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Civil Service Commission Clears Air On Trending Nationwide Recruitment Advertisement

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The Federal Civil Service Commission has disowned viral advertisement of massive nationwide recruitment into the Federal Civil Service.

The commission in a statement on Sunday by its Permanent Secretary, Mary Ogbe, said the news is fake in its entirety and should be ignored by the general public.

It read, “The attention of the Federal Civil Service Commission has been drawn to the message circulating in various social media platforms that the Commission is embarking on massive nationwide job recruitment into the ministries, departments, and agencies.

“The Federal Civil Service Commission hereby emphatically declares that the fictitious massive nationwide recruitment only exists in the figment of the imagination of the writer.

“It is fake news, which should be discarded and ignored by the general public, especially job seekers.

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“Furthermore, it presupposes that the writer’s motive is to mislead and misinform the public for his selfish interests.

“To this end, the management of the Federal Civil Service Commission wishes to reiterate that there is no massive nationwide recruitment into the federal civil service. The news item is Fake in its entirety and, should be ignored by the general public.”

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Nine Arrested For Attack On French Police Station

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Nine people have been arrested over a firework attack on a police station near major venues for this summer’s Paris Olympics, the French capital’s top police official said Monday.

The Sunday evening attack in the northern suburb of La Courneuve came days after a teenager riding a moped was killed in a car chase with police, echoing a June killing that triggered days-long riots.

“Around 50 people attacked the police station in La Courneuve, mostly with firework mortar shots” late Sunday, Paris police chief Laurent Nunez told broadcaster TF1.

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Videos posted on social media showed groups of people firing a barrage of fireworks at the building’s facade.

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La Courneuve lies in Paris’ northern suburbs, in the Seine-Saint-Denis department that hosts Olympic venues including the flagship Stade de France stadium.

“We can tie this attack to the death” of the 18-year-old killed on Wednesday, named only as Wanys R., Nunez said.

“The young people clearly came from the neighbourhood” where Wanys lived, he added.

Nunz said the arrested suspects included seven adults aged 18-21 and two minors.

Two police officers were “slightly hurt”, he added.

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Nunez said police reinforcements would be deployed in the area around midday on Monday.

Wanys R. was being chased by police Wednesday after refusing to stop for a check.

A video widely shared online showed how his scooter was struck by a police car, killing him and injuring his passenger.

The lawyer representing Wanys’ family on Friday accused the police of hitting him on purpose, while the officers’ own representative insisted it was an accident.

In June, a video of a police officer shooting dead 17-year-old Nahel triggered nights of riots in gritty Paris suburbs and other deprived areas.

The policeman who fired the fatal shot has been charged with voluntary homicide.

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Putin Wins Russian Presidential Election With 87.97% Of The Vote

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Vladimir Putin was headed for another six-year term as Russian president Sunday, exit polls showed, paving the way for the hardline former spy to become the longest-serving Russian leader in more than 200 years.

Victory for the 71-year-old in the three-day vote was never in doubt, with all his major opponents dead, in prison or exiled, and authorities waging an unrelenting crackdown on those who publicly oppose the Kremlin or its military offensive on Ukraine.

The government-run VTsIOM pollster projected Putin had won the election with 87 percent of the vote after polls closed in Russia’s western-most region of Kaliningrad at 1700 GMT.

The highly-touted election was marked by a surge in deadly Ukrainian bombardments, incursions into Russian territory by pro-Kyiv sabotage groups and vandalism at polling stations.

The Kremlin cast the election as an opportunity for Russians to throw their weight behind the full-scale military operation in Ukraine, where voting is also being staged in Russian-controlled territories.

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READ ALSO: Tracing Putin’s 25-year Reign As Russians Vote

Kyiv slammed the vote as a sham and President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced Putin as a “dictator” who was “drunk from power”.

“There is no evil he will not commit to prolong his personal power,” Zelensky said in a message on social media.

– Opposition dismisses vote –

Allies of the late Alexei Navalny — Putin’s most prominent rival, who died in an Arctic prison last month — has urged voters to flood polling stations at noon and spoil their ballots for a “Midday Against Putin” protest.

His wife, Yulia Navalnaya, was greeted by supporters with flowers and applause in Berlin. She said she had written her late husband’s name on her ballot after voting at the Russian embassy.

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Some voters in Moscow appeared to heed Navalny’s call, telling AFP they had come to honour his memory and show their opposition in the only legal way possible.

