Television Nigerian

The Chief of Army Staff, Lt. General Tukur Buratai, has urged the Nigerian Army troops fighting insurgency in the North-Eastern part of the country not to be demoralised by the press release from the prosecutor general of the International Criminal Court.

Buratai, who is in self-isolation as part of precautions against Covid-19, assured the troop of his moral support once the he completes the mandatory isolation.

He, however, urged the troops to keep working hard and “be guided by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Rules of Engagement, the Code of Conduct and the Standing Operating Procedures for all Nigerian Army Operations.”

The Chief of Army Staff made this known in a statement issued today by the Acting Director Army Public Relations, Sagir Musa.

The Statement read in part, “The Nigerian Army’s attention has been drawn to a Press Release by the Prosecutor General of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on Friday 12 December 2020, alleging that she has found a reasonable basis to believe that “members of the Nigerian Security Forces (“NSF”)” have committed acts constituting crimes against humanity and war crimes.

“This was immediately followed by a release by the local branch of Amnesty International (AI) in Nigeria “demanding full investigation of atrocities by Nigerian forces.”

It added, “There is no doubt such statement and instigation can distract the Nigerian Army troops with its demoralising effects. It will have negative consequences on troops morale, interest in military service by Nigerians and severe setback to all our internal security operations in the country.

However, the Chief of Army Staff (COAS), Lieutenant General TY Buratai, enjoins Nigerian Army troops to ignore the distractions and call on the gallant troops never to be worried or demoralized by these moves.

The COAS who is currently in self-isolation as part of precaution against the COVID-19, would soon be joining our gallant troops in the North East at the end of the mandatory isolation period to continue giving the desired leadership and support to the gallant and patriotic troops of the Nigerian Army.”

The statement urged the troops to ignore what it described as “wicked, unnecessary distractions” and concentrate on how to decimate the Boko Haram/ISWAP terrorists group.

According to the statement the Nigerian Army has displayed professionalism in the course of doing his constitutional duties.

“The COAS wishes to assure and reiterate that the Nigerian Army is not only protecting human rights but also sustaining human rights nationally and globally.

“Our professional conduct over the years and most recently during the #ENDSARS protest at Lekki Village near Lagos are clear testimonies to the Nigerian Army’s posture on promoting sustainable human rights policy.

“The Nigerian Army wishes to advise local or international organisations not to allow themselves be used to destabilize or destroy the troops’ morale by the sponsors of mischief in Nigeria.” the statement concluded.

Kaduna State Governor Nasir El-Rufai says he has gone into isolation after his family members and senior government officials around him tested positive for coronavirus (COVID-19).

He said in a broadcast on Saturday that he would undergo COVID-19 test on Sunday.

Mr El-Rufai had in March tested positive for the virus but recovered after some weeks.

The Kaduna governor’s announcement comes after Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu said he had gone into isolation following positive COVID-19 cases recorded by persons close to him.

The Rwandan government says it will offer free Covid-19 vaccine to citizens after the country receives the vaccine next year.

Rwandan Health Minister, Daniel Ngamije broke the news in an interview with public broadcaster, Rwanda Television, on Friday.

Also, he said the first batch of the COVID-19 vaccine is expected to be received around March 2021, the News Agency of Nigeria and Xinhua reported.

He noted that the vaccination will be administered to health workers and aged citizens first.

“We will start with health personnel because they are part of people at high risk of being infected, people with comorbidity as well as elderly 65 years and above.

“These are the groups that are priority for getting the vaccine at zero cost,” Ngamije said.

The health ministry is working to ensure it is ready to receive the Covid-19 vaccine when it is rolled out.

While forecasting a good acceptance of the Covid-19 vaccine among citizens, the minister said the government was mobilising resources to increase vaccination coverage from 20 per cent to 60 per cent.

Rwanda late Friday reported 79 new COVID-19 cases and 37 fresh recoveries, bringing its national caseload to 6,428 and recoveries to 5,826, with a total of 54 deaths.

The General Overseer of the Living Faith Church Worldwide, aka Winners Chapel, Bishop David Oyedepo says the church was able to plant 10,000 churches despite the rampaging Covid-19 pandemic, without asking any member to bring an offering or tithe.

Speaking on Saturday morning at the ongoing Shiloh 2020, Oyedepo said:

“In spite of Covid-19 noise-some pestilence, we planted 10,000 churches without raising an offering. We will show the devil and his agents pepper.”

The cleric said the insinuation by many Nigerians that pastors depend on offerings and tithes for their upkeep was wrong as the Winners Chapel has been able to achieve a lot of things without the input of members.

