TOP NEWS STORIES IN NIGERIA TODAY![24/03/2016]

Hello readers, Inside this post you will find trending important news in Nigeria today, you will find news that are of concern to Politics,Entertainment Economics,Locals and more…


                 TOP NEWS IN NIGERIA TODAY

=>BREAKING: Boko Haram finally surrenders (video)
https://i.onthe.io/vllkyt2e9m90o82tpg.r800x600.ff7bcfe2.jpg
CLICK HERE WATCH VIDEO
Emerging reports suggest that Boko Haram has finally surrendered to the superior power of Nigeria. A video by the Leadership, shows the kingpin, Abubakar Shekau who was rumoured to have been killed, advising his followers to “surrender to save themselves”. Shekau in the video below appeared to have surrendered to constant bombardments by the Nigerian army troops. See the original of the post below. More details shortly. Trending: Boko Haram kingpin, Abubakar Shekau surrenders..Trending: Boko Haram kingpin, Abubakar Shekau who was rumoured to have been killed surface in new video advising his followers to “surrender to save themselves.”Shekau here appears to have surrendered to constant bombardments by the Nigerian Army troops. Posted by Leadership Newspapers on Wednesday, 23 March 2016
SOURCE

=> Fuel Scarcity Will Persist Till May–kachikwu-Vanguard
By Levinus Nwabughiogu
ABUJA – At a time when Nigerians were expecting respite from the pangs of the lingering fuel scarcity in the country, the Minister of State for Petroleum, Mr. Ibe Kachikwu has apparently dashed their hopes, stating that the current queues at gas stations would persist till late May.
The minister who doubles as the Group Managing Director, GMD of the Nigerian National Petroleum Cooperation, NNPC added that he was not a magician to make the queues disappear overnight.
According to him, it was even a “magic” that the stations were still getting volume of products they dispense to the public, judging from the prevailing circumstances at NNPC.

The Minister also revealed NNPC’s import rates have moved form 50 percent to all- time 100 percent, saying that the 445 barrels allocated to crude swap now service 50 to 55 percent importation of refined product.
But giving a glimpse of hope on how to achieve lasting solution to the product scarcity, Kachikwu stated that government was working to beef up the reserves.

He stated that the when the refineries come on full stream, locally refined products would be left unsold in the reservoir to boost supply and availability of the products.
The minister was fielding questions with the State House Correspondents after leading officials of Nigeria Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas (NUPENG) and Petroleum and Natural Gas‎ Senior Staff Association of Nigeria (PENGASSAN) to a meeting with president Mohammadu Buhari at the presidential villa, Abuja on Wednesday on when the queues at the gas stations would disappear.
He said: “One of the trainings I did not receive is that of a magician but I am working very hard to ensure some of these issues go away‎. And let’s be honest, for the five, six months we have been here, NNPC has moved from a 50 percent importer of products to basically a 100 percent importer. And the 445 barrels that were allocated was to cover between 50 and 55 percent importation.
“So, it is quite frankly sheer magic that we even have the amount of products at the stations. We are looking to see how to get foreign exchange imput. The president and I discussed extensively on how to get more crude directed at importation. His excellency will rather have less crude but have individuals in the society suffer less with inconveniences than have more crude and have them continue to suffer.
READ FULL NEWS

=> Senate Reduces 2016 Budget By N17bn

The Senate, on Wednesday, passed the 2016 Appropriation Bill and reduced the budget size from the initial N6.077trn presented to the federal parliament by President Muhammadu Buhari on December 23, 2015, to N6.060trn, a difference of N17bn.
The federal lawmakers approved the N1.587trn as the capital expenditure portion of the budget and the recurrent expenditure of N2.646.3trn.

They also approved N351.37bn as Statutory transfers, N1.475.3trn for Debt Service, and N2.2trn for Fiscal deficit.
The federal parliamentarians also adopted the oil benchmark of $38; Crude production of 2.2000m barrel per day and the exchange rate of N197 to $1 for the implementation of the budget.

