by federal high court seating in lagos state yesterday affirmed the power of ICPC to investigate allegations of corrupt practices made against any person or authority in Nigeria even if the allegations arose in civil disputes trial judge justice Rilwan Aikawa handed down the decision in his ruling when he dismissed a suit by seven persons against the commission and the Attorney general of the federation challenging their investigation by ICPC during the investigation of a matter involving them and one of Nigeria notable legal practitioners
in the suit between chief Waheed Eletu .S.B .Joseph .SAN AGBOJUAJE .Mr Ashimi & 4other vs ICPC & attorney general of the federation filed by Ebun Olu Adegboruwa the claimants 4member of the Eletu family of lagos 2 lawyer & a surveyor had sued to challenge their invitation the freezing of bank account & investigation by ICPC over an alleged dispute with Chief Afe Babalola SAN on payment of professional feesof $ 10m in respect of his legal service which led to the recovery ofa vast expanse of land for the Eletu family in ibeju lekki area of lagos state at the supreme court
in the suit between chief Waheed Eletu .S.B .Joseph .SAN AGBOJUAJE .Mr Ashimi & 4other vs ICPC & attorney general of the federation filed by Ebun Olu Adegboruwa the claimants 4member of the Eletu family of lagos 2 lawyer & a surveyor had sued to challenge their invitation the freezing of bank account & investigation by ICPC over an alleged dispute with Chief Afe Babalola SAN on payment of professional feesof $ 10m in respect of his legal service which led to the recovery ofa vast expanse of land for the Eletu family in ibeju lekki area of lagos state at the supreme court
‘Igbo have so much
investment in the north. You don’t expect us to leave ‘
On June 24, 201711:27 amIn NewsComments
Okechukwu Ugo has been left in a predicament after an ultimatum was
issued for all southern Christians of Igbo heritage to leave Nigeria’s
Muslim-majority north.
“I was born in Kano,” the building materials salesman told AFP in Sabon
Gari, a Christian enclave on the edge of the country’s biggest northern
city.
“My father relocated to Kano from the east more than 60 years ago. I
don’t have any other place to call home apart from Kano.”
Since the call was made by a Muslim group, the Arewa Youth Consultative
Forum (AYCF), on June 8, the federal government in Abuja has repeatedly
called for calm.
But the notice to Igbo to leave the north by October 1 has brought to
the fore barely-concealed ethnic and religious tensions across Africa’s
most-populous nation.
In the Igbo-dominated southeast, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
movement, led by the charismatic Nnamdi Kanu, has been increasingly
saying it wants to go its own way.
Ugo, however, wants nothing to do with any of it.
“The government should end all these calls for secession in the east and
quit notice to Igbo in the north for national cohesion,” he said.
– Biafra blamed –
Rising communalism and anti-Igbo sentiment has been blamed on IPOB,
stoked by memories of 1967 when their predecessors declared an
independent republic of Biafra in the southeast.
The declaration led to a brutal 30-month civil war and more than one
million deaths, most of them Igbos, from starvation and disease.
Stanley Obiora, a 40-year-old Igbo trader in Kano, has like Ugo lived
all his life in Sabon Gari and said Kanu and his ilk don’t speak for
him.
“The northern youth said they issued the ultimatum in reaction to the
Biafra agitation which we, the Igbos in the north, are not party to,” he
added.
“We call on our elders on the east to caution our youth from making
reckless utterances that put their kinsmen in the north at the receiving
end.
“The Igbo have so much investment in the north. You don’t expect us to
leave and abandon all that we worked to build overnight.”
– North-south divide –
Nigeria is roughly evenly split between the Muslim-majority north and
the largely Christian south, but the country is made up of more than 250
ethnic groups.
The biggest is the Hausa-speaking Fulani in the north, the Yoruba in the
southwest and the Igbo in the southeast. Many have relocated for
economic reasons over the years.
The veteran Nigeria specialist Dmitri-Georges Lavroff has described the
north as “quasi-feudal and under-developed”.
Northerners feel “alien to the urbanised, commercial and industrial
south, inhabited by a willingly expansionary people.”.
They “have the impression they were economically ‘colonised’ by the Igbo
traders from the south”, he wrote in a research paper “On the path of
national unity”.
Fifty years ago, there was a massacre of Igbos in the north in
retaliation for a January 1966 military coup d’etat seen as orchestrated
predominantly by Igbo army officers.
That led to the Igbo declaration of secession.
Obiora pointed out there had been previous quit notices in the north,
adding: “I hope it all comes to pass, as previous quit notices.”
With memories long and the history of what happened next not forgotten,
the authorities are also keen to avoid a repetition at all costs.
– Unity at stake –
This week, Nigeria’s Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo met state governors
and appealed to them to calm tensions, warning that “careless
expressions… may degenerate into crisis”.
Osinbajo, deputising for President Muhammadu Buhari who has been on sick
leave since early May, said there was a need to “speak up… and ensure
that we protect our democracy”.
He added: “From all of the consultations… we agreed that Nigeria’s unity
should not be taken for granted, no-one wants to see us go down the
path of bloodshed or war.”
The AYCF made its statement in Kaduna, a powder keg of simmering ethnic
and religious tensions that has previously erupted in deadly violence.
The state’s governor, Nasir El-Rufai, was not at the meeting.
For Nigerian security specialist Don Ekereke the issue demonstrated an
increasing disconnect between politicians and the people.
“They (the politicians) seem to only care about winning elections and
their personal aggrandisements,” he told AFP.
“Now that the president is sick and not running the show, his northern
constituency is agitated and not happy.
“I think this somehow contributes to the rising tensions and explains
the political brinkmanship by untouchable Arewa youths.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/igbo-much-investment-north-dont-expect-us-leave/
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/igbo-much-investment-north-dont-expect-us-leave/
‘Igbo have so much
investment in the north. You don’t expect us to leave ‘
On June 24, 201711:27 amIn NewsComments
Okechukwu Ugo has been left in a predicament after an ultimatum was
issued for all southern Christians of Igbo heritage to leave Nigeria’s
Muslim-majority north.
“I was born in Kano,” the building materials salesman told AFP in Sabon
Gari, a Christian enclave on the edge of the country’s biggest northern
city.
“My father relocated to Kano from the east more than 60 years ago. I
don’t have any other place to call home apart from Kano.”
Since the call was made by a Muslim group, the Arewa Youth Consultative
Forum (AYCF), on June 8, the federal government in Abuja has repeatedly
called for calm.
But the notice to Igbo to leave the north by October 1 has brought to
the fore barely-concealed ethnic and religious tensions across Africa’s
most-populous nation.
In the Igbo-dominated southeast, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB)
movement, led by the charismatic Nnamdi Kanu, has been increasingly
saying it wants to go its own way.
Ugo, however, wants nothing to do with any of it.
“The government should end all these calls for secession in the east and
quit notice to Igbo in the north for national cohesion,” he said.
– Biafra blamed –
Rising communalism and anti-Igbo sentiment has been blamed on IPOB,
stoked by memories of 1967 when their predecessors declared an
independent republic of Biafra in the southeast.
The declaration led to a brutal 30-month civil war and more than one
million deaths, most of them Igbos, from starvation and disease.
Stanley Obiora, a 40-year-old Igbo trader in Kano, has like Ugo lived
all his life in Sabon Gari and said Kanu and his ilk don’t speak for
him.
“The northern youth said they issued the ultimatum in reaction to the
Biafra agitation which we, the Igbos in the north, are not party to,” he
added.
“We call on our elders on the east to caution our youth from making
reckless utterances that put their kinsmen in the north at the receiving
end.
“The Igbo have so much investment in the north. You don’t expect us to
leave and abandon all that we worked to build overnight.”
– North-south divide –
Nigeria is roughly evenly split between the Muslim-majority north and
the largely Christian south, but the country is made up of more than 250
ethnic groups.
The biggest is the Hausa-speaking Fulani in the north, the Yoruba in the
southwest and the Igbo in the southeast. Many have relocated for
economic reasons over the years.
The veteran Nigeria specialist Dmitri-Georges Lavroff has described the
north as “quasi-feudal and under-developed”.
Northerners feel “alien to the urbanised, commercial and industrial
south, inhabited by a willingly expansionary people.”.
They “have the impression they were economically ‘colonised’ by the Igbo
traders from the south”, he wrote in a research paper “On the path of
national unity”.
Fifty years ago, there was a massacre of Igbos in the north in
retaliation for a January 1966 military coup d’etat seen as orchestrated
predominantly by Igbo army officers.
That led to the Igbo declaration of secession.
Obiora pointed out there had been previous quit notices in the north,
adding: “I hope it all comes to pass, as previous quit notices.”
With memories long and the history of what happened next not forgotten,
the authorities are also keen to avoid a repetition at all costs.
– Unity at stake –
This week, Nigeria’s Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo met state governors
and appealed to them to calm tensions, warning that “careless
expressions… may degenerate into crisis”.
Osinbajo, deputising for President Muhammadu Buhari who has been on sick
leave since early May, said there was a need to “speak up… and ensure
that we protect our democracy”.
He added: “From all of the consultations… we agreed that Nigeria’s unity
should not be taken for granted, no-one wants to see us go down the
path of bloodshed or war.”
The AYCF made its statement in Kaduna, a powder keg of simmering ethnic
and religious tensions that has previously erupted in deadly violence.
The state’s governor, Nasir El-Rufai, was not at the meeting.
For Nigerian security specialist Don Ekereke the issue demonstrated an
increasing disconnect between politicians and the people.
“They (the politicians) seem to only care about winning elections and
their personal aggrandisements,” he told AFP.
“Now that the president is sick and not running the show, his northern
constituency is agitated and not happy.
“I think this somehow contributes to the rising tensions and explains
the political brinkmanship by untouchable Arewa youths.
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/igbo-much-investment-north-dont-expect-us-leave/
Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/igbo-much-investment-north-dont-expect-us-leave/
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