Most Nigerian youths are high on drugs says Lagos lawmaker Mojisola

The lawmaker representing Amuwo Odofin constituency 1 of Lagos State, Mojisola Alli -Macaulay, says most Nigerian youths are high on drugs all the time.

Alli - Macaulay said this during a plenary at the Lagos State House of Assembly on the looting and pandemonium in the wake of the #EndSARS protest that was hijacked by hoodlums.

She said the National Orientation Agency needs to be alive to its responsibilities and help change the attitude of the youths.

The lawmaker said, “The National Orientation Agency needs to get to work. We need to begin to orientate our young people. They need people who can talk to them from time to time. They are high on drugs all the time, most of them. They go to social media and say all sorts of things. I’m even scared to give my young children phones because I am scared of what they may see on social media. It is that bad.”

Alli - Macaulay said unemployment should not be an excuse for looting, adding that unemployment was not exclusive to Nigeria.

“It is not unemployment that should be the reason why youths should come out and begin to misbehave. There is unemployment across the world, even in the United States.

“I schooled in the UK and I saw a lot of young people who were not employed but they didn’t become hoodlums . Why can’t we look inwards and look for solutions to our problems?” she asked.

The lawmaker argued that an unemployed graduate could get a job in the informal sector instead of complaining about joblessness.

“Why can’t the young people look within themselves, look for their talents? Even if you are a graduate, what stops you from being a designer or a professional tile man and make a brand of it? There is no excuse for being a hoodlum,” she said.

Army ought to be commended for using blank bullets on Lekki protesters, says Gen Sani rtd

Former Army spokesman, Brigadier General Sani Usman (rtd), Thursday said that protesters, who were campaigning against Police brutality at Lekki Tollgate, on the 20 October 2020, were dispersed with blank bullets by soldiers.

Usman who disclosed this in an interview with the Arise Tv, maintained that soldiers used blank bullets as against live bullets propagated by many. He stated that blank bullets do not kill but can cause skin pigmentation.

His words: “People have decided to denigrate the military and to turn the military as the fall guy but evidence on ground does not support that assertion.

“Yes, there was the deployment of the military; to what extent and all that, it will be determined by the commission of enquiry.

“If you look at the canisters, they were blank ammo and blank ammo doesn’t even kill. At a close range, l – maybe 100-metres – maybe it will have some pigmentation on your skin.

“Remember the military are armed and by the nature of their training, they are trained to kill and I think the military in its wisdom instead of using live ammunition decided to use blank armour which is meant for training.

“I think they should be commended for that otherwise there would have been serious collateral damage, but they were professional enough to have done that.”

Meanwhile, The Nigerian Army on Tuesday had finally admitted its involvement in the assault on protesters in Lekki, Lagos State on the 20th of October 2020 after series of denials.

The Army says it did not act alone, but got involved at the invitation of the Lagos State Government, after a 24-hour curfew was imposed by the Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu.

A statement signed by the Acting Deputy Director of the 81 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major Osoba Olaniyi says their involvement was as a result of the violence which led to several police stations being burnt , policemen killed and suspects in police custody released with weapons carted away.

The statement adds that it was at this point that the “Lagos State Government requested for the military to intervene in order to restore normalcy” and that the military followed all laid down procedures for internal security operations”

The division, however, insists that at no time did soldiers open fire on any civilian and says the viral video on social media alleging that civilians were killed by the military is untrue and aimed at causing anarchy in the country.

Loot: You have no right to search people's houses — CSO tells Governors

A non profit Civil Society Organisation, Access to Justice, has said attempts to recover loots through a house-to-house search, without a valid search warrant duly issued by a court of law, is unconstitutional. 

The organization on Thursday, said that under Nigeria’s Constitution, no State governor has the right to order a house-to-house search of any residential or other building.

According to Joseph Otteh, director, A2J, to search a house, the State would need a Search Warrant issued by a court, in accordance with the various laws of each State.

“The purpose for using a judicial procedure to obtain a search warrant is to ensure that there is rational and reasonable justification for intruding upon the constitutional right of every citizen to privacy.