Explaining how the difference of N17bn was identified, Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation, Senator Danjuma Goje, admitted that the 2016 budget proposal contained a number of errors of omissions, particularly in the area of personnel cost.
He said his committee therefore filled some of the gaps would could still raise serious concerns in the course of the year because there were many outstanding cases.
Senate President, Bukola Saraki, explained after the formal passage of the appropriation bill that his colleagues had done his part and requested the president to do the needful by signing it to law for immediate implementation.
READ FULL NEWS

 =>Nigeria Police 2016 Recruitment Of 10,000 Personnel

The Police Service Commission (PSC) has warned that there would be no short-cut into the Nigeria Police Force in the recruitment of 10,000 personnel.
President Muhammadu Buhari had in 2015 approved the recruitment of 10,000 policemen at the National Security Summit in Abuja.
In a statement Wednesday, Ikechukwu Ani, Head, Press and Public Relations of the commission, told journalists that Mike Okiro, Chairman of the commission, gave the warning while unveiling a portal for the exercise in Abuja.
The statement said that the portal would be opened to the public on April 1 to herald the commencement of the exercise.
“The process leading to the recruitment of 10,000 Policemen as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari at the National Security Summit in Abuja last year, has commenced,” the statement said.
It said the unveiling of the portal was in actualisation of the presidential directive on the recruitment of the 10,000 Policemen.
The statement noted that the exercise was remarkable because there had not been recruitment into the Nigeria Police Force for more than five years.

It said that thousands of policemen who died in the course of service, dismissed or retired, had not been replaced since the last five years.
The statement stressed that the recruitment would strengthen and re-energise the force to tackle more security challenges facing the country.
It explained that the exercise could not begin last year because the funding was not captured in the 2015 budget.
The statement urged interested applicants to access the portal through the commission’s website: www.psc.gov.ng or that of the Nigeria Police Force: www.npf.gov.ng.
It said that no fee would be charged for the processing of the forms which would be filled on-line.
“We are not charging money. It is free, absolutely free,” it said.
The statement said that the exercise would be in three entry points of Constable, Cadet Inspector and Cadet ASP, while there would also be recruitment into the Specialist cadre.
It said that applicants for Police Constables are expected to possess five credits including Mathematics and English Language at Senior School Certificate Examination in not more than two sittings.
It said that for Cadet Inspectors, in addition to having the requirements of Police Constables, candidates would be expected to have an Ordinary National Diploma (OND), Advanced Level (A level), National Certificate in Education (NCE) or their equivalents.
The statement said Candidates for Cadet ASP must possess a University degree or a Higher National Diploma (HND).
READ FULL NEWS

=>Magistrate Arrests Woman Who Scratched Her Car, Then Sent Her To Prison (Pic)

A traffic dispute between a mother of three, Mrs. Yetunde Osijo, and a magistrate, Funke Sule-Hamzat, which occurred in Oworonsoki area of Lagos, led to Osijo’s arraignment and subsequent detention in Kirikiri prison.

Meanwhile, Vanguard learned that ‘the accused’ was released last night from Kirikiri Prison after the family was able to perfect the bail conditions.
She was granted bail in the sum of N100,000 and a surety.
There were different accounts of the traffic disagreement which occurred between the driver of the Magistrate and Osijo in Oworonsoki before she was pursued to Surulere by the magistrate, who subsequently ordered her arrest by the police.
According to Osijo’s husband, Dipo, Sule-Hamzat’s driver, who is a magistrate at the Ogudu Magistrate Court, allegedly bumped into Osijo’s car, but the furious magistrate ordered that Osijo be arrested and taken to her court, where she promptly ordered that Osijo be remanded in Kirikiri Prison without giving her the opportunity to get a lawyer.

Dipo said: “From information I gathered from eyewitnesses, it was the magistrate’s driver that was wrong at the time of the minor accident.

“Yetunde, who bumped into the magistrate’s car assumed she would be asked to leave only to realise that Sule-Hamzat’s car was chasing her from behind.”
Dipo also told Vanguard that his wife started driving in January, and that it was just a traffic offence that resulted in a minor scratch.
He said that the magistrate and her driver chased his wife and when they caught up with her, she was arraigned and sent to prison on Monday at about 5:30p.m., adding that because his wife told the magistrate that her father was a former clerk at the House of Assembly, she got angrier and sent her to prison.
READ FULL NEWS

=>UAE Blocks Attempt By An Ex-gov To Transfer Half A Billion Dollars

An attempt by a yet to be identified former Nigerian governor to transfer $517million out of United Arab Emirates to Dominican Republic has been blocked by the authorities.
A report today said the former governor hit a brickwall because UAE money laundering laws are now strict.

Nigeria had signed a “Judicial Agreement on Extradition, Transfer of Sentenced Persons, Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal Matters, and Mutual Legal Assistance on Criminal and Commercial Matters, which includes the recovery and repatriation of stolen wealth”, in the course of President Muhammadu Buhari’s visit last January.
In the spirit of the agreement, the Nigerian government has beamed a searchlight on banking vaults and properties where Nigerian officials had kept or invested their loot.

