EFCC Is On A Vendetta Against Chief Whip Of The Senate For Political Reasons: Says HURIWA

Leading civil Rights Advocacy Group:- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has carpeted the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) latest round of forum shopping and targeted political persecution of the most senior South Eastern Political office holder in the current dispensation –the chief whip of the senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria Senator Orji Uzor Kalu.
HURIWA said it is inconceivable that the anti-graft agency will devote a lot of man-hour and resources chasing shadows because it has a preconceived political agenda to demarket the most influential political leader of the National ruling party who is a pole’s position to clinching the prestigious Presidential flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress in a sinister plots to deny the Igbo religion of the historic opportunity of becoming an executive President of a United Nigeria. 
“The latest application made by the EFCC praying the Abuja division of the Federal High Court to transfer the fresh trial of former Abia State governor over alleged N 7.1 billion fraud to Lagos State smacks of desperate forum shopping by an agency that is so much in a dead hurry to politically harass the chief whip of the senate to quit his presidential aspiration in favour of the political Godfather of some powerful forces embedded within the hierarchy of the EFCCA”. 
HURIWA also tasked the EFCC to tell Nigerians What the logic is in seeking to transfer the trial of a matter alleged to have happened in Abia State, South East of Nigeria to Lagos State as if the South East has become the outpost of the South West of Nigeria? This is provocative as well as vexatious. ”
“We in the civil Rights Community hereby condemns the hierarchy of the EFCC for the undue interest and desperation to terminate the political rise of a phenomenal political leader who had previously been cleared by the nation’s apex court of having anything to do with this politically coordinated and calculated persecution to rubbish the presidential ambition of the most prospective candidate of Igbo origin”.
HURIWA recalled that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC on Thursday last week asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to transfer to its Lagos division, the fresh trial of former Abia State Governor, Senator Orji Uzor Kalu and two others in an alleged 7.1 billion naira fraud.
The motion on notice seeking the transfer was brought pursuant to sections 18, 19, 22 and 45 of the Federal High Court Act 2010 and section 93 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
The motion prayed for an order of the Federal High Court in Abuja, transferring the case with charge number FHC/ABJ/CR/56/2007 between the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Orji Uzor Kalu and two others to the Lagos division of the court.
Two others on the motion paper are Jones Udeogo and Sloks Nigeria Limited, an alleged family company of Senator Kalu.
Oluwaleke Atolagbe, counsel to EFCC said the motion was predicated on 5 grounds among which are that the Abuja division of the Federal High Court lacked the requisite territorial jurisdiction to entertain and try the defendants in the instant charge.
Another ground for seeking transfer of the trial was that the charge was preferred against Orji Uzor Kalu, Slok Nigeria Limited and Ude Jones Udeogu at the Federal High Court Abuja sometime in number 2007 by the EFCC, following an investigation by the commission.
The motion further indicated that after taking their plea, the defendant brought an application challenging the competence of the charge and contending that there was no prima facie case against them.
It was also contended that following the decision of the Supreme Court that many of the ingredients of the offences against them occurred in Lagos and even most of the witnesses who are bank workers reside in Lagos, the EFCC applied to the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court to transfer the matter to Lagos.
Satisfied that many of the ingredients of the offences occurred in Lagos the Chief Judge transferred the case to the Lagos division of the court where the defendants were prosecuted and judgment delivered in the matter.
He, therefore, asked Justice Ekwo to issue an order transferring the trial to Lagos in compliance with the Supreme Court order.
When the matter came on Thursday, Justice Inyang Ekwo said that he would not be able to take the application in view of the approaching Easter holidays.
The Judge consequently fixed May 17, 2022 for determination of the application.
At the proceedings, Prof. Awa Kalu SAN stood for former governor Kalu, Mr Solo Akuma SAN stood for Jones Udeogu while Goddy Uche SAN, stood for Slok Nigeria Limited.
HURIWA said it was worried that the EFCC is seeking to prosecute the Chief whip of the senate twice over the same matter in which a Judge who got elevated to the Court of Appeal chose to hang on as a Federal High Court judge and ended up passing a preconceived verdict against the former governor of Abia State senator Orji Uzor Kalu- a judgment that was torn into shreds by the Supreme Court of Nigeria. 
 
 

ASUU strike: Politicians’ children must be banned from schooling abroad, in private universities-HURIWA

..URGES ASUU NOT TO VICTIMISE STUDENTS WITH PROVOCATIVE STRIKES

Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) on Wednesday, said for the recurring industrial actions by the Academic Staff Union of Universities to end once and for all, politicians and government officials must be banned from sending their children and wards for academic purpose of schooling in private institutions and in foreign jurisdictions. 

HURIWA has also described the quick resort to strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities as lazy and irrational since the members of the Union can as well adopt other proactive, constructive and elaborate alternatives to strikes such as publicising the schools and names of Children of Nigerian public office holders schooling in Western Europe,  Canada and the USA and to write protest letters to those schools informing them that Parents of their Students of Nigerian origin who are in charge of public affairs have sabotaged University education and have therefore decided to fund their Children’s Academic activities from stolen public funds of Nigerians. 

