Buratai decries decay of barracks infrastructure across Nigeria

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, has decried the level of decay of infrastructure in Army barracks across the country.

Buratai said this at the inauguration of some renovated residential accommodation for soldiers at the Maxwell Khobe Cantonment, Jos.

Buratai blamed the condition on long years of neglect and poor budgetary allocation to renovation and construction of barracks accommodation.

“It is an unfortunate situation but over the years you can see the state of dilapidation and state of decay in the barracks.

“The soldiers are staying in a very bad accommodation, it is unfortunate but these are just the measures that we are taking to address the situation and we will continue to solicit for more support from government.

“The decay is enormous but thank God that in this year’s budget there is provision for barracks renovation,” he said.

The chief of army staff said the present Army administration was looking inward to find solutions to the infrastructure decay in the barracks.

He said the Army headquarters had commenced the renovation of ten blocks of 30 flats each at the Maxwell Khobe Cantonment, Jos, as part of efforts to address the problem.

Buratai added that strict measures for maintenance would be put in place to entrench maintenance culture in the barracks.

He assured soldiers and officers of the present administration’s commitment to improve the welfare of their families at all times.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Chief of Army Staff has also inspected other ongoing construction of soldiers’ accommodation at the Obienu Barracks in Bauchi.

Palm wine vendor gets N50,000 for allegedly defiling step-daughter

A Kado Grade 1 Area Court, Abuja, on Wednesday admitted a 60-year-old palm wine seller, Moses Udumoh, to bail in the sum of N50, 000 for allegedly defiling a minor.

The Presiding Officer, Alhaji Abubakar Sadiq, ordered the defendant to produce a surety in like sum.

Sadiq said that the surety must be at list grade level nine officer in the federal civil service.

He adjourned the case till May 23 for hearing.

The defendant, who resides at Dape Village, Abuja, was arraigned on a one-count charge.

The Prosecutor, Judith Obatomi, said that Blessing Nwafor of same address with the defendant reported the matter at the Life Camp Police Station, Abuja, on March 29.

Obatomi said the complainant told the police that her husband on March 24 sneaked into her daughter’s room while she was sleeping and raped her.

She said the complainant also told the police that the10-year-old girl who is his step-daughter calls him daddy.

The prosecutor said the offence contravened Section 275 of the Penal Code.

The defendant pleaded not guilty.

His Counsel, Charity Nwosu, applied for his bail and assured the court that the defendants would not jump bail.

British minister reveals affair with sex worker

A British minister admitted on Tuesday that he had been in a relationship with a sex worker, but said that he did not know her occupation at the time.

Culture Secretary John Whittingdale said that he had broken off the relationship, which occurred before he became a minister, when he found out the woman had tried to sell her story to a newspaper.

Whittingdale admitted the affair following reports on online news outlets, and it is likely to raise questions about whether his previous role as press regulator was compromised by knowing newspapers had information about his private life.

“This is an old story which was a bit embarrassing at the time. The events occurred long before I took up my present position and it has never had any influence on the decisions I have made as Culture Secretary,” he said in a statement on BBC’s Newsnight.

“Between August 2013 and February 2014, I had a relationship with someone who I first met through Match.com. She was a similar age and lived close to me,” he said.

“At no time did she give me any indication of her real occupation and I only discovered this when I was made aware that someone was trying to sell a story about me to tabloid newspapers. As soon as I discovered, I ended the relationship.”

Although not a minister at the time, Whittingdale was chairman of the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee and famously grilled media boss Rupert Murdoch over the phone-hacking scandal at the now-defunct News of the World.

Labour shadow cabinet minister Chris Bryant, who was shadow culture secretary until last year, said: “It seems the press were quite deliberately holding a sword of Damocles over John Whittingdale.”

Local radio joins the fight against Boko Haram

When Boko Haram Islamists raided a remote village on Nigeria’s northeastern border with Niger last year, frightened and confused residents fled into the bush to escape the marauding attackers.

But the locals got lost and in desperation called a radio station based hundreds of kilometres (miles) away in the commercial hub of Kano.

“The distraught villagers called our studios on a mobile phone from the wilderness and explained their predicament,” explained the head of radio station Dandal Kura, Umar Said Tudun-Wada.

“The information they provided was used by security operatives to track them,” he told AFP.

