An Upper Shari’a Court sitting in Kano on Monday, sentenced a 30-year-old man, Yahaya Sharif-Aminu, to death by hanging after his conviction for blasphemy.

Aminu was found guilty for an audio post made on WhatsApp in February.

The convict , who resides at Sharifai Quarters of Kano Municipal, was dragged before the court by the police on a count charge of inciting religious creed contrary to section 382 (6) of Kano State Sharia Panel Code Law 2000.

The trial Judge, Khadi Muhammad Ali-Kani, said the offence was against the Islamic Law.

Ali-Kani, thereafter, sentenced the convict to death by hanging under section 382 (b) of Kano State State Sharia Panel Code Law 2000.

The Prosecution Counsel, Insp. Aminu Yar-Goje, had earlier told the court that the convict committed the offence on Feb. 28.

Yar-Goje alleged that on the same date at about 8:00 p.m. and 11:50 p.m, the convict with the intention to hurt the feelings of Muslims faithful, made a blasphemous post via a WhatsApp group platform named: “Gidan Umma Abiha”.

“The convict made blasphemous and degrading audio remarks against Prophet Muhammad (PBUH),” he said.

In his submission before the court, Sharif-Aminu pleaded guilty to the charge.

The court had also sentenced a 17-year-old man, Umar Faruk, to 10-years imprisonment for alleged derogatory remarks on Allah, during a debate on March 4.

The convict, Faruk voluntarily pleaded guilty to the charge.

The trial Judge, Khadi Muhammad Ali-Kani, said the offence contravened Islamic Law, and sentenced the convict to 10-years imprisonment under section 382 (b) of Kano State Panel Code Law 2000.

The court also granted 30-day grace to appeal the judgment.

Chairman of the Forum, Gov. Simon Lalong of Plateau via a statement issued by his Director of Press and Public Affairs, Dr Makut Macham, described the attack as unfortunate.

He expressed concern that the yet to be arrested gunmen, attacked four Atyap villages in Zangon Kataf Local Government Area of Kaduna State.

Lalong expressed worry that the attacks on the villages were persistent in spite all efforts by the Kaduna State Government and security agencies to end the violence.

He said the attacks in the villages showed the desperate attempt by criminal elements to not only cause pain and sorrow among innocent citizens, but also frustrate the efforts of the Kaduna State Government at fostering peace and harmony.

“We are deeply saddened by this cycle of violence and blood-letting that is carried out against unarmed and helpless people. This is reprehensible and regrettable.

” While we call on the security agencies to rise up to the occasion and apprehend these criminals, we also encourage the citizens to assist with relevant intelligence that will lead to the arrest of these blood thirsty people,” he said.

He said any group or individual aggrieved should seek redress through official channels than resorting to actions which lead to crisis and instability.

The chairman commiserated with the victims of the crisis and the Government of Kaduna State, while promising to support Gov. Nasir el-rufai in working with all stakeholders to bring the incessant crises to an end.

(NAN)

Twitter Inc disabled a campaign-style video that President Donald Trump retweeted on Saturday, citing a copyright complaint.

The video, which included music from the group Linkin Park, disappeared from the president’s Twitter feed late Saturday with the notification: “This media has been disabled in response to a report by the copyright owner.”

Twitter removed the video, which Trump had retweeted from White House social media director Dan Scavino.

The social media platform acted after it received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act notice from Machine Shop Entertainment, according to a notice posted on the Lumen Database which collects requests for removal of online materials.

Machine Shop is a management company owned by the rock band Linkin Park, according to its LinkedIn page.

“We respond to valid copyright complaints sent to us by a copyright owner or their authorized representatives,” a Twitter representative said in an email statement.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Twitter began challenging Trump’s tweets in May and has repeatedly clashed with him since.

The social media company has several times disabled or commented on tweets by the president because of what it said were copyright complaints or violations of a policy against threatening violence.

Twitter removed an image the president tweeted on June 30, which included a picture of Trump, because of a complaint from the New York Times, whose photographer had shot the image.

The company also put a tweet from the president behind a warning label in late May, saying that he had violated its rules against “glorifying violence” when he advocated that Minneapolis authorities be tough in responding to protests over the death of George Floyd.

The Inspector-General (I-G) of Police, Mohammed Adamu, on Thursday, threatened to sue Sahara Reporters and its publisher, Mr Omoyele Sowore, over a publication considered to be defamatory if a retraction was not published within seven days.

Adamu denied the said report in a letter signed by his Lawyer, Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN, which was sent to the U.S. address of Sahara Reporters and a copy made available to journalists in Abuja.

