PDP after my life – Amaechi

The Governor of Rivers State, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi, has alleged that his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, was after his life following his decision to claim his mandate as the reelected chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum.
Amaechi, who vowed to challenge his suspension by the National Working Committee of the PDP on Monday in court, said the only reason for the action was his decision to fight for his right.
Amaechi, who spoke on Monday in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, at a youth forum, said the NWC suspended him without any invitation or fair hearing.
He said: “I was not invited by the National Working Committee of PDP.
“I was not given fair hearing.
“What I heard was that why did I refuse to reinstate the suspended Obio/Akpor Council executive?
“Who suspended them?”
The youths at the forum replied: “The Rivers State House of Assembly.”
Amaechi: “Who has the power to reinstate Obio/Akpor council executive?”
The youths replied: “The state Assembly.”
Amaechi continued: “So, you see the political witch-hunting.
“It is so ridiculous.
“My party must rise above political witch-hunting.
“Governor Amaechi did not suspend Obio/Akpor Council (executive).
“I hope you know I have the power and my power is to dissolve.
“I can dissolve Obio/Akpor Council (executive).
“But I have not done that.
“What the Assembly is doing is that they are investigating corruption.
“But the party said they should not investigate corruption.
“Is it fair?
“If they are not guilty, then they will re-instate them.
“But if they are guilty, then we will ask for the dissolution of the council.
“We have not even gone half way and the party says re-instate them.
“It means that the party likes corruption.
“Let the Assembly resume and commence investigation.
“Let’s see what goes on.
“Whether there is corruption or not, it is the business of the Assembly.
“I have been a Speaker and I know the powers of a Speaker and the legislature.
“I used it when I was a Speaker.”
The governor further advised the State Police Command to obey court orders by vacating the Obio/Akpor council premises and allow normalcy to return to the council, adding: “What is the police still doing at the Obio/Akpor Council building?
“The court gave an order to the police to vacate Obio/Akpor Council, they disobeyed and the police are still stationed there.
“The Federal Government does not care.
“They only stationed police at Obio/Akpor council.
“Even if everybody dies, they don’t care.
“Now the whole state will be grounded because the police have refused to vacate the Obio/Akpor Council Secretariat.
“They don’t want to know.
“We are not important to the Federal Government.
“We are not important at all.
“You know what it took for us to stop militancy in the state.
“But only last week, they organised militants to return to the streets of Port Harcourt.
“Is that not shameful?
“You all knew how the militants spent our money, raped our women, killed our parents and young men.
“Immediately the militants stopped protesting, the police said nobody should protest again.
“Internal democracy is important in our party.
“If they fought me by all means and I still won the Nigeria Governors’ Forum election, what should they do?
“They should have joined me to thank God.
“Because what it means is that God has spoken.
“It happened when I was in Ghana.
“I fasted and prayed for six months, 6am to 6pm, and God made me governor.
“I will not leave the PDP.
“I will go to court.
“The plane issue is same politics, pure politics.
“For one year plus, a minister refused to sign import permit.
“I am sure you are aware of the House of Representatives Committee report on the plane issue.
“They should allow the police to work for the benefit of the public.
“And imagine, if you and I cannot go to court to seek for protection, where else can we go to?
“They have refused to accept the court decision.
“And if the police continues, we shall mobilise Rivers people to come out en masse and I will be in front to lead the protest.”
On the NGF election, Amaechi said: “You will see it on the internet when the governors were voting.
“All the governors were there and you will also see the counting.
“We (governors) agreed to voting and all the governors voted.
“So any governor who said he didn’t vote is lying against the nation because all of us are on oath to govern properly.
“So we should not lie.
“Every governor voted.
“You will see the video.
“If we leaders of Nigeria today are refusing to accept the results of a properly-organised election, supervised by the Director-General of the Governors’ Forum, then where is the future?
“And somebody brought a paper that was signed in April.
“If you check that list, it was signed in April and you brought it on May 24 after the governors had finished voting their chairman into office.
“That list is not part of our election.
“There is a rumour that they want to go to court to stop me as NGF chairman.
“We are ready to meet them in court but they should not go through the backdoor to get an order.
“I want to say the way these people at the federal level are acting, they may come for my life.
“So when you pray, please, pray for me.”
And just a few hours it announced the suspension of Amaechi on Monday, the national leadership of the PDP raised an 11-member committee to investigate the petition by some members of the party in the state against the governor.
The investigative panel is headed by Joe Gadzama, SAN.
Other members of the panel are Victor Kwon, Inalegwu Onche, Friday Nwosu, Udorji Amedu, Ola Kukuyi, Wakil Mohammed, Yusuf Jangwe, Bola Doherty and Tanimu Adamson, while Anicho Okoro will serve as secretary.

Ajah crisis: Chief, others in police detention

The last has not been heard about the fight, which erupted among three factions of land speculators, at the Lekki/Ajah area of Lagos State on Saturday.
Six people allegedly died during the clash on Saturday.
The clash continued on Monday and led to the arrest of one of the chiefs in the area.
It was gathered that sick and tired of the constant fighting, a team of policemen had arrested several of the hoodlums, believed to be at the centre of the storm.
The police in the state had earlier on Sunday arrested a popular chief in the area, who was said to be the financier of one of the warring factions.
On Saturday it was gathered that about three factions of thugs, the Olumegbon boys, Ajah boys and Ilaje boys, clashed over what had been described by eyewitnesses as battle for supremacy over motor parks.
Another version claimed that the thugs, as usual, were fighting over land acquisition and ownership.
Eyewitnesses accounts claimed that on Saturday morning, the thugs agreed to meet at a certain area of Lekki/Ajah, at about 6am.
By the time police got the information and raced to the scene, the battle had been fought, won and lost.
It was gathered that scene of the fight was like a river of blood.
The wounded were rushed to the hospital, while the dead were taken away by their respective factions.
The Olumegbon boys were said to have lost three men, the Ilaje boys lost one, while the Ajah boys also recorded the death of one man.
The grieving Olumegbon boys were said to have carried the corpses of their dead colleagues to the palace of Chief Olumegbon.
The reason for the present clash was vague, but there had always being an ongoing feud between the three factions.
The factions came to be years ago, after the leaders of the factions started fighting over parcels of land in the area. Apparently determined to win the land acquisition war at all cost, the leaders had gone to different parts of the Lagos to hire thugs, who would always be ready to fight.
These thugs metamorphosed into land speculators and soon had different motor parks.
For peace to reign, the Olumegbon, Ilaje and Ajah boys ought not to trespass into one another’s boundary at motor parks.
A faction, going into another motor park to collect toll, had often been the cause of their clashes, if not over land.
The policemen had on Monday afternoon brought the arrested chief to his Ajah Roundabout home for a search.
When the cops invaded the hideouts Chief Olumegbon’s thugs, there was pandemonium.
An eyewitness said: “When the police went to the chief house, they saw many hoodlums around the place and they started to arrest them.”
Attempt by the policemen to arrest the hoodlums was met with stiff resistance from the thugs.
The policemen in an attempt to stop the boys from bolting, shot sporadically into the air, causing panic.
Lagos State Police Command spokesperson, Ngozi Braide, could not confirm the arrest of the chief and his thugs since she was yet to get the facts of the case.
Briade promised to get back to our correspondent as soon as she found out the situation from the Area Commander in charge of Area J.

Woolwich murder probe: suspect Michael Adebolajo held in Kenya in 2010

One of the suspects in the Woolwich murder case was arrested in Kenya in 2010, the Foreign Office has confirmed.
It said Michael Adebolajo was arrested there and it gave consular assistance “as normal” in the circumstances.
He was believed to have been preparing to train and fight with Somali militant group al-Shabab, Boniface Mwaniki, head of Kenya’s anti-terrorism unit, told the Associated Press.
He said Mr Adebolajo was arrested with five others and later deported.
The Kenyan government had previously denied he had ever visited the country, but spokesman Muthui Kariuki said there had been some confusion as he was arrested under a different name.
Islamist insurgent group al-Shabab is affiliated to al-Qaeda and is thought to have 7,000 to 9,000 fighters. It killed 76 people in a double bomb attack in Uganda as they watched the 2010 World Cup.
Mr Adebolajo, 28, and a second man, Michael Adebowale, 22, were arrested on suspicion of the murder of soldier Lee Rigby in Woolwich on Wednesday.
They remain in custody in hospital in a stable condition after being shot and wounded by police at the scene after the killing. The family of Drummer Lee Rigby, who was slain in Woolwich last week, visit the scene of his death
Three further men, aged 21, 24 and 28, were arrested in London on Saturday evening on suspicion of conspiracy to commit murder – a Taser was used on two of them.
A 29-year-old man arrested earlier on suspicion of conspiracy to murder was released on bail on Saturday.
In an update on Sunday, Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stuart Osborne said officers were examining CCTV footage, social media and forensic material as part of their investigation into Drummer Rigby’s murder.
He appealed for any associates of Mr Adebolajo and Mr Adebowale who believed they might have useful information to come forward.
Earlier on Sunday, Home Secretary Theresa May told the BBC’s Andrew Marr programme “500 officers and others” were working on the case, including counter-terrorism officers brought in from elsewhere in the country.
Senior Whitehall sources have previously confirmed to the BBC both suspects arrested at the scene of Drummer Rigby’s killing were already known to security services.
A friend of Mr Adebolajo, Abu Nusaybah, told the BBC’s Newsnight on Friday that MI5 tried to recruit Mr Adebolajo as an operative after he returned from a trip to Kenya in 2012 – a request he rejected.
When asked if there were mistakes made by the security services in dealing with this case, Mrs May said: “What we have is the right procedures which say when things like this happen we do need to look at whether there are any lessons to be learned.”
She also said a new taskforce was being set up to look at whether new powers were needed to tackle extremism. It will be chaired by the prime minister and include senior cabinet ministers and security chiefs.
Mrs May said “thousands” of people were potentially at risk of radicalisation in the UK, and the government had introduced “a new programme, which is not for those immediately at danger of radicalisation, but for those who are perhaps ‘further out’”.
Several senior politicians, including former Labour home secretaries Lord Reid and Alan Johnson, and former independent reviewer of terror laws Lib Dem peer Lord Carlile, have urged the government to revive its controversial Communications Data Bill in the wake of the Woolwich murder.
The bill would have given police and security services access, without a warrant, to details of all online communication in the UK – such as the time, duration, originator and recipient – as well all citizens’ web browsing history.
It was shelved after opposition from the Liberal Democrats, but former Conservative Party leader and home secretary Michael Howard said the Tories could form a pact with Labour to push the bill through.
Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government must “reach agreement on communications data so it doesn’t become a political football”, adding: “The challenges faced by the police with new technology should be addressed whilst protecting people’s freedoms.”

BBC

We must stop Boko Haram’s excesses at all cost – Jonathan

Federal Government will sustain the ongoing onslaught against the Islamist sect, Boko Haram, no matter what it will cost until when peace and tranquility return to the northern part of Nigeria.

President Goodlcuk Jonathan again made this declaration on Sunday while fielding questions from journalists on the sideline of the ongoing Special Summit of the African Union holding in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Jonathan said: “The excesses of Boko Haram must stop.
“That is the decision of this present government now.
“It must stop.
“Whatever it will cost the government, it must stop.
“Niger Republic had been relatively calm although they have been noticing the movement because it is a general area from Mali, Niger, Chad to Nigeria but because Nigeria is fairly big, we now said ‘no, this must stop.’
“They are now moving.
“Central Africa, North Africa, West Africa, East Africa is not also safe.
“Even in Ethiopia here, there were a lot of terrorist activities before but it is now coming down.
“Same with Somalia.
“So, it is only southern Africa that is relatively peaceful in terms of terror.
“It is a serious business.
“That it why all presidents and heads of government on this continent must come together to fight, otherwise they will create more problems, especially for countries that cannot contain them.
“Luckily, Nigeria is fairly rugged, fairly robust.
“So, we can confront it and we are confronting it now because we can no longer watch people being killed and it must stop.”
A very determined Jonathan also said that the government has the wherewithal to contain the reign of terror in the north.
He expressed delight that the emergency rule that is in place in Borno, Yobe Adamawa States was already yielding fruits.
According to him, government would tackle the insurgency in terms of immediate, medium and long term approaches, adding that as a short term measure, the military intervention was compulsory.
He added: “For the short term, of course, there must be military intervention, we must beef up security, we must change the security architecture to make sure that we detect that something is about to happen before it happens so that we will be able to stop it.
“We have stopped a number of incidents in the country.
“It is just that the few that happened affect life and whenever life is affected, you will not even think that somebody is doing anything.
“That is why recently, I even had to declare a state of emergency in three states so that we go all out to make sure that we seize these weapons.
“We must comb the whole place to seize all these weapons and so on.
“A lot of free weapons come in because of the Libya crisis.
“We must seize them.
“They are illegal weapons and must be seized and you cannot do that without declaring a state of emergency to enable the military enter any house, whether it is a residential building, it is a church, a mosque, a shrine, anywhere, hotel, anything that we suspect.
“We will be able to enter and seize these weapons.
“In the short term, it is to seize these weapons.
“That is why those three states we have the worst cases, we declared a state of emergency.
“By the time we finish combing, we would have not just stopped it there but we would have seized most of the weapons they are using.
“That is the short term.”
In the medium term, President Jonathan said priority would be given to education in the north, noting that the parts of the country where there are prevalence of Boko Haram activities have the highest rate of school dropouts.
Meanwhile, contrary to report being circulated online, President Jonathan did not go missing as at the time he was scheduled to address the AU Assembly, his Media Adviser, Reuben Abati, has said.
Abati said: “It is perfectly normal for Presidents to meet on the sidelines of any international meeting, and as the AU plenary went on, many Presidents stepped out to hold bilateral meetings and returned to the hall.
“Where they are listed to make a statement in a plenary session and as it happened in our case, the President had gone to attend a meeting on the sidelines, the minister sitting in for the President can ask for a different slot to enable his principal return to the hall to make the statement.
“Where he does not do this, he may opt to present the country’s statement. It was not only Ambassador Gbenga Ashiru who presented the country statement on behalf of their principals.
“So, as you can see, there is nothing amiss here. President Jonathan was perfectly in order. He did not abandon his duty post. He was in fact busy at work on behalf of Nigerians. I see the mischief that has suddenly erupted around this matter as a classic case of much ado about nothing.
“President Jonathan is an accomplished diplomat; under his watch, Nigeria’s relationship with other countries has continued to grow strong. We are witnessing under this administration, a truly golden and glorious moment in Nigeria’s foreign policy process, an achievement which President Jonathan cherishes.”

State of emergency: More troops arrive in Adamawa

Some 200 troops arrived in Yola, Adamawa State on Monday in continuation of the deployment of troops in the state following the declaration of a state of emergency.

President Goodluck Jonathan declared a state of emergency in the three north-eastern states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe on May 14, following prolonged insurgency by the Boko Haram Islamic group.
Addressing the troops at the headquarters of the 23 Armoured Brigade in Yola, the Brigade Commander, Brigadier General Fatai Alli, urged the soldiers to adhere to all necessary rules of engagement in their assignment.
Alli said necessary areas for deployment in the state had been identified for action and that more troops were on their way to join those on ground.
He appealed to members of the public to accord maximum support and corporation to the troops to facilitate the successful execution of their assignment.
The commander commended the support and corporation so far shown by the public in the state since the declaration of the state of emergency and urged the people to sustain the relationship.
Meanwhile, the dusk to dawn curfew imposed on the state is still being enforced.

NGF: Jonathan arm twists governors, seeks to change election process

President Goodluck Jonathan is said to be seeking to change the election process of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum in his bid to oust the Chairman of the body and Governor of Rivers State, Hon. Rotimi Amaechi.

The election into the NGF is expected to hold anytime from now.
It was learnt that the plot in the Presidency is to obtain the signatures of a minimum of 20 governors who will express their opposition to Amaechi’s continued stay as their chairman.
Sources in the Presidency said the plot is that it is this list that will be presented at the meeting of the NGF where Amaechi will be seeking re-election.
Amaechi will then be told that since majority of the governors have decided not to continue under his leadership, a new person should emerge as governor.
To achieve this agenda, a source said that Jonathan has started the compilation of names and signatures of the governors.
The governors are being forced to sign the paper, a source told The Eagle Online.
Security reports alleging massive fraud, it was learnt, have been used to whip some of the governors into line while some have been promised roles in Jonathan’s government post-2015 after they must have ended their tenures.
It was learnt that Jonathan summoned the governors of Kebbi, Yobe, Kwara and Borno States – Alhaji Usman Dakingari, Ibrahim Geidam, Abdulfatah Ahmed and Kashim Shettima – to his office after a meeting of the National Economic Council in Abuja last week.
While three of the governors – Dakingari, Geidam and Ahmed – signed the paper expressing opposition to Amaechi’s continued leadership of the NGF, Shettima vehemently refused to join the plot, it was learnt.
It was equally learnt that the Presidency has changed its mind about who to field as replacement for Amaechi.
The initial plot was to use Governor Ibrahim Shema of Katsina State.
But Shema has been dropped for Governor Isa Yuguda of Bauchi State.
A source told The Eagle Online that the number of signatures required by the Presidency is still far from the expected target.
The constitution of the NGF however makes it mandatory that election into the office of the chairman must be by voting.
A source within the NGF expressed worry over the new plot by the Presidency in the bid to oust Amaechi.
The source said: “It is quite worrisome that the President can hatch this totally illegal plot.
“What it means is that we should expect a worse scenario if President Jonathan runs in 2015.
“It then means that all illegal means, including using the police and the military to intimidate Nigerians into accepting the continuation of Jonathan in office without election, would be employed.”
None of the presidential spokespersons was available for comments on Sunday.
Governor Amaechi could also not be reached for his comments.

JTF apprehends 65 insurgents, kills 10 – DHQ

No fewer than 65 persons suspected to be members of the Islamist insurgents, Boko Haram, have been apprehended by the military Special Forces, Defence headquarters announced on Saturday.
According to the Director of Defence Information, Brigadier General Chris Olukolade, the terrorists were arrested while attempting to flee the various camps that had been raided by the military.
Olukolade said items seized from the insurgents included vehicles, tricycles and mobile handsets, adding that the suspects are now in the custody of he Joint Task Force.
Olukolade said authorities at the Defence Headquarters were so far satisfied with operation since the declaration of state of emergency in three states, enjoining “the troops to sustain the intensity of the operations”.
His statement reads: “In continuation of the mission to rid the nation’s territories of all insurgents activities, the Special Forces have apprehended 65 persons confirmed to be terrorists as they made attempt to infiltrate Maiduguri while fleeing from various camps now under attack.
“A total of 11 vehicles, 4 tricycles and 24 handsets were also seized in the process. All the suspects are in custody of Joint Task Force and are currently being interrogated.
“Meanwhile of the camps of the terrorists have been found deserted by fleeing insurgents when troops of the Special Task Force stormed the localities. The facilities have been occupied by troops.
“In another development, troops have engaged and dislodged elements of insurgents groups who carried out attacks on citizens in localities such as Gamboru ward yesterday.
“At the end of the encounter, a total of 10 suspected terrorists were confirmed dead while weapons such as Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers, assorted ammunition and rifle magazines were recovered. The area is being combed to fish out any of the surviving insurgents.
“Also, some of the fleeing insurgents from various camps have been noted to be in search of fuel from neighboring communities. Citizens are advised to report to JTF, any group of persons roaming around the local communities with large quantities of conta