Friday, September 27, 2019
Video - Nigeria to scale up capacity for China-assisted Kaduna railway line
Speaking of China-Africa cooperation, Nigeria is set to increase capacity of its China- Assisted railway service along the 186.5 KM Abuja - Kaduna Rail line. 16 additional coaches and 10 locomotives are expected in by the end of the year -- to add to the existing ones.This is spurred by rising demand in the service. As Kelechi Emekalam reports, Many more passengers are opting for rail transportation for reasons of safety and comfort.
Boko Haram camp destroyed in Nigeria by airstrikes
Airstrikes by the Nigerian military have destroyed a logistics base of terror group Boko Haram during a raid in the northeast region, defense authorities said on Thursday.
The logistics base also served as a training camp for the terrorists at a community called Kusuma on the fringes of Lake Chad.
The airstrikes on Wednesday were executed after credible intelligence reports had established that a section of the settlement was serving as a training camp for the terrorists, Ibikunle Daramola, the spokesman for the air force, said in a statement made available to Xinhua.
"Some buildings within the camp were being used to store their fuel, arms, and ammunition as well as other logistics supplies," Daramola said.
During pre-attack surveillance, the air force spokesman said, scores of Boko Haram fighters were seen attempting to flee the location upon hearing the sound of the attack aircraft.
"They were engaged by the attack aircraft in successive passes, neutralizing many of them," he said.
According to him, the terrorists' logistics supply store, which was also hit, was seen engulfed in flames due to the raid.
The air force said while operating in concert with surface forces, it would sustain its efforts to completely destroy all remnants of the terrorists in the troubled northeast region.
Boko Haram has been blamed for the death of more than 20,000 people and displacing of 2.3 million others in Nigeria since 2009.
Xinhua
The logistics base also served as a training camp for the terrorists at a community called Kusuma on the fringes of Lake Chad.
The airstrikes on Wednesday were executed after credible intelligence reports had established that a section of the settlement was serving as a training camp for the terrorists, Ibikunle Daramola, the spokesman for the air force, said in a statement made available to Xinhua.
"Some buildings within the camp were being used to store their fuel, arms, and ammunition as well as other logistics supplies," Daramola said.
During pre-attack surveillance, the air force spokesman said, scores of Boko Haram fighters were seen attempting to flee the location upon hearing the sound of the attack aircraft.
"They were engaged by the attack aircraft in successive passes, neutralizing many of them," he said.
According to him, the terrorists' logistics supply store, which was also hit, was seen engulfed in flames due to the raid.
The air force said while operating in concert with surface forces, it would sustain its efforts to completely destroy all remnants of the terrorists in the troubled northeast region.
Boko Haram has been blamed for the death of more than 20,000 people and displacing of 2.3 million others in Nigeria since 2009.
Xinhua
UK judge grants Nigeria appeal of $9bn asset forfeiture ruling
A British judge on Thursday gave Nigeria permission to seek to overturn a ruling that would have allowed a private firm to try to seize more than $9bn in assets from the West African country.
Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), a firm set up to carry out a gas project with Nigeria, won a $6.6bn arbitration award after the deal collapsed. The award has been accruing interest since 2013 and is now worth more than $9bn.
P&ID, established by two Irish nationals with little experience in the oil and gas sector, said on Thursday that interest was accruing at a rate of $1.2m a day.
The judge also granted Nigeria's request for a stay on any asset seizures while its legal challenge is pending, but ordered it to pay $200m to the court within 60 days to ensure the stay. It also must pay some court costs to P&ID within 14 days.
The original August 16 decision converted an arbitration award held by P&ID to a legal judgment, which would allow the British Virgin Islands-based firm to try to seize international assets.
Nigeria's appeal of this decision, called a "set aside", would need to prove there was an error in that ruling.
During Thursday's proceedings, lawyers representing Nigeria said the judgment was flawed primarily due to its acceptance that England was the proper seat of the arbitration.
Harry Matovu argued on behalf of Nigeria that the courts, not the arbitration tribunal, should determine this and that the award itself was "manifestly excessive".
"We look forward to challenging the UK Commercial Court's recognition of the tribunal's decision in the UK Court of Appeal, uncovering P&ID's outrageous approach for what it is: a sham based on fraudulent and criminal activity developed to profit from a developing country," Nigerian attorney general Abubakar Malami said.
P&ID welcomed the requirement that Nigeria place $200m on hold pending the appeal, which it said will force the nation "to put its money where its mouth is if it wants to avoid immediate seizure of assets". It also called fraud allegations a "red herring".
"The Nigerian government knows there was no fraud and the allegations are merely political theatre designed to deflect attention from its own shortcomings," it said in a statement.
