The 2016 Appropriation Act is now available

The 2016 Appropriation Act is now available. Check below

Three feared dead as Igbos and Hausa residents clashed in Aba

At least three people have been killed in Aba, Abia State, in clashes that started at the popular Ariaria Market, several witnesses have told PREMIUM TIMES.
The clashes began in the afternoon mostly between Igbo traders and their Hausa counterparts, they said.

One witness said the crisis started after a member of the Hausa community stabbed and killed an Igbo trader who reprimanded him for urinating near his store.
Other Igbo traders rounded the assailant and lynched him, the witness said.

Premium Times reported that other witnesses and residents said news of the incident spread to other parts of the town and a mob gathered and attacked the Hausa community around the abattoir located at Ogbor Hill area of Aba.
“From that point matters degenerated. Soldiers in nearby barrack are shooting and at least one Igbo trader was hit and killed by a bullet,” the witness recounted.

A spokesperson for the Abia State Police, Onyeka Ezekiel, told Premium Times over the phone that he had received reports of “pockets of demonstrations”. He however declined to give further details.

“I’m on my way to Aba with the commissioner to see things for ourselves so I cannot tell you the groups involved or if there were casualties until I get there. Call me back in two hours and I will be able to give you more details,” he said.

Bill to Address Demise of Governorship Candidates Passes Second Reading

A bill to make provision to cover the vacuum in the event of the death of a governorship candidate before the conclusion of an election passed the second reading in the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Sponsored by the Majority Leader, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila, and six others, the bill seeks to amend the Electoral Act 2010 to empower election tribunals and courts to declare the deputy governorship aspirant as winner in the event of the death of the governorship aspirant.

It also seeks the declaration of the candidate with the second highest vote as winner if the tribunal finds that the winner of the election was unqualified ab initio.

The bill is intended to address issues such as were thrown up  when the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Abubakar Audu, died before the conclusion of the last governorship elections in Kogi state, resulting in Independent National  Electoral Commission (INEC) declaring the election inconclusive.

The Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Mr. Abubakar Malami had posited that the APC can substitute the late Audu with the second placed candidate in the party primaries, now Governor Yahya Bello.

The deputy candidate to Audu, Hon. James Faleke who is currently in Court challenging Bello being picked as Audu’s replacement, was absent from plenary.

The sponsors of the bill also seek the inclusion of use of the card reader into the Electoral Act, and the elimination of all forms of discrimination in political parties.

Gbajabiamila in his argument, said the inclusion would codify what is already part of the process.

 “The courts have insisted that the card reader is an in-house regulation of the electoral umpire, INEC and that it’s not embedded in the Electoral Act. And for that reason the Supreme did not recognise it as law,” he said.

Lecturers Who Harass Students Sexually to Face 5 Years Jail Term

Lecturers that engage in sexual relationship with students would henceforth bag a five-year jail term if a  bill in the Senate, seeking to completely prohibit any form of sexual relationship between them and their students is passed and assented to by President Muhammadu Buhari.

The bill on Wednesday, passed for first reading in the Senate.

The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ovie Omo-Agege (Labour-Delta Central) and co-sponsored by 46 other senators, seeks to completely prohibit any form of sexual relationship between lecturers and their students, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

Briefing journalists after plenary, Omo-Agege said the nation’s institutions of higher learning must be sanitised to rid them of lecturers who saw female students as “prize’.”

According to him, when the bill is passed and signed into law, any lecturer found guilty will be liable to a jail term of up to five years but not less than two years with no option of fine.

“When passed into law, it makes it a criminal offence for any educator in a university, polytechnic or any other tertiary educational institution to violate or exploit the student-lecturer fiduciary relationship for sexual pleasures.

“The bill imposes stiff penalties on offenders in its overall objective of providing tighter statutory protection for students against sexual hostility and all forms of sexual harassment in tertiary schools.

“The bill provides a compulsory five-year jail term for lecturers who sexually harass students.

“When passed into law, vice chancellors of universities, rectors of polytechnics and other chief executives of institutions of higher learning will go to jail for two years if they fail to act within a week on complaints of sexual harassment made by students.

“The bill expressly allows sexually harassed students, their parents or guardians to seek civil remedies in damages against sexual predator lecturers before or after their successful criminal prosecution by the state,” Omo- Agege said.

Anenih is Alive

I am alive, hale and hearty, says Anenih

Vanguard can authoritatively report that former Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Board of Trustees chairman, Chief Tony Anenih is alive.

The Edo-born politician was reported dead by some online media, Wednesday morning.

When Vanguard contacted Chief Tony Anenih at about 1pm today, he emphatically declared that he was alive: “I am alive.

“I am well.

“The hospital they are talking about, I have not been there before.

“The doctor they are talking about, I do not know him and he does not know me; and I have not seen him. God is on the throne and it is only God that can call me when He believes that it is time”.