AKWA IBOM – A humanitarian group, Kingsley Byron Foundation has distributed 1500 copies of exercise books to students in secondary schools in Ibesikpo Asutan local government area, Akwa Ibom State.
The foundation which is funded by an officer of the Nigerian Army, Mr. Kingsley Byron Ekpenyong has undertaken many interventions in support of the free and compulsory education programme of the Akwa Ibom state government.
In 2017 the foundation reconstructed a three classroom block at Comprehensive secondary school, Ikot Akpaetok/Ediam which was destroyed by windstorm and also donated a fully furnished computer laboratory and generating set to the school.
The coordinator of the foundation, Mr. Aniekan Okon said the exercise books were distributed to JSS1 students in three schools namely, Brotherhood secondary school, Ikot Ide Etukudoh; Comprehensive secondary school, Ikot Akpaetok/Ediam; and Ndikpo Grammar secondary school, Ikot Obio Nko, Ibesikpo Asutan local government area.
Mr. Aniekan Okon, coordinator of Kingsley Byron Foundation (left) presenting copies of exercise books donated by the foundation to students in Ibesikpo Asutan to the principal of Ndikpo Grammar school, Ikot Obio Nko.
Presenting copies of the exercise book to Mr. Kingsley Pius Etim, principal of Ndikpo grammar school, Okon said Kingsley Byron Foundation which aspires to build a better future for the youths and aged, has in the last three years given support for educational programmes, healthcare, youth capacity building and entrepreneurship and the provision of basic social infrastructure in many communities within and outside the state.
He said the donation of the exercise books was part of the foundation’s new academic year project for students newly admitted into secondary schools in rural communities.
Principal of Ndikpo Grammer school, Ikot Obio Nko, Mr. Kingsley Pius Etim thanked the foundation for the gesture.
Distribution of the exercise books to the students was witnessed by the chairman of NUT, Ibesikpo Asutan branch Elder Umoh Umoh.
Kingsley Byron Foundation recently sponsored 50 youths from Ibesikpo Asutan for training on automobile repairs, aluminium fabrication and hair dressing and donated wrappers, food items and toiletries to 35 widows in Ibesikpo Asutan under its ‘hope project’ targeted at giving psychological and material support to widows who are weak and confined to their homes.
AKWA IBOM – The Vice Chancellor of the Akwa Ibom State University, Prof. Eno Ibanga has said that 2000 graduands will convoke at the 4th and 5th convocation of the university holding on Friday 8th November 2019. Prof. Eno Ibanga, Vice Chancellor, AKSU.
The convocation which will hold at the Ikot Akpaden campus of the university was preceded by a convocation lecture on Thursday 7th November on the topic, “State universities and national development”, presented by Prof. Akpan Ekpo, former vice chancellor of the university of Uyo.
At the combined convocation, 41 graduands will receive first class honours while 509 will receive second class upper degrees, the vice chancellor said.
Two best graduating students Utibe Mfon Okon of the department of animal science with cumulative grade point average of 4.88 and Victor Effiong Odokwo of the department of marine engineering with 4.89 will be honoured as valedictorians for the 2016/2017 and 2017/2018 set in that order.
Prof. Ibanga said the university will confer the award of honorary doctorate degree, doctor of letters, on the chancellor of the university, Nteyin Solomon Etuk, the oku Ibom Ibibio and chairman Akwa Ibom state council of chiefs, during the convocation.
The Akwa Ibom State University which will be 10 years old in 2020, opened for academic programmes in 2010 with 300 students.
The university currently has 8660 students spread across 39 programmes and eight faculties.
Vice chancellor of the university said AKSU has high standard for quality education and discipline and has kept its fees very low.
“We have tried to place the university where it should be in terms of quality. We have 39 programmes; 38 have been given full accreditation.”
Prof. Ibanga said the university has terminated the appointments of eight of its staff on offences of sexual harassment and extortion.