The judge's order said that if Nigeria does not put the $200m into a court account within 60 days - the minimum amount of time that Matovu said it would take Nigeria to raise the funds by tapping capital markets or seeking internal sources - the stay on seizures would be lifted.
The case has electrified Nigeria and drawn condemnation at every level of government. In a speech at the United Nations this week, President Muhammadu Buhari said he would fight "the P&ID scam attempting to cheat Nigeria of billions of dollars".
At the court on Thursday, a dozen senior government officials huddled during a break, discussing how much money Nigeria could place in court accounts to secure a hold on asset seizures.
Last week, Nigeria's anti-graft agency charged one former petroleum ministry official with accepting bribes and failing to follow protocol related to the contract, while two Nigerian men linked to P&ID pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and tax evasion on behalf of the company.
P&ID has called the investigation in Nigeria a "sham" that denied its subjects due process.
Al Jazeera
Related story: Nigeria defends currency reserves inspite $9bn UK court ruling
Process & Industrial Developments (P&ID), a firm set up to carry out a gas project with Nigeria, won a $6.6bn arbitration award after the deal collapsed. The award has been accruing interest since 2013 and is now worth more than $9bn.
P&ID, established by two Irish nationals with little experience in the oil and gas sector, said on Thursday that interest was accruing at a rate of $1.2m a day.
The judge also granted Nigeria's request for a stay on any asset seizures while its legal challenge is pending, but ordered it to pay $200m to the court within 60 days to ensure the stay. It also must pay some court costs to P&ID within 14 days.
The original August 16 decision converted an arbitration award held by P&ID to a legal judgment, which would allow the British Virgin Islands-based firm to try to seize international assets.
Nigeria's appeal of this decision, called a "set aside", would need to prove there was an error in that ruling.
During Thursday's proceedings, lawyers representing Nigeria said the judgment was flawed primarily due to its acceptance that England was the proper seat of the arbitration.
Harry Matovu argued on behalf of Nigeria that the courts, not the arbitration tribunal, should determine this and that the award itself was "manifestly excessive".
"We look forward to challenging the UK Commercial Court's recognition of the tribunal's decision in the UK Court of Appeal, uncovering P&ID's outrageous approach for what it is: a sham based on fraudulent and criminal activity developed to profit from a developing country," Nigerian attorney general Abubakar Malami said.
P&ID welcomed the requirement that Nigeria place $200m on hold pending the appeal, which it said will force the nation "to put its money where its mouth is if it wants to avoid immediate seizure of assets". It also called fraud allegations a "red herring".
"The Nigerian government knows there was no fraud and the allegations are merely political theatre designed to deflect attention from its own shortcomings," it said in a statement.
The judge's order said that if Nigeria does not put the $200m into a court account within 60 days - the minimum amount of time that Matovu said it would take Nigeria to raise the funds by tapping capital markets or seeking internal sources - the stay on seizures would be lifted.
The case has electrified Nigeria and drawn condemnation at every level of government. In a speech at the United Nations this week, President Muhammadu Buhari said he would fight "the P&ID scam attempting to cheat Nigeria of billions of dollars".
At the court on Thursday, a dozen senior government officials huddled during a break, discussing how much money Nigeria could place in court accounts to secure a hold on asset seizures.
Last week, Nigeria's anti-graft agency charged one former petroleum ministry official with accepting bribes and failing to follow protocol related to the contract, while two Nigerian men linked to P&ID pleaded guilty to charges of fraud and tax evasion on behalf of the company.
P&ID has called the investigation in Nigeria a "sham" that denied its subjects due process.
Al Jazeera
Related story: Nigeria defends currency reserves inspite $9bn UK court ruling
Hundreds freed from torture house in Nigeria
Nigerian police say they have rescued nearly 500 people from a building in the northern city of Kaduna where they were detained and allegedly tortured.
Those held were all men and boys - some were found chained up.
Kaduna state's police chief Ali Janga told the BBC the large house was raided following a tip-off about suspicious activity.
He said it was a "house of torture" and described it as a case involving human slavery.
The detainees, not all Nigerian, said they had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving - in some cases for several years.
It is not clear how they got there. Some of the children told the police that their relatives had taken them there believing the building to be a Koranic school.
But the police say there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the building was ever a school.
Eight suspects have been arrested.
The police chief said the detainees - some with injuries and starved of food - were overjoyed to be freed.
They were taken to a stadium in Kaduna overnight to be cared for while arrangements are made to find their families.
Nigerian authorities say the nearly 500 freed captives will be given medical and psychological examinations.
BBC
Those held were all men and boys - some were found chained up.
Kaduna state's police chief Ali Janga told the BBC the large house was raided following a tip-off about suspicious activity.
He said it was a "house of torture" and described it as a case involving human slavery.
The detainees, not all Nigerian, said they had been tortured, sexually abused, starved and prevented from leaving - in some cases for several years.
It is not clear how they got there. Some of the children told the police that their relatives had taken them there believing the building to be a Koranic school.
But the police say there is no concrete evidence to suggest that the building was ever a school.
Eight suspects have been arrested.
The police chief said the detainees - some with injuries and starved of food - were overjoyed to be freed.
They were taken to a stadium in Kaduna overnight to be cared for while arrangements are made to find their families.
Nigerian authorities say the nearly 500 freed captives will be given medical and psychological examinations.
BBC
Thursday, September 26, 2019
Man confesses to serial murders of 15 women in Nigeria
A suspect has confessed to murdering 15 women after luring them into budget hotel rooms in Nigeria, potentially ending a killing spree that has terrorised the country’s oil capital, Port Harcourt.
Gracious David-West, believed to be 39 and unemployed, said that “an irresistible urge to kill” had repeatedly driven him onto the streets in search of female victims over the past two months.
“I take a girl into a hotel, we eat, make love and sleep,” he told a press conference in Port Harcourt, where he was arrested last week. “Later I wake up in the middle of the night and put a kitchen knife to her neck ordering her not to shout.”
After turning up the volume on the television, Mr David-West said he would tie his victims up with strips torn from the pillow-case on his bed before strangling them.
“I don’t know what comes over me to kill,” he added. “After I have killed I feel remorse and cry but after that the irresistible urge to kill comes over me again.”
At least nine of the victims were killed in Port Harcourt, including three murdered over a single weekend earlier this month.
The killings prompted widespread anger in the city, which mounted after the regional police chief, Mustapha Dandaura, suggested that the women were partly responsible for their deaths, saying, “I don’t know why people will be sleeping with people they don’t know.”
He also suggested that some of the victims were prostitutes.
Women’s groups marched through the city holding banners reading, “Respect women, don’t kill them.”
The regional government apologised for appearing to blame the dead women.
“A lot of the victims might have been careless, but it would be wrong to address them as prostitutes,” it said in a statement.
Police will hope Mr David-West’s confession will bring an end to the killings. However, it is unclear if he acted alone after he admitted to being an affiliate of one of Nigeria’s most notorious university fraternities.
The suspect said he used to be a member of Deebham, the street-wing of the Klansmen Konfraternity at the University of Calabar.
University fraternities in Nigeria have long been linked to voodoo, violent crime and even murder. Some created street gangs in order to compete for territory outside campuses.
Deebham, whose members are not generally students, has been linked to the kidnapping of expatriate oil workers and rich Nigerians.
It has no record, however, of killing and raping women and Mr David-West insisted that he had not acted on behalf of the group.
"I kill alone," he said.
The Telegraph
Gracious David-West, believed to be 39 and unemployed, said that “an irresistible urge to kill” had repeatedly driven him onto the streets in search of female victims over the past two months.
“I take a girl into a hotel, we eat, make love and sleep,” he told a press conference in Port Harcourt, where he was arrested last week. “Later I wake up in the middle of the night and put a kitchen knife to her neck ordering her not to shout.”
After turning up the volume on the television, Mr David-West said he would tie his victims up with strips torn from the pillow-case on his bed before strangling them.
“I don’t know what comes over me to kill,” he added. “After I have killed I feel remorse and cry but after that the irresistible urge to kill comes over me again.”
At least nine of the victims were killed in Port Harcourt, including three murdered over a single weekend earlier this month.
The killings prompted widespread anger in the city, which mounted after the regional police chief, Mustapha Dandaura, suggested that the women were partly responsible for their deaths, saying, “I don’t know why people will be sleeping with people they don’t know.”
He also suggested that some of the victims were prostitutes.
Women’s groups marched through the city holding banners reading, “Respect women, don’t kill them.”
The regional government apologised for appearing to blame the dead women.
“A lot of the victims might have been careless, but it would be wrong to address them as prostitutes,” it said in a statement.
Police will hope Mr David-West’s confession will bring an end to the killings. However, it is unclear if he acted alone after he admitted to being an affiliate of one of Nigeria’s most notorious university fraternities.
The suspect said he used to be a member of Deebham, the street-wing of the Klansmen Konfraternity at the University of Calabar.
University fraternities in Nigeria have long been linked to voodoo, violent crime and even murder. Some created street gangs in order to compete for territory outside campuses.
Deebham, whose members are not generally students, has been linked to the kidnapping of expatriate oil workers and rich Nigerians.
It has no record, however, of killing and raping women and Mr David-West insisted that he had not acted on behalf of the group.
"I kill alone," he said.
The Telegraph
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)