ZIKKYZ HINTS BLOG: October 2020

Friday, October 30, 2020

EXCLUSIVE: HOW NIGERIAN ARMY SECRETLY MOVED 20 LEKKI MASSACRE VICTIMS TO IDH MORTUARY

SaharaReporters gathered that the Lekki massacre victims were moved to the IDH mortuary after a postmortem examination was conducted on their bodies at the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja.

At least 20 bodies of EndSARS protesters massacred at Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos by operatives of the Nigerian Army on October 20, 2020, were on Friday secretly moved to the Infectious Disease Hospital (IDH) mortuary in Yaba.

The IDH mortuary is beside the 68 Nigerian Army Reference Hospital (68 NARHY), a military health facility in Yaba.

SaharaReporters recall that soldiers had last week Tuesday opened fire on the protesters, who had converged at the Lekki Toll Gate to protest against police brutality.

The incident triggered a global outrage, with calls for justice echoing from different parts of the world.

It was gathered that before the shooting started, some officials uninstalled the Closed Circuit Television cameras in the area.

The electricity at the protest area was also disconnected to prevent demonstrators from filming the attack.

Minutes later, heavily armed Nigerian Army personnel moved into the scene to complete the plan.

By the time sounds of their guns died down, dozens of protesters had been killed.

Though Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, blamed ‘forces beyond our control’ for the attack, the Army in a statement later revealed that the soldiers were invited to the scene of a protest by the governor.

Also soldiers involved in the operation confirmed they were drafted in for the mission on the request of the governor.

The soldiers, who were deployed from 65 Battalion, Bonny Camp, Victoria Island, Lagos, told some victims’ relatives after dumping some of the injured and dead at MRS Hospital that they were sent by Sanwo-Olu.

While the governor insisted that there were only two recorded deaths and no bloodstain at the scene of the protest, military sources told SaharaReporters that no fewer than 30 protesters died as a result of the shooting.

Meanwhile, a human rights advocacy group, Amnesty International, has released a timeline of the Lekki shootings, which it said followed an on-the-ground investigation into the incident.

In the timeline published on Wednesday, the rights groups said it uncovered how soldiers from Bonny Camp opened fire on protesters.

The new timeline of the incident chronicled from how the protest was peaceful, through the firing of gunshots, and up to the statement from Governor Sanwo-Olu that the army was responsible for the shooting.

Amnesty International said its investigation had confirmed that the Nigerian Army and police killed peaceful protesters in Lagos.

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Credit: Saharareporters

BREAKING: LAGOS JUDICIAL PANEL VISITS LEKKI TOLL GATE FOR INSPECTION

The visitation was done on Friday by the panel when its members resumed sitting.

T he Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry has made a visit to the Lekki Toll Gate, the scene of the protest where personnel of the Nigerian Army opened fire on peaceful #ENDSARS protesters.

The visitation was done on Friday by the panel when its members resumed sitting.

At the resumption of the panel, Chairman of the Lekki Concession Company in charge of Lekki Toll Gate was called to give evidence of what transpired at the scene.

The man said though it had compiled its evidence including footage from what happened on the 20th of October, it is not ready to present its evidence.

He requested that the panel adjourn its sitting.

The panel, however, declined his requests and demanded that a visit will be made to the toll gate.

The panel and members of the public are presently at the toll gate as at the time of filing this report.

Recall that on 20th of October 2020, soldiers had opened fire on peaceful #ENDSARS protesters.

SaharaReporters revealed that the soldiers were called in by the Lagos State Government.

Not less than eight persons were killed with many left injured.

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Credit: Saharareporters

ITALIAN POLICE ARREST 73 MEMBERS OF NIGERIAN MAFIA GROUP IN MAJOR BUST

The group leader, 50-year-old Emmanuel Okenwa aka ‘Boogye’, was also arrested in the operation carried out by more than 200 Italian policemen in Turin and Ferrara.

I talian Police have arrested about 73 members of a notorious Nigerian mafia group called Arobaga Vikings or Norsemen Kclub International.

According to Italian newspaper, ANSA, the group leader, 50-year-old Emmanuel Okenwa aka ‘Boogye’, was also arrested in the operation carried out by more than 200 Italian policemen in Turin and Ferrara.

