News Jagaban

A few hours to the expiration of President Goodluck Jonathan’s tenure, papers for a huge rice import quota worth billions of Naira were rushed in for the president’s accent, ostensibly as parting gifts to cronies and businessmen close to the power corridor. A state House memo dated May 27, 2015 and obtained by PREMIUM TIMES conveyed the President’s approval of another memo forwarded to him only a day earlier by his Vice President, Namadi Sambo. In the earlier memo dated May 26, 2016, the then Vice President had sought a subsidy approval for select rice importers to bring in a total of 782,000 metric tonnes under what was termed ‘2015 Rice Quota Allocations’. The then President signed the largesse deal on his last day in Aso Rock. But the allocation was rejected, and cancelled by the succeeding Muhammadu Buhari administration. PREMIUM TIMES had on December 21, 2015, published an investigation detailing the corruption that plagued the 2014 Rice Quota Allocations a...

  Ayodele Fayose, Governor of Ekiti state In this first part of a no-holds-barred interview with PREMIUM TIMES’ Josiah Oluwole in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, speaks about his administration, President Muhammadu Buhari, and other matters. PT: You have been in office for over one year now? How has it been? What difference have you made in the lives of Ekiti people? Fayose: You will recall that I am a second term governor and I must have come with some level of experience otherwise we will be in a very serious and a very terrible situation as a government. This is beside the fact that the economy of the state under the last administration was not impressive. The handling of the economy and other things that happened created a lot of challenges for this administration. I employed a strategy to be transparent and took time to engage the people. When you engage the people in the running of your g...

  A reader in Maryland sent in the photos. Said they are practically snowed in now...and no bread or milk to buy at local food stores as they are all sold out. This is happening in most parts of the East Coast. Read more..

While speaking to select On-Air-Personalities in Lagos state today Jan 23rd, Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, revealed that when he assumed office as a Minister, he discovered some Senior officials in a particular parastatal who were indicted in a job scam where they collected as much as N400, 000 from unsuspecting job applicants. According to him, he dismissed them from service after they were found guilty "The first scandal I met in one of the parastatals when I assumed office was the illegal employment of 400 people. This scandal started with very senior officers up to level 17 in that department. They sent out letters and text messages asking people to apply for jobs for a fee of N400, 000 and they were given letters of employment. They did not stop there. They invited these people to go and be captured on the IPPIS and they even took cameras to hotels to get them captured. At the end of the day the bubble burst. One of the victims told these officials,...

Good Samaritan shot to death trying to help a stranded driver in the snow A motorist shot and killed a good Samaritan who stopped to help him after his car slid off an icy North Carolina highway on Friday evening, according to the Catawba County Sheriff's Office. Around 5:20 p.m. Friday, a group of people stopped to help a motorist who slid off the road in Catawba. The group called the Sheriff's Office for help, and when the driver of the car heard them calling law enforcement, he began shooting, authorities say. The Samaritans ran, but one was shot. That's when, according to the Sheriff's Office, the driver, Marvin Lee (pictured above), approached and continued firing on the downed victim. According to the authorities Lee appeared to be under the influence of drugs or alcohol. The suspect returned to the vehicle and wouldn't exit. A tactical team responded with an armored vehicle. Lee was pepper-sprayed and taken into custody. The name o...

The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has said that it will not provide sureties for its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh. The party said since Metuh was being prosecuted for offences that have nothing to do with it, its embattled spokesperson should look for those who would stand as sureties for him. Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Alhaji Abdullahi Jalo, told our correspondent in an interview on Friday in Abuja that it would be wrong for anyone to be expecting the party to provide sureties for Metuh when the party did not benefit from the money he allegedly collected from the former National Security Adviser, Lt Col. Sabo Dasuki (retd.). Metuh is facing charges for allegedly collecting N400m from Dasuki, an offence the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission described as money laundering. Though Metuh said he actually collected the money, he said it was for a job he did for former President Goodluck Jonat...

Sources inside Nigeria’s Presidency have told SaharaReporters that fierce disagreements over treaties signed between Nigeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) nearly led to the sacking of top ministers in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government. The sources disclosed that Minister of Trade and Investment, Udo Udoma, and Minister of Finance, Kemi Adeosun, expressed serious concerns over the provisions of several of the treaties President Buhari planned on signing with the UAE. The ministers’ opposition caused serious friction within Mr. Buhari’s team, SaharaReporters learned. Pres. Muhammadu Buhari Mr. Buhari met earlier this week with Sheikh Mohammed Bin Al Nah Yan, the Crown Prince of the UAE, to discuss a range of financial and political issues and to sign six bilateral agreements. According to documents exclusively leaked to SaharaReporters, the six agreements focused on four judicial issues: extraditing criminals in the UAE to Nigeria, the transfer of inca...