@Gbengabig

Monday, 1 December 2014

NDLEA Arraigns Two Businessmen In Court For Importing 2.23 Kilogramme Of Cocaine Into Nigeria

The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) yesterday arraigned two businessmen, Mama-Solomon Ikechukwu, 27, and Emeka Mbadiwe, 33, before a Federal High Court, Lagos for allegedly importing 2.23 kilogramme of Cocaine into Nigeria.

The accused persons, Ikechukwu who resides in Brazil and Mbadiwe, a Jewellery seller in South Africa, are arraigned before the court on a two-count charge of conspiracy and unlawful possession of illicit drug.

Counsel to NDLEA, Vembe Emmanuel, told the court that the accused persons committed the offence on August 28, 2014, at Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, Lagos.

According to him the accused persons conspired with one Uzoma Stanley, now at large, to unlwafully import 2.23kg of Cocaine into the country.

The lawyer also maintained that the offences contravened Sections 11 (c) and 14 (b) of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) Cap N30, Laws of the Federation, 2004 (As Amended).

The two men, however, pleaded not guilty to the charge.

After their arraignment, counsel to the accused, Emmanuel Okenyi urged the court to grant his client bail on liberal terms.

Okenyi informed the court that the accused had been in detention for a long time and had no former criminal records.

Emmanuel opposed the application with a 10-paragraph counter-affidavit, stating that the accused persons may escape justice if granted bail.

In his ruling, Justice Saliu Saidu admitted the two men to bail in the sum of N10 million each with two sureties in like sum.

Justice Saidu also stated that one of the sureties must be a relation of the accused persons residing in Lagos and must be a property owner within jurisdiction.

The judge further held that the other surety must be a civil servant in Lagos State or with the Federal Government not below grade level 16.

In addition, Saidu said that both accused persons and sureties should present before the court two passport photographs each and that both the court and the prosecutor must be satisfied with the sureties

The court had adjourned the case to February 4, 2015, for commencement of trial.

Court Orders DSS To Release Detained APC Data Officers

Justice Mohammed Yunusa of the Federal High Court in Lagos yesterday ordered the immediate release of five employees of the data office of the All Progressives Congress (APC) arrested by the security agency on November.

Justice Yunusa, while ruling on a preliminary motion filed on behalf of the five employees held that it was against the provision of Section 35 of the Constitution to continue to hold the applicants in detention while the DSS was conducting its investigations.

The five officers - Chinedu Atuche, Fayemi Olaposi, Augustine Onuchukwu, Ebun Ilori and Esther Enemy - were arrested by the DSS during a raid on the premises of the APC data office in the Ikeja area of Lagos.

Following the arrest the APC had filed a fundamental rights enforcement suit on behalf of the five officers seeking their release, as the arrest, according to the party, violated the 1999 Constitution.

Joined as respondents in the suit are the Police and the DSS.

But according to the DSS the raid was carried out following intelligence information that some unwholesome activities were being perpetrated within the said building.

Justice Yunusa had earlier ordered the DSS to produce the five employees in court last week friday and to come and explain why the employees are still being held in custody beyond the constitutional allowed period.

But the DSS failed to produce the five detainees in court last week Friday claiming that that the agency is not aware of the court's order.

At the resumed hearing of the matter on Friday, the court declared the continued detention of the officers by the DSS as unlawful and unjustifiable.

According to the judge a citizen could not be detained for more than 48 hours before being charged to court, adding that if there was any need to extend that period, the law enforcement agency shall be required to file an application for a review of the period before a court of law.

He held, "The arrest and detention of a person for the purpose of obtaining information is clearly a violation of Section 35 of the Constitution.

"It is clear that there is a contravention of Section 35 and the applicants were not properly brought before a competent court of jurisdiction.

"The remand order, whether valid or invalid, has exceeded the time limit permitted as reasonable by the Section 35 of the Constitution.

"The same arrest and detention of the applicant is illegal and they are hereby released,"the judge stated"

The court, therefore ordered the applicants' immediate release in addition to an order restraining the DSS from further arresting them pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.

The judge also ordered the applicants not to travel outside the country without informing the court.

Justice Yunusa then adjourned the case till January 19, 2015 to hear the substantive suit.

Earlier counsel to the DSS C.I. Osagie, had prayed the court to discountenance the applicants' fundamental rights application seeking their release.

Osagie had told the court that contrary to their argument that they were being unlawfully detained, the DSS had already secured a remand order on them from "a competent law court".

The lawyer further submitted that releasing the applicants would jeopardise investigations being carried out by the DSS, in view of the nature of allegations against them and bearing in mind that some of them were at large.

He said, "My Lord, we ackonwledge the constitutional rights of the applicants to liberty as enshrined in Section 35, however that provision is not absolute, especially with the court having been notified that there is suspicion of criminality.

"There is a remand warrant, for the remand of the applicants to the custody of the 2nd respondent over allegations bordering on forgery, electoral offences and the likes. What is before this court is that the applicants are in proper custody of the 2nd respondent pending the conclusion of investigations of the allegations."

However, the counsel to the applicants, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, insisted that it was against the spirit of Section 35 of the Constitution to detain any citizen for the purpose of investigation.

According to Osinbajo the 48 hours prescribed by the Constitution to detain a citizen before charging them to court had elapsed in the case of the applicants.

The senior lawyer also challenged the jurisdictional validity of the remand order, said to have been obtained from an un-named magistrate court in Kaduna.

Qestioning the remand order, Osinbajo had said, "Even this document purport to be a warrant or remand order, aside the fact that we do not know the court which granted it, it bears the signature of the DSS and it is dated November 24, whereas the applicants were remanded on November 22, which means the applicants were unlawfully detained on November 22 and 23."

He had therefore prayed the court to order their release in respect of their constitutional right to personal liberby as guaranteed by Section 35.

Photographs of APC Data Center Employees And Their Lawyer In Court On Monday

Its ‘I Do Day’ In Rio: Nearly 4,000 tie the knot

It was Rio’s biggest mass wedding: a total of 1,960 couples who exchanged vows Sunday in a hall next to the famous Maracana stadium.

The big event brought out a whopping 12,000 people, between brides and grooms, friends and family and authorities — including a pack of judges, a Catholic priest and an evangelical Christian pastor.

Dubbed “I Do Day,” the event was sponsored by authorities to encourage many people who might not be able to afford to marry if they had to pay for licenses and banquet halls.

The megacrowd gathered in the venue which is often used for major concerts, couples tied the knot and friends took in a concert by samba star Dudu Nobre.

Guests also got a free ride on local trains — nicknamed the “I Do Day Train” just for the occasion.