It is organised into local cells called Decks and present in many Italian cities.

National leaders of the mafia, which deals mainly in prostitution and drug trafficking were arrested.

They included Boogye’, an AfroBeat DJ and the self-styled “King of Ferrara”.

In all, 31 people were arrested in Ferrara. A further 43 were taken into custody in Turin including several women, who allegedly ran prostitution rackets.

Bologna preliminary investigations judge, Gianluca Petragnani Gelosi said the Vikings’ criminal plan was to “violently annihilate” other Nigerian crime outfits and take over their turf.

Interior Minister, Luciana Lamorgese said the police guard against criminal organisations and their illegal trafficking was high even amid the COVID emergency.

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Credit: Saharareporters

NIGERIA: AT LEAST 14 SOLDIERS KILLED IN AMBUSH BY BOKO HARAM

ABUJA, Sept. 26 (Xinhua) -- At least 15 Nigerian security personnel were killed when Boko Haram group ambushed a convoy of vehicles in which government officials were driven in the northeastern state of Borno, local media reported on Saturday.

The attack near Monguno town in the restive northern state occurred on Friday while the officials were on their way to Baga, another town, where hundreds of returning Internally Displaced Persons were to be received.

Eight policemen, three soldiers, and four Civilian Joint Task Force personnel died in the attack, local online newspaper Premium Times reported, citing security sources.

The security team was deployed to provide escort to the local officials.

Channels Television, a local broadcaster, also reported that an armoured personnel carrier belonging to the police, as well as state government vehicles, were hijacked in the attack.

The attack on Friday was the second of its kind in that northern state, stirring great concern. The Monguno area in Borno is believed to be dangerous and has witnessed many abductions by the terrorist group in the past.

Nigerian authorities are yet to react to the latest Boko Haram attack.

Boko Haram has been trying to establish an Islamist state in northeastern Nigeria since 2009, extending its attacks to countries in the Lake Chad Basin. Enditem

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Credit: Africanews.com

Friday, October 9, 2020

JUSTIN: NIGERIAN MIGRANT WORKER BURNED ALIVE IN LYBIA

An inflatable boat with 47 migrants on board is pictured while being rescued by the Dutch-flagged Sea-Watch 3 off Libya's coasts on January 19, 2019.

Three men stormed a factory in Tripoli, doused a Nigerian worker in petrol, and set him on fire, according to a statement by the Libyan interior ministry, in a new reported attack on migrants in the north African country.

The United Nations has described the man's death "another senseless crime against migrants in the country."

A statement by Tripoli's interior ministry on Wednesday said the suspects -- all Libyan nationals -- had been detained for the attack on the man, who has not been named.

The ministry cited witness testimony that described the men storming the factory and setting the Nigerian man on fire.

"We are horrified by the killing of a Nigerian migrant worker in Tripoli, #Libya by three men yesterday. The young man was burned alive, in yet again another senseless crime against migrants in the country," tweeted Federico Soda, head of the UN's International Organization of Migration mission in Libya. "Those responsible must be held to account."

NGO Sea-Watch 3 rescued 47 migrants on board a rubber boat off Libya's coast on January 19, 2019.

War-torn Libya has repeatedly been accused of being a hostile environment for migrants and refugees, many of whom pass through the country in an attempt to reach safer shores in Europe.

Many of these migrants are intercepted by European authorities and returned to Libya.

Last month, Amnesty International released a report detailing "horrific cycles of abuses" of migrants in Libya, including unlawful killings, enforced disappearances, torture, and rape.

The rights group says that the coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated the abuse.

"Instead of being protected, they are met with a catalogue of appalling human rights abuses and now unfairly for the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic on deeply racist and xenophobic grounds," said Diana Eltahawy, the rights group's Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa said in the report.

"Despite this, even in 2020 the EU and its member states continue to implement policies trapping tens of thousands of men, women and children in a vicious cycle of abuse, showing callous disregard for people's lives and dignity."

In August, over 45 migrants died in a shipwreck off of the Libyan coast. More than 7,000 people making the perilous journey have been returned to Libya in 2020, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Thousands of these are believed to end up in detention centres in parts of Libya controlled by the internationally-recognized government in Tripoli.

In 2017, a CNN team witnessed a dozen men being sold in a slave auction in Libya, which opened an investigation into the slave markets.

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Credit: CNN

I'LL ATTEND TRIAL WHEN DOCTOR CERTIFIES MY KNEE HAS HEALED–Maina

photo credit Sahara reporters

The chairman of the defunct Pension Reform Task Team, Abdulrasheed Maina, has said he will resume his trial only when his doctor gives him a clean bill of health.

Maina, who claimed to be suffering from knee injuries, spoke in a recorded video clip which circulated online on Thursday.

The about six-and-a-half-minute-long video clip showed him fielding questions from an unseen "journalist" who claimed to have embarked on an "independent investigation" to verify if Maina had jumped bail as being speculated in the media.

Maina was shown lying in a bed as he fielded questions, with his son, Faisal, who is also being prosecuted for separate charges, seated beside him.

The left knee, which he claimed was injured, was not shown in the clip, Punch reports.

Maina, who is being prosecuted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for allegedly laundering N2bn, has been absent from court on seven consecutive occasions since September 29, 2020, when his trial was scheduled to have resumed.

On October 2, Borno South Senator Ali Ndume, who stood surety for Maina to enable him to get bail, told Justice Okon Abang that he could no longer find the defendant.

But Maina, who was in hiding for about two years before he was re-arrested by the EFCC last year, said in the video clip that he had not absconded from his ongoing trial.

Asked when he would resume his trial, he said, "The doctors are here. You need to ask the doctors. But what they told me was that I would need six to seven weeks for recovery."

But when asked further if he was ready for his trial, he said, "Of course I am ready, as soon as I am healed."

"They told me that the next knee cap, they may not be able to do it here," Maina added.

Asked to respond to specific allegations that he had jumped bail, Maina said, "You have done your independent investigation. You were able to get my location Punch reports.

"Now, you have seen me. You have seen the situation, and you can tell whether or not I am running away from my trial."

Maina also alleged that the judge had in the course of the trial shown bias against him, citing an occasion when the judge asked him to stop gazing at him.

He said, "My lawyer asked him why, and he said 'I don't want him to look at me because I have a wife and children, and I want them alive'. Does that suggest that looking at him would kill his wife and children?"

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Credit: Saharareporters

ONDO RESIDENTS JOIN PROTEST CALLING FOR SCRAPPING OF SARS.

photo credit Sahara reporters

Concerned residents of Ondo State have joined the nationwide protest to demand the total scrapping of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force.

The protesters stormed the streets of Ore in Odigbo Local Government Area of the state to express their feelings.

They condemned how SARS operatives had been killing, extorting, and violating the rights of innocent Nigerian youth.

One of the protesters, who identified himself only as Abiodun, said that the activities of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad should be condemned by all Nigerians.

"We decided to join the protest to agitate for the total banning of SARS.

"The police unit is a total disgrace to our security and many of them are made up of criminals, who always trample on the rights of innocent citizens.

"We want a total end to their activities and would continue to join the struggle for EndSARS."

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Credit: Saharareporters

Nigeria's Ngozi Okonjo in final race to become WTO boss

Thursday, October 8, 2020

Trump threatens China with big price 'for what they've done to the world' as campaign looks to shift blame

photo credit CNN

United States President Donald Trump has again hit out at China over the coronavirus, promising Beijing will "pay a big price for what they've done to the world."

"It wasn't your fault that this happened, it was China's fault," Trump said in a video from the White House Wednesday, in which he touted his own recovery from the virus that has infected multiple top administration officials, and touted a supposed cure. "China's going to pay a big price what they've done to this country."

While Beijing will have been expecting this type of rhetoric following Trump's infection, his aggressive language -- reminiscent of similar threats made toward Iran earlier in his presidency -- comes at a seriously volatile time between the US and China, both diplomatically and militarily.

