Reps reject Tinubu’s N4.78bn Yacht, pass supplementary budget

 

The House of Representatives has rejected the N4.79bn budgetary allocation for a Presidential Yacht contained in the N2.176trn supplementary budget for the 2023 financial year transmitted to it on Tuesday by President Bola Tinubu.

In passing the supplementary budget on Thursday, the House moved the sum proposed for the yacht to student loan, bringing the total sum for the scheme to N10bn up from the initial N5.5bn.

Abubakar Bichi, who heads the House Appropriation Committee, stated this while addressing journalists after plenary on Thursday.

“As far as we are concerned, we don’t need the Presidential Yacht anymore. We have increased the student Loan. If you can recall, the student loan was N5 bn in the budget, but now we have increased it from N5bn to N10bn so that our students will be able to access that facility for them to be able to go to school and to be able to afford them,” the lawmaker said.”

Bichi added that the committee increased the budgetary allocation of the Ministry of Defence from the initial allocation of N476bn to N546bn.

According to him, the four-month wage award of N210bn for workers was considered and approved for onward transmission to the President for implementation.

He pledged adequate legislative oversight to ensure 100 percent implementation.

The sum of N100bn was retained for the Federal Capital Territory as requested.

The lawmaker said, “

Today, our committee has submitted our report, and the House after careful consideration, approved our submission and the breakdown is as follows:

“As you know, the budget is about N2.177 trn and the Ministry of Defence has N456bn but currently, they have the largest share because we know how important our security is. As you are aware, we interacted with them yesterday and they requested additional funding so that they can continue their work.

“So, we have increased their budget from N476 to N546bn.”

 

Court Overturns Ganim Win in Bridgeport Primary, Calling Evidence of Fraud ‘Shocking’

 

A Judge ruled on Wednesday to overturn the city’s Democratic Primary Election, initially won by incumbent Mayor Joe Ganim, following claims of absentee ballot fraud by his opponent, John Gomes.

After two weeks of evidentiary hearings for Gomes’s absentee ballot fraud lawsuit, Judge William Clark ordered a new Democratic primary based on 180 pieces of evidence presented by Gomes’s legal counsel.

In the 37-page ruling, Clark said the video footage presented by Bill Bloss – Gomes’s attorney – was particularly alarming.

“Mr. Ganim was also correct to be ‘shocked’ at what he saw on the video clips in evidence that were shown to him while he was on the witness stand,” Clark wrote. “The videos are shocking to the court and should be shocking to all the parties.

Ganim was one the many city officials called to the Fairfield Judicial District Superior Courthouse for questioning, along with Wanda Geter-Pataky, vice chair of the Bridgeport Democratic Town Committee and operations specialist for the city, and Eneida Martinez, a former City Council member accused by Gomes of stuffing ballot dropboxes.

Israel and Hamas at war

 

Israel vowed to "demolish Hamas" as its troops massed on the border with Gaza, as an Egyptian-controlled crossing into the enclave is expected to reopen amid diplomatic efforts to get aid to the millions of Palestinians besieged there after Hamas' deadly rampage through Israeli border towns.

Top U.S. officials warned that the war between Israel and militant group Hamas could escalate, as American warships headed to the area amid growing clashes on Israel's northern border with Lebanon.

Thousands of Palestinians have evacuated Gaza City for southern areas of the enclave, after Israel warnings. Hamas has asked them to stay put.

Ike Ekweremadu, wife, and a doctor guilty of organ trafficking to UK

 

Ike Ekweremadu, 60 (right), his wife Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta

Ike Ekweremadu (a senior Nigerian politician), his wife, and a doctor have been convicted of organ trafficking, in the first verdict of its kind under the Modern Slavery Act.

Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a former deputy president of the Nigerian senate, his wife, Beatrice, 56, and Dr Obinna Obeta, 51, were found guilty of facilitating the travel of a young man to Britain with a view to his exploitation after a six-week trial at the Old Bailey.

