US doubts Nigeria’s claim of sighting abducted schoogirls

The United States said on Tuesday it did not have independent information to confirm Nigeria’s claim to know the whereabouts of more than 200 kidnapped girls and questioned the wisdom of making public such information.
“We don’t have independent information from the United States to support these reports you referenced,” U.S. State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said when asked about Nigerian Chief of Defense Staff Air Marshal Alex Badeh’s statement that the military knew where the abducted girls were.
“We, as a matter of policy and for the girls’ safety and wellbeing, would not discuss publicly this sort of information regardless.”

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Chibok Girls: ‘Condemn the animals, not govt.’ – Suswam

Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue State

Governor Gabriel Suswam of Benue state on Tuesday in Abuja said Nigerians must playing politics with the kidnap of over 200 school girls by Boko Haram slamic sect in Borno state.

He said Nigerians should stop condemning the government but rather condemn the perpetuators.

“People should not play politics with security matter in the way that I have seen people play politics with Chibok girls.

“Instead of condemning the animals that are perpetrating these acts, people are condemning the government,” he said.

Suswam also described the purported letters from Boko Haram warning of an impending attacks on schools in Benue as a ‘mischief’.

Suswam spoke to State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Goodluck Jonathan at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

He said the letters emanated from mischief makers, though, the state government had taken proactive measures to forestall any occurrence, saying: “I think that letter was from some mischievous people.

“The way the letter was written showed it was from some mischievous elements and not from the quarters that it was purported to have come from,” he said.

He said that Nigerians should join hands with government to tackle the security challenges in the country and condemn the abduction of the girls, rather than cast aspersions at the president.

“If people are throwing bombs, kidnapping our children, instead of people to join hands with government, they are demonstrating against government.

“It has become job for the jobless who will gather everyday to condemn government instead of condemning the act itself.

“People are playing politics with this and it has the tendency and potential of consuming everybody not just President Jonathan or the PDP government.

“If this country goes down, it is not PDP alone that will go down,” he said.

Suswam said the country would emerge from the crises victorious, stronger and more united.

He quoted the late Tai Solarin as saying that “when there is vibration a lot of people confuse it to mean crisis. What we are experiencing in Nigeria is vibration.

“We will pass through it. Look at the history of developed countries. They passed through it,” he said.

On the security situation in Benue, Suswam said that it had relatively calmed down and there was relative peace on the clashes between Fulani pastoralists and farmers.

“It has substantially calmed down. We don’t have very serious issues. We have had incidents of where some of the herdsmen raped a woman but we are dealing with that.

“We have arrested them, we are dealing with that through the police and other law enforcement agencies. Outside that, the situation has substantially calmed down.”

He also said the state government was at the verge of signing a deal with Nigerian Union of Teachers (NUT) to end the six months primary school teachers strike in the state.

“It is an unfortunate situation. I never believed that schools will be closed for six months, but that has happened.

“The fact of the matter is that the state cannot afford to pay what they are asking for. The money is simply not there,’’ he said.

He, however, assured that by the end of the month or early June the primary school teachers would go back the schools.

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China sentences 55 in mass trial at Xinjiang stadium

Security forces standing behind the accused wearing orange vests on trucks during a mass sentencing in Ili prefecture, northwest China’s Xinjiang region

Authorities in China’s mainly Muslim Xinjiang mounted a mass sentencing in a stadium for 55 people on offences including terrorism, state media said Wednesday, as they press a crackdown on escalating violence.

About 7,000 people and Communist Party officials in Ili prefecture attended the “mass gathering for public sentencing, public arrests and public criminal detention, punishing a group of violent terrorist criminals in accordance with the law”, said an online report by the official news agency Xinhua.

Judicial officials at the stadium issued punishments for crimes including murder, separatism and organising, leading or participating in a terrorist group, harbouring criminals and rape.

Three were sentenced to death for using hatchets and other weapons to murder a family of four last year “using extremely cruel methods”, the report said.

At the stadium, police also announced the formal arrests of 38 suspects and detained another 27.

Photos showed armed officers guarding the premises, and the accused crammed into backs of lorries wearing orange vests and bent forward as helmeted security forces stood over them.

The event was intended to demonstrate authorities’ “resolute determination crack down on the ‘three forces’ of violent terrorism”, Ili’s deputy party chief was cited as saying, referring to separatism, extremism and terrorism.

China used mass trials in the 1980s and 90s to try to combat the rise in crime driven by the social upheavals that accompanied the country’s dramatic Reform and Opening economic overhaul, but the practice later faded.

Beijing at the weekend vowed a year-long crackdown on terrorism following a string of attacks blamed on militants from Xinjiang, home to the mainly Muslim Uighur minority, with violence in recent months increasingly targeting civilians and spreading elsewhere in China.

Last week five suspects killed 39 people and wounded more than 90 at a market in the regional capital Urumqi.

On April 30, the final day of a visit by President Xi Jinping to the region, attackers killed one person and wounded 79 at an Urumqi railway station.

In March knifemen killed 29 people and wounded 143 at a railway station in the southwestern city of Kunming, an incident dubbed “China’s 9/11″ by state media.

Beijing says it faces a violent separatist movement driven by religious extremism and backed by overseas terrorist organisations.

But experts question how organised the groups in Xinjiang are, while rights groups point to cultural repression of Uighurs and economic favouritism towards an influx of the ethnic majority Han into the resource-rich region.

Dilshat Rexit, a spokesman for the exiled World Uyghur Congress, said in a statement: “The judiciary has become a means of assisting China’s crackdown against Uighurs.

“China’s provocations will spur even more despairing Uighurs to fiercer resistance.”

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Nigeria doctors issue strike warning

Dr. Jubril Abdullahi

Nigeria health sector is set for fresh crisis as the National Association of Resident Doctors(NARD) on Tuesday indicated its intention to begin a three-day warning strike.

The warning strike is expected to commence on 2 June but can be averted if the Federal Government takes concrete steps to resolve issues affecting the association.

Dr. Jibril Abdullahi, NARD National President, who revealed this in Abuja after a meeting by the association listed some of the issues in contention to include the issue of residency training and re-integration of its members into IPPIS.

He said other issues were payment of three-month salary arrears owed doctors in Federal Medical Centre Owerri.

Abdullahi said failure to implement the Consolidated Medical Salary Structure (CONMESS) and eroding of the recent relativity restored by the latter after a distortion of over 20 years.

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Lagos to abolish charges on telecom operators

The Lagos State Government on Tuesday expressed its readiness to abolish arbitrary charges on telecommunication operators in the state.
This was disclosed by the Commissioner for Science and Technology, Adebiyi Mabadeje, at the just-concluded Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Eight Annual Business Law Conference in Lagos.
Mabadeje said this at the conference themed “Exemplary Governance: Enhancing Economic Development in Nigeria”.
He said that the state government had already partnered with the Association of Licenced Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria (ALTON) to develop a viable model to achieve the target.
“This model is an agreement between all telecom stakeholders and the Lagos state government to harmonise telecom infrastructure, taxes and administration,” he said.
According to the commissioner, the model would aid the development of broadband in the telecom industry.
“We went further to reduce the taxes on ground, in order to get cheaper and quality services from Operators.
“This will also eradicate poverty through the development of infrastructure. This in turn will grow our economy”.
He, however, urged telecommunication operators to work together as a team for smooth policy enhancement.

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2015 Lagos Gov Race: Ambode’s Origin Takes New Turn

The indigeneship of Akinwumi Ambode, a former Accountant General of Lagos and a governorship aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has taken a new turn. Edu Morohunfayo Olakunle, a member of the Edu family in Epe, in an exclusive interview with P.M.NEWS in Lagos, western Nigeria, on Monday said Ambode is not from Epe as he claims. The controversy comes only a week after the king of Lagos, Oba Rilwan Akiolu, Eleko Of Eko, endorsed Ambode as the next governor of Lagos. The Mogaji of the Edu family had said in an interview with P.M.NEWS that allegations that Ambode is not an Edu indigene are false. The Edu family had also in a release signed by both Alhaji M. Oladeinde Edu and Alhaji T. A. Edu, and made available to some journalists on Friday stated that Ambode was an Ilaje man from Ondo State and not from Lagos State as he claims. But Adekunle, who visited P.M.NEWS office on Monday, said he decided to speak up to clear his family name. He said the Mogagi of Edu family lied. “Ambode is not from the Edu family. I am a bona fide member of the family and I know he is not and has never been from our family. Mogaji knows this and we are not happy with what he is doing,” he said. “We have a palace in Epe and Mogaji cannot say there that Abomde is from our family,” he said.

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2015 Election: ‘God Has Spoken Through Jonathan

The statement by President Goodluck Jonathan at the 2014 Democracy Day Interdenominational Church Service in Abuja on Sunday that, “after Today, the next Democracy Day will witness a new government,” has been described as a divine message from God. Reacting to the President’s statement, the Chairman of the All Progressive Congress, APC, Lagos State chapter, Otunba Henry Oladele Ajomale said, “God has spoken through President Goodluck Jonathan to personally announce the vision that APC will take over the centre in 2015. “He did not only assure us that the 2015 general elections will hold, but also gave a revelation that Nigeria will witness a new government next year. Can’t you see that God is great?” The Lagos APC boss further pointed out that the same president told the congregation at the church that the country would continue to move forward in spite of some of the setbacks we are witnessing now, saying that the imminent change that would bring APC into power would ensure rapid progress of the country. Otunba Ajomale also used the opportunity to assure party members in the state that no governorship aspirant has been endorsed by the party leadership, adding that Oba Rilwan Akiolu, the Oba of Lagos, was purely exppressing his personal opinion when he said Akinwumi Anbode should succeed Fashola in 2015. “As far as APC is concerned, every aspirant is on the same level playing ground, nobody has been endorsed because it’s too early to do that. When the time comes, they would face the party’s electoral conditions,” he said.

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