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‘Cocoa Accounts for 27% of Nigeria’s Income’

Posted by businessday9jabook on December 1, 2010 at 3:28am
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Prof Sheikh Abdulla, has said cocoa exportation worth $400 million accounts for 27 per cent of Nigeria income yearly.
The minister, who said this yesterday in Abuja while receiving the report of the committee on Cocoa Production Association of Nigeria, COPAN, noted that if given the right atmosphere and necessary ingredients, cocoa exportation would generate more income to the country’s economy.

On 17th of August, 2010, President Goodluck Jonathan instituted a committee on cocoa production, headed by the recently sacked Deputy Governor of Osun State, Erelu Olusola Obada, on how to improve cocoa production in the country.
Abdulla promised to study the report and forward it to the President for more action capable of increasing both the production and importation of the product.
“Our commitment to cocoa development in this ministry is far beyond pretence," he said. "We have come a long way and we will still continue to move forward for more of cocoa exportation. We are fully committed to this laudable goal and we will still try harder to achieve more by the grace of God.”

Dr. Chris Okafor, who stood in for Erelu Obada, while explaining parts of the committee’s findings to the minister and his lieutanants, attributed part of the challenges facing the production of cocoa in the country to lack of adequate finance and supply of products needed for the production. ..
In his words: “In all, I can say categorically that cocoa production and exportation are some of the avenues for the country's income. In our findings, we have come to terms with the fact that there are two main challenges facing the production of cocoa in the country. One of them is lack of credit facility. Cocoa farmers don’t always have access to bank loans for improvement of their product and this has been one of the major problems facing the production of cocoa. Another one is supply of necessary products needed for the production of cocoa. Some of the farmers complained that since this year, they had not got fertilizer. All they have been doing is to produce without fertilizer, and this is a major setback for them and for the country also.”

He disclosed that investment on cocoa production in Nigeria is N45 billion and that more efforts should be made to increase the production.
The Secretary of the committee, who is also the Managing Director of Cocoa Products (Ile-Oluji) Limited, Mr. Akin Olusuyi promised the committee’s readiness to assist the ministry whenever called upon to ensure that there is great increase in the production of cocoa in the country.


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200 Women In Ikoyi Prison

Posted by 9jabook.com webmadam on December 1, 2010 at 3:00am
Statistics gathered from the prison by the the Lagos State Office of the Public Defender, OPD, revealed that the 200 female prisoners were accommodated in the prison built to accommodate 100 female prisoners.
With 200 females in the prison, it is overcongested because the prison has exceeded its original capacity of 100 inmates, the OPD stated.
To decongest the female prison, the OPD says it is going to defend 145 female prisoners awaiting trial in the court. Twenty-eight others, it was learnt, had been convicted.
Director, OPD, Mrs. Omotola Rotimi, who disclosed this at the Lagos City Hall, Lagos Island, during the marking of the tenth anniversary of the body, revealed that many of the female prisoners had been there for long, either due to their inability to meet the bail conditions attached to their bail or for minor offences.
According to her, one of the pregnant women in the prison was detained there because she unknowingly bought a stolen second-hand generator which led to her arrest and arraignment in court.
She said the woman was remanded in prison because she could not perfect her bail conditions, which included payment of N50,000. She added that her husband deserted her and left her to her fate after she was sent to Ikoyi Prison..
The OPD director also disclosed a lady with a nine-month old baby was also remanded in the prison because she could not pay a debt of N40,000. The trial judge, she said, granted her bail in the sum of N100,000 which she could not provide. She described her case as pathetic because it was uncalled for, “for a judge to have slammed N100, 000 bail condition for an offence amounting to just N40,000.”
The OPD boss disclosed further that her office was compiling the phone numbers of elites in the society to assist inmates in paying the small amount attached to the bail conditions granted some of them, as well as defend those still awaiting trial.
She explained that the OPD recently visited prisons in the state and interviewed 25 inmates awaiting trial to offer them legal representation in court.
“However, on getting to the prisons, we were overwhelmed by the number of people awaiting trial.
“At Ikoyi male prison alone, we interviewed 200 inmates while at the female prison, over 30 inmates were interviewed,” she stated, adding that the Office also visited all remand homes and government approved motherless babies’ homes in Lekki; the Girls Correctional Centre, Idi-Araba and the Boys Correctional Centre, Oregun.
“Our aim was to check the welfare of the children who have been in care and protective custody of Lagos State through our office and also update the records and check the welfare of children and young persons in conflict with the law,” she added...
On the presentation of the book titled: Public Defence in a Developing Country: Looking Behind and Beyond, Rotimi described the book as a compilation of works by eminent persons in the legal sector ranging from judges, professors and scholars of law.
“The book highlights the OPD’s mission and vision for justice in Lagos State, its functions, contributions and the challenges faced by the OPD and public defence as a whole in Lagos State,” she said.
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Death of pregnant woman shocks community

Posted by cozzy webtatafo on November 30, 2010 at 9:24pm

Residents of Otto-Ilogbo Community, in the Ebute Metta area of Lagos are alarmed by the murder of a pregnant woman in their area.

This follows the revelation by a 23-year-old lady, identified as Grace Orobo, that she connived with her boyfriend, one Okechukwu Eze, 28, to bury a pregnant woman in a swamp in the community. The victim, Glory Goodnews, from Oron in Akwa Ibom State, was living with her boyfriend, Mr Eze, a loader with one of the transportation companies at Ejigbo, a suburb of the city, for close to three years at Otto Ilogbo slum, when she suddenly disappeared in January. According to one of Ms Goodnew’s relatives, David Sambo Udoh, the victim confided in him that she was pregnant but her boyfriend, Mr Eze, told her to abort the pregnancy.

And the news came

According to residents, the victim disappeared from sight around January this year. News that she was allegedly murdered came out when Mr Eze’s new girlfriend, Ms Orobo, on Sunday, revealed to the victim’s relatives that she connived with Mr Eze to murder Ms Goodnews and later buried her in a swamp in the community, following her refusal to abort the pregnancy.

“Glory is from Akwa Ibom and I am from Akwa Ibom,” said Mr Udoh. “She comes from the same village my wife came from, Oron; so she is well known to us. She was living in an hotel at Orile, but Okechukwu brought her from the hotel to come and live with him at Otto Ilogbo. They have been living together for like three years now. Around January this year, Glory came to tell us that she was pregnant but her boyfriend, Okechukwu, said she will not use pregnancy to trap him to marry her because Okechukwu was also dating another girl called, Orobo. After a while, we did not see Glory again and I personally went to ask Okechukwu where Glory is, but he said he had sent her to his village in Anambra State to go and give birth there. Every time I see Okechukwu, I will ask him to give me Glory’s number so I can call her but he will give me fake numbers that will never reach her.

“When it was like nine months, and I knew she would have given birth, I asked Okechukwu again, but he told me that Glory gave birth to a boy and she will be coming to Lagos soon. But on Sunday, Orobo, Okechukwu’s other girlfriend came to our room and she was holding Glory’s picture. She told us that she want to reveal the secret; that Okechukwu has buried Glory with her pregnancy in the canal at Otto because Glory refused to abort the pregnancy. I went to meet Okechukwu but he was not around. Later in the night, around 10pm that Sunday, 28th of November, I saw Okechukwu coming back home and I held his shirt that he had killed Glory and buried her in the swamp. Okechukwu just keep saying ‘Please, I will tell you everything; I will tell you everything’. He said Glory was sick and she died in his hands so he did not want to alert anybody, that was why himself and his girlfriend, Orobo, went to bury Glory in the swamp at Otto Canal in the midnight. I was angry and I raised alarm and that was how the people in the community helped me to drag Okechukwu to the Denton Police Station.”...

Police take over case

The case was later transferred to the Iponri Police Division, where police officers have began investigation into the case. The Community Development Officer of Otto Ilogbo, Agbodemu Ishola Musbau, described the incident as unfortunate. “Glory is a very peace-loving person and she is very gentle,” he said. “I remember that I last saw her in January and later asked after her and they told me that she travelled to the east. Since then I have not heard anything from her until now that I got information that her boyfriend allegedly connived with a lady called Orobo to kill her and they threw her body into the swampy canal here in Otto. This community is peaceful and we will get to the root of the matter, and we will not condole murderers living with us and that is why we are raising the alarm about the death so that police can investigate it.”

“If Okechukwu is found guilty of the allegation then he will be made to face the penalty of his crime. His girlfriend, Orobo, who allegedly committed this crime with him, is at large but the police will arrest her and with our cooperation, she will be arrested soon. So that this will serve as a deterrent to criminally minded people not to take the laws into their hands.”

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Female students threaten to protest nude

Posted by 9jabook.com webmadam on November 30, 2010 at 9:06pm
The National Association of Nigeria Female Students (NANFS) has given a seven-day ultimatum to the governors of the South-east geo-political zone to re-open the state universities or face the wrath of female students in the area. ..
In a statement in Owerri yesterday, the students warned that they would be forced to mobilize all Nigerian female undergraduates to demonstrate naked on the streets of Abakiliki, Awka, Enugu, Owerri and Umuahia should the governors fail to comply with their ultimatum which commenced yesterday.

The statement jointly signed by the Secretary-General, Mr. Jemila Audu, the PRO, Pauline Onyegbule, the ex-officio (I), Anita Igbandu, the students expressed regret that the protracted industrial action forced many of them to go into prostitution, kidnapping, armed robbery and other social vices.
The students berated the governors for allowing the strike to linger without addressing the problems that gave birth to it, stressing that all that was required of them was to properly fund the universities and make them attain the required standard.

“But, the South-east governors were unconcerned because none of their female children are students in the universities in the South-east zone.”
The statement read by Mr. Anita Igbandu explained that the entire membership of NANFS had taken a deeper view of the collapse of education in the South east zone and had come to the conclusion that the governors in the zone had no reason to seek for second term because their first outings had proved a monumental disaster for university education.

The students also noted that the Governors had shown that they have nothing to offer Nigerian students who incidentally were the future of the zone and the entire country pointing out that, their only interest is to seek ways to manipulate the system and fraudulently secure their second tenures and continue to deceive their people.
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Book Raffle event in Lagos

Posted by Myne Whitman on November 30, 2010 at 5:30pm



Time : Sunday, December 5 · 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Location : The Hub Media Store, Palms Shopping Mall, After 1004 Flats VI, Lagos

More Info :

Join Author Myne Whitman as she reveals the Lagos winners of the book raffle for AHTM. She will also read from A Heart to Mend and her WIP and answer questions from the audience. If you have already bought the book, please come with your raffle tickets.

Prizes include - Starcomms Modem, Camera Battery, SD Cards, Flash Drives and Picture Frames. There will be free signed pictures of the author, bookmarks and stickers for every guest.

Entrance is FREE!
--
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Petroleum tanker drivers strike

Posted by 9jabook.com on November 30, 2010 at 5:24pm

The Petroleum Tanker Drivers wing of the National Union of Petroleum and Natural Gas Workers (NUPENG), yesterday, embarked on a nation-wide warning strike to protest what they term the "indiscriminate victimisation" of their workers by soldiers and the "mysterious" disappearance of petroleum products.

NUPENG's Lagos Zone chairman, Tokunbo Korede, said the seven days warning strike is coming after a 21-day ultimatum elapsed on November 26, 2010, following a meeting with the Chief of Army Staff, the Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), the Minister of Labour, and the management of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Mr Korede said the failure of the government officials at the meeting to apprehend and prosecute the army officials behind the assassination of a tanker driver in Jos and the disappearance of several tankers, along with their petroleum products, within military installations has necessitated them to push their case..

Litany of intimidation

"It is true," he said. "It started this morning (yesterday) after the 21-day ultimatum we gave elapsed. It is a nationwide action with only PTD on strike now. Our member died instantly at a joint check point of army and police officers at Jos because he refused to be extorted. The culprits ran to Bauchi Garrison Command, where our truck was taken. But up till now the culprits have not being brought out and the tanker and the product are no longer to be found."

The union leader mentioned other incidents, in the month of November, in which tankers and products were seized by army personnel, only for them to vanish "with no trace". "In Ibadan, the army seized our truck," he said. "After a week our truck disappeared with no trace. Also, this November in Port Harcourt, the army and police stopped a luxurious bus on the road and that is how the tanker driver ran over some people. The army immediately took our truck to the barracks. We even paid compensation to the people that died. But after some time the truck and the product were no more to be found."

The NUPENG boss says if the federal government does not take the warning strike serious, it could affect the 2011 general elections. "For how long are they going to take to fish out those criminal uniformed men who are behind all this?," he said. "This is a seven-day warning strike for those saying we are working on it to bring out a solution. They need to take us serious because it will be too disastrous for the coming elections."

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