Nigerian government accuses Sowore of transferring over $50,000 ‘illicit funds’

National, News, Nigeria

Nigerian government Monday accused Omoyele Sowore, the publisher of Sahara Reporters and the presidential candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC), of transferring $50,000 illicit funds.

Sowore was arraigned by the Nigerian government on seven charges bordering on an alleged conspiracy to commit treason, money laundering, and insulting the President, among others.

During the sitting on Monday at the Federal High Court, Abuja, the prosecutor, Hassan Liman, on behalf of the Nigerian government, while reading out the seven-count charges alleged that Sowore transferred some “illicit funds”.

“That you Omoyele Sowore on April 2019 at Lagos and Abuja commit an offence by transferring the sum of $19,975 from your UBA account credited by City Bank, USA into a Sahara Bank Account with the aim of concealing the origin of the funds,” Liman said.

Liman said Sowore again transferred “$20,475 dollars from his UBA account credited by Sahara Reporters Media Group in New York with the aim of concealing the illicit origin of the funds.”

“That you Omoyele Sowore on the 27th of June did commit an offence by transferring the sum of $16,967 credited by Sahara Media Group USA with the aim of concealing the illicit origin of the funds,” he said.

Liman for the seventh charge said, “That you Omoyele Sowore on 16th July at Lagos and Abuja committed an offence by transferring the sum of $16,975 from your account in USA with the aim of concealing the illicit origin of the funds.”

Sowore, however, pleaded not guilty of all the charges.

For the first three charges, Sowore was accused of conspiracy to commit treasonable felony, treasonable felony, Cyberstalking respectively.

Sowore was arrested by the DSS Saturday, August 3 for planning a nationwide protest tagged #RevolutionNow.

Trump salutes Nigeria @59, says he wants to see Boko haram wiped out

As Nigeria turns 59 tomorrow, the US President Donald Trump, has on Monday congratulated its people, urging them to unify in their quest for peace, unity and success.

Trump who disclosed this in a statement opined that he would love to see Boko Haram and other terrorist groups wiped out of Africa.

His words, “On behalf of the American people, I extend our warmest greetings and congratulate you on the 59th anniversary of Nigeria’s independence,” the statement read.

Nigeria is among our strongest partners in Africa. We share common goals of expanding trade and growing our economic relationship.

We are allies in the global battle against terrorism, and we want to see Boko Haram and ISIS-West Africa driven out of the region and other insurgencies like them dismantled.

The United States welcomes efforts by your administration to diversify opportunities for your talented, creative, and hardworking people to the benefit of both our countries, Africa and the world.

“I am pleased that following our meeting last year, our Vice Presidents are also building on our longstanding history of cooperation.

BBNAIJA: NIGERIANS JUBILATES AS TACHA IS DISQUALIFIED

Controversial Housemate, Tacha has just been disqualified from the
The 23-year-old who has been one of the most controversial housemates in this year’s season of the show was disqualified on Friday evening after she and fellow housemate, Mercy got involved in a fight earlier in the day.

She was found guilty of Violence and attempt to hurt another housemate ‘;
This is coming few hours after Cindy got evicted on Friday leaving 9 housemates left.
A Big Brother source reads, “Our sources have confirmed not one but two surprise evictions will happen in the BBNaija house today. The first this morning and the second, later in the evening.”
Cindy’s eviction was announced when show host, Ebuka Uchendu, showed up and told housemates to pack their belongings. The eviction letter was then handed over to Cindy.
This follows an announcement by the organizers of the show that surprise eviction will take place as from Thursday.
Moments ago, the most controversial housemate of the Big Brother Naija season 4 housemates, Tacha was disqualified for physical violence during a fight with fellow housemate, Mercy.
Mercy, on the other hand, was issued two strikes by Big Brother for not stepping away from a volatile situation.
The latest development in the Big Brother house also set social media agog with Nigerians expressing their views concerning Tacha’s ordeal.
One Pastor Ola tweeted, “So Tacha was disqualified because she fought with mercy
Mercy and the other housemates didn’t get along with her because in addition to all her other flaws she smells
God won’t allow the lack of hygiene spoil our destiny
Roll on and body sprays are like 600 naira Upwards, abeg”
One Emetega wrote ” She needs to go home and take care of her body odor and her attitude isn’t good for her brand I know she is still young but I pray she gets better training and I believe she will be a better persons but for now LAMBO IS THE QUEEN “
Naijabeautyshop wrote “This is loud, pride is not confidence, let’s all learn how to control our mouths, it could be any body.
This is an example to learn from”
One Toffylicious wrote “I’m so freaky happy right now let people know that we are aspiring to build a better society not a toxic one”

Training community pharmacists to improve access to family planning services

Worried by the low level of uptake of contraceptive and family planning services in the country, medical experts have recommended the employment of community pharmacists (CPs) to reverse the situation.

They said that providing women who desire to space the birth of their children with access to contraceptives to do so is a key intervention to improve maternal outcomes.

Consequently, medical experts at the IntegratE project with support from the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) and the states ministries of health in Lagos and Kaduna are training CPs in a pilot to demonstrate the capacity of the providers to provide a wider range of family planning and primary healthcare services.

Consequently, medical experts at the IntegratE project with support from the Federal Ministry of Health (FMoH), the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) and the states ministries of health in Lagos and Kaduna are training CPs in a pilot to demonstrate the capacity of the providers to provide a wider range of family planning and primary healthcare services.

Etim added: “Community Pharmacists play a vital role in providing access to healthcare services for millions of Nigerians, it is therefore imperative that policies and practices be entrenched to enable them provide a wider range of services even as the country moves towards achieving universal health coverage.”

In Nigeria, statistics show that about 771,000 unsafe abortions and 13,000 maternal deaths can be averted when women have access to and use modern contraceptives for family planning or child spacing. Also, modern contraceptives help avoid over two million unintended pregnancies most of which could end up in abortion and threaten the lives of women.

IntegratE project aims at improving the quality of family planning services delivered by CPs and PPMVs through the implementation of a tiered accreditation system and strengthening the quality of service delivery.

The project which is co-funded by Merck for Mothers and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundations is currently being piloted in underserved areas of Lagos and Kaduna states.

Etim added: “IntegratE project supports the PCN in its regulatory mandate of controlling the practice of Pharmacy and PPMVs. This is important because much of the deterioration of Nigeria’s health services is blamed on the proliferation of unsupervised, unregulated and untrained informal sector health providers, who are the first port of call for health services provision nationally. Thus, with a drive to promote quality health service delivery through the informal health providers such as PPMVs, PCN leveraged on the country’s task shifting and task sharing policy of 2014 which is currently being revised, to spearhead the categorization of PPMVs into three tiers according to qualification. The Tiered Accreditation system is expected to strengthen.

DSS served with court order for Sowore’s release, Falana insists

Ade Adesomoju, Abuja

Omoyele Sowore’s lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), on Thursday debunked the claim by the Department of State Services that it had not been served with the court order directing the release of the activist from custody.

Falana said Ayuba Adam of the Legal Department of the DSS received the court order on behalf of the agency on September 24, 2019 (Tuesday).

The lawyer said, “For the past three days, I have been visiting the headquarters of the State Security Service in Abuja and I have been talking to the three most senior officers of the agency, no officer of the agency ever said the agency was not served or aware of the court order.

“All they kept telling me was that they were still consulting.

“Ayuba Adam of the Legal Department of the Department of the State Security Service received the court order on behalf of the SSS on September 24, 2019, which was the day the order was made.

“I must say, that apart from the fact that the State Security Service has been served with the court order, we have also filed and served on the SSS the affidavit of compliance with the court order showing that we have deposited Omoyele Sowore’s passport at the Federal High Court’s registry in Abuja as directed by the court.

“They also had their lawyer in court when the order for Sowore’s release was made.”