Nigeria Football Association election chief arrested

A vote to choose the new president and executive committee of Nigeria's troubled football association was delayed on Tuesday after the apparent arrest of the election chief, witnesses said.

The uncertainty over Samson Ebomhe's whereabouts is the latest in a series of scandals to hit the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF), which could face an eight-month FIFA ban if the vote does not take place.

The 44-member NFF congress was scheduled to meet in the southern city of Warri with voting to elect a new leader set to begin at 10:00 am (0900 GMT).
But one delegate, speaking on condition of anonymity, told AFP that Ebomhe, the election chairman, "has not been seen since this morning and so the elections cannot begin".

Multiple witnesses said Ebomhe had been seized in his hotel room by officers from Nigeria's main intelligence agency, the Department of State Services (DSS).

The DSS and police could not immediately be reached for comment.The NFF has been plagued by controversy since the end of the World Cup.

Outgoing NFF President Aminu Maigari was arrested by security agents when he arrived back from Brazil in July and was later impeached by some of his executive committee members on corruption charges.

FIFA then imposed an international ban on the grounds of political interference after a court sacked the NFF high command and the sports minister imposed a civil servant to take temporary charge.
The ban was lifted after nine days and Maigari was reinstated because his dismissal did not follow laid-down procedures.

But in August, the secret police detained him again, preventing him from attending an executive committee meeting where the owner of Nigeria Premier League side Giwa FC, Chris Giwa, took charge.

That prompted Nigerian referees, clubs and players to boycott the domestic leagues and FIFA to threaten to again suspend the African champions if Maigari were not reinstated and fresh elections held.

Football's world governing body has warned that any further breaches of election procedure will see Nigeria banned from international competition until its own annual congress next May.

Maigari has ruled himself out of the election, with businessman Shehu Dikko, who helped arrange a tour by Manchester United in 2008, tipped as the front-runner.
Former NFF general-secretary Taiwo Ogunjobi and Delta FC chairman Amaju Pinnick are seen as his main rivals.

AFP

Evangelist T.B. Joshua to be sued for building collapse that left 115 dead in Lagos, Nigeria

 Two South Africans who lost relatives when a church hostel in Lagos collapsed have told the BBC they intend to sue Nigerian evangelist TB Joshua.

The two men, who both lost sisters in the collapse, are appealing for more families to come together in bringing a case against the preacher.

At least 115 people, including 84 South Africans, died when the multi-storey building fell down earlier this month.

The authorities say it had more floors than its foundation could hold.

'No news'
On Sunday, Mr Joshua, who is one of Nigeria's best-known evangelists and is popular across Africa, announced plans to travel to South Africa to visit the families of the deceased.

Emergency workers allege they were prevented from participating in the rescue, only gaining full access to the site on Sunday afternoon - accusations denied by Pastor Joshua's Synagogue, Church of All Nations (SCOAN).

Thanduxolo Doro and Mpho Molebatsi waited at Johannesburg's OR Tambo airport for days after the collapse for news of their sisters, who had been visiting SCOAN.

Both families had last heard from their relatives hours before the collapse, which happened at about 13:50 local time (12.50 GMT) on Friday 12 September.

"It is not that the building collapsed, rather what was done after the collapse - we didn't get any news from the church," Mr Doro, whose sister Vathiswa Madikiza died, told the BBC.

"When I contacted them they wouldn't tell me anything. We saw reports that emergency workers were denied access initially, access that could have saved lives. The actions of the church after the incident are very telling," he said.

In an open letter published in South Africa's Star newspaper, Mr Doro called on more families to sue Mr Joshua.

"I need to do this for her. Even if I stand alone, I am determined to see that something is done," he told the BBC.

"I understand that some families are afraid to take on someone who purports to be God's messenger and I don't blame them but I will do this."

Mr Doro says he was informed by South African officials about his sister's death this week, but has to wait for the results of DNA tests before her body can be repatriated for burial.

He told the BBC that he had spoken to two families who were eager to join him in suing Mr Joshua, but no concrete plans had been made.

He has not been in contact with Mr Molebatsi, whose sister Hlubi Molebatsi was also killed.

Mr Molebatsi says he has contacted his lawyers.

"I have spoken to other families but it has been difficult because this is a time of mourning. I would like to see families get something from the church as some of the people who died were breadwinners," he told the BBC.

Some 25 survivors of the collapse are continuing to receive medical care following their return to South Africa.

Officials say 16 of the wounded are in critical condition, with some having had limbs amputated and other complications.

