Abia state police command has fixed date for the commencement of medical screening exercise for successful candidates in the recently concluded Police recruitment Computer Based Test.

This is contained in a statement on Thursday made available to ABN TV by the Public Relations Officer of the command, SP Geoffrey Ogbonna.

He said the exercise is slated for Tuesday 23rd Novermber to Thursday 2nd December 2021 at Police Hospital, Bende Road Umuahia from 8am to 3pm daily.

The exercise covers Police Commands under Zone 9 Umuahia comprising Abia, Ebonyi and Imo States.

Candidates are urged to check their emails and phones for notification or check their status on Police recruitment portal www.policerecruitment.gov.ng.

The command advises all successful candidates to be at the venue of the Medical Screening Exercise from 8.00 am to 3pm with Letter of Invitation, NIN Slip and dress code of white T-Shirt on white shorts.

While urging them to be punctual as all COVID-19 Protocol will be observed during the screening exercise, the command warned unauthorized person(s) or those not short-listed to steer clear of the Medical Screening Exercise venue in their own interest.

The Climate Change Bill sponsored by the member representing Ikwuano/Umuahia North/Umuahia South Federal Constituency, Rep. Sam Onuigbo was on Thursday signed into law by President Muhammadu Buhari, ABN TV reports.

The Bill provides for, among other things, the mainstreaming of climate change actions and the establishment of a National Council on Climate Change.

It also paves the way for environmental and economic accounting and a push for a net-zero emission deadline plan in the country, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu told ABN TV in a statement on Thursday.

According to Shehu the Climate Change law which owes its origin to Rep. Sam Onuigbo provides for “the mainstreaming of climate change actions and the establishment of a National Council on Climate Change. It also paves the way for environmental and economic accounting and a push for a net-zero emission deadline plan in the country.”

According to the CODE RED report by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released in August, the world needs to make concerted efforts to keep the global temperature rising to 1.5 before the end of the century to avoid a climate catastrophe. To achieve this, ambitious commitments followed up by actions are needed from governments.

By assenting to the Climate Change Bill, Nigeria has made a strong statement of the country’s commitment towards meeting its climate change obligations and setting the country on the path to sustainable development.

READ ALSO: FENRAD Urges Abia Government To Make Its #EndSARS Panel Report Public, Ensure Justice

Similarly, the President also signed into law AMCON Amendment Act.

Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (Amendment) Act amends the AMCON Act No.4, 2010.

It provides for the extension of the tenor of the Resolution Cost Fund and grants access to the Special Tribunal established by the Banks and other Financial Institutions Act 2020, which confers on the corporation the power “to take possession, manage, foreclose or sell, transfer, assign or otherwise deal with the asset or property used as security for eligible bank assets and related matters.’’

This, in effect, will help AMCON make recoveries and for debtors to fulfil their commitments to banks.

Foundation for Environmental Rights Advocacy and Development, FENRAD has called on Abia State Government led by Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, to make its reports on #EndSARS investigative panel of inquiry public soon so as to allow public scrutiny and access.

FENRAD says Abia was among the twenty-nine states that instituted a panel of inquiry into police and other sister security agencies’ brutality with specific terms of reference covering the period from 2015 to 2020.

In a release on Thursday signed by Comrade Nelson Nnanna Nwafor, Executive Director and Barr. Akande Femisi, Head Corporate Accountability, and Human Rights Enforcement, FENRAD says while the panel has submitted its reports, nothing has been heard from the state government, especially after the panel recommended the sum of ₦511 million as recompense to all victims of police and SARS brutality.

FENRAD insists that all the persons named and indicted must be brought to justice in Abia State. This itself, according to the Foundation more than any monetary numbers to be awarded, is the best form of justice that cleanses the land.

It also says, having read in full the recently leaked Lagos State EndSARS panel reports known formerly and officially as Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS-Related Abuses and Other Maters or Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry, for short, draws the attention of both the federal and Lagos State governments to the need now towards ensuring that justice is properly dispensed to the letter.

The statement partly reads, “While the said reports, from page to page, paint a gory, heart-rending picture of the ignoble action state actors – the Nigeria Army as led then by Lt. Gen. Tukur Buratai (rtd) and the Nigeria Police led by former Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu – perpetrated against innocent and unarmed youthful citizens whose only crime was interrogating a system that has failed for years. FENRAD, beyond all of this, is more interested in the aftermath of the protests and reports, demanding restorative justice and restitution for victims of that ugly period in our history and as well prosecutorial trials of all those, like Lt. Col Bello and others, indicted by the same reports.

“Meanwhile, FENRAD wishes to commend laudably the Doris Okuwobi-led panel for not only producing a report the international community and the US welcome, but one not tainted by politics and its nuances. However, the 309-paged reports, according to FENRAD, must not end on any shelf like many before it, findings and recommendations thereof must see full implementation so that the souls of the eleven youths massacred, the four persons disappeared and all the brutally wounded victims get commensurate justice and not any undergetting.

“Now that the State Government (in this case Lagos) is looking to set up a “committee” whose mandate is to produce a white paper from the reports, FENRAD wishes to remind the state government, its commissioner for justice or whoever that may likely head the so-called committee not to do anything that may obstruct justice. FENRAD is aware that the state government cannot be a judge in its own case and must act within and according to law. The white paper when finally out must beget action and justice.

“Having stated this, FENRAD is glad that from initial denials and cover-up, with the reports, we are now standing before the truth. The untruths churned out to deny the infamous Lekki Tollgate Shooting (named “massacre” in the reports) by the military and some government officials at national and subnational levels, to say the least, is regrettably worrisome. May history vindicate the just.”

United States of America Secretary of State, Antony Blinken is meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Blinken arrived the Aso Rock Villa around 3:47pm and was received at the forecourt by State Chief of Protocol (SCOP), Ambassador Lawal Kazaure, who led him to the President’s office.

After the meeting with Buhari, the Secretary of State will proceed to the office of Vice President Yemi Osinbajo where they will sign some agreements between Nigeria and the US.

He will thereafter hold a joint press conference with Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geoffrey Onyeama, before departing the Presidential Villa.