I have only N30 million in my bank account: Buhari finally declares assets

President Muhammadu Buhari and Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, finally, disclosed details of their declared assets Thursday, bowing to growing public pressure for the new government to do so within its first 100 days.

Mr. Buhari had N30 million in his bank account before taking office on May 29, while Mr. Osinbajo had N94 million and $900,000, the presidency said in a statement Thursday, quoting details from the asset declaration forms filed by the two leaders at the Code of Conduct Bureau.

The president owns five houses in Kaduna, Daura, Kano and Abuja, and has two undeveloped plots of land, one in Kano and the other in Port Harcourt, his office said.

Mr. Buhari also has farms, an orchard, ranch, livestock including 270 cattle, 25 sheep, five horses, a variety of birds and a number of economic trees, according to the statement.

He has an unstated “number of cars”.  

Buhari                                                  Osibnajo

Vice President Osinbajo owns 4-bedroom residence at Victoria Garden City, Lagos and a 3-bedroom flat at 2 Mosley Road, Ikoyi.

He also has a 2-bedroom flat at the popular Redemption Camp along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and a 2-bedroom mortgaged property in Bedford, England.

Apart from his law firm, known as SimmonsCooper, he has shareholding in Octogenerium Ltd., Windsor Grant Ltd., Tarapolsa, Vistorion Ltd., Aviva Ltd. and MTN Nigeria – all based in Lagos.

The disclosures came as the president faces growing criticism from Nigerians who have condemned his failure to form a cabinet and make public his assets more than three months in office.

Public outrage escalated in recent days after it became clear Mr. Buhari’s appointments so far lacked regional and gender balance.

A former military ruler, Mr. Buhari rode to a historic election win over incumbent President Goodluck Jonathan on March 28, on his pledge to stamp out rampant corruption.

He cut the picture of a no-nonsense anti-corruption fighter, and with his flaunted lifestyle of an austere leader who had no plush homes in Nigeria and abroad.

Ahead of the 2015 elections, the president narrated how he took a bank loan to pay for his party’s nomination forms, which sold for N27 million.

For many Nigerians, weary of the country’s unimaginable level of government corruption, Mr. Buhari’s sincerity about confronting the monster needed to start with his public declaration of assets.

More so, a transition committee set up by the president also advised Mr. Buhari to promptly deliver on his promise to declare his assets publicly.

But after taking office, Mr. Buhari dragged his feet.

The presidency explained he was awaiting verification of the declared assets by the Code of Conduct Bureau before making the details public.

A week away from the government’s 100th day, and faced by a distrustful public, the presidency and the ruling All Progressives Congress denied the president made any promise to Nigerians within his first 100 days in office.

Already investigations have already proved that claim was a lie.

The statement from the presidency on Thursday painstakingly highlighted how Mr. Buhari, as a former leader who also served as petroleum minister and head of the petroleum development fund, was worth so measly in a country where less important officials are worth several billions of naira.

Mr. Buhari has one bank account (with the Union Bank), no foreign account, no factory, no enterprises, and no oil wells, the presidency said.

It said the president has shares in Berger Paints, Union Bank and Skye Bank.

Two of his houses in his native Daura are mud-made, the statement said.

“He borrowed money from the old Barclays Bank to build two of his homes,” the presidency said.

“The documents also showed that the retired General uses a number of cars, two of which he bought from his savings and the others supplied to him by the federal government in his capacity as former Head of State.  The rest were donated to him by well-wishers after his jeep was damaged in a Boko Haram bomb attack on his convoy in July 2014,” the presidency added.

The personal vehicles of Vice President Osinbajo are one Infinity 4-Wheel Drive SUV, one Mercedes Benz and a Prado Jeep, the statement also stated.

Full details of the declaration would be available to the public after verification by CCB, it said.

Read the presidency statement in full below:

“Documents submitted by President Muhammadu Buhari to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), show that the retired General has indeed been living an austere and Spartan lifestyle, contrary to what many might expect of a former Head of State of Nigeria and one who has held a number of top government positions, such as governor, Minister of petroleum and the head of the Petroleum Development Trust Fund (PTDF).

“The documents submitted to the CCB, which officials say are still being vetted and will soon be made public, show that prior to being sworn in on May 29, President Buhari had less than N30 million to his name. He also had only one bank account, with the Union Bank. President Buhari had no foreign account, no factory and no enterprises.

“He also had no registered company and no oil wells.

“The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo (SAN) who had been a successful lawyer before his foray into politics declared a bank balance of about N94 million and 900,000 United States Dollars in his bank accounts.

“President Buhari declared however that he had shares in Berger Paints, Union Bank and Skye Bank.

“This is entirely unlike what one might expect from a former head of state of a country like Nigeria.

“The documents also revealed that President Buhari had a total of five homes, and two mud houses in Daura. He had two homes in Kaduna, one each in Kano, Daura and in Abuja. One of the mud houses in Daura was inherited from his late older sister, another from his late father. He borrowed money from the old Barclays Bank to build two of his homes.

“President Buhari also has two undeveloped plots of land, one in Kano and the other in Port Harcourt. He is still trying to trace the location of the Port Harcourt land.

“In addition to the homes in Daura, he has farms, an orchard and a ranch. The total number of his holdings in the farm include 270 heads of cattle, 25 sheep, five horses, a variety of birds and a number of economic trees.

“The documents also showed that the retired General uses a number of cars, two of which he bought from his savings and the others supplied to him by the federal government in his capacity as former Head of State. The rest were donated to him by well-wishers after his jeep was damaged in a Boko Haram bomb attack on his convoy in July 2014.

“As revealed by the same forms, highlights of the Vice-President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo’s asset declaration include his 4-bedroom residence at Victoria Garden City, Lagos and a 3-bedroom flat at 2 Mosley Road, Ikoyi. The Vice President also has a 2-bedroom flat at the popular Redemption Camp along Lagos-Ibadan Expressway and a 2-bedroom mortgaged property in Bedford, England. Aside from these, the Vice President has no other landed properties on the form.
“Apart from his law firm, known as SimmonsCooper, the Vice-President also declared shareholding in six private companies based in Lagos, including Octogenerium Ltd., Windsor Grant Ltd., Tarapolsa, Vistorion Ltd., Aviva Ltd. and MTN Nigeria.

“According to details shown on the form, the Vice-President has about ninety four million naira, nine hundred thousand US dollars and nineteen thousand pounds in Nigerian Banks with the foreign currencies kept in local domiciliary accounts. His personal vehicles are one Infinity 4-Wheel Drive SUV, one Mercedes Benz and a Prado Jeep.

“As soon as the CCB is through with the process, the documents will be released to the Nigerian public and people can see for themselves.”

Signed :

Garba Shehu
Senior Special Assistant to the President (Media and Publicity)
03-09-15

Exclusive: The reason behind the sack of former DSS most loquacious spokesperson, Marilyn Ogar.

Controversial former spokesperson of the State Security Service (SSS), Marilyn Ogar, has been compulsorily retired from service following investigation into allegations of bribery and professional misconducts against her.
Mrs. Ogar was alleged to have collected several trucks of DPK (Dual Purpose Kerosene) as bribe, playing partisan roles, among other breaches of service codes.
Although no official statement has been issued by the Service regarding the compulsory retirement of Mrs. Ogar and other officials, a security source confirmed that the former spokesperson was retired on Wednesday – seven years before she was due to leave service.
 

Marylin Ogar

PREMIUM TIMES had on March 26 exclusively reported how Ms. Ogar received trucks of kerosine in bribe, and then proceeded to disparage the then opposition APC on television and other media before and after the Osun governorship election.
In the exclusive report, which sources in the service said triggered internal investigation by the new service leadership, this newspaper reported that Mrs. Ogar was treated to a special offer the former Nigerian administration utilized in appeasing dubious officials hired to do hatchet jobs, and other Nigerians regarded as troublesome.
PREMIUM TIMES gathered that the new Director General of the service, Lawal Daura, set up a panel headed by a retired director of training to investigate the allegations against Mrs. Ogar and other staff of the agency.
Mrs. Ogar, our sources said, was found guilty of the corruption allegation against her as well as for playing partisan role that ridiculed the agency in the eyes of the Nigerian public.
The panel therefore recommended that she be compulsorily retired, alongside others also found guilty for professional misconducts during the last administration.
In the PREMIUM TIMES story that exposed the bribery, it was reported that within government circles, the offer made to her, which was direct allocation of fuel products, was termed “settlement” by agents of the immediate past administration.
“That is what the government uses if it wants to settle you. If you are settled once, you are made,” one source told PREMIUM TIMES in March.
Mrs. Ogar was referred to the Pipelines and Products Marketing Company (PPMC), a subsidiary of the government-run Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in charge of marketing and distribution of petroleum products.
According to elaborate details of the transaction obtained by PREMIUM TIMES in March, the PPMC was directed to allocate 10 trucks of DPK (Dual Purpose Kerosene) to Mrs. Ogar.
The sacked spokesperson accordingly met with the then Managing Director of the company, Haruna Momoh, and the deal was struck, this newspaper reported.
With little or no previous fuel marketing experience, and more importantly, without a registered company for that purpose, Mr. Momoh, suggested the allocations be channelled through known fuel independent marketers who will receive the allocation, sell them and deliver cash to Ms. Ogar.
According to the PREMIUM TIMES report, the former spokeswoman agreed, and the PPMC selected three marketers to deliver four, three, and three trucks apiece on her behalf.
An agent at the PPMC triggered text messages to the respective marketers. In one, sent by the coordinator of a private depot in Apapa Lagos via 08064387579, the firm wrote, “Please be informed management has approved three trucks of DPK to your company. Kindly make arrangement for payment. Thank you.”
To finalise the deal, the PPMC introduced Ms. Ogar to the three marketers and all sides agreed she be paid N1.5 million for each truck of DPK.
In all, Ms. Ogar was paid N15 million for doing nothing beyond meeting the PPMC boss having been recommended by the higher authorities to do so.
To this day, Ms. Ogar never responded to calls and text messages seeking her comments over the story.