BBC

Related stories: Prophet T.B. Joshua under fire for building collapse in Lagos, Nigeria

 Nigeria's Pastors 'As Rich As Oil Barons'

Armed men attack College in Kano, Nigeria - 15 dead

Gunmen stormed a higher education college in northern Nigeria on Wednesday, firing on fleeing students and setting off an explosion in an attack that killed at least 15 people and wounded 35, police said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack in the region’s main city of Kano, but the Islamist militant group Boko Haram, which has repeatedly targeted civilians in the north, is likely to be a prime suspect.

A police spokesman added that officers arrived on the scene and killed two of the attackers.
“We heard several shots from the gate area and after a few minutes we heard an explosion at the theater,” said Sansei Omar, who lectures in English at the federal government college and watched the attack from a neighboring building.

“The attackers were wearing suits and were running and shooting everywhere.”

Insurgents from Boko Haram, whose name means “Western education is forbidden”, are fighting to carve out an Islamic state in Nigeria.

Western-style schools are a prime target for their attacks, which include several secondary school massacres and the abduction of 200 school girls in April from the village of Chibouk.

Daily Times

One of the kidnapped schoolgirls found by police in Adamawa, Nigeria

One of more than 200 schoolgirls abducted by Islamist Boko Haram rebels in the northeastern Nigerian village of Chibok was freed this week, police and a parent of some of the other missing girls said on Thursday.

Boko Haram militants took the girls from a secondary school in the village near the Cameroon border in April, sparking a worldwide outcry, and have remained in captivity ever since.

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has been pilloried at home and abroad for his slow response to the kidnapping and for his inability to quell the violence by the Islamist militants, seen as the biggest security threat to Africa's top economy.

"She was found running in a village. She was in the bush for about four days. She's still receiving medical attention," said a parent, who has two girls still with the insurgents and who declined to be named.

He added that she was now in the northeastern city of Yola.

Police spokesman Emmanuel Ojukwu told reporters in Abuja that the 20-year-old woman was discovered on Wednesday, saying she had been "dropped off by suspected Boko Haram militants" at Mubi in Adamawa state, some 100 km (60 miles) from Chibok.

"Her condition is stable," he said, without explaining why she might have been released.

The Islamists offered last May a prisoner swap to release the girls, but the proposal was rejected by the government.

A military operation in the northeast has so far failed to quell the rebellion and has triggered reprisal attacks that are increasingly targeting civilians, after they formed vigilante groups to try to help the government flush out the militants.

Boko Haram militants on motorcycles killed at least 18 people in an attack on the northeast Nigerian town of Shaffa late on Wednesday, witnesses said on Thursday.

The attack late on Wednesday left bodies in the street, witness Amos Mshelia, who escaped by running into the surrounding bush and on to the nearby town of Biu, told Reuters by telephone.

"People ran out of their houses in fear, but unknown to many of us the insurgents were nearby and they were pursuing people, shooting as we were fleeing," he said.

Boko Haram has seized several towns in the last two months, although the military said on Wednesday it had pushed them back and that 135 fighters had surrendered this week.

It also said Nigerian troops had killed a man posing as Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in several videos, including one in which he threatened to sell the girls into slavery. The military said last year that Shekau himself might have been killed.

Boko Haram gunmen carried away some 270 girls and women, aged from 13 to over 20, when they raided the Chibok school. More than 50 eventually escaped, but at least 200 remain in captivity, as do scores of other girls kidnapped previously.

Reuters

Related stories: Nigerian military backtracks on statement of rescuing kidnapped schoolgirls

Hundreds of Boko Haram members surrender

Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar says corruption worse under President Goodluck Jonathan

 A former Vice-President, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, has formally declared his intention to contest the 2015 Presidential election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress.

Abubakar, at a ceremony held at the Yar’Adua Centre in Abuja on Wednesday, explained that his desire to become President was born out of the need to give back to the nation.

Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha and the Publisher of Leadership, Sam Nda-Isaiah, had also declared interest in the APC presidential ticket. A former Head of State and National Leader of the APC, Maj. Gen. Muhammadu Buhari (retd.); Edo State Governor, Adams Oshiomhole, and Governor of Kano State, Rabiu Kwankwaso, have been reported to also have interest in the ticket.

A confident Abubakar told his supporters during the ceremony that he had the capacity to bring people together and turn things around for the better in the country.

He pointed out that the glaring mismatch between “our potential and our achievements provides a golden opportunity” for him to lead Nigerians to rekindle their innovative instinct and turn the Nigerian dream into a reality.

He explained that in spite of many challenges faced by Nigerians, they had refused to give up on the country.

The former Vice-President said the 2015 elections were about Nigerian youths and the nation’s future.