HURIWA, in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade  Emmanuel Onwubiko, emphasised that until the children of public officers have no educational alternative both at home and abroad, the perennial strike by public university lecturers won’t be earnestly resolved by those in power. The group therefore Advocates what it calls constructive blackmail of Government officials by the Academic Staff Union of Universities as a possible strategy to compel the central government to honour the promises and agreements reached between government and ASUU.  

The group lamented that the intermittent industrial actions embarked upon by aggrieved university lecturers due to government’s failure to meet certain agreements and conditions is inimical and counterproductive to the bulging over 34 million youths.

HURIWA further said that for a country with over 40 million out-of-school children, prolonged stay out of tertiary institutions by youths will fill the crime pool of bandits, fraudsters, ritualists, armed robbers, prostitutes, amongst others.

ASUU, on March 14, at the expiration of its four-week warning strike which it declared on Monday, February 14, 2022, extended the industrial action by two months.

The union led by Professor Emmanuel Osodeke said it made the decision to extend the strike so as to give the Federal Government and its agencies enough time to meet the lingering demands of the union.

The union had embarked on a nine-month strike in 2020 before it was called off in December of that year.

But ASUU said this week that the government had failed to satisfactorily address all the issues raised in the 2020 FGN/ASUU Memorandum of Action but the Minister of State for Education, Emeka Nwajiuba, insisted that the Federal Government had met all of ASUU’s demands including funding for revitalisation of public universities (both Federal and States), renegotiation of the 2009 FGN/ ASUU Agreement and the deployment of the University Transparency and Accountability Solution.

Other demands of the union as listed by ASUU include Earned Academic Allowances, State Universities, promotion arrears, withheld salaries, and non-remittance of third-party deductions.

Reacting on the impasse so far, HURIWA’s Onwubiko declared, “The Federal Government which is saddled with the provision of quality education has failed woefully. It is more pathetic that government officials including the two education ministers have maintained indifference in meeting ASUU’s demand once and for all and not in piecemeal.

“To think that the present government has eight years to address the matter and it has failed to do so in the last seven years is unthinkable. The reason, however, is not farfetched; every now and then, politicians and government officials flaunt photos of the matriculation and the graduation of the children in first-class universities abroad and a very few in private universities back home unaffected by the perennial industrial actions by ASUU and other unions in tertiary institutions. They do this at the chagrin of abandoned Nigerian students back home who are forced out of school and their stay of four or five years elongated to over seven years due to ASUU strikes.

“HURIWA posits that the National Assembly must be resolute and make laws banning politicians from sending their wards overseas for studies so that all hands can be on the deck to resolve ASUU lingering crisis.

“Nigeria is sitting on a time bomb if ASUU strike is allowed to linger as there are connections between rising criminality and out-of-school students. The government must make hay while the sun shines. HURIWA has also warned that the strike would push thousands of students into such crimes like yahooyahoo and to be available for active recruitment to carry out terrorism. The continuous closure of Public tertiary institutions is a grave threat to national security interests of Nigeria and must be brought to an end immediately. 

March 16, 2022

Emmanuel Onwubiko

National Coordinator – HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA).

War Jets Bomb Terrorists leader’s Wedding Ceremony in Katsina

Scores of armed terrorists have been eliminated when military jets of the Nigerian Airforce (NAF) shelled missiles at a wedding feast organized for one of Katsina top Bandit Leaders, PRNigeria reports.

Among those killed include one Sule, a notorious bandit leader, who is a brother to Lalbi Ginshima, also a ‘killer’ bandit.

The onslaught by troops of the Nigerian military Air Task Force took place at Unguwar Adam Village in Dan Musa Local Government Area of the State.

PRNigeria was told by intelligence sources in Katsina, that credible intelligence was on Monday received by air troops that bandit-terrorists had migrated from Dan Alikima to Unguwar Adam for the wedding of one of their key leaders.

“As such, the Air Component dispatched an Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) aircraft to monitor activities at the location.

“The aircraft later confirmed the intel to be accurate having sighted over fifty (50) of the bandits indulging in the festivities.

“Consequently, situation report was relayed and a NAF aircraft was scrambled by to undertake the mission,” a top military intelligence officer said.

According to the operative the ISR aircraft remained overhead the location and vectored the fighter jet to a new location along a river line North of Unguwar Adam where the bandit-terrorists had moved to.

He said: “On arrival, the aircraft observed over 50 bandit-terrorists and engaged them with rockets and cannons in successive passes.”

A local source told PRNigeria that the armed bandits suffered heavy casualties as many of them were decimated, while others sustained various degrees of injury.

“The terrorists suffered heavy casualties as many as 27 were decimated while others sustained various degrees of injury. Among those killed include bandit leader Sule who is brother to major bandit Lalbi Ginshima,” the source concluded.

(PRNigeria)