The online platform had, on Aug. 3, published a report in which the I-G was alleged to have involved in a multi-billion naira fraudulent scheme by illegally raising funds to build Police Training School in Nasarawa State.

The police boss, therefore, demanded from Sahara Reporters “a written and unequivocal retraction with an apology carried with the same prominence” on its platform and three national dailies.

He also threatened that “a formal criminal complaint to relevant agencies” could be filed “without further correspondence” if his demands were not acceded to within the seven days’ period.

The letter reads in part: “Our client hasten to inform you that these defamatory words in your said publications are farrago of lies, concoctions all calculated by you to bring our client to the lowest contempt as they are a product of you and your online publication to achieve your premeditated blackmail, dubious and diabolical ends.

“We would not waste our energy here but reserve it at the appropriate.”

He stated that the words used in the report “are untrue, fallacious,” noting that Sahara Reporters did seek the his response “to get a balanced and robust view to the runs of the mills.”

More troubles appear to be rolling in for the suspended Acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC), Mr Ibrahim Magu, following a petition on alleged extortion and criminal intimidation by Magu’s Boy.

In a fresh petition by an Abuja based lawyer, Mr Johnmary Jideobi, Magu and his boys were alleged to have unlawfully frozen accounts of a company, Damjay Integrated Services Limited with Access Bank in 2018, without any court order.

The petition is said to have been forwarded by the Office of the Attorney General of the Federation to the Justice Ayo Salami led panel investigating the recovery of assets by the EFCC under Magu. 

The petitioner, among others claimed that following the refusal of the bank to unfreeze the account, Magu and EFCC were sued at the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) where Justice O. C. Agbaza on November 21, 2018 declared Magu’s action as unlawful, illegal and ordered him to immediately unfreeze the bank account.

In the petition signed by the legal practitioner on behalf of the company and addressed to the Attorney General of the Federation, Magu was alleged to have bluntly refused to comply with the order of the court despite not appealing against the judgment. 

Insisting that the EFCC has no power under any Nigerian law to freeze any bank account without an order of court, Jideobi claimed that Magu while as acting chairman acted with impunity and trampled on the rule of law. 

At the peak of the alleged unlawful act, the lawyer claimed that a group of officers operating in the name, “Magu boys” instead of obeying the court order acted as intermediaries to the company and allegedly demanded N75 million from the account as a condition for lifting the illegal restriction.

The petitioner further revealed that the said “Magu boys”, sent three different bank accounts namely Cikin Gida Nigeria Limited with account number: 1771773211, at Polaris Bank; Black and Black Global Concept Limited with account number: 0259011841 with Gtbank and Amina Kigbu with account number: 2176716071 with Zenith Bank for the payment of the alleged bribe.

The petitioner further claimed that the alleged Magu boys gave directives that the said N75 million bribe be paid in three tranches of N25 million into the three accounts. 

However, following the refusal of the sponsor of the company to dance to the tune, a phantom criminal charge was on June 19, 2020, filed against the company’s sponsor and pending in court. 

“It is the aggregation of these ordeals consisting of abuse of investigative powers, extortion, unlawful seizure of a citizens property and flagrant disobedience to order of the court that impelled our client to instruct that the instant petition be tabled before you now that Mr President is desirous of sweeping the EFCC clean and restoring sanity”.

The petitioner, therefore, demanded that the AGF immediately lift the unlawful restriction on the account in compliance with the court order, and order an immediate withdrawal of the alleged phantom charge instituted against the petitioner because it was predicated on malice and vendetta than justice.

The petition dated July 28, 2020 was received in the AGF’s office on July 29, 2020 and copied the Justice Ayo Salami led panel investigating the recovery of assets by the EFCC under Magu, along with the High Court judgment.

PRNigeria

The federal government has asked banks to open all their branches.

Dr. Sani Aliyu, the National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19, stated this during Thursday’s media briefing.

During the press conference, it was also announced that President Muhammadu Buhari has extended the eased lockdown by another four weeks.

“We have said banks can fully resume. They no longer have to select the branches to open,” Aliyu said.

The police in Apapa Area Command of Lagos State have intercepted a 40-foot container laden with drugs suspected to be Tramadol and codeine, Channels TV reports.

The container was intercepted on water and taken to a bonded terminal in Apapa.

A team of officers from Customs and the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) joined the Area B Commander, Olasoji Akinbayo, on Thursday for inspection.

The Area B Commander has recently intercepted similar imports and has transferred the case and two suspects to government prosecutors.