According to TheNation a Federal Government team, comprising the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami, the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission(EFCC), Mr. Ibrahim Magu and crack detectives from the anti-graft agency, are in Dubai and have started comparing collated intelligence notes on the PEPs with their UAE counterparts.

The EFCC officials arrived in Dubai on Saturday, said the newspaper. The Minister left Abuja yesterday to join the team.
Seven former governors, six former ministers and a fleeing Presidential aide implicated in the $2.1billion arms deals, ex-military chiefs under probe, agents / fronts of some of these public officers and about five chieftains of the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) have either stashed away funds in Dubai or acquired properties.
A top source, who spoke in confidence, said: “The Federal Government team has met with those from the UAE on intelligence sharing, the list of those on EFCC radar, the number of highly-placed Nigerians with fat accounts in UAE and those with choice properties in Marina (Dubai), Bur Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Doha.

”Some of the former governors include one from the South-South, two from Northcentral, two from the Northeast, one from the Northwest, and one from the Southwest.
“More than six ex-ministers and a former presidential aide, who is on the run over the $2.1billion arms deals, were said to have acquired choice mansions and malls in UAE. One of the former ministers, who was alleged to own two houses in Dubai, was said to have served as a front for a former First Lady.
READ FULL NEWS

 => Power Struggle Rocks APC 3 factions fight for soul of party-Sunnews
 
The race for 2019 Presidency may have split the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) into three camps, battling for the soul of the party.
The three main camps are the defunct Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) caucus, defunct Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) cum South-West caucus and new Peoples Democratic Party (nPDP) caucus.
Sources said there are other sub-camps and caucuses that are ready to align with the main three camps when need be.
The tussle in APC is said to be connected with the 2019 general elections and the body language of President Muhammadu Buhari regarding the presidential election, which is red years away.
Daily Sun gathered that so intense is the struggle that the three contending factions are scheming to produce chairman of the influential Board of Trustees (BoT) of the party. The BoT is an advisory organ but wields considerable influence in who gets what in any political party.

It was gathered that the struggle for control in the party started shortly after the presidential election on March 28, 2015. Some Buhari loyalists said as it was time the president became the undisputed leader of the party, while others contended that he should face governance and leave party matters to the politicians.
Shortly after, some members of CPC, Buhari’s former party, reportedly said it was normal to allow the incumbent the right of first refusal on a second term and that talks of 2019 should be jettisoned until the APC stabilises in government.

But, members of the defunct ACN and the nPDP believed the president should only serve one term; set the country on the right pedestal, fight corruption and quit the stage for a younger member of the party to take over and continue with the APC manifesto.
In the lead up to the national caucus, BoT and National Executive Committee (NEC) meetings tomorrow, a major issue for resolution is the Senate leadership squabble which is still festering.
The attempt of the party’s National Working Committee (NWC), chaired by the chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, to get members in the National Assembly respect the party position failed miserably.

READ FULL NEWS


=> We make provision for only 400,000 UTME candidates – NUC

The National Universities Commission has said only 400,000 out of the 1.5 million candidates that  sit  the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination yearly  gain admission to Nigerian universities, the News Agency of Nigeria reports.
The NUC Executive Secretary, Prof. Julius Okojie,  said  this when  Edo State Governor  Adams Oshiomhole  visited the commission on Wednesday in Abuja.
Oshiomhole was at NUC to collect the Certificate of Recognition for the new Edo State University, Iyanmo.
Okojie said new universities were needed to boost access to higher education while making sure that quality was not compromised.
He said,  “I am always happy when a new university comes on board; what that means is that we are expanding and we are opening up access.
“We know the number of candidates  that sit for UTME organised by the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board every year.
“However, out of the 1.5 million candidates who take  UTME every year, we are barely able to make provision for only about 400,000 students.
“The new university will, therefore, be accessible not only to candidates  from Edo State but those from Ondo State and other states.”
According to the executive secretary, the Edo State University,  has become the 41st state university and the 142nd university in Nigeria.

READ FULL NEWS

 ENTERTAINMENT

=>#BrusselsAttacks: Freeze Slams TB Joshua Over Claims He Predicted It

Popular OAP Freeze has come for TB Joshua after claims he predicted the Brussel terrorist attacks.
Synagogue released a video to that effect yesterday..
SOURCE 

These Updates Are Brought To You By Akinola Follow Him On Twitter Here

Add a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *