Retired Brig.-Gen. Bashir Adewimbi, the commander of Osun Security Network Agency, also known as the Amotekun Corps, said more operatives would be recruited to strengthen security and flush out bandits hiding in forests.
Adewimbi made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria, on Saturday in Ede, stating that they had credible intelligence that bandits and criminals were hiding in the state’s forests.
“The banditry and terrorism we are experiencing in our region now is the spill over effect of what is happening around the country.
“We have credible intelligence that bandits are all in our forests and we are strategizing to comb the forests and make sure we drive them away or arrest them,” he said.
The commander said: “The operatives of the corps are determined to go into the forests and flush out these criminals using the forests as their hideout.
“The governor has approved the recruitment of more operatives who are competent.
“We will not be recruiting or engaging those who are just looking for work but people that are bold and courageous that will go into the forest to confront and combat criminals hiding in the forests.
“We are going to recruit courageous hunters that go into the forest to hunt for weeks and months.
”The people we are looking for; we want now, are people that can combat the problem on the ground.”
He said presently, the corps only has 360 operatives, deployed to all the 30 local government areas, and a local council area, in the state, stating that there was a serious need to recruit more men.
The West African Examinations Council (WAEC), has confirmed the 2022 performance by State flying around to be false and incorrect.
Mr. Patrick Areghan, Head of National Office for WAEC, refuted the fake story and said it was incorrect, misleading, and the work of troublemakers.
Areghan said that the information did not originate from the council in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lagos.
“We learned from certain social media that the West African Examination Council (WAEC) graded each state’s performance in our most recent West African Senior School Certificate Examination.
“It ranked Kebbi as being 20th out of the 37 ranked states, including the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), in the public school-based performance data, supposedly made available by council.
“The malicious report rated Enugu as being first, followed by Edo and Benue, with 93.9, 93.5 and 91.7 per cent respectively among others.
“I want to say here that the ranking is completely false as it did not emanate from council, because there are many other things to be considered to arrive at such percentage and this is not part of our job.
“We, as WAEC, do not do state ranking. We only indicate number of credits in subjects and other categories.
“We do not dabble into areas that are not part of our duty as council,” the WAEC boss said. He urged the public to disregard the ranking, noting that it was false.
Gubernatorial candidate of Accord in Oyo state, Chief Adebayo Adelabu has declared that recent happenings in the state have finally vindicated him on his opinion that the present administration lacks the capacity and the will power to deliver good governance in the state. He maintained that the governor must have tried his best but his best is not strong enough deliver the desired good governance. His best is clearly devoid of the required understanding and administrative acumen to handle a state like Oyo state, that is known for its historical pacesetting profile.
Chief Adelabu in a statement released in Ibadan through his Media Aid, Comerade Femi Awogboro frowned at the deplorable condition of the Moniya-Iseyin road after the heavy downpour that occurred on Friday.
“The other time I warned about the poor quality of the Moniya-Iseyin road that the government claimed to have spent about N10billion on, they said we didn’t mean well for the people of Oke-ogun. It is sad to note that the heavy downpour which occurred earlier today has vindicated us that we were only being patriotic. It was bad enough that the road leading to one of the most important zones in the state which should have been made a dual carriage way was constructed as a narrow single lane. Even now, the quality of the single lane did not justify the amount claimed to have been spent on its construction. This amounts to executive recklessness and leadership fraud if the road that is less than two years old could be washed away so easily by flood emanating from just an average tempo downpour”
“It is on record that we have been vindicated on three issues just within a spate of one week. The first one is the Moniya-Iseyin road. The second is the poor quality free education that led us into the 33rd position in the recently released WASCE results across the 36 states of the federation. I have stated it in my interviews several times that the government has failed in instituting good quality educational policies in the state despite its deceitful claim of free education. He distorted all the established good policies of the preceding administration and later conceded to them after its third year when it was obviously too late to rescue the drowning educational standards. Thirdly, the Multi-billion naira Park Management System buildings are presently empty, non-functional and not being used for anything other than relaxation joints for touts and societal nit-wits. The old buses are still parked outside which means it is only the ground open space that is ordinarily required for the motor parks. So, why spending our hard earned billions of Naira on unnecessary constrution. This is clearly a misplacement of priority and wasteful utilisation of scarce resources of the state”, he stated.
Chief Adelabu said it is unacceptable that the present administration is wasting the scarce resources of the state on projects that cannot stand the test of time. The sons and daughters as well as all residents of this state deserve an apology from the state governement for this exhibition of administrative mediocrity, gross incompetence and executive cluelessness as this is not what they bargained for.