The latest intercepted container is expected to also be handed over to appropriate authorities for further investigation and prosecution.

On Tuesday, the National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno, hinted that drug trafficking was one of the factors fueling insecurity across the country.

Drug addiction and trafficking were one of the major issues the Federal Executive Council, chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari, discussed at its last meeting, according to Monguno.

According to him,  Nigeria has moved from a transit hub to a drug production centre.

He noted that 17 meth labs were recently shut down in the country and called for a wholesome national approach to stopping the drug menace.

Former First Lady Michelle Obama said she is suffering from “low-grade depression” from coronavirus quarantine, racial strife in the United States and the “hypocrisy” of the Trump administration.

Obama made the remarks in the latest episode of “The Michelle Obama Podcast” released on Spotify on Wednesday.

“I’m waking up in the middle of the night because I’m worrying about something or there’s a heaviness,” the 56-year-old former First Lady said.

“I try to make sure I get a workout in, although there have been periods throughout this quarantine, where I just have felt too low,” she said.

Obama said she has been going through “those emotional highs and lows that I think everybody feels, where you just don’t feel yourself.”

“These are not, they are not fulfilling times, spiritually,” she said. “I know that I am dealing with some form of low-grade depression.

“Not just because of the quarantine, but because of the racial strife, and just seeing this administration, watching the hypocrisy of it, day in and day out, is dispiriting.”

Michelle Obama and Barack Obama, America’s first black president, took up residence in Washington after he left the White House in January 2017.

She also said it is “exhausting” to be “waking up to yet another story of a black man or a black person somehow being dehumanized, or hurt, or killed, or falsely accused of something.”

“And it has led to a weight that I haven’t felt in my life, in a while,” she said.

Obama said it was important to remember that “we’ve been through tough times in this nation” before.

“We are in a unique moment in history,” she said. “We are living through something that no one in our lifetimes has lived through.

• AFP

Barely 24 hours to the re-opening of worship centres, the Lagos State Government, on Thursday, released several protocols and guidelines numbering 46 that must be adhered with during services in the first phase.

Also, the State government has inaugurated a 43-man monitoring and Compliance Committees charged with the responsibility of ensuring total compliance with the stated protocols and guidelines.

Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu last Saturday, announced the reopening of worship centres across the state which had been on lockdown for several months in the wake of COVID-19 pandemic.

The Governor announced that places of worship would be reopened on August 7, 2020, for Muslim worshippers and on Sunday, August 9, for Christian worshippers but only at 50 percent of their capacity.

Commissioner for Home Affairs, Prince Anofiu Elegushi, disclosed this after closed-door stakeholders meeting with both Muslim and Christian leaders at Alausa, Ikeja and inauguration ceremony of members of the monitoring and compliance committee.

Al-Qaeda insurgent group is gaining sway in the restive North-Western part of Nigeria, the United States of America has warned.

Dagvin Anderson, Commander of the US Special Operations Command, Africa, disclosed this during a briefing, saying the group was also expanding to other parts of West Africa.

He said, “We have engaged with Nigeria and continue to engage with them in intel sharing and in understanding what these violent extremists are doing. And that has been absolutely critical to their engagements in Borno State and into an emerging area of North-West Nigeria that we’re seeing al-Qaida starting to make some inroads in. 

“So, this intelligence sharing is absolutely vital and we stay fully engaged with the Government of Nigeria to provide them an understanding of what these terrorists are doing, what Boko Haram is doing, what ISIS West Africa is doing, and how ISIS and al-Qaida are looking to expand further south into the littoral areas.

“I think there’s two factors in that. One, it goes to that each government has to focus on this and provide that focus for international partners to engage with. The other part of this is we can’t underestimate the threat these violent extremist organisations pose. We, as a community of international nations, keep thinking we have defeated them or we have put them on their back foot and that they’re just moments from disintegration.

“I think after 20 years we have seen they are very resilient organisations that, although small, they’re able to leverage social media and other forms of media to have an outsized voice and that they continue to recruit and they continue to find opportunities. When it comes to Nigeria in general, Nigeria, obviously, is a critical nation to West Africa. It is a critical nation and we realise that Nigeria is a lynchpin.

”For that to have an effect against the VEOs and to have an effect against these stressors, it really takes the Government of Nigeria to lead that effort and to build that energy to coalesce around. So no nation can come in and fix that problem for Nigeria. We can assist with that – and it’s the United States can assist, the United Kingdom, other countries can come in, many countries can come and assist with that partnership – but ultimately it takes leadership from Nigeria in order for us to focus our efforts.”