READ ALSO: Putin Revokes Russia’s Ratification Of Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

“I came to show that there are many of us, that we exist, that we are not some insignificant minority,” said 19-year-old student Artem Minasyan at a polling station in central Moscow.

Leonid Volkov, a senior aide to the late opposition leader who was recently attacked in Lithuania where he fled political persecution in Russia, dismissed the results published by Moscow.

“The percentages drawn for Putin have, of course, not the slightest relation to reality,” Volkov, Navalny’s former chief of staff wrote on social media.

Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, argued the long lines outside embassies abroad were evidence of support for the Kremlin.

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If the people queueing abroad to vote in the Russian presidential election had taken part in the ‘noon’ action, they would have all dispersed after noon. But no,” she wrote on social media.

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– Tributes to Navalny –

At Navalny’s grave in a Moscow cemetery, AFP reporters saw spoiled ballot papers with his name scrawled across them on a pile of flowers.

Navalny, who galvanised mass protests, tried to run against Putin in the 2018 presidential election and toured Russia to drum up support, but his candidacy was rejected.

We live in a country where we will go to jail if we speak our mind. So when I come to moments like this and see a lot of people, I realise that we are not alone,” said 33-year-old Regina.

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There were repeated acts of protest in the first days of polling, with a spate of arrests of Russians accused of pouring dye into ballot boxes or arson attacks.

Any public dissent in Russia has been harshly punished since the start of Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine on February 24, 2022 and there were repeated warnings from the authorities against election protests.

READ ALSO: UK Announces New Russia Sanctions

The OVD-Info police monitoring group announced that at least 80 people had been detained across nearly 20 cities in Russia for protest actions linked to the elections.

The surge in Ukrainian strikes on Russia continued unabated with the Russian defence ministry reporting at least eight regions attacked overnight and on Sunday morning.

– Fatal border attacks –

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Three airports serving the capital briefly suspended operations following the barrage, while a drone attack in the south sparked a fire at an oil refinery.

In Russia’s border city of Belgorod, multiple rounds of shelling killed two — a man and a 16-year-old girl — and wounded 12 more, the region’s governor said Sunday.

The governor has ordered the closure of shopping centres and schools in Belgorod and the surrounding area for two days because of the strikes.

In the Russian-controlled territory of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, where voting is also taking place, “kamikaze drones” set a polling station ablaze, according to the Moscow-installed authorities.

– ‘Difficult period’ –

Putin, a former KGB agent, has been in power since the last day of 1999 and is set to extend his grip over the country until at least 2030.

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If he completes another Kremlin term, he will have stayed in power longer than any Russian leader since Catherine the Great in the 18th century.

In a pre-election address Putin said Russia was going through a “difficult period” and called on the country to be “united and self-confident.”

A concert on Red Square is being staged on Monday to mark 10 years since Russia’s annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea peninsula — an event that is also expected to serve as a victory celebration for Putin.

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LP, NLC Fight Dirty Over Scheduled National Convention

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…NLC passes vote of no confidence on Abure

…resign your position to contest Chairmanship, party mocks NLC President

says Ajero desperate to replace Abure

A crisis of confidence has broken out between the Nigeria Labour Congress and the leadership of the Labour Party.

The NLC in a widely publicized letter passed a vote of no confidence on the LP National Chairman, Julius Abure and demanded his immediate resignation.

The Labour Union also dissociated itself from the national convention scheduled for March 27, 2024. It said the convention, which is being organised by the Comrade Julius Abure-led National Working Committee is illegal.

In response, the leadership of the Labour Party asked the President of the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), Comrade Joe Ajero to resign his position to contest the Chairmanship position of the party since he appears desperate to replace Julius Abure.

National Publicity Secretary of the LP, Obiora Ifoh, said this in a statement, in Abuja, on Saturday.

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He said the party’s attention was drawn to a Press Release titled ‘A misadventure in political mischief, mismanagement and misdemeanour gone too far’ written by the NLC’s Political Commission as an agent of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

The NLC letter he said, did not come to party leaders as a surprise or a shock, because it was long expected before now, having known that the NLC was going to engage itself in this misadventure.

Ifoh said, “Nigerians will recall that in 2014, NLC has been involved in a war of blackmail and attrition against the Labour Party and its leadership.

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“It was only recently, following the civil and diplomatic approach adopted by Barrister Julius Abure when he assumed leadership that he was able to get the then President of the NLC, Ayuba Waba and the then President of the Trade Union Congress, Olaleye Quadri to a truce where the NLC, TUC and Labour Party agreed to work together in harmony.

“Unfortunