Edo State Government Warns Employees, Go On Strike And Forfeit Your Pay

The Edo State Government has said that striking workers in the state civil service stand the risk of losing their salaries if they continue in the strike with NLC.
This is contained in a statement by the Head of Service, Gladys Idahor.

The statement in part reads; “All workers are expected to be at their duty posts.
Any worker who stays away from work will forfeit his or her pay as the ‘no-work-no-pay’ rule will be strictly enforced.
All public schools and institutions are expected to remain open as school is in session.
Heads of departments and parastatals are directed to keep records of workers’ attendance for further action”.

Olisa Metuh Rushed Back To Hospital, Vomits In His Car On His Way To Court

Report has it that the PDP spokesman vomitted several times in his car on his way to the Federal High Court, Abuja on Thursday, May 19.
A source said: “Metuh was rushed to hospital last night. It is serious. He is managing high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis.
The doctor asked him to stay at hospital, but he refused because he wanted to appear in court today. He is just stubborn. He does not want his health to get in the way of his trial.
“This morning he vomited in his car on our way to the court. It is sad. I cannot say all that he is going through, but it is bad. His health is deteriorating.”
Recall that in April, he had slumped during the commissioning of the caretaker committee of the PDP Yobe and Borno states chapter.
He was rushed to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the National Hospital.
Metuh is currently standing trial for allegedly destroying Economic and Financial Crimes Commission’s (EFCC) evidence against him.

Buhari Is Nigeria’s Best President Ever – APC Chieftain

A Chieftain of the All Progressives Congress(APC), in Delta State and National Organising Secretary for Grassroot Mobilisers for Buhari, High Chief Igho Osiebe, Wednesday, adjudged President Muhammadu Buhari, the best President in the history of Nigeria.
Saying Nigerians should be grateful to God who through the forces of change and accelerated development thrust up the Daura-born retired General and politician.
Chief Osiebe, who was stated this in Asaba, said President Buhari had displayed enough competence in administering the country especially his prudent management of resources in his drive to deliver quality service to the Nigerian people.
The High Chief of Agbon Kingdom in Ethiopia East area of the oil-rich state, cited the recovery of looted funds starched away in foreign banks by politicians, who corruptly enriched themselves in the past by the President Buhari-led APC administration as a legacy that will live beyond the “no nonsense” retired General.
According to him, as things stand at the moment, there is seeming sanity in the way politicians carry out their businesses in a clear departure from the immediate past government, ‎saying as time goes on, “we as a people shall celebrate a nation free of corruption.”
He took a swipe on the Yakubu Wada-led faction of the Nigerian Labour Congress(NLC) for leading Nigerian workers on strike, noting that such action was self-serving, lack of patriotism to the government and the ‘good people’ of Nigeria.
He wondered if Wada understands the basic economic principles of a free market economy as being introduced in the downstream sector of the petroleum industry as he called on the FG to avoid the “booby trap” of salary increase for workers noting that such was a catalyst for hyper inflation.
Osiebe condemned the renewed hostilities pivoted by the self acclaimed Niger Delta Avengers, NDA, in the Delta region wondering what was there to avenge?
According to him, NDA is an group that does not mean well for the region in its self-serving drive urging the federal government to deal decisively with any mischief maker where and when necessary.
“In President Buhari we have Nigeria’s best President in our national history and it is of note that we as a people must be grateful to those forces of change and accelerated development who gave us this weird character.
“We have seen with enthusiasm how much this generation of politicians dread him and how much he has been able to hound the looters of our national patrimony to surrender and I want to urge him on.
“Ours is an action packed President who will fire anybody who deviates from the path of bringing glory to our nation like we saw in the sack of the immigration boss over alleged extortion of officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service, such action is alien to us in our clime.
“I understand a group of masochists who goes by the name, Niger Delta Avengers, vowed to hold Nigeria ransom, I wonder what they are avenging, in whose interest and for what? We are peace loving people in the region therefore the president should go all out for any trouble maker when and wherever necessary,” he said.

Nigeria Is Ready For Nuclear Energy – Fashola

The Federal Government says Nigeria is ready to commence the production of nuclear energy.
The Minster of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, made this known at the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) Forum in Abuja.
Fashola said Nigeria had secured the necessary certification from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). He said:

This thing has protocols and standards; we are already in it; we are not venturing into it; we started a nuclear programme 17 years ago.
We have gone through the training level; we have produced 25 graduates of masters level under certification by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
We have found the sites; the sites have been approved, two sites have been approved by International Atomic Energy Agency.
We have started the design for the financing; that is the stage we are now; once we conclude that, we move to the design for the construction.
If all things go well, by quarter four of next year – that is the schedule that I met – we should have started construction.

The minister said it was important for Nigeria to focus on the gains and safety of nuclear energy as obtained in other developed countries.
He said that since the whole world was moving toward a cleaner fuel and the use of more sustainable form of energy, Nigeria could not be an exception.
He, however, said that the developed countries could only share the technology with countries ready keep to the standards in the utilisation of the technology.
Fashola further said that diversifying the nation’s energy mix would lead to the utilisation of the various forms of renewable energy sources in the country.
This, according to him, will ultimately make electricity cheap in the country.
“What we are thinking about is long-term solution. We need a solution that will endure for generations to come. When you design a power solution, design it so that the next coming generations can use it,” he said.
He said the ministry and other agencies under his supervision were working hard to ensure that Nigeria obtained the best in the electricity industry through strict regulatory responsibilities.
On the monthly meeting with stakeholders in the industry, Fashola said it was designed to evolve better ways of managing the industry, adding that it was yielding the desired results.

Election Bribe: Wike Ordered Me To Collect N700m From Bank – PDP Scribe Confesses

The detained Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Samuel Johnson Okpoko has told the EFCC that he collected N700m cash from Fidelity Bank on the instruction of Governor Nyesom Wike.
While Okpoko will soon be charged to court, the anti-graft agency might put the invitation of the governor on hold because of constitutional immunity.
The immunity however does not prevent the EFCC from investigating the allegation against the governor and keeping vital information for his trial after his tenure.
According to a source in EFCC, Okpoko admitted that he collected the cash in two tranches at Trans Amadi branch of Fidelity Bank Plc in Port Harcourt.
The source said: “Operatives of the EFCC, have grilled the Rivers State Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Mr. Samuel Johnson Okpoko , for collecting N700million from the controversial $115milloon lodged with Fidelity Bank Plc, by the immediate past Minister of Petroleum Resources, Diezani Allison- Madueke
“Okpoko, who was the Rivers state’s PDP campaign coordinator in the 2015 Presidential Election collected the sum of N700 million in two tranches of N600 million and N100 million respectively at the Trans Amadi branch of Fidelity Bank Plc, Port- Harcourt.
Investigations by the EFCC revealed that Okpoko cashed N600 million on March 27 and N100 million on March 31,2015.
“Explaining how he became involved, Okpoko said he was instructed by the then PDP governorship candidate, Nyesom Wike to go to the branch of Fidelity Bank to cash some money there.
The source quoted Okpoko as saying: “I was with my governor in his house sometime 27th day of March 2015, when he got a call and Chief Barrister Nyesom Wike after the phone call told me that the call was from Fidelity Bank and they have some money for him”.
But Special Assistant to Governor Wike on electronic media Mr Simeon Nwakaudu said: “We are not aware of what you talked about in your test message.”

U.S. Senate passes act that would let families of Sept. 11 victims sue Saudi Arabian government

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would allow families of Sept. 11 victims to sue the government of Saudi Arabia, rejecting the fierce objections of an American ally and setting Congress on a collision course with the Obama administration.
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, approved by voice vote, had triggered a threat from Riyadh to pull billions of dollars from the U.S. economy if the bill was enacted.
The legislation, sponsored by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, and Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., gives victims’ families the right to sue in U.S. court for any role that elements of the Saudi government may have played in the 2001 attacks that killed thousands in New York, the Washington, D.C., area and Pennsylvania.
The House still must act on the legislation.

Related

• Tensions high on Saudi visit after Obama says he favours declassifying secret 9/11 documents

Relatives of Sept. 11 victims have urged the Obama administration to declassify and release U.S. intelligence that allegedly discusses possible Saudi involvement in the attacks.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir denied this month that the kingdom made threats over the bill. He said Riyadh had warned investor confidence in the U.S. would shrink if the bill became law.
“In fact what (Congress is doing) is stripping the principle of sovereign immunities, which would turn the world for international law into the law of the jungle,” Al-Jubeir said May 3.
The U.S. Treasury Department said Saudi Arabia in March held US$116.8 billion in Treasury debt.
Passage of the bill sends the message that the United States “will combat terrorism with every tool we have available, and that the victims of terrorist attacks in our country should have every means at their disposal to seek justice,” Cornyn said.
Schumer said any foreign government that aids terrorists who strike the U.S. “will pay a price if it is proven they have done so.”

Given the concerns that we’ve expressed, it’s difficult to imagine the president signing this legislation

Senate Democrats had supported the legislation, putting them at odds with the Obama administration. The White House has said the bill could expose Americans overseas to legal risks, and spokesman Josh Earnest said Tuesday efforts to revise the legislation fell short in addressing the administration’s concerns about preserving sovereign immunity.
“Given the concerns that we’ve expressed, it’s difficult to imagine the president signing this legislation,” Earnest said at the White House.
Schumer was confident the Senate had the necessary two-thirds vote of the chamber to override a presidential veto.

Drew Angerer / Getty Images Cornyn, left, and Schumer at a press conference on the bill.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., the chairman of the Senate subcommittee that controls foreign aid, had blocked the bill from moving to the Senate floor until changes were made to ensure the legislation didn’t backfire on the United States.
Graham’s apprehension was rooted in the possibility a foreign country could sue the United States if the door was opened for U.S. citizens to take the Saudis to court.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., the chairman of the Armed Services Committee, also had warned that the legislation, if passed, would alienate Saudi Arabia and undermine a longstanding yet strained relationship with a critical U.S. ally in the Middle East.

John Terry begs Chelsea for new contract

Chelsea captain, John Terry, has pleaded with the club to extend his current deal beyond this season. The 35-year-old defender, announced in January that he would be leaving the club this summer, after they refused to offer him a new contract.
It was assumed that Terry had played his last game for the Blues, after he was shown a red card against Sunderland last week, leaving him suspended for their last two games of the season.

However, he has now spoken of his desire to remain at Stamford Bridge.
“I still want to play for a couple more years, hopefully that’s at Chelsea,” Terry said.
“I’m a Chelsea player and that has been my club since the age of 14. I love Chelsea.”