The controversial Nigerian Peace Corps bill has finally been jettisoned as attempt by the House of Representatives to override President Muhammadu Buhari failed on Thursday.

The House of Representatives which boasted it would override the veto of the Buhari could not achieve its aim.

The bill seeks to turn the Peace Corps, currently a non-governmental organisation, into a government para-military agency.

The bill, which was passed by the National Assembly amidst controversy was rejected by President Muhammadu Buhari, who refused to sign it into law.

Buhari in February refused to assent to the bill because it was a duplication of duty and could conflict with the functions of the existing security outfits the police and the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC).

On Thursday, the bill failed to pass the second reading at the House of Representatives.

The bill was sponsored by Emmanuel Orker-Jev (APC, Benue) and passed by the National Assembly in 2017.

In separate letters to the Senate and House of Representatives, Mr Buhari also cited security concerns and financial implications amongst reasons for his decision.

The bill was transmitted to the president in December 2017 by the Clerk to the National Assembly, Sani Omolori.

The Nigerian police had remained opposed to the legalisation of the corps.

On February 17, 2017, it stormed the organisations headquarters in Abuja and arrested its head, Dickson Akoh, and about 49 other members.

The police accused Mr. Akoh of using the Peace Corps, registered as a non-governmental organisation, to swindle young job seekers and operate as a para-military agency.

Mr. Akoh, who denied the allegations, was later granted bail.

Source: NAN

The Ugandan government is to introduce biometric gadgets for the implementation of daily salary payment for civil servants.

The gadgets are to be introduced following the resolve of the government to start paying civil servants according to the number of days worked rather than a guaranteed monthly salary.

Prof. Ezra Suruma, the head of the Delivery Unit in the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), said they are for a start installing the gadgets at public health and educational institutions to monitor clock-in, clock-out of health workers and teachers at their duty stations.

Suruma said salaries of absentee civil servants will be deducted equivalent to work days missed, he said.

Last week, we were in Jinja for a meeting with district local governments and we were told that some districts no longer pay civil servants who absent themselves from work.

We want other districts to follow suit because this is kisanja hakuna mchezo (no playing games), he said.

Kaliro, Kayunga, Buvuma, Bulambuli, Bugiri and Bududa districts all in eastern Uganda are already implementing the scheme.

Prof Suruma, the former finance minister and current Makerere University chancellor, made the comments while receiving an assortment of biometric machines donated by the British government through its overseas development arm, the Department for International Development (DFID).

The gadgets will be installed at public facilities in 22 districts in eastern Uganda piloting the scheme and the supervisors will be required to file daily reports of their supervisees attendance to OPM.

Bureaucrats say the previous practice of registering staff presence at work manually was ineffective and susceptible to errors.

Suruma said citizens dissatisfied with delivery of government services had started reporting absentee employees directly to authorities using social media platforms, particularly WhatsApp.

This has increased the level of community engagement in ensuring service delivery, Suruma said.

Mr Adrian Green, the head of Growth and Economic Management at DFID, said the equipment they donated also included laptops, printers, computers and their accessories.

They will be deployed for gathering, processing and analysing biometric information on teachers and health workers to improve the quality of service delivery at schools and hospitals.

This is a grant worth half a million British pounds for a partnership we have been implementing with government for essential service delivery since 2015 where we have registered tremendous results, Mr Green said.

A biometric time and attendance system is a time clock that tracks some unique physical characteristic of each employee when they clock in or out.

Biometric data comes in many forms, such as vascular patterns, fingerprints, iris patterns and voice recognition. Biometrics cannot be forged.

Source: NAN

By Moji Eniola

Mrs Folorunso Alakija, a billionaire businesswoman, on Thursday told an Ikeja High Court how one Vincent Ayewah, a staff of her Rose of Sharon Foundation, allegedly defrauded her of N3 million.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Vincent, who was employed by Alakija as a clerk and administrative officer, is standing trial alongside his siblings, Florence and Emmanuel, as well as four others for fraud.

The other defendants are Onuwa David, Okoronkwo Chikadibia, Ehizibolo George and Chinyere Awanah.

Vincent was accused of defrauding Alakijas foundation of the fund by forging cheques and conniving with his siblings and cohorts to pose to banks as beneficiaries of the foundation.

Alakija, while being led in evidence by Mr M.D Aliyu, the prosecuting counsel for the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), told the court how she was allegedly defrauded by Vincent.

Her testimony lasted from 2 pm to 3.23 pm.

She said: On Nov. 13, 2012, I was called by my treasurer, Gladys Efiozor, who said she received a call from Stanbic IBTC that there was a forgery of a cheque.

I told her to send me an email of the forged cheque and when I saw it, I told her that the signature was not mine.

There are three signatories to that account and the forged signature did not match those of the other signatories.

Florence (Vincents sister) was the one caught with the cheque, the bank called EFCC to investigate and Florence was handed over to the EFCC.

It was discovered that the bag she was carrying had 12 different Identity cards of beneficiaries of the foundation with her pictures on the identity cards.

The bag also contained cash collected from other banks from the foundations account.

Alakija also told the court that she confronted Vincent and seized his mobile phone after he had received a suspicious call.

She also claimed that Vincent deleted an incriminating text message from his phone.

He admitted to the fraud and begged for mercy; he had done other infractions in the past and had begged for mercy anytime he was caught, Alakija added.

Alakija told the court that Vincent enjoyed a new lifestyle with proceeds from the alleged scam, claiming he bought new car which he parked far away from the premises of the office to avoid detection.

A blank cheque and a survey plan of a property was in his car.

He had committed infractions before, begged for mercy and I forgave him. I thought that with warnings, he will change, the businesswoman said.

But while being cross-examined by Mr Obiora Umeh, the defence counsel to the Ayewahs and other defendants, Alakija gave further insight into the alleged fraud.

There are widows and orphans that need to be empowered, I had one project manager at the time that Vincent Ayewah was reporting to.

When he needs to write the cheques, he had to handle the cheque book, I knew he was issuing the cheques because it was part of his duty.

The auditors must have gone through the list of beneficiaries and approved it, I cant remember now if they were going through the cheque books because our systems have since changed.

The issue at hand is that the first defendant (Vincent) had taken blank cheques and written the names of the beneficiaries on them.

Vincents siblings had gone to pose in banks to pretend that they were the original beneficiaries.

Even if it wasnt a blank cheque he had torn out and he had followed the normal sequence of things, they will still go and pose as beneficiaries, Alakija said.

Justice Hakeem Oshodi adjourned the case till Oct. 25 for continuation of trial.

Source: NAN

Arsenal have appointed former Paris St Germain coach Unai Emery as the new manager of the club, with the Spaniard succeeding the long-serving Arsene Wenger, the Premier League club announced on Wednesday.

Emery, who joined PSG in June 2016, left the French club at the end of this season, having led them to a domestic treble.

The 46-year-old had previously guided Spanish side Sevilla to three Europa League titles.

“Unai has an outstanding track record of success throughout his career.

“He has also developed some of the best young talents in Europe and plays an exciting, progressive style of football that fits Arsenal perfectly,” Arsenal chief executive Ivan Gazidis said in a statement.

“His hard work and passionate approach and his sense of value on and off the pitch make him the ideal person to take us forward,” Gazidis said.

Wenger departed the North London club at the end of last season after nearly 22 years at the helm, helping the team capture three Premier League titles and seven FA Cups.

Source: NAN

No fewer than 14.8 million people were affected by the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria with at least 1.7 million of them displaced.

Nigerias Ambassador/Permanent Representative to the UN, Prof. Tijjani Bande, told the UN Security Council Open Debate on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflicts Tuesday that most adversely affected were women and children.

Bande regretted that the Boko Haram insurgency had led to an unprecedented humanitarian crisis in northeastern Nigeria.

He, however, assured the international community that The Buhari Plan would bring relief to Northeast Nigeria, currently ravaged the by Boko Haram activities as all efforts were being taken against the insurgency.

The Presidential Committee for North East Initiative developed The Buhari Plan a framework of action to ensure the rehabilitation of the victims of insurgency and the reconstruction of their communities.

Bande said a robust Social Protection Initiative, and a second National Action Plan to fully implement the provisions of resolution 1325 (2000) had been instituted to protect civilians, particularly women and children from the Boko Haram ravages.

To that end, the initiatives will also complement the implementation of The Buhari Plan, which provides a blueprint for the comprehensive humanitarian relief and socioeconomic stabilisation of the North-East, as well as the return and resettlement of displaced persons.

We are collaborating with our neighbours, Chad, Cameroon, Niger and Benin, within the framework of the Multinational Joint Task Force, to defeat the Boko Haram insurgency, which is targeting civilians, particularly women and children, Bande said.

The Buhari Plan aims to achieve a safe and prosperous Northeast that would be a global model for post-conflict socio-economic recovery and development.