China has been advancing its territorial claims in the South China Sea, the Himalayas, and over the self-ruled island of Taiwan, all areas where the US is already engaged militarily or could easily be dragged in by any conflict. In recent weeks, the People's Liberation Army has released a flurry of videos touting its ability to take on the US, while state media has run propaganda warning Washington not to test Beijing, and playing up the 70th anniversary of China's entry into the Korean War, known in Chinese as the "War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea."

Trump's promises to make China "pay" is more likely a reference to pushing Beijing on trade, a key focus of his administration, but even there, it is not clear that continued aggression will pay off, with both countries hurting from the ongoing trade war and China becoming increasingly intransigent after months of stalled negotiations.

Beijing may be hoping for a reset come November, whether Trump wins a second term and feels able to tone down his rhetoric, or is replaced by Democratic candidate Joe Biden.

In the vice-presidential debate Thursday, Trump's deputy Mike Pence largely dodged the question of Washington's relationship with China (as did his rival, Kamala Harris), instead of pivoting to attack Beijing for its handling of the pandemic.

"China is to blame for coronavirus," Pence said, in an answer that was censored in China itself, with CNN's feed of the debate cut while Pence was speaking. "President Trump is not happy about it, he's made that clear. China and the World Health Organization did not play straight with the American people."

Such answers are clearly aimed at a domestic audience, with the administration looking to divert the blame for its own alleged mishandling of the pandemic, which has hit the US worse than any other country.

But it's not clear that Pence or Trump's approach is wise there either. As Harris noted during the debate with Pence, Washington knew as early as January about the potential danger of the virus, which was still then largely confined to China but did not take major action until it had arrived in the US.

"Can you imagine if you knew on January 28 as opposed to March 13 what they knew? What you might have done to prepare?" Harris said. "They knew and they covered it up."

Multiple other governments much closer to China and exposed to the pandemic earlier reacted faster and handled infections better than Washington, including Taiwan and Vietnam, both of which are now largely virus-free.

Few people outside of Beijing deny that Chinese authorities bungled their initial response to the virus, minimizing the danger and censoring warnings from doctors until it was too late, but since then China has successfully stamped down on new waves and controlled infections nationwide. The country is currently enjoying an eight-day national holiday, with crowds flocking to tourist sites as normal, a stark contrast to much of the world.

Trump has long sought to blame the pandemic on China, but this chain of causation only goes so far. He has to hope that when they vote next month, enough Americans will not decide that it was his actions, regardless of how the virus started spreading, which led to the dire situation the country is now facing.

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Credit: CNN

Hisbah Bans Girls, Ladies From Using Mobile Phones, Wearing Sunglasses In Kaduna

photo credit Sahara reporters

Officials of Hisbah in Kaduna State have banned girls and ladies in Kuriga Village under Chikun Local Government Area from using or possessing mobile phones and sunglasses.

A resident of the community, who spoke with SaharaReporters, raised the alarm over the increasing repressive activities of the religious police in the region.

He alleged that Hisbah had been ‘frustrating the lives of youths in Kuriga and often carry out severe punishment for moral failings’.

“Hisbah is punishing youths for keeping afro hair and sometimes it is accompanied by beating.

"They have also prevented women and girls from using smartphones, claiming that it is used to spread unIslamic behaviors. They are just terrorizing us,” he told SaharaReporters.

Another resident of the town also said Hisbah personnel have prohibited women and girls from using sunglasses.

“They also sometimes storm houses where ceremonies are taking place and punish playing of music, dancing, and any form of entertainment,” he said.

Hisbah recently made headlines for shaving off stylish haircuts of young men in Kano, arresting people for improper dressing, and seizing tricycles from riders for adorning them with pictures considered to be obscene and against the tenents of Islam.

The agency established to enforce Sharia law in some states in Northern Nigeria, also banned stylish haircuts, sagging of trousers, and playing of music at social events by disk jockeys in Kebbi State.

The group also banned commercial motorcycle and tricycle riders from carrying two women at a time.

List Of 'Un-Islamic' Things Banned By Hisbah In Kebbi State 

-Sagging trousers
-'Stupid haircuts'
-P.E.S
-Staying out late past 6 pm in the market to sell goods.
-Carrying of two women on a motorcycle
-Use of curved plates and bowls
-Listening/dancing to music by D.J, Wasigidi

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Credit: Saharareporters