Today’s Headlines: FG Yet To Meet Demands—ASUU, We Are Not In Support Of APC Candidate—CAN Insists

FG Yet To Meet Demands—ASUU

The Academic Staff Union of Universities has asked Nigerians to disregard the claims of the Federal Government that it had met the demands of the union.

The ASUU Chairman, University of Ibadan, Prof. Akinwole Ayoola, said on Monday that the Federal Government’s claims were lies.

The union stated that all its chapters that started the over six-month-old strike were still part of the ongoing action and were resolute to get what public universities needed from the government to survive and compete globally.

The union also said that lecturers in Nigerian public universities had been using their blood to run public universities and sustaining it saying that the union will not sacrifice her members’ welfare and will resist any effort to turn intellectuals to slaves of irresponsible leadership.

He said, “Nigerians should disregard the lies of the Federal Government. The Federal Government is far from meeting any of the union’s seven demands.

“The union gave 14-month strike notice to Federal Government before commencing the strike in 2022. Even the effort of the Nigerian Inter-Religious council in 2021 yielded no results before the union was forced to declare the strike on February 14, 2022.

“We waited for 14 months from December 2020 to February 2022 before declaring this strike. I am saying 14 months’ notice, 14months of engagements and the Nigeria Inter-Religious council intervened in 2021 when we would have declared the strike. We gave them one month with no result. Heroes are gone before they are appreciated but our union will not die. We will not die. We are going to be alive to see this struggle through.”

Akinwole disclosed that the N1.1trillion naira for revatilisation of universities was not for lecturers in public universities. He added the amount was arrived at by Federal government through her NEEDS Assessment report on the level of decay in Nigerian public universities.

Ayoola who thanked ASUU members for sacrificing and remaining resolute to reposition public varsity education in Nigeria added that irresponsible leadership is the reason for strikes in Nigeria.

We Are Not In Support Of APC Candidate—CAN Insists

The Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) on Monday denied endorsing the Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) which has former governors, Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima.

The CAN President, Archbishop Daniel Okoh, in a statement by his spokesman, Luminous Jannamike, faulted a media report that the association had changed its position regarding the same-faith ticket.

He said the report was ridiculous, malicious, untrue and should be disregarded in its entirety by all reasonable members of the society.

He urged political parties and their candidates to put Nigeria first in their considerations and prepare to serve the people with earnestness and humility.

The statement reads in part: “For the records, CAN took a position against the same-faith ticket imbroglio under the leadership of Rev. Dr Samson Ayokunle, its immediate past national president, and as a matter of fact, His Eminence Archbishop Daniel Okoh, stands on that same position.”

“While CAN may not agree with every decision taken by politicians and political parties, it respects their right to reach conclusions on issues that affect their electoral fortunes so long as they accord with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) and the Electoral Act (2022).”

CAN said as a non-partisan body, it remained willing to partner with all leaders and other relevant stakeholders towards achieving unity, peace and progress in Nigeria.

SaharaReporters had also on September 2 reported that the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) said Northern Nigeria would not support any presidential candidate that seeks to exploit the region’s ethnic and religious diversity.

Chairman of NEF, Prof Ango Abdullahi, had also warned about a Muslim-Muslim presidential ticket but failed to mention the name of any political party.

The NEF Chairman had said, “We will participate in all political and electoral activities as equals, and concerning other Nigerians who respect us. In the North, we consider attempts to create divisions and conflicts around religion as hostile acts.

“We have paid a high price in conflicts around religion in the North, and we do not need to do more. Our insecurity and collapsing economy do not discriminate between Christians and Muslims.”

Nigeria’s Disgraced ‘Super Cop’ Abba Kyari Releases Bank Accounts, Assets Details

Suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari has said that the allegation by the National Drugs Law Enforcement Agency, linking him to the ownership of 14 assets was orchestrated by the NDLEA to further tarnish his image.

The assets listed included a shopping mall, residential estate, polo playground, lands and farmland.