The envoy noted that Nigeria was among the first group of states to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration in Oslo, thereby making a pledge to protect schools during armed conflicts and using and promoting the Guidelines for Protecting Schools and Universities from Military Use during Armed Conflict.

Bande said the declaration complemented and strengthened Nigerias national Safe Schools Initiative established in 2014, as part of the response by the Federal Government to promote safe zones for learning.

He said these initiatives reflected governments commitment to ensuring the security of women and children during armed conflicts and enhancing their active and direct participation in conflict prevention and peacebuilding.

The ambassador said: It is heartening to note that over a thousand kidnapped women and children have been rescued, and all territories once controlled by the group have been recovered.

Indeed, our experience in the Lake Chad Region today, is evidence that with determined international collaboration, terrorism can be defeated.

In addition, the Government of Nigeria has adopted a multinational and multi-agency approach tagged Operation Safe Corridor, to effectively handle the de-radicalisation, rehabilitation and reintegration of willing and surrendered Boko Haram members back to the society.

The Nigerian envoy said so far, many insurgents had willingly surrendered to the military, while about 700 others had indicated interest to surrender.

He said Nigeria had taken steps to cater to victims of Boko Haram in the form of rape and other sexual violence against children, abduction of children and other grave violations.

According to him, these steps include providing humanitarian relief, financial, economic, educational and psycho-social support.

Despite the tremendous efforts being made at the national level, we acknowledge that protecting civilians in conflict situations remains a critical challenge, not only for the United Nations, but also for the entire international community.

Source: NAN

Malaysia has slashed salaries of ministers by 10 per cent and also cut public spending.

The decision was taken to control spending as the new government deals with high-level debt, the 92-year-old leader said exceeded more than one trillion ringgit (251.5 billion U.S. dollars).

Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad on Wednesday the measures at the first cabinet meeting which was attended by more than a dozen of the newly sworn-in ministers.

We are concerned about the countrys financial problem, Mahathir told reporters after the meeting.

Mahathir said he will not force other senior civil servants to follow suit, but he said they can do so if they want to contribute towards reducing the cost of the running this country.

Since taking power after the election victory, Mahathir has been focusing on implementing the commitments promised during the campaign, including abolishing the six-per cent goods and services taxes, which the rating firm Moodys said could narrow the countrys tax base and strain fiscal strength.

At the news conference, Mahathir said Malaysias debt is around 65 per cent of the countrys GDP.

Aside from the pay cut, he has been advocating other measures, including forming a small cabinet, downsizing the government and recovering some assets related to the 1MDB state fund overseas.

He said the Land Public Transport Commission will be disbanded, with its previous functions placed under the transport ministry, while several other non-essential institutions will be dissolved.

Besides, he touched on the review process of some mega projects, saying the government is studying which will be scraped and which will be continued.

In addition, he said the government is reviewing the contract for the search of the missing MH370 flight.

If we find that it is not necessary, we will not renew (the contract), he said. (Xinhua/NAN)

Source: NAN

A criminal gang in South Africa which kidnapped a teenage boy on Sunday is demanding a ransom in bitcoin cryptocurrency of nearly 120,000, dollars police said.

Police spokesperson Leonard Hlathi said, Katlego Marite, 13, was dragged into a car while playing with two friends near his home in Witbank, a town in the eastern province of Mpumalanga, on Sunday afternoon.

They demanded that the family should deposit a sum of 15 bitcoins, not in rands, he told news channel eNCA.

(The parents) dont even know what these bitcoins are. They are not dealing in those things. They are in tatters as we speak.

Source: NAN

A Court in London will deliver judgment on Friday in a case filed by lawyers for the Bodo community in Nigerias oil-producing Niger Delta.

The lawyers, went to court in London to fend off what they said was an attempt by Shell to kill off their litigation.

The community was devastated by two major oil spills a decade ago.

The Bodo oil spills have been the subject of years of legal wrangling.

In 2015, Shell accepted liability for the spills, agreeing to pay 55 million pounds (83 million dollars at the time) to Bodo villagers and to clean up their lands and waterways.

Oil spills, sometimes due to vandalism, sometimes to corrosion, are common in the Niger Delta, a vast maze of creeks and mangrove swamps criss-crossed by pipelines and blighted by poverty, pollution, oil-fuelled corruption and violence.

The spills have had a catastrophic impact on many communities where people have no other water supply than the creeks and rely on farming and fishing for survival.

At the same time, oil companies have run into problems trying to clean up spills, sometimes because of obstruction

and even violence by local gangs trying to extract bigger payouts, or to obtain clean-up contracts.