He however enjoined all well meaning citizens of the state to prevail on the government to quickly summon the contractor that handled the construction of the Moniya-Iseyin road to correct the anomalies just like it did on the Lekan Salami Sports complex. We also need to declare a state of emergency on the educational sector for all stakeholders to gather to review end to end the policies we currently have on ground. This is the only way we can reverse this shameful trend in our educational sector. Oyo State obviously deserves better.
The outgoing APC government of Alhaji Gboyega Oyetola has once again been called upon to apologize to Osun State for it’s destructive handling of education system which culminated into the very shameful placement of the state in the recently released performance ranking by the West African Examination Council, WAEC.
The Osun State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party made the call while reacting to the latest state-by-state performance record in the Senior School Certificate Examination for the 2022 calendar year.
In the Public Schools based performance data made available by the West African regional examination body, Osun State came a miserable 36th out of 37 ranked entities, involving the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
The PDP bemoaned the distasteful result as a function of the laissez-faire attitude of Apc led administration to education in the state, leaving the all important sector in the hands of do-nothing propagandists, while the proverbial future leaders are having their future inadvertently fogged up.
Only a government populated by Emotionally Handicapped Adults, whose inability to effectively recognize and interpret importance of education as bedrock of societal development would feel indifferent with the turn of event in Osun basic school education policy, approach and emerging consequences, the PDP retorted.
Osun PDP recalled how it had severally advised the outgoing government on the need to priotize curriculum based teaching policy over ego massaging or artificial policies which had accumulated negative impacts on the school system in the state.
“For long, the state government had rebuffed all wise counsels to employ competent professionals to fill existing vacancies in key subjects in almost all Public Secondary Schools in the state, in a bid to avert the present disaster.
Waterfield Luxury Hotel Akobo, Ibadan
The State government had also over time, under our Mr “silent achiever”, appeared more comfortable rigmaroling with unprofitable cosmetics in the system instead of developmental initiatives, capable of assisting school principals and the teaching staff to aide students’ learning. The result we witness today can therefore not be a magic of the devil!”
What more, Oyetola is happy expending parts of the funds expected to be used to revamp badly bleeding education sector in the state on illegal local government election that will surely fall flat. These are steams of misplaced priorities for which innocent students are being made to suffer heartaches and bleak future through faulty education.
“Our great party, under the incoming administration of the Governor-Elect, Senator Ademola Jackson Nurudeen Adeleke assures parents, whose wards have been subjected to psychological trauma with the unsavory performance in WAEC and other basic examinations of better days ahead.
Senator Ademola Adeleke’s administration as promised during electioneering, will set education as topmost priority by restoring sanity to the sector, away from personal aggrandizement.
The performance data as released by WAEC is as follows:
Students across various higher institutions of learning in Southwest region of Nigeria have been arriving Federal Capital Territory, Abuja in preparation for the convention of National Association of Nigerian Students.
The students from the Southwest had been seen trooping into Abuja with their buses. ODUDUWA NEWS Correspondent in Abuja also observed that students from the North and Eastern part of Nigeria have also been arriving at the FCT in preparation for the convention.
NANS, the apex body of Nigerian Students, according to the circulated time-table will be having change of leadership as from today.
It will be recalled that the President of the Association, Sunday Asefon had over some weeks constituted Convention Planning Committee CPC that would conduct the election starting from Thursday 25th of August, the date stipulated for the accreditation of the students and Saturday, 27th of August set aside for the election proper.
Meanwhile, there seems to be uncertainty whether the convention will hold as planned as some of the students who spoke to ODUDUWA NEWS Correspondent in Abuja were doubtful of the certainty of the election, hinging their views on the fact that the CPC has not lived to expectation due to the fact that no solid plans currently on ground that would serve as pointer that the election would hold as scheduled.
A student leader identified as Muhammed from Kano State, said it will be a rude shock if on the long run the election was postponed and that it would be an affirmation of complete failure on the part of Asefon-led NANS.
A female student, identified as Esther who also spoke from University of Nigeria Nsukka had reservations on the capacity of the CPC but in her part, held the belief that the convention would hold but there might later be slight reschedule of time table.
Another student who spoke to ODUDUWA NEWS identified as Victor from University of Ibadan, lamented the poor preparation of the Convention Planning Committee CPC.
