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JALINGO—Governor Darius Ishaku of Taraba State has condemned the strike and protest by the Miyeti Allah Cattle Breeders Association, Taraba State chapter, which led to the total closure of the two major abattoirs in Jalingo and other livestock activities across the state. Miyeti Allah, Monday, protested to the Taraba State House of Assembly, demanding the withdrawal of an ongoing executive bill sponsored by Governor Darius Ishaku, which intends to prohibit open grazing of livestock in the state. Ishaku-Darius The association, while protesting in Jalingo, also vowed that if the state Assembly refuses to withdraw the bill, there would be total closure of livestock activities for one week across the state. Governor Ishaku, who spoke through his Senior Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr. Sylvanus Giwa, said the protest by the Miyeti Allah, which led to the closure of abattoir and activities of livestock in the state, was condemnable and uncalled for. In Benue Me...

Dozens of Tunisians demonstrated on Sunday to demand the right to eat and drink in public during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and to protest against non-fasters being arrested. There is no law against eating or drinking in public during Ramadan, but every year, the issue comes to the fore in the North African country. Tunisia’s constitution guarantees ‘freedom of belief and conscience,’ but the state is also regarded as the ‘guardian of religion.’ Following a call by the ‘Mouch Bessif’ (Arabic for ‘Not against our will’) group, protesters in central Tunis shouted, ‘Individual freedom is guaranteed by the constitution!’ One man openly smoking a cigarette — also deemed unacceptable during Ramadan daylight hours — held a placard in French that asked: ‘Why does it bother you if you fast and I eat?’ Demonstrators also protested against the arrest of people who were not fasting. At the beginning of June, four men were sentenced to a month in jail for ‘public indecency’ ...

Last week, Nigeria witnessed the most disturbing hate messages been spewed out from the mouths of some men who identified themselves as coalition of Northern youth or Arewa youth. The hate messages by the Northern youth targeted against the over thirty million Igbo families residing legitimately in the North of Nigeria since after the end of the first Nigerian/Biafran civil war is disconcerting to put it mildly. These unruly Northern youth served a quit notice to those Igbo families in the north to depart the region on or before 1st October 2017 or be forced by the youth to be evicted. This hate messages by these Northern youth were read out to the media from the political headquarters of the core Northern Nigeria known as Arewa house in Kaduna. Already, discordant tones have greeted the quit notice served on the Igbo families in the North by these selected but sponsored Northern youth. On the one hand, people such as the Kaduna state governor, the Gombe state governor, the c...

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has signed the 2017 appropriation bill into law. Mr. Osinbajo signed the budget at about 4:40 p.m. on Monday inside his conference room in the presence of the Chief of Staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Abba Kyari; Senate President, Bukola Saraki, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, Ministers and other top government officials. The total budget figure signed is put at N 7.44 trillion. Mr. Osinbajo said his signing of the budget was a milestone in the implementation of the economic and growth plan programme put in place by Mr. Buhari in April. He said the processes of putting the budget in place had been smoother than that of 2016 with no allegations of errors. “There were far few cases of acrimony unlike in the past. There is no doubt at all that our democracy is maturing very well,” he said. The National Assembly passed the 2017 Appropriations Bill on May 10 after raising from the N7.28 trillion earlier proposed ...

Ogechi Amadi: a member of the Evans kidnapping gang The Nigerian Police Force made good its promise to parade Nigeria’s billionaire kidnapper, Chukwudi Dumeme Onuamadike, alias Evans and members of his gang, revealing their victims and the ransom collected at various times. Most shocking, the police also unveiled a woman, Ogechi Amadi as one of the gang members. “Ogechi Amadi is the woman who rented the house and cooks for the kidnappers and their victims in the camp”, the police said. Evans, the kingpin was arrested in his mansion in Magodo estate in Lagos on Saturday by the police Joint Special Forces led by the Intelligence Response Team, the Lagos State Police Command’s Anti-Kidnapping Unit and Technical and Intelligent Unit of the Force under the supervision of the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State. Evans being quizzed by reporters The police described Evans, a native of Nnewi, “as the vicious leader of a highly organised kidnap-for-ransom syndicate and crimi...

The federal government has assured all Nigerians of safety and security following the ultimatum given to Igbos by a northern group to leave the region. The Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, ACYF, a coalition of socio-political groups in northern Nigeria, had on Tuesday issued a three months ultimatum for all Igbos in the 19 northern states to vacate the region. Responding on Wednesday, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the threat is not new. “It is not the first time that different groups will issue such threats,” he said. Mr. Mohammed, who spoke with State House correspondents after a meeting of the Federal Executive Council, which held inside the council Chamber of the Presidential Villa also said the threat is being handled by the relevant agencies of government. “It is not new, but what I want to assure you is that the security agencies are on top of the situation,” he said. Also, the Kaduna State Government has assured every resident of the s...

Sixteen northern youth groups rose from a joint meeting in Kaduna on Tuesday to give Igbo residing in their states up to October 1, 2017 to vacate the region. The youth organisations in attendance at the Kaduna meeting included Arewa Citizens Action for Change, Arewa Youth Consultative Forum, Arewa Youth Development Foundation, Arewa Students Forum and Northern Emancipation Network on the Igbo Persistence for Secession. The Beginning Of North-South/Hausa-Igbo Beef in Nigeria In a communique issued at the end of the meeting, and cited by Nigerian Bulletin, the group listed 8 provocative reasons why it gave all Igbos til October 1, 2017 to vacate all Northern regions: 1. The Igbo people of the South-East, without remorse for the carnage they wrought on the nation in the 1960s, are today boldly reliving those sinister intentions connoted by the Biafran agitation that led to the very first bloody insurrection in Nigeria's history. 2. Emboldened by the apparent indiffere...