He stressed that the nation, under the current administration, had failed to provide the required environment for the youth to reach their full potential.

The former vice-president said, “It is inspiring that amidst difficulties and growing anxiety over the future of our country, our people have refused to succumb to despair and hopelessness.

“This never-say-die attitude gives me immense hope and it is one of the reasons why I can never give up on Nigeria.”

Reacting to the agitation for generational shift, he said his generation owed younger Nigerians the responsibility of offering its political shoulders to them to climb upon.

This, he said, was necessary to improve their vision and expand their horizon.

He noted that it was this trans-generational collaboration and partnership that represented the best model to create the future that the nation desired and deserved.

Nigeria, he said, should never again be subjected to leadership experimentation or learning on the job.

He recalled that the Olusegun Obasanjo administration which he was a part of successfully reformed some critical sectors of the economy such as telecommunications and the capital market.

Abubakar said, “As Vice-President from 1999 to 2007, I worked closely with my boss, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, who is a passionate defender of Nigerian unity.

“We focused on macro-economic stability and transforming critical areas such as banking, insurance, oil and gas, telecommunications, pension and the civil service.

“We created institutions that should lay the foundation for good governance and accountability such as the Bureau of Public Procurement, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, SERVICOM, whose golden rule is ‘Serve others as you would like to be served.’ Sadly, most of these institutions are now mere shadows of themselves.”

He said the Obasanjo administration was able to deliver because it had vision, commitment and dedication .

The former Vice-President expressed sadness that rather than pay down the nation’s debts, “our borrowing has been on the increase even at a time the price of oil has consistently been above $100 per barrel since the inception of the Goodluck Jonathan administration.’’

He argued that resentment, disillusionment and hopelessness were the factors on which insecurity and disharmony thrived.

Nigeria, he said, was more divided today than at any other time since the civil war, adding that there was a disturbing rise in ethnic nationalism and religious bigotry because “we have a governance deficit.”

The aspirant said, “Our country seems to be on auto pilot with no one in charge. Nigeria now more than ever before, needs a strong, dynamic, decisive, competent and visionary leadership that can halt the current drift of the ship of state. Corruption needs to be fought, jobs need to be created, our infrastructure needs to be rebuilt, social services need to be provided and insecurity needs to be tackled in a decisive, robust and multi-pronged way.”

While commending the leadership of the APC for adopting the modified open primaries in selecting its flag bearers at all levels, Abubakar said the party remained the most potent political force to end years of PDP’s dominance of the political space.

The leader of the National Assembly caucus of the APC, Senator George Akume, who spoke on behalf of other party leaders at the event, said the APC has within its ranks, the men and women who have what it takes to rebuild Nigeria.

Five politicians, lawyers ask court to stop Jonathan

Meanwhile, three politicians and two lawyers have separately asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to stop Jonathan and Vice-President Namadi Sambo from re-contesting in 2015.

The plaintiffs argued in their suits that by the virtue of constitutional provisions, the President and the Vice-President, had previously been elected for one single term of four years.

Two politicians – Adejumo Ajagbe and Olatoye Wahab – filed the first suit while two lawyers and another politician filed the second on September 19 .

The lawyers are Mase Acho and Saeeq Sarki. The third is Murtala Abubakar.

Ajagbe, who claimed to be a member of the PDP in Lagos State, and Wahab, a member of the APC in Ogun State, said they were presidential aspirants whose interest would be jeopardised if Jonathan and Sambo were not barred.

The two plaintiffs, who engaged the services of four Senior Advocates of Nigeria, joined the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the Federation as defendants.

The SANs are James Ocholi, A. J. Owonikoko, Okon Efut and Mahmud Magaji.

The suit marked, FHC/ABJ/CS/662/2014, was assigned to Justice Ahmed Mohammed but the two defendants have yet to respond to it.

The plaintiffs argued that by virtue of the oaths taken by Jonathan and Sambo following the death of President Umaru Yar’adua in 2010 and their subsequent re-election in 2011, both of them were deemed to have completed the two terms allowed by law.

Their statement of claim read in part, “That being so, the reference to ‘two previous elections’ in Section 137(1)(b) of the Constitution includes two previous oath of allegiance and oath of office as President.

“It is therefore safe to conclude that a Vice President, who had taken the oath of allegiance and oath of office for two previous terms as President is, in law, deemed to have been elected into the office of President at two previous elections, thereby standing disqualified to contest another election into that office.”

They raised five questions for the court’s determination and sought seven reliefs, including an order of perpetual injunction, restraining the AGF and INEC from accepting as candidate in the 2015 presidential election, anybody caught by “two-previous election limit and eight-year term limit.”

PUNCH