Dandal Kura has been on air since the start of 2015, broadcasting to residents who have been plagued by Boko Haram for nearly seven years.

It is the first outlet dedicated to the conflict and every day transmits three hours of programming on short-wave to the remote region’s ethnic Kanuri population.

Its 30 staff includes 11 reporters across the Lake Chad basin comprising northeast Nigeria, northern Cameroon, southwestern Chad and southern Niger — and its aim is simple.

“Our focus is to provide a voice to the over nine million native Kanuri in the Lake Chad area, particularly in Borno state, to lend support to the counter-insurgency efforts because the Kanuri ethnic group is the worst hit by Boko Haram,” said Tudun-Wada.

– Life-saving advice –

Dandal Kura, which has been backed by the USAID, currently has studios in Kano at a building which also houses the privately owned Freedom Radio, where Tudun-Wada used to be general manager.

But it is set to relocate its studios to Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state and birthplace of Boko Haram, as a relative peace returns to the conflict-hit city.

Dandal Kura in Kanuri means ‘big arena’ and aims to provide a platform along the lines of the traditional village square where people affected by the conflict can exchange views.

The bulk of Boko Haram membership is Kanuri, the dominant ethnic group in the Lake Chad region.

Boko Haram was founded in Maiduguri in 2002 and drew its support largely from Kanuri-speaking youth disenchanted with social inequality and the failure of political leadership.

The group used ethnic and linguistic affinity to recruit members among the local population, capitalising on anger at poverty, illiteracy and the lack of access to economic opportunities.

The radio station’s social media officer, Yagana Kachallah, said the broadcasts also have wider aims given the spate of bomb and suicide attacks in the region.

“There is the need to sensitise the people in the northeast, the victims of the violence, on how they should respond to the Boko Haram violence,” she said.

“Doing so requires speaking to them in their own language.”

Muslim clerics, for example, use 15-minute religious programmes to counter the Islamists’ extreme ideology to dissuade potential recruits from joining their ranks.

There is also advice on what to do when approached by a Boko Haram recruiter, tips on identifying suicide bombers and what to do in the event of an attack.

“These basic tips have helped save lives of people in the theatre of violence,” said Tudun-Wada.

As a result, people no longer cluster around scenes of suicide or bomb attack because of information broadcast about the risk of secondary strikes, he added.

– Overwhelming response –

Kachalla, who tracks listeners’ feedback on Twitter, Facebook and text messages, said the volume of response from the Kanuri audience took the radio station by surprise.

“We receive an average of 120 responses from our listeners every week,” she said.

Radio has long been the major source of news in Muslim-majority northern Nigeria, where literacy levels were low, even before the insurgency.

Broadcasters such as the BBC, Radio France Internationale (RFI) and Voice of America (VOA) capitalised on this and set up affiliates in the dominant northern language, Hausa.

But Tudun-Wada said the demand for Kanuri radio was also there — even beyond the Lake Chad region.

“We never knew there was such a huge number of Kanuri in Sudan until we were inundated with sustained requests… for representation… and we had to recruit a Kanuri reporter in Khartoum,” he added.

In addition, Boko Haram fighters have also tuned in and last September a man who identified himself as a rebel commander phoned in and took issue with the station’s reporting of one attack.

“With more funding from donors we intend to expand our reach by establishing FM stations across the countries in the Lake Chad region to strengthen the impact Dandal Kura is making in tackling Boko Haram insurgency,” said Tudun-Wada.

Fuel crisis: NNPC‎ deploys 240 truckloads of petrol to Abuja

The Fuel supply and distribution situation has drastically improved in Abuja and its environs as the long fuel queues is gradually easing out following the increased truck out from 186 to 240 trucks on Tuesday.

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, and its downstream subsidiary Nigerian Products Marketing Company, NPMC, said in a statement that twelve cargoes laden with Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) otherwise known as petrol are currently discharging in Lagos, Calabar and Port Harcourt ports in order to wet the nation with robust supply and distribution of petrol.

The Group General Manager, Group Public Affairs Division of the NNPC, Mr. Garba Muhammad stated this after a tour of some filling stations in Abuja and its environs on Tuesday.

Muhammad informed that the NNPC, Major Marketers Association of Nigeria, MOMAN, and the Independent Petroleum Marketing Association of Nigeria, IPMAN, are all trucking out petrol from their various marine and inland depots to stabilize the situation.

“The NNPC/NPMC is collaborating with the various relevant stakeholders in the hydrocarbon value chain to wet the nation with PMS. This is in line with the resolve and mandate of the Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Dr. Ibe Kachikwu to restore normalcy to the filling stations across the states of the federation,” Mal. Muhammad posited.

The NNPC Spokesman stated that more trucks are also being sent to Nassarawa, Kaduna and Niger States to reduce the demand in Abuja.

He informed that at the moment, twelve other vessels laden with PMS have been lined up to ensure a seamless flow of petrol to all NNPC inland depots and other strategic reserves across the country.

“We wish to empathize with motorists across the country over the several hours spent on fuel queues in the past few weeks. We also want to reassure them that we are working tirelessly to ensure that fuel supply and distribution return back to normalcy.

As the vessels discharge petrol, we will ensure that the products are trucked out immediately to forestall any form of fuel scarcity going forward,” the NNPC spokesman averred.
Muhammad enjoined motorists to desist from panic buying and filling station owners to desist from hoarding.

He cautioned taxi drivers against the unscrupulous act of round tripping to service black market operators saying any driver caught in the act would be handed over to law enforcement agents to face the full wrath of the law.

De Bruyne downs PSG as Man City reach last four

Manchester City reached the Champions League semi-finals for the first time after Kevin De Bruyne’s fine 76th-minute goal earned them a 1-0 win over Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday.

A week on from their 2-2 draw in the French capital, City saw Sergio Aguero squander a first-half penalty after he had been felled by PSG goalkeeper Kevin Trapp, but De Bruyne’s late strike settled the Etihad Stadium nerves and completed a 3-2 aggregate success.

Fifteen points off the pace in the Premier League and widely considered the tie’s underdogs, City advance with hope intact that manager Manuel Pellegrini may yet bow out with a Champions League winner’s medal around his neck before handing over to Pep Guardiola.

But it was a bitterly disappointing evening for PSG coach Laurent Blanc, who lost Thiago Motta to injury and has now seen his team eliminated in the quarter-finals four seasons in a row.

The French champions’ ambitious Qatari owners must once again content themselves with the pursuit of another domestic quadruple, while Zlatan Ibrahimovic, whose contract expires at the end of the season, may never grace the continental stage in their colours again.

The burst of sky-blue tickertape that greeted the teams as they entered the pitch illustrated the importance of the occasion to both clubs, while PSG’s shape at kick-off confirmed pre-match reports that they would be set out in an untested 3-4-1-2 system.

With Angel di Maria operating in a free role, PSG had plenty of options in midfield and they made an assured start, City goalkeeper Joe Hart forced to make a finger-tip save from a zinging Ibrahimovic free-kick.

But as City began to probe, so they exposed fissures in PSG’s new-look defence and after Aguero had twice shot wide, a loose pass from auxiliary right-sided centre-back Serge Aurier allowed Fernandinho to set Aguero clear.

– Blanc rejigs –

Sliding out, Trapp felled the Argentina striker with his feet, but the presence of two covering defenders meant that he was only booked and from the penalty, Aguero placed the ball a foot wide of the right-hand post.

It was a let-off for the visitors, but after another careless Aurier pass had allowed Jesus Navas to curl wide, they suffered a further blow when Motta went off holding the back of his left thigh.

With Blaise Matuidi suspended and Marco Verratti injured, it left PSG without their entire first-choice midfield and Blanc promptly rejigged, sending on Lucas Moura and reverting to his trusted 4-3-3.

Although City, gamely, continued to push in search of a goal that would have given them an outright lead, PSG began to knock on the door at the other end.

Hart had to parry another stinging Ibrahimovic free-kick and then clubbed the ball over his crossbar after Thiago Silva’s header from a Lucas corner spat up off the turf towards him.

The introduction of Javier Pastore for the hapless Aurier, on the hour, left PSG with their full attacking armada on show, but it was De Bruyne who stole the headlines, brilliantly shaping a right-foot shot into the bottom-right corner from outside the box to crush PSG’s spirit.

City’s fans had to endure a couple more nervous moments, with Hart rushing out superbly to save from Edinson Cavani and Ibrahimovic seeing a goal ruled out for offside, before the final whistle rubber-stamped their club’s arrival in the European big-time.