Continuing, Oyedepo said:

“I wasn’t called to ministry. I just love serving the Lord. I have not received a salary since 1987 but the Lord has been sustaining me.

“I went on a mountain for three days fasting, praying and searching the scriptures. The first day, a snake fell in front of me; by the 3rd day, behold I heard God say to me; ‘Behold, I have touched your tongue with a coal of fire, as you say it, you see it.

“There is nothing magical in the kingdom. Everything follows God’s laid down procedures. I am not called a leader, God only pays labourers. Only labouring leaders live a profitable life, setting exemplary life for others to follow.”

The Igbos in Nigeria Movement (INM) has blamed “political” Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and groups that have showed incurable bias and sympathy for terrorist organisations for the inclusion of Nigeria in the United States’ blacklist for religious intolerance.

The group said it came to this conclusion after a thorough review of the circumstances that led to the inclusion of Nigeria.

In a statement signed by its President, Mazi Ifeanyi Igwe, the Igbo group said the U.S. was misled by the political wing of CAN and groups affiliated to terrorism.

The INM noted that the U.S’ report was extracted from NGOs and international news reports that are totally out of tune with the reality in Nigeria.

According to the group, the United States’ blacklist could ultimately incite Christians against their Muslim neighbours in parts of the country that have till date remained peaceful and free of ethno-sectarian crisis

The INM, however, that the United States discards its report listing Nigeria as a country that promotes religious persecution as it is lacking in facts while it is a product of misleading reports by the political wings of supposed religious groups.

Read the full statement below:

The Igbos in Nigeria Movement (INM) taken time to review the inclusion of Nigeria on the Special Watch List for having engaged in or tolerated severe violations of religious freedom by the States Department of the United States in its 2019 Report on International Religious Freedom: Nigeria.

The logical conclusion we arrived at upon our review is the United States was misled by the political wing of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and groups that have shown incurable bias and sympathy for terrorist organizations.

INM’s decision to make this public clarification derives from the realization that the UN report contained too many fallacies that will do long term damage to harmonious relations among the diverse ethnic nationalities in Nigeria if they are not immediately challenged, exposed as false and rejected in their entirety.

We particularly noted that the US report was largely based on the information it extracted from NGOs and international news reports that are totally out of tune with the reality in Nigeria. The NGOs and the news outlets engaged in a lot of inferences and generalization that magnified incidents in a way that fits into preconceived stereotypes they have for Nigeria.

It must be noted and documented that CAN, which the report relied heavily on for input and subsequent endorsement and marketing of its content, has in recent years metamorphosed into the NGO wing of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP). It has made it a mission to frame whatever the Federal Government of Nigeria is doing from the perspective of the ethnic and sectarian prism, which has served to sow divisions where none existed prior.

INM is concerned that the manner that the US report is promoting the concept of Muslims versus Christians will dangerously incite Christians against their Muslim neighbours in parts of the country that have till date remained peaceful and free of ethno-sectarian crisis. We further fear that the report is validating a suggestion that other ethnic groups should exterminate the Fulani from Nigeria.

We are raising this alarm because of the risks this report poses as something that will incite and inflame passion among the Igbos, first as having large Christian population and secondly as originally being from the south-east of Nigeria, in a manner that will make them take the law into their hands. This has the potential of misleading our people to commit crimes in addition to sparking off tit-for-tat reprisals that will make the whole of Nigeria a sectarian war zone.

INM, therefore, demands that the United States discards its report listing Nigeria as a country that promotes religious persecution as it is lacking in facts while it is a product of misleading reports by the political wings of supposed religious groups. The wild categorization of Nigerians as sharply divided along ethnic and sectarian lines is something that the US also has to desist from doing forthwith because experience has shown us that these concepts of identity war that is projected into the consciousness of Nigerians amount to a kind of subtle war that is meant to make Nigerians kill themselves.

The Federal Ministry of Petroleum Resources has said it spent N116m to buy stationery, specifically biros, letterhead and toners in one year.

The ministry revealed this in a report its officials sent to the Auditor General for the Federation, which was presented to the members of the Senate Public Accounts Committee on Thursday.

The breakdown of the expenditure showed that the ministry spent N14.5m to purchase Schneider biros, N46m to print the ministry’s letterhead and N56m to procure toner for its photocopy machines.

The AuGF appeared before the Mathew Urhoghide-led Senate Committee on Thursday for the scrutiny of 2015 audit report.

The committee could not hide its shock as members insisted that officials in the ministry have explanations to make.