“No Governor can usurp the powers of a court in this respect and no “Executive Order” can confer such a right,” he said.

Access to Justice urged all governments – Federal and State – to take the path of the rule of law and resist the urge to ride rough-shod over the Constitution of Nigeria with respect to the said lootings.

“Sending security agents to go from house to house in search of looted property is fraught with all kinds of risks, particularly at this time.

“Officers of law enforcement and security forces may be in the mood for reprisals and want exact a pound of flesh over the unfortunate events of the last couple of days, and can easily scapegoat anyone they find, (capriciously), to fit pre-formed stereotypes of a looter; they may want to exact revenge for other grievances against their adversaries, or simply to use any proxies they find to get back at civil society for daring to mount a protest against police brutality.

“House-to-House searches are fraught with all of these risks,” the group said.

Many governors had ordered a house-to-house search for looted materials in their respective states following the looting spree that took place across the country recently.

Lekki: Amnesty International cannot be trusted — Adesina

The President Muhammadu Buhari government has accused the Amnesty International (AI) of projecting misleading and inaccurate details about recent events surrounding the #EndSARS protest and the attending chaos.

Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, who spoke Wednesday morning on the Channels Television daily programme ‘Sunrise Daily’ said AI’s report on the crisis was inaccurate, misplacing facts and wrong in most cases.

According to Adesina, the narrative the widespread chaos in various parts of the country, which had seen many policemen and civilians killed, police stations burnt, private and public properties looted and destroyed, was precipitated by the incident at the Lekki Toll Plaza on Tuesday, October 20, 2020, was generated by AI was a misleading narrative.

According to him, timeline of events showed that anarchic activities had commenced way ahead of the alleged shooting at the toll plaza, citing the jail breaks in Benin and Oko, the attacks on police stations and murder of police personnel in different places as pointers to the fact that the chaos that had recently pervaded the country were not just as a result of the Lekki incident.

Responding to a question that the looting was a fall out of the Lekki shootings, Adesina said: “You are not quite correct. You are falling for the narrative of Amnesty International. And Amnesty is wrong. Anarchy had broken loose before even Lekki. The prisons in Benin and Oko had been broken open before Lekki. Orile police station had been burnt before Lekki.

“Many policemen had been burnt before Lekki. So, you cannot say it was Lekki that precipitated all those things. Look at the timelines, look at when all those things.

“You will discover that it had happened before Lekki. So, you are falling for the gambit of Amnesty International.

“Amnesty International does not have all the facts, they don’t run this country. They shouldn’t know beyond what they have been told. They shouldn’t know more than you and I should know as media people, as watchers of developments,” he said.

When asked if it was the President’s thinking that Amnesty’s report was wrong, the presidential spokesman said Amnesty International had been known to always make unsubstantiated reports about Nigeria.

“Many times, the military has come out to dispute facts brought out by Amnesty,” he said.

Just In: Ngozi lacks enough experience to lead a struggling WTO — US

The United States has explained why it opposed the emergence of former Nigerian Finance Minister, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, as the Director-General of the World Trade Organisation.

Despite securing the vote of 163 of the 164 members of the trade organisation on Wednesday, Okonjo-Iweala could not be declared the head of the WTO because of the objection by the United States.

In a statement by the office of the US Trade Representative, America cited lack of experience and procedural issues for its stance.

The statement reads, “The Office of the United States Trade Representative issued the following statement today on the selection of the next World Trade Organisation Director-General:

“The United States supports the selection of Korean Trade Minister Yoo Myung-hee as the next WTO Director-General. Minister Yoo is a bona fide trade expert who has distinguished herself during a 25-year career as a successful trade negotiator and trade policy maker. She has all the skills necessary to be an effective leader of the organization.

“This is a very difficult time for the WTO and international trade. There have been no multilateral tariff negotiations in 25 years, the dispute settlement system has gotten out of control, and too few members fulfill basic transparency obligations.

“The WTO is badly in need of major reform. It must be led by someone with real, hands-on experience in the field.”