This was contained in a statement issued on Monday by the former Commander, Intelligence Response Team’s lawyer, Hamza Dan Tani, stressing that the agency resorted to cheap blackmail because “NDLEA’s case in court against Abba Kyari and four others is not going well for them.”

Tani who shares the details, challenged the NDLEA to immediately release all his account statements to the public if what they are saying were true.

He explained that there were N2.8 million in his UBA account, the only account he has been using for the past eight years; 7,000 pounds in GTB kept over eight years ago and N350,000 in GTB kept many years ago.

Others were N200,000 in Sterling Bank and Access Bank Account not in use for over eight years.

Kyari’s lawyer said, “They expected the court case to go smoothly in their favour the way their sponsored media trials went viral between February to April 2022. They failed to understand that unlike media trials, courts need real evidence and facts which NDLEA don’t have in this case.

“By all means, out of desperation, again, NDLEA wanted to spoil Abba Kyari’s name at all cost because they know that all their initial efforts have failed as overwhelming majority of good Nigerians who want peace and security for the Nation are still behind Abba Kyari despite the set up by NDLEA against Abba Kyari in January 2022, which was followed by massive sponsored media trial earlier this year.

“Again, NDLEA is sponsoring fabricated lies, untrue stories, and flimsy allegations, trumped-up and false charges in court without justification against Abba Kyari.”

The said that on August 29, 2022, Justice Inyang Ekwo of a Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed a suit filed by the Attorney-General of Federation to extradite DCP Abba Kyari to America.

“On August 30, the NDLEA filed another 24 count charges against DCP Abba Kyari just to mislead the general public and tarnish his image despite the same matter being before Federal High Court in Maiduguri and without any evidence linking Abba Kyari to any of those properties or any link to any drug money, stealing government money or any proceed of any crime,” Tani said.

The lawyer insisted that all the allegations on monies and properties by NDLEA belonging to Abba Kyari were false, untrue and lies, just to mislead the public into wrongly believing that it belongs to Abba Kyari.

The statement read, “The businessmen who own those properties and gave their documents have already filed their cases against NDLEA in Federal High Court Maiduguri. The NDLEA without any evidence went and marked innocent people’s properties in Maiduguri and Abuja in April 2022 and released the news to the media which went viral.

China blames Nigerian businessmen, others for fake, substandard products

Wu Peng, director-general of the Department of African Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, has stressed the need for the rule of law to tackle issues about substandard products in Africa. Mr Wu also blamed African businesspeople for certain imported substandard and smuggled products.

Mr Wu stated this at an interactive session with African journalists under the auspices of the China Africa Press Centre (CAPC) Programme 2022, which began in June in Beijing.

“If some Chinese in Africa violate the rule of law, they must face the consequences, no doubt about it. Our Chinese government always advocates that our nationals must respect African people, respect their culture and follow the rule of law of the local country,” Mr Wu explained.

He added, “We also encourage all our Chinese nationals and companies living and working in Africa to contribute through social responsibility to their local community. Certainly, there are always some bad apples who do bad things. I condemn this kind of behaviour, but isolated cases do not represent all Chinese, just like we will count African people in China.”

The Chinese official stressed that “we cannot just consider some crime that happened in China by an African to represent Africans; the same thing applies if Chinese nationals violate the rule of law, we condemn it.”

“I think this is a commercial issue. We noticed many African businessmen go into China for procurement and do lots of shopping for stuffs and then bring them back to Africa,” Mr Wu added. “Such people even do such through the use of e-commerce to buy some stuffs back to Africa; whether these kinds of stuffs are made in China, the quality is good or not, it must reach the national standard.”

He pointed out that China has “an inspection procedure of goods exported to China.”

The Chinese official added, “Of course, I cannot deny this because sometimes the price is different. Some quality of products cannot reach the expectations of African consumers. I think China and Africa need to work together to change the situation.”

Mr Wu reiterated that the Chinese authorities “do not like it at all. Let us work together to fight against counterfeit or smuggling and such bad things.”

“We do not like it at all. We should uphold the rule of law to fight against it,” he added.

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