After years of delays, the clean-up in Bodo is currently underway and litigation in the London High Court is stayed, or on hold.

Lawyers for SPDC, the Nigerian arm of Shell, argued that the litigation should be struck off in

October 2018, or at the latest a year later, and that it should only be re-activated if SPDC failed to comply with its obligation to pay for the clean-up.

Lawyers for the Bodo community said that was unacceptable, because the clean-up could go wrong for any number of reasons and that under Shells proposal the villagers would be left without the recourse of going back to court.

The effect of what Shell is trying to do is to kill off the case, said Dan Leader, the Bodo communitys lead lawyer, on the sidelines of the hearing.

Its only because of the pressure of litigation that the clean-up is getting back on track.

But Shells lawyers, citing an earlier judgment, compared the stayed litigation to a gun in the cupboard that

the Bodo communitys lawyers wanted to be able to hold to Shells head at their convenience, for years on end.

They said the litigation was a hindrance to the clean-up because it gave some local community members the impression that there was still the possibility of a bigger payout, incentivising them to block the clean-up rather than cooperate.

The previous persistent delays to the clean-up process clearly demonstrate that litigating Nigerian oil spill cases in the English courts does little to resolve the complex underlying security and community issues which can frustrate attempts to clean up areas impacted by oil pollution, an SPDC spokeswoman said.

We hope that the community will continue to grant the access needed for clean-up to progress as planned.(Reuters/NAN)

Source: NAN

The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Anambra command, said it spotted 572 faults in 390 vehicles examined during the two-day Free Vehicle Safety Checks (FVSC), conducted by the command in Anambra.

Mr Sunday Ajayi, Sector Commander of FRSC in Anambra, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Awka, on Wednesday.

He said 183 commercial, 196 private and 11 government vehicles were inspected during the exercise.

Ajayi explained that through the FVSC programme, the Corps uses a checklist of possible vehicular faults to examine vehicles on the spot.

According to him, poor lighting systems, bad wipers and bad tyres were the most prevalent faults detected.

The Sector Commander said the checks were not meant to penalise motorists, but to advise them on the conditions of their vehicles and recommend maintenance.

He said, We conducted safety checks on 390 vehicles under the command which is entirely free and 572 faults were detected.

Ajayi said the command had embarked on the evacuation of all broken-down vehicles and obstructions on the highways within Anambra.

He said the evacuation was to enable motorists drive under a safer environment, especially as the rainy season was close.

We have evacuated over 10 burnt vehicles since since we commenced the decongestion exercise two days ago, he said. (NAN)

Source: NAN

Pope Francis urged Chinese Catholics on Wednesday to show they are in full communion with the Holy See.

The appeal is coming amid what appears to be another stall in the Vaticans longstanding attempts to reach a deal with Beijing over bishop nominations.

Francis made the comments during his general audience, noting that many Chinese Catholics will be marking a feast day dedicated to the Virgin Mary this week in Sheshan, near Shanghai.

Francis prayed that all Chinese faithful can live their faith with generosity and serenity, and can make gestures of fraternity, harmony and reconciliation in full communion with the pope.

Chinas estimated 12 million Catholics are split between those belonging to the government-backed Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association and an underground church loyal to the pope. These underground priests and parishioners are frequently detained and harassed.

Francis, and before him Pope Benedict XVI, have tried to unite the two communities, and in recent months Vatican officials had expressed hope that a deal to resolve the key stumbling block to reconciliation was nearing completion.

Under the deal, the Vatican would recognize seven bishops not chosen by the pope who have been appointed over the years by Beijing, and two underground bishops named by the pope would step aside. Going forward, the pope would have effective veto power over Beijing-nominated bishops, according to a Vatican official familiar with the talks.

But since the beginning of the year when word first emerged that an agreement was near, China appears to have hardened its position. In February, the government introduced new regulations on religious affairs and has hardened attitudes toward any organization outside the direct control of the Communist Party.

Recent propaganda posters have been popping up around China, saying God cant solve problems, only the party can. Go to church each day to study God, no way the spirit can relieve your hardship, reads one in Henan province south of Beijing. Go with the party, dont believe in God, the party will bring us so much happiness.

Supporters say the Vatican-pushed deal would help the Holy See achieve its years-long goal of bringing all of Chinas Catholics ostensibly under the popes wing. Critics say the deal is selling out Chinas long-suffering underground Catholics to an authoritarian regime.

Read More at :https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/pope-to-china-catholics-make-gestures-showing-communion/2018/05/23/4fc17340-5e66-11e8-b656-236c621

Source: NAN