Source: Premium Times

Women free to commit abortion as Pope Francis assures them of forgiveness

Pope Francis rocked the Catholic world again on Tuesday by announcing that contrite women who have had an abortion can seek forgiveness from all priests during the church’s upcoming “Year of Mercy.”
Traditionally, people involved in the procurement of abortion, condemned as a grave sin by the church, are considered automatically excommunicated, and only a bishop can lift the ban. Under the new, temporary policy, Francis is essentially suspending bishops’ power to prohibit priests from offering forgiveness and giving clergy full authority to absolve abortions in the name of God and the church.
The pontiff’s announcement comes just weeks before he is scheduled to visit the United States, and lands amid a fierce debate over the funding and morality of Planned Parenthood, one of the nation’s largest providers of abortion.

Pope Francis

According to CNN, Vatican officials say Francis will likely try to transcend the culture wars when he visits Washington, New York and Philadelphia later this month, but his church here remains bitterly divided over the morality of abortion.
According to a new poll conducted by the Public Religion Research Institute, 51 per cent of American Catholics believe abortion should be legal in all cases, while 45 per cent say it should be illegal in all cases. In the hours after Francis’ announcement, Catholics on both sides of the debate were seeking to spin the popular pontiff’s remarks.
The Pope’s new policy, which does not change church doctrine, technically applies only to Year of Mercy, a centuries-old Catholic practice during which believers may receive special indulgences for their sins.
“The tragedy of abortion is experienced by some with a superficial awareness, as if not realizing the extreme harm that such an act entails,” Francis said in a statement Tuesday. “Many others, on the other hand, although experiencing this moment as a defeat, believe that they have no other option.”
“I think in particular of all the women who have resorted to abortion,” the Pope continued. “I am well aware of the pressure that has led them to this decision.”
The church’s mercy year begins on December 8 and runs through November 20, 2016. Vatican officials say it is possible the pontiff will allow the abortion policy to continue in perpetuity.
The move showcases a new phase in Francis’ papacy, which began in March of 2013. During the first two years, he changed the church’s tone by welcoming people on the margins, including gays and lesbians, divorced Catholics, the elderly, the poor and the sick.
This summer, for example, Francis said the church should take special care to embrace divorced Catholics. “No closed doors!” he told a crowd gathered for his weekly audience in Rome in August.

Read how feeding school children by FG will attract N980bn investment

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo disclosed yesterday that the promised one-meal-a day for all primary school pupils will in addition to creating jobs in the agriculture sector, attract investment of N980 billion.
He listed the areas to include poultry, catering and delivery services.
The one-meal-a-day for primary school students across the country was part of the campaign promises of President Muhammadu Buhari.

Osinbajo made the disclosure at the ongoing 45th Annual Accounting Conference of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), in Abuja, on the topic “Repositioning Nigeria for Sustainable
Development: From Rhetoric to Performance.”
According to the Vice President, the multiplier effects of the introduction of the scheme include, 1.14 new jobs; increased food production – up to 530,000 mt/a; attracting investors by investment up to N980 billion.
This is even as he has stated that growth figures recorded in the last three  administrations of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) though rising oil prices, GDP and foreign reserves did not put a dent to poverty or unemployment levels in the country.

Why I raped my daughter 6 times

A 34 year -old man is in a mess for allegedly having sex with his 14 year- old daughter.
The culprit, Mohammed Ahmed, was paraded at the headquarters of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Osogbo, yesterday for committing the crime.
Daily Sun gathered that Ahmed had been committing the crime since April, 2015, until he was apprehended by NSCDC after a tip off by Ahmed’s co-tenant.
 

Daily Sun also gathered that the girl (names withheld), who is in primary four in a public school and her younger sister of nine years had been living
 with their father in a single room apartment since their father divorced their mother.
Although, their father married another woman, who bore him two children, the wedlock did not last as the woman died two years ago. Since then, the man has been living with his two daughters.
“I don’t know what came over me since April that I have been having sex with my daughter and any time I am having sex with her, I did not see anything wrong in it.
 I only had sex with her six times since April 2015,” Ahmed confessed.
The Head of Public Relations and Protocol Unit of NSCDC, Mr. Wale Folarin, who confirmed the incident said: “The incident was related to us by one of the neighbours of Ahmed, who used to hear the cry of the girl every night and this prompted him to inquire from the girl about what has been happening to her.
“The little girl confessed to her father’s neighbour who, thereafter, related the case to us after he had confirmed it.”

Source: Daily Sun