votes in 2015 came from the youths constituency but they were not reciprocated in terms of appointment.

I urge President Buhari and state governors to emulate the Anambra state, Willie Obiano, for his youth inclusiveness and support to the youth constituency.

The Anambra state Governor gave full support for the Not too Young to Run as he encouraged youths through various appointments in his cabinet

According to him, Anambra is the most peaceful state in Nigeria today because of the peaceful atmosphere created by the governor through provision of security and youth inclusiveness in governance.

The NYCN presidential hopeful said NYCN under his leadership would use the structure of the council in the 774 local governments in Nigeria to mobilise support for every aspiring youth 2019 general elections.

He urged youths to obtain their permanent voters card and utilise them wisely in the next election.

Ndunaya said that with voter education and awareness, Nigeria youths are capable of replicating the 150 million votes they cast in the recent Big Brother Naija in 2019 general election.

He appealed to Buhari to recall and assent to the Peace Corp of Nigeria bill as it was very dear to the teeming Nigerian youths.

Source: NAN