Senate Probes N330b Amnesty Fund

The Senate on Thursday launched investigation into activities of the Presidential Amnesty programmes with the aim of ascertaining how the N330 billion accumulated budget of the programme was spent.

The upper chamber said the investigation became necessary following reports that despite huge sums of funds allocated to the programmes to cater for ex-militants, militancy in the Niger Delta region is on the increase.
Findings showed that since the inception of the amnesty programme in 2009, over N330 billion had been budgeted for the programme.

At least N65 billion was voted for the programme in 2016.

The Senate therefore is suspecting funds mismanagement by the programme handlers.

Senate President, Bukola Saraki, who inaugurated the investigative hearing, said the Amnesty programme was created by the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to curb restiveness in the Niger Delta region.

He said seven years down the line “we should ask ourselves whether the objectives of the programme have been achieved.”

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Prisoner escapes in Benin city

An inmate on Wednesday morning escaped from the court where he was taken to for his trial. The unidentified inmate, escaped from the watchful eyes of prison officials who took him and other inmates to court. The prisoner, an awaiting trial inmate in Oko medium prison, Benin, escaped at the premises of the state high court, Benin. A prison official who spoke with The reporter under the condition of anonymity, said prison warders have been sent to go after the escaped prisoner. Meanwhile, the spokesman of the Edo command of the Nigerian Prison Services (NPS), Mr Aminu Suleiman declined speaking to journalists on it. The spokesman, who could neither deny nor confirm the report, said he was not in a position to speak on the issue. Suleiman said that the state commander of the NPS, Mr Effiom Etowa, was out of the state on official assignment.

US Demands Immediate End To South Sudan Fighting

The United States demanded an immediate end to renewed fighting in the capital of South Sudan on Sunday, ordering all non-essential personnel out of the troubled country. "The United States strongly condemns the latest outbreak of fighting in Juba today between forces aligned with President Salva Kiir Mayardit and those aligned with First Vice President Riek Machar Teny, including reports we have that civilian sites may have been attacked," State Department spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.

Buhari Considers Hadiza Bala Usman As Head Of NPA

Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) and the Minister of Transportation, Mr. Chibuike Amaechi, has submitted Ms. Hadiza Bala Usman’s name to President Muhammadu Buhari to take over as the new managing director of NPA, says Reporter.Should Buhari approve the recommendation, Ms. Bala Usman, 40, will become the first female chief executive of a top tier federal government agency and of the NPA. She shall take over from Alhaji Habib Abdullahi, who was reinstated by Buhari in August 2015 as the managing director of NPA, after he had been shown the exit by former President Goodluck Jonathan in April 2015.

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