“We have terminated up to eight appointments because of sexual harassment and extortion. As we speak, a notorious one is on ground. I can say authoritatively that this university has zero tolerance for any form of harassment of students”.
Prof. Ibanga also announced the commencement of admission into post graduate programmes in six of its faculties.
AKWA IBOM – Policy Alert, a non-governmental organisation working to promote socio-economic development in the Niger Delta, has called on the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly to step up its oversight of budget implementation in the state. Aniekan Bassey, Speaker Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly
The organisation made the call at the public hearing on the 2020 Appropriations Bill organised by the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Committee on Appropriations and Finance.
Presenting its memorandum to the Committee, Executive Director of the organisation, Tijah Bolton-Akpan, urged the legislators to expedite passage of the 2020 budget.
“We urge the seventh Assembly to pass this budget quickly to enable us return our long-distorted budget cycle to a January to December calendar. But beyond that, we look forward to a more effectively implemented budget in 2020. In the recent past, poor capital budget implementation and leakages have been enabled by weak oversight on the part of institutions saddled with the responsibility of oversight on the budget process. These include the various Committees of the House of Assembly, especially its Public Accounts Committee (PAC).”
“Despite several budget infractions by government Ministries, Departments and Agencies as highlighted by successive reports of the Auditor General of Akwa Ibom State, the PAC has failed to bring such erring institutions to book, a situation that allows corrupt and inefficient practices to fester.”
The memorandum also seeks increase in the allocation to the Office of the state Auditor General, noting that the continued underfunding and denial of autonomy to that office appears contrived to weaken its oversight function over budget implementation in the state.
“The State Auditor General’s Office was only able to access 10 percent of the paltry 500 million that was voted for it in the 2018 budget and even though we don’t have the details for 2019, it is doubtful that 2019 will be any different. This situation adversely affects the quality of audit reports and its timeliness, undermines transparency and accountability, and allows corruption to thrive.”
Declaring the event open, the Speaker of the Assembly, Mr. Aniekan Bassey, represented by Deputy Speaker Princess Felicia Bassey, reassured participants that the Seventh Assembly is committed to ensuring not only prompt passage of the budget, but also transparent, accountable and effective implementation through its oversight functions.
The Chairman of the Committee, Mr. Uduak Ududoh stated that the seventh Assembly is committed to opening up the budget process to public inputs, which is reflected by its extending its invitation to a much broader range of stakeholders, and promised that the House would be guided by the inputs of the public in its deliberations on the budget.
Musa Rabo, the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Suleja abducted over the weekend by gunmen along Abuja- Kaduna road has been rescued by the police.
Force Public Relations Officer, DCP Frank Mba said the officer was successfully rescued on Sunday evening by a combined team of Police operatives from Kaduna, Niger and Zone 7 Command Headquarters Abuja, backed-up by members of the elite Special Forces of the NPF.
Mba said two male suspects have been arrested in connection with the incident. Investigation into the incident is ongoing.
“The officer was travelling in his civil dress, with his private vehicle and without escort or any special security at the time of the incident.”
“He was not targeted as a cop. It was purely an opportunistic crime, indiscriminately and maliciously targeted at citizens using that particular road. He was, perhaps, positionally unlucky at the time of the incident!”, Mba said in a statement.
“Bloggers are not journalists. They are dirty job artists”
—Ray Ekpu
Mr Raymond Amos Ekpu, one of Nigeria’s high priests of Journalism, is reported to have made the above declaration in a talk at a recent symposium in Uyo.
Thereafter there have been unceasing torrents of references in the social media to attacks on him on account of the comment.
I don’t think the reaction from the blogger community and their sympathizers should be unexpected. Ekpu’s comment must be such an insufferable putdown for a butterfly which had believed all along that it was a bird. So some flexing driven by an elephantine sense of conceit should be allowed. On the other hand, I am at a bit of a loss at their indignation. I know that they like to call themselves online influencers, not journalists. Maybe the anger comes from someone calling them out for their poisonous influence in cyberspace! Ray Ekpu
But Ekpu’s evaluation calls for a return to the basics. So let’s know who a journalist is, before we settle the question of who is qualified to be so-called.
A journalist is a professional who reports accounts of actual events or trends in a mass medium using a language of expression that conforms to the norms of taste, decency, accuracy, fairness, adequacy, safety as well as the requirements of law and security demanded by the community where she or he operates.
I would like to note the word professional, which refers to an operative with the capacity to meet the demands of his job as made clear in the definition earlier given.
The question then is, Does the blogger fit in, given the parameters clearly laid down in this intervention? The answer is no; the vast majority of bloggers do not, because the reality of their work does not measure up to the stringent requirements of Journalism. Most of them do not communicate in language that meets the standard of international intelligibility; do not care a hoot about fairness, decency, taste, safety or the demands of the law and security of community and country.
The reason for the anomaly of the frolic of blogging is not just lack of training—which on its own is a fatal failing—the full and complete explanation for the malaise of blogging masqueraded as journalism is lack of institutional controls which subject the work of journalists to painstaking auditing to guarantee conformity with codes of practice.
I would like to note also the phrase, actual events or trends. Most bloggers are purveyors of fiction. They do not deal in actualities.
A distinction must be made here between journalists who operate online news mediums and the unmediated bloggers who delight in the delirium of sleaze and reputation bashing. Online news outlets are pretty much subject to controls that make Journalism such a worthy contribution to the wellbeing of society.
If the vast majority of bloggers conduct themselves in breach of set standards and conventions, Ray Ekpu was right—and I add my feeble auditory cord to his mighty decibel—in saying that going by the law of averages, bloggers are not journalists. For emphasis, we are dealing with the central tendency here.
AND WHO IS AN ARTIST?
That is the limit of my agreement with Mr Ekpu. I do not agree with him that bloggers are ARTISTS. They are not. Calling them artists would be a misnomer. It doesn’t matter whether Ekpu characterizes them as artists of “dirty job.” An artist is an artist.
I must pay tribute to two teachers who led me up the path of aesthetic education and sufficient appreciation of the arts. Professor Emmanuel Akpan, extraordinary teacher of communication arts (he is with the Lord now) and Professor Udo Etuk, an inimitable philosopher, both of who made me to know that an artist is a highly nuanced articulator of nature, a guy with a super sense of appropriateness, who has a well-honed feeling for beauty and balance; moment and occasion; proportion and propriety.
Art is man-made and is opposed to nature in the sense that it abstracts and clarifies the surfeit of nature to heighten understanding and appreciation of life. That is why Akpan and Etuk say that nature is superabundant and inarticulate while art is skilled for utterance. Look at what the architect, a nimble artist, does with the abundance of nature in his various designs!
The journalist steps in too, as an artist, to select and clarify the significant elements in nature, be it fire, war, election, economic collapse or boom, accident, flood, earthquake—and presents them in delectable news reports or features or signed column for the good of the society.
The blogger does none of this wholesome winnowing work. He is a purveyor of smut. He is not an artist. He cares neither for beauty nor balance; neither for reason nor rhyme. For me, he is a nihilist.
The blogger should therefore take Ekpu’s well-intentioned censure to heart and seek redemption by mending his ways.
Students kidnapped in Kaduna rescued by troops of the Nigerian Army
The Nigerian Army says seven members of the Islamic sect Boko Haram, fleeing artillery bombardment and assaults by its troops have been killed by Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) planted by the sect.
Eight other members of the sect reportedly sustained different degrees of injury in the incident.
A statement by the media coordinator, Nigerian Army Operations, Aminu Iliyasu says the incident occurred on Friday 18th October, in Borno.
“In a clear case that can be best described as a tactical boomerang, some marauding Boko Haram criminals elements who were escaping the unbearable battle heat turned on them by Nigerian Army troops met their waterloo as one of their vehicles, a Toyota Sam Sahara Model, stepped on an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) laid by them against NA troops at Lamba’a Forest along Jakana – Mainok Road in Borno State.”
The statements says the Nigerian Army troop on operation positive identification has also arrested one Musa Ishaku in Baga, Borno state for being in possession of a fake identity card of the Nigerian Custom Services. The suspect who impersonates customs officer Fake identity cards found on the suspect
Nigerian Army troops from 1 division have also rescued four students in Gurmi, Chikun local government area, Kaduna state, kidnapped by bandits.
“Troops of 1 Division also rescued 4 kidnapped students from bandits at Gurmi Village in Chikun LGA of Kaduna State after a brief fire fight with criminals.”
The Army also says it has arrested 22 persons in Yobe and Borno for involvement in smuggling of fish into Nigeria from Lake Chad.
The smugglers who were arrested by sector 3 operation LAFIYA DOLE were suspected to be funding operations of the Boko Haram sect from proceeds of their illegal business, the Nigerian Army says. The suspected smugglers arrested by troops of the Nigerian Army
“A syndicate that specialises in the smuggling of smoked fish from the Lake Chad region for sale in some parts of Nigeria have been busted by the diligent troops of Operation LAFIYA DOLE. Reliable information available revealed that Boko Haram criminals/Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) and their collaborators are using the fish business to finance and sustain their heinous activities.”
“The proceeds from the sales are believed to be channelled into the procurement of food stuff, groceries, drugs, toiletries, vehicle spare parts and other items for the sustenance of their criminal activities.”
The Army further disclosed that troops from 3 division have arrested three armed robbery and kidnap kingpins who have been terrorising residents of Plateau state.
The statement by the army says one of the bandits, Dahiru Dogo, was tracked and arrested in a forest in Kano.
“Following confessional statements made by an arrested notorious bandit/kidnap kingpin named Yellow, troops of 3 Brigade tracked and arrested one of his gang members, Dahiru Dogo in Falgore Forest in Kano State.”
The statement reiterated the commitment of the Chief of Army Staff Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai to a safe and peaceful nation.
Kidnappers along Abuja-Kaduna expressway have allegedly demanded N50 million ransom from the Nigeria Police Force as condition to free an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mr. Isa Rambo, kidnapped on October 19, 2019.
Isa Rambo, an Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of Suleja Area Command, was kidnapped by gunmen around Kaduna state.
Rambo, was reportedly kidnapped alongside his driver while on his way to Jos on Saturday evening.
Our source said the kidnappers have made contact with the Police and demanded N50 million ransom.
“The officer was kidnapped around Kaduna while on his way to Jos. He was kidnapped along with his driver.”
“The kidnappers have made contact with the police and are demanding a ransom of N50m.”
ALSO READ:https://abntv.com.ng/2019/09/-army-officer-kidnapped-in-zaria/
The victim is the second senior police officer to be abducted in the last three months.
In August, a Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) from Effurun division Delta State was abducted along the Abuja- Kaduna expressway while returning from a course.
The officer was released after a ransom of N3million was paid, The Dune learnt.
The Abuja-Kaduna expressway has witnessed countless kidnappings in recent times causing many to opt for trains rather than road transport.
DELTA – A man simply identified as William has been reported dead as Aladja and Ogbe-Ijoh Communities in Udu and Warri South-West Local Government Government Areas of Delta State resumed an aged long crisis.
Details as to what caused the latest crisis is still sketchy at the time of filing this report.
It was learnt that the victim who was a tailor was allegedly shot dead in his house by suspected armed youths from Aladja Community this afternoon.
The Ijaw Youth Council Chairman, IYC in Ogbe-Ijoh Warri Kingdom, Comrade(Engr.) Smart Okosun confirmed the report to Our Correspondent in a telephone chat. “William was shot dead in his house by Aladja youths this afternoon in Ogbe-Ijoh.”
The President of Aladja Community Council, Elder Otto Ogbiruveta in a telephone chat with Our Correspondent said,”For now, I cannot tell you anything because I am not in town. I am oyt of town. When I come, I will have to investigate first before I can say anything.”
The incident has caused serious tension within the neighbouring communities.
When contacted, the Delta State Commissioner of Police, CP Adeyinka Adeleke confirmed the report in a telephone chat with Our Correspondent in Warri.
CP Adeleke said,”My men are there now. I learnt one man was shot dead in his house.
“That’s what caused the crisis but we don’t have the particulars of the man who was shot dead. But we have to be careful so that we don’t escalate the crisis.”
Akwa Ibom state has moved from 16th position on the Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) rating table in 2015 to number six (6) on the table in 2019, going by the latest rating released by the Joint Tax Board (JTB).
The state’s IGR reached an all-time high of N24.8billion within eight months, January to August 2019. This amount represents 57.05 percent of the projected IGR (N43.6billion) for the 2019 business year.
The governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel gave the figure in the performance review of the 2019 budget while presenting highlights of the 2020 budget to the Akwa Ibom state house of assembly.
“As at August 2019, the actual recurrent revenue collected was N190.66 billion… a breakdown of this shows that Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) was N24.875 billion.”
The IGR for 2019 is more than the sum of the state’s IGR realised in 2016 and 2017 and N5.7 billion higher than the N19.04 billion generated between January and September 2018.
The state generated N11.3billion between January and September 2016 and N10.4billion within the same period in 2017.
The state’s IGR started picking up in 2015 when Mr. Udom Emmanuel took over as governor.
The Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service (AKIRS) under the Emmanuel administration’s, led by Mr. Okon Okon, has aggressively pursued tax recovery from organisations that evaded taxes in the last 10 ten years. Mr. Okon Okon, Chairman AKIRS
The recovery must have accounted for the improvement in the state’s IGR.
There has been major reforms in tax administration in the state since the Udom Emmanuel administration came on board in 2015.
Some of the reforms include, the signing of the Akwa Ibom state revenue administration bill 2016 which grants autonomy to the AKIRS, automation of tax collection process, and approval of 2.5 percent incentive to all revenue generating agencies of the state.
Mr. Leo Umana, Executive Director Tax Recovery and Enforcement said strategic reforms introduced by the AKIRS have improved tax administration in the state and this account for the significant improvement in the IGR.
“The successes we have been so far is because all of us have worked together as a family. And, of course we must give credit to Governor Udom Emmanuel for signing the Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service Administration Law that grants autonomy to the board. That has been the beginning of the turning point.”
Akwa Ibom state was trudging towards the lower rung on the tax table before 2015 due to leakages, corruption and lack of commitment by the state government’s revenue officers.
It was learnt that under the previous administration, many organisations in the state including government owned investments were not remitting relevant taxes especially PAYE to the government and there was no commitment on the part of government to explore new tax options, enforce or recover taxes withheld by organisations.
“When we came on board we discovered that there were a lot of leakages especially in the road taxes, so we introduced automation and that has really helped”, Umana noted.
Our correspondent learnt that the automation of the tax collection process has blocked leakages in road taxes accruing to the state. Mr. Leo Umana (middle) Executive Director Tax Enforcement and Recovery with members of his enforcement team during tax enforcement drive recently.
When the current board came in it used to generate between N6 – N8million monthly from the road taxes, but that rose to N18millon in the month it introduced automation.
Now the board generates between N28 – N32million monthly.
Akwa Ibom state is currently ranked the sixth on the IGR performance rating in 2019 according to data obtained from the Joint Tax Board and National Bureau of Statistics.
Lagos, Rivers, Ogun, Delta and Kaduna are the first top five on the table.
Akwa Ibom used to stand behind Kano, Cross River, Edo, Bayelsa, Ondo and Osun states on the IGR performance rating.
There has been noticeable coordination in tax collection, transparency and ease in payment of tax, and an unprecedented level of tax enforcement under the new Akwa Ibom State Internal Revenue Service (AKIRS) board led by Mr. Okon Okon.
About 80,000 people have been brought under the state’s tax net within the last two years.
“When we were sworn-in, the people we met on ground in the tax net were not up to 15,000. But now the number of people on the tax net is above 100,000”, Umana said.
AKIRS has been on an aggressive tax enforcement in the state in the last few months.
Umana said the AKIRS under the chairmanship of Mr. Okon Okon has pursued vigorously the recovery of taxes from defaulting organisations.
“The law allows us to investigate organisations for a about ten years in past. So we did that and made a lot of recovery from financial institutions that are operating in the state.”
The steady growth of the state’s IGR under the current AKIRS board is giving the state government more confidence to target a higher IGR in 2020.
The state is projecting N52.556 billion IGR in 2020. This is about N556 million higher than the projected statutory allocation for the year 2020.
The Uyo Zonal office of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, on Tuesday, October 8, 2019, arraigned one Victor Saviour Uko before Justice Fatu Riman of the Federal High Court sitting in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on one-count charge bordering on conspiracy, forgery and obtaining by false pretence to the tune of N900,000.00.
Uko ran into troubles when the Commission received a petition dated July 18, 2019, from Mfonobong SundayJim, alleging that sometime in December 2018, he was lured into purchasing a parcel of land situated at Ikot-Oku in Ikono village, Uyo, by the defendant and his accomplice namely; Daniel Udofia and two others, who are currently at large (Effiong Bassey Jackson and Otu Saviour Uko).
According to the petitioner, while the defendant presented himself as the owner of the said land, Udofia presented himself as the village head of Ikono village. Based on this assurance, Jim paid the said amount of money in cash to Uko and a signed power of attorney was issued to him.
The complainant realised he had been defrauded when he tried to develop the land but was stopped by a traditional injunction placed on the land by the community and was further informed that the land belonged to the community. Efforts made by the petitioner to get his money proved abortive.
The one-count charge reads; “That you Victor Saviour Uko “M” on or about the 19th day of December, 2018, at Ikot-Oku Ikono village, within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court with intent to defraud did obtain the sum of N900,000.00 (Nine hundred thousand naira) only from Mfonobong Sunday Jim, which money was paid to you under the pretence that the money is a purchase price for a piece of land known as “Ikot Esa” behind QIC Primary School, Ikot-Oku Ikono village, Uyo Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State and that you are a bonafide owner of the said land, a pretence you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 1 (1) (a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and Other Fraud Related Offences Act, 2006 and punishable under Section 1 (3) of the same Act.”
When the charge was read in English language and interpreted to him in Ibibio language, as he claimed to understand the later, the defendant pleaded “guilty” but the defence counsel, David Akpanofun, quickly objected to his plea and applied that the charge be read and re-interpreted to him.
His application was granted and Uko changed his initial plea of “guilty” to “not guilty”.
In view of his plea, Shehu Usman, the prosecution counsel, prayed the court for a trial date and for the defendant to be remanded in prison custody.
Akpanofun, who attempted to make an oral application for bail, was vehemently opposed by the prosecution on the grounds that he jumped the administrative bail earlier granted to the defendant by the Commission.
The matter was adjourned to Friday, October 11, 2019, for hearing of bail application and the defendant remanded in EFCC custody.
The defendant and Udofia were arrested on August 28, 2019. Uko later jumped bail and was re-arrested at Ikom Iman junction on October 4, 2019.
Udofia will soon be charged to court as soon as investigations are concluded.
NECO has announced the 2024 SSCE internal exam results, showing that 60.55% of the 828,284 candidates scored five credits, including Maths and English.
Prof Dantana...