Meanwhile, the AuGF had already issued the ministry a query.

The query by the Office of the AuGF reads, “The contract for the supply of Schneider biros worth N14.5m was split into smaller packages of less than N5m each and was awarded to four different companies in order to circumvent the permanent secretary’s approval threshold of N5m.

“Similarly, the contract for the printing of the ministry’s letterhead worth N46m was also split and awarded to 11 different contractors.

“Also, the contract for the supply of toners worth N56m was split and awarded to seven different contractors. The permanent secretary has been requested to explain this contravention of the Public Procurement Act 2007.”

The Chairman of SPAC asked the representative of the Ministry of Petroleum Resources, Godwin Akubo, to respond to the query by the AuGF.

The ministry, in its response, said, “The action of the ministry was a quick response to the needs of the various departments in the Ministry of Petroleum Resources. These awards followed normal rules and procedures.

“The contracts were not split. They were awarded to the various contractors at different times when items were needed.

“The sum of N46.6m used for printing of letterhead followed due process and the large sum of money is explained by the volume produced for most of departments.”

The chairman of the committee was, however, dissatisfied with the defence of the permanent secretary and therefore sustained the query.

He asked the committee secretariat to document the money spent and ask for the refund from the officers involved in the ministry.

President Muhammadu Buhari says the late publisher of Leadership Newspapers, Sam Nda-Isaiah “will be sorely missed”.

Nda-Isaiah died on Friday evening aged 58.

The Special Adviser to the President on Media and Publicity, Femi Adesina, in a statement titled, ‘Nda-Isaiah; He was a friend and ally, says President Buhari’ quoted the President as describing the deceased as “a friend and ally.”

Adesina said the President condoled the media fraternity, the Nda-Isaiah family, friends, and associates of the deceased.

“The country has lost a man of conviction, a resolute and dogged believer in a better Nigeria.

“He will be sorely missed. This is a massive fish gone out of the media ocean,” Buhari was further quoted as saying of the pharmacist, renowned columnist, and one-time presidential aspirant on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.

Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed, said on Friday the Federal Government has no plans to introduce new taxes or increase the current ones in 2021.

Ahmed, who disclosed this at a public hearing on the Finance Bill 2020, organised by the House of Representatives Committee on Finance, said the government was making efforts to reduce the tax burden on Nigerians.

According to her, the bill would ensure comprehensive reforms of the nation’s tax systems.

She stressed that the Finance Bill 2020 was largely about taxation and tax administration.

The minister said at least 1,740 persons representing various professional bodies, academics, development partners, civil society organisations, the private sector as well as key Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs) participated in the drafting of the bill.

Ahmed also disclosed that the draft bill was subjected to serious debate at the Federal Executive Council (FEC) and the National Economic Council (NEC) before it was transmitted to the National Assembly.

She said: “We also need to defer tax rate increases so that the domestic economy sufficiently recovers and reduce the compliance burden on taxpayers in line with the ease of doing business reforms

“The second principle is the need to reform fiscal incentives policies to help reduce the proliferation of fiscal incentives by carefully assessing the cost vs benefit of tax incentives and prioritize job creation, growth, and incentives.”

Edo State Governor, Godwin Obaseki, said on Friday, the General Overseer of the Redeemed Christian Church of God (RCCG), Pastor Enoch Adeboye, predicted his success in the last governorship election in the state.

The governor, who disclosed this during the Testimony Session at this year’s RCCG Holy Ghost Congress held at the Church’s International Headquarters along the Lagos-Ibadan Expressway, confirmed that he visited the cleric ahead of the September 19 election in Edo.

Obaseki said Adeboye told him that “he would overcome his challenges and win the election.”

He said: “When it looked impossible and when men rose, He (God) came out to say that He is God and only He has the power.

“About the time when the crisis started a year ago, I came to the (RCCG) camp with my wife and met Daddy G.O.”

“After I explained the challenges, Daddy G.O simply said ‘My son, it is well. Don’t be afraid, you will overcome and you will win.

“A few months before the election, I came again to see him and he prayed for me and he said, ‘It will be well.’”

Obaseki told the congregation that with God all things are possible and encouraged them to hold on to God in the face of life vicissitudes.

The governor switched to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in July after he was disqualified from the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primaries over alleged discrepancies in his certificates.

Obaseki was re-elected for another term of four years after he defeated the APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, in the election.

He was sworn in for the second term last month.

Obaseki was first elected the Edo State governor in 2016 when he also defeated Ize-Iyamu who contested the election on the PDP platform.