China says nearly 500,000 living with HIV

The World Health Organization issued a call to action to China Monday over HIV/

AIDS as government figures said nearly half a million people are living with the
disease or its precursor, with hundreds of thousands more thought to be
undiagnosed.
Bernhard Schwartlaender, the World Health Organization’s representative in China,
wrote in an op-ed in the state-run China Daily newspaper that “there is much
more China needs to do” to prevent infection and better help those living with
HIV.
“Perhaps most importantly, we must eliminate stigma and discrimination towards
people living with HIV, and at-risk populations such as men who have sex with
men, sex workers, and injecting drug users,” Schwartlaender wrote.
“I’ve seen some of my own colleagues in the medical profession turn patients
away because they disapproved of the person’s sexual orientation. That is simply
unacceptable, and it has to stop,” he added.
The op-ed was published on World AIDS Day, a day after the National Health and
Family Planning Commission said that by the end of October, a total of 497,000
people in China had been diagnosed with HIV/AIDS since the country’s first case
in 1985.
The figure represents an increase from September 2013, when 434,000 people in
China were known to be living with HIV/AIDS. But it was not clear whether the
rise was due to an increase in infection, or more cases being diagnosed.
Another 154,000 have died from AIDS over the past three decades, the
commission said.
China’s National Center for AIDS/STD Control and Prevention last year estimated
that as many as 810,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS in the country, including
those who have not yet been diagnosed, out of a total population of 1.36 billion.
That is a far lower proportion than India, where UNAIDS says there are more two
million people living with HIV, in a slighter smaller total population — although
UNAIDS does not give figures for China.
More than a quarter of a million HIV-positive people are currently on antiretroviral
treatment in China, UNAIDS China director Catherine Sozi wrote in a China Daily
op-ed on Saturday.
China “needs to increasingly go beyond its initial success in the roll-out of large-
scale HIV programmes and focus on how to reach people who are currently falling
through the cracks,” she wrote.
– Discrimination lawsuit –
Sexual contact is the most common means of transmission in China, followed by
mother-to-baby transmission and drug needle sharing, the Family Planning
Commission said.
In the 1990s, rural parts of China — particularly the central province of Henan —
were hit by the country’s most debilitating AIDS epidemic.
It stemmed from a tainted government-backed blood donation programme and
infected tens of thousands of people, including entire villages.
But now, sexual transmission accounts for more than 90 percent of infections, the
official Xinhua news agency said, citing the Chinese Center for Disease Control
and Prevention (CCDCP).
Gay men accounted for 25 percent of new HIV cases in the first eight months of
this year, according to the CCDCP, up from 19 percent in 2012.
Discrimination against those with HIV/AIDS remains an issue at hospitals,
workplaces and other establishments across the country, a factor that experts say
hampers efforts to diagnose and treat the virus.
In August, two HIV-positive passengers sued a Chinese airline after staff refused
to let them on board, in the country’s first such lawsuit.
The two, along with an HIV-negative travelling companion, were told by Spring
Airlines that their tickets had been cancelled.
Last month, the airline compensated the two HIV-positive passengers 36,000 yuan
($5,900) and the third plaintiff 15,000 yuan ($2,440), the Legal Daily newspaper
reported.

The Yobe State Capital, Damaturu Under Siege By Boko Haram

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Men of the dreaded Boko Haram sect Monday morning invaded Damaturu the Yobe State Capital.

The insurgents who came into the town at about 5am from the Gujba axis south east of the town were shooting sporadically and triggering off explosives.

Our correspondent who was run out of his house in Jerusalem area along with other thousands of residents heard more than five explosions with deafening sound in the air.

Residents of Jerusalem and Pawari, bye pass along Gujba road have all deserted their house for safety.

The sound of blasts and heavy weapons being fired woke locals in the Gujba Road area of the Yobe state capital at about 4:45 a.m., said Umar Sada, who lives in the area.

“We have left our homes. We are now in the bush. We don’t know what’s going to happen,” said Sada, who said a police barracks had been destroyed.

“We are in serious confusion now, we are just hearing gunshots and explosions on the southern part of the city and people are fleeing”, said another embattled resident, Malam Abdulmalik.

The Yobe State University was reported to be under attack but there was no report of casualties.

An official of the SSS in Maiduguri has confirmed the attack on Damaturu.

9 Groups Sue FG Over War Crimes

A civil rights group, Access to Justice and eight other civil society organisations have dragged President Goodluck Jonathan before a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking an order of mandamus to compel investigation of allegation of war crimes committed by the military and Civilian Joint Task Force(CJTF).

Also joined as defendant in the matter is the attorney general of the federation and minister of Justice, Mr Mohammed Adoke (SAN).

Other plaintiffs in the suit are One Voice Coalition, Women Advocates Research and Documentation Centre, Human Rights Law Services, Social Economic Rights and Accountability Project, Network on Police Reform in Nigeria Foundation, Nigerian Automobile Technicians Association, Centre for Constitutional Governance and Centre for Constitutionalism and Militarisation.

In a motion ex parte, brought pursuant to Order 34 Rule 3(1) and (2) of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules 2009, the groups are seeking an order for leave to apply for an order of Mandamus compelling the respondents to exercise the legal duty to conduct a thorough, prompt, independent and impartial investigation into allegations or reports of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions made by an international human rights body named Amnesty International whose report issued with an accompanying video footage dated August 5th 2014, depicted horrendous acts of extrajudicial killings and torture of suspected members of the Boko Haram sect carried out by members of the Nigerian military and the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF).

In the grounds for reliefs sought, the plaintiffs through their counsel, Chumma Otteh, argued that it is a legal duty upon Jonathan and the AGF to conduct a thorough investigation into the allegations.