Adesina from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife held the position that the convention might not hold as no tangible evidence seen so far pointing towards the commencement of the convention as scheduled.
ODUDUWA NEWS Correspondent who moved round the city confirmed the presence of large numbers of student but couldn’t ascertain the level of awareness of the Convention Planning Committee when visiting the Old Parade Ground, the venue of the convention.
Though, the date stipulated for the accreditation of the students was yesterday Friday, 26th of August. However, nothing was done yesterday when visiting the venue of the convention.
As at the time of filing this report, no statement has been officially made from the CPC allaying the fears of students who travelled from far distance for the purpose of the election.
The vice-presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Kashim Shettima, has said that he deliberately wore sneakers to the Nigeria Bar Association conference on Monday.
Shettima made this revelation in a social media video on Thursday.
The former Borno State governor had become a trending topic on social media and even the subject of a ‘challenge’ over his choice of outfit for the conference.
In the trending video, he said, “I was in Lagos for the NBA conference. It was held in Eko Hotels, it was largely funded by the Lagos State Government, the APC government of Lagos State. Subsequently, they moved to Eko Atlantic city, a product of an idea conceived by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
“When I sent my recce team… One of the presidential candidates, his team held meetings for three consecutive nights to commit mischief. When I was told it was a hostile crowd. I’m a banker, trained by one of the best bankers in the world. I’m a Jim Ovia boy. I deliberately wore sneakers to the NBA to mock (sic) at them.”
The managements of Ekiti State University and Osun State University have asked ASUU president, Prof Osodeke to apologise without delay, for referring to them and other institutions that have refused to be part of the industrial action as “Quacks”.
Ekiti State University in an official statement, described Osodeke’s words as unfortunate, reckless and arrant nonsense.
The Vice Chancellor of UNIOSUN while expressing his displeasure on the said statement, advised ASUU president to go and get educated.
He frowned at the statement credited to Osodeke and called it academic rascality.
Two yet to be identified persons have been reportedly kidnapped in Babaode, Itesiwaju Local Government Area of Oyo State, Nigeria. The abductors have also been said to have demanded the sum of NGN30,000,000:00 (Thirty Million Naira Only) as ransom payment for their release.
A source who is a resident of the town revealed today while speaking to ODUDUWA NEWS under the condition of annonymity. He expressed growing concern on the spate of kidnapping and banditry in the country where people could no longer sleep with two eyes closed.
He also gave a security tip to the people to be cautious of many tricks of the kidnappers who could come with various strategies to carry out their operations.
“Please be extra careful by ignoring calls inviting you that Fulani herdsmen have invaded your farm. This is the new antics of the kidnappers in this environment. And, If you have to go, move in teams with fully armed security personnel to neutralize this marauders”, said the resident.
We have been surrounded by kidnappers, bandits, herdsmen.
The Governor of Ogun State, Prince Dapo Abiodun has presented a brand new operational bus to the Artisans Association of Ogun State during yesterday’s insightful meeting with the association where he deliberated on issues of cooperation and collaboration.
The governor disclosed that he made the donor to aide the comfortable movement of the members of the association.
“In recognition of our Administration’s support to their crafts, the group honoured me with the title: Grand Patron and Táyéṣe of Ogun State”, said Abiodun.
The Lagos Zonal Command of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, has handed over a property located at 1A, Joke Ayo Street, Riverside Estate, Alagbado, Lagos as well as a Range Rover Sport Utility Vehicle, SUV, a black BMW car, a black Toyota Land cruiser car and a white Toyota Hilux recovered from a convicted fake Army General, Bolarinwa Abiodun, to one Bamidele Safiriyu Olusegun.
Abiodun had posed as an Army General to defraud Olusegun of the sum of N266,500,000 (Two Hundred and Sixty-Six Million, Five Hundred Thousand Naira.
Upon his conviction on July 8, 2022, the trial judge, Justice Oluwatoyin Taiwo of the Special Offences court sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, had sentenced Abiodun to seven years imprisonment and also ordered him to forfeit all the proceeds of the crime.
The Lagos Zonal Commander, Ahmed Ghali, while handing over the vehicles on Tuesday, August 23, 2022 at the EFCC’s Lagos Command, described the development as a milestone in the fight against corruption and appealed to the people to always provide information to the EFCC to assist it in fighting corruption.
“Finally, justice has been served. Whoever commits a crime will not get away with it. Sooner Y, the arm of the law will always catch up with you. We take pleasure in seeing fraudulent people brought to justice.