They criminally conspired to bring the 21-year-old Lagos street trader to London to exploit him for his kidney, the jury found.

The man, who cannot be named for legal reasons, had been offered an illegal reward to become a donor for the senator’s daughter after kidney disease forced her to drop out of a master’s degree in film at Newcastle University, the court heard. Sonia Ekweremadu was found not guilty.

In February 2022 the man was falsely presented to a private renal unit at Royal Free hospital in London as Sonia’s cousin in a failed attempt to persuade medics to carry out an £80,000 transplant. For a fee, a medical secretary at the hospital acted as an Igbo interpreter between the man and the doctors to help try to convince them he was an altruistic donor, the court heard.

The prosecutor Hugh Davies KC told the court the Ekweremadus and Obeta had treated the man and other potential donors as “disposable assets – spare parts for reward”. He said they entered an “emotionally cold commercial transaction” with the man.

The behaviour of Ekweremadu, a successful lawyer and founder of an anti-poverty charity who helped draw up Nigeria’s laws against organ trafficking, showed “entitlement, dishonesty and hypocrisy”, Davies told the jury.

He said Ekweremadu, who owns several properties and had a staff of 80, “agreed to reward someone for a kidney for his daughter – somebody in circumstances of poverty and from whom he distanced himself and made no inquiries, and with whom, for his own political protection, he wanted no direct contact”.

Tension as Nigerians Await Final Presidential Election Results

 

While Nigerians wait for the results of the presidential and national assembly elections, tension is palpably high throughout the whole nation.

In spite of INEC's explanation that the difficulties the commission was having transmitting results were not the result of system sabotage, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), assured the Nigerian people that the process of results collation and announcement would be transparent.

Bola Tinubu, Atiku Abubakar, and Peter Obi, candidates for president of the Labour Party (LP), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the All Progressives Congress (APC), have engaged in a contentious race.

It represented a change from the last elections, where the minority parties were bent on unseating the ruling party (APC).

It has been reported in several places that the recently held Nigerian presidential elections in 2023 were invalid and hence required redress. The candidates for president may end up in court cases, according to what is being reported by various media outlets.

#NigeriaDecides

NOKIA changes logo

 

As the telecom equipment manufacturer concentrates on fast growth, Nokia (NOKIA.HE) revealed plans to alter its brand identity for the first time in nearly 60 years, complete with a new logo, on Sunday.

The word Nokia is represented by five different shapes in the new logo. Depending on the purpose, the previous logo's signature blue color has been replaced with a variety of colors.

"There was the association to smartphones and nowadays we are a business technology company," Chief Executive Pekka Lundmark told Reuters in an interview.

 

 

Former Pope Benedict XVI dies at 95

 

Pope Benedict XVI

Nearly a decade after resigning due to failing health, the former Pope Benedict XVI passed away at the age of 95.

After less than eight years in office, Francis resigned as Pope in 2013, becoming the first pope to do so since Gregory XII in 1415. Benedict passed away on Saturday at 09:34 (08:34 GMT) after spending his final years in the Mater Ecclesiae monastery inside the Vatican. The burial will be officiated by his successor, Pope Francis, on January 5.

The Vatican said the body of the Pope Emeritus will be placed in St Peter's Basilica from 2 January for "the greeting of the faithful".

Bells rang out from Munich cathedral and a single bell was heard ringing from St Peter's Square in Rome after the death was announced.

In his first public comments since news of Pope Benedict's death broke, Pope Francis called him a gift to the church, describing him as a noble and kind man.

At a New Year's Eve service at the Vatican he paid tribute to his "dearest" predecessor, emphasizing "his sacrifices offered for the good of the church".

The head of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, said Pope Benedict was "one of the great theologians of the 20th century".

In a statement he said: "I remember with particular affection the remarkable Papal Visit to these lands in 2010. We saw his courtesy, his gentleness, the perceptiveness of his mind and the openness of his welcome to everybody that he met."