Looting of warehouses by Nigerians was not caused by hunger, says Adesina

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, says the looting of warehouses and shops by hoodlums was not necessarily caused by poverty but by the pandemonium that accompanied the #EndSARS protests.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme, on Thursday, Adesina said attributing the looting to poverty was like justifying armed robbery.

“Criminality is criminality. Would it justify armed robbery because the man was poor? Would it justify armed robbery because the man didn’t have money? Just as you cannot justify armed robbery because a man was poor and took a gun to rob another person, you can’t also justify the looting,” he said.

Adesina claimed the protracted protests provided an atmosphere for looting to take place.

He said if police stations were not burnt down, there wouldn’t have been a breakdown of law and order.

The President’s spokesman said, “Criminality will always be criminality and mere anarchy promotes criminality. What has happened in the last two or three weeks led to what has happened now. If there was cohesion and tranquillity in society, this wouldn’t happen.

“Therefore, it was corollary to the mere anarchic situation that came on the country because of the protests. If you didn’t have people burning police stations, killing policemen, burning private and public property, you wouldn’t have this spate of looting.

“So, I don’t agree that it is all about poverty. Yes, in any country, you will have at any given time, you will have people who are poor, who are hungry and that is one of the reasons why you have government is to ensure that the number of poor and hungry people is reduced.”

When challenged with the fact that Nigeria had become the poverty capital of the world, the President’s spokesman said the high level of poverty was caused by 60 years of mismanagement of public funds which could not easily be addressed in two years.

He said that President Muhammadu Buhari was committed to leaving a legacy that would see that 100 million Nigerians are lifted out of poverty in the next 10 years.

Fulani man goes missing, two others kiIIed for converting to Christianity

A Fulani man, Alkassim Adams, who converted to Christianity in Plateau State, has gone missing days after visiting his family house in Rankum Village.

Adams went home for the first time in months for the burial of his father on Monday, October 5, 2020, along with two of his friends and fellow Fulani converts but never returned.

The three were abducted and threatened with death to renounce their faith.

When they resisted, the two were shot on the spot while Adams was taken away.

Adams, a student of COCIN Bible School, Zaria, Kaduna State, has however remained in captivity and is only likely being spared for being a native.

His lines were only reachable for the first two days and the police are yet to trace his whereabouts nearly two weeks after his disappearance.

Officials of the COCIN Bible School in Zaria said before he vanished, Adams took permission to attend his father’s funeral.

They added that in the early days of his conversion, he was almost lynched — only narrowly escaping death.

This is not the first time the herdsmen will attack one of their own for converting to a different faith. According to Daily Times, a similar incident occurred about 5 years ago where a young man was abducted and killed in Rankum Village for converting to Christianity.

Meanwhile, a recent video released by Boko Haram, has confirmed that a Church of Christ in Nations, COCIN, Pastor, Reverend Polycap Zango, from Jos, Plateau State, who went missing a few days ago, has ended up in the custody of the terror group.

Reverend Zango went missing while travelling to Gombe State for a conference, said he was in the custody of the insurgents alongside two other Christian women, who were also abducted.

In the video, the cleric is seen seated behind a prayer mat and says he was abducted on Monday, October 2020.

He said, “My name is Reverend Polycap Zango and I am a pastor at COCIN LCC Wild Life Park, Plateau State, Nigeria.

“On October 19, 2020, I was travelling for a conference in Gombe when I was abducted by Boko Haram insurgents who caught me on the road.

“Right now I am with them.

“I am appealing to the governor of Plateau State, Simon Boko Lalong, and the senator of Plateau North, Barrister ID Gyang, and the Christian Association of Nigeria and COCIN to please help save me from their hands.

“They also abducted two Christian women who are also here with me, we are appealing to be rescued.”

It is not clear if Miss Fayina Ali, a Kaduna-indigene of Adamawa State, who was also said to have gone missing same Monday he was captured, is among the two Zongo mentioned.

Miss Ali had held her marriage introduction on the weekend of her disappearance with her wedding with a Air Force personnel slated for December 2020.

She was reported to have been captured along with four other ladies by Boko Haram but no clear information has been received about them.