Tonto Rocks In New Photo Shoot

 

N5,000 note’ll encourage money laundering – Fasehun

Dr. Frederick Fasehun

Founder and President, Oodua Peoples Congress, Dr. Frederick Fasehun, says the planned introduction of N5,000 note will encourage money laundering.

Fasehun said this during a media roundtable in Lagos on Wednesday.

According to him, imposing the new note on Nigerians would not augur well for the security and social life of the people.

Fasehun said, “Introducing a high denominational currency will lead to inflation.

“Our fight against corruption, money laundering and inflation will end in a smoke if the CBN goes ahead to intoduce the N5,000 note.”

He wondered why the CBN was insistent on the new note at a point when corruption is widespread in Nigeria.

He said, “What do we want to do with N5,000 note? Ghana, rather than coming up with higher denomination note when the Cedi was losing value, downgraded it and it helped her economy to grow.

“We will resist it if the CBN goes through with the new denomination.”

Meanwhile, National Vice-President, the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights, Mr. Taiwo Otitolaye; Kwara State chapter of Nigeria’s Political Parties and The Concerned Citizens of Nigeria have warned that Nigerian may be thrown into another mass revolt over the planned introduction of N5,000 notes if the Federal Government does not stop the planned exercise.

They urged the Federal Government and the National Assembly to halt the exercise.

The country had witnessed an unprecedented mass revolt in January over the withdrawal of fuel subsidy.

In a statement on Wednesday, Otitolaye said CDHR would team up with other civil society groups in the country to ensure that the plan did not succeed.

He alleged that the introduction of the N5,000 note was a script allegedly drafted by the International Monetary Fund, World Bank and other imperialist agencies.

He also said the policy would lead to inflation and urged the National Assembly to intervene and stop its implementation to avoid another mass revolt in the country.

Fire Destroys 300 Shops, Property Worth N1bn In Ibadan

Property worth more than one billion naira was lost, Wednesday, as fire gutted Labaowo International Market, off Oke-Bola, Ibadan. A girl was also injured in the fire.
Although, no life was lost, traders whose wares were lost in the inferno that started some minutes past 10am struggled to retrieve one or two things from the burning fire.
When Vanguard visited the market yesterday around 3.05pm, fire was still burning some of the shops. Firemen were seen struggling to put out the fire.
The President of the market, Alhaji Lukman Alaka, told our correspondent that more than 300 shops were burnt.
Items such as electronics, motor spare parts, generator spare parts, building materials and many others were lost to the fire incident.
When asked what caused the fire, he said; “Suddenly, we saw balls of smoke was accompanied by fire. We called all the fire stations close to us, but, the response was not immediate. I called Challenge fire station and another one at Mapo. When I noticed that they were not forth coming, I had to go to Mapo before help could come. But, before we got back to the market, the fire had gone out of hand.
“As for the property lost, it can’t be less than one billion. Many traders were affected. Some could not even retrieve anything from their shops. We would be happy if the government can provide a fire station for us here.”
One of the affected traders, Mr. Tijani Amoo explained that he just took a bank loan worth N800,000 to buy wares lamenting how he would refund the money.
He said he lost all the items. Though, he was not far away from the scene of the fire, by the time he knew, the fire was too much.
The Director of State Fire Service, Mr Kareem Oyekunle said his men battled for long before the fire could be put out. He said as soon as the distress call came, he and his officials rushed to the scene.

Licence Back In Hand, Dana Airline Joins Plot To End Inquest Into Crash

DANA

Dana Airline on Thursday filed an affidavit to support a motion to halt the ongoing inquest into the cause of the crash involving its McDonnell Douglas MD-83 on 3rd June, killing all 153 people aboard as well as at least six residents of a building in Iju-Ishaga, Agege.

The affidavit, described by the presiding judge as “a novel issue” comes just one day after the Federal Government lifted an earlier suspension on the airline’s operating licence.

The plaintiffs, Dele Ore and the Civil Aviation Round Table Initiative, want the Federal High Court, Lagos to end the inquest on the point that the Lagos State Coroners’ System Law is inapplicable to deaths arising from aviation accidents.

Joined as the 1st to the 4th defendants in the suit are Oyetade Komolafe, the coroner; the Chief Coroner of Lagos State; the Lagos State Chief Judge; and the Attorney General of Lagos State, respectively.

Also joined as defendants are the Attorney General of the Federation; the Federal Ministry of Aviation; Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority (NCAA); Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN); Accident Investigation Bureau (AIB); Nigeria Air Space Management Authority (NAMA); and Dana Airlines.

Delivering the bench ruling, Okon Abang, the presiding judge, said that although there is no provision allowing a defendant to file a motion in support of the affidavit of a plaintiff, the court will rely on it if it will be of use.

“The most important issue is to consider if the interest of the 1st – 4th defendants will be prejudiced,” he said.

“The 1st – 4th defendants are at liberty to file their objection to the affidavit if they so wish.”

He fixed 13th September for “definite hearing” of the plaintiff’s motion for interlocutory injunction.

Ore, a retired pilot, had filed the suit on behalf of the Civil Aviation Round Table, asking the court to pronounce the Lagos State Chief Judge as acting ultra vires by inaugurating a coroner’s inquest into the air mishap.

He argued that the country’s ratification and domestication of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Chicago 1944 Act, renders the coroner’s inquest “unconstitutional, null and void, and of no effect whatsoever.”

He equally urged the court to hold that the Coroners’ is inapplicable to aviation-related matters and deaths arising from aviation accidents.

And in their affidavit at the court, Dana Air’s counsel corroborated the positions of the plaintiffs, saying, “The crux of instituting this application is in the sole interest of the public. The inquest ought not to have commenced until the conclusion of the AIB investigation. The coroner has subjected the AIB report to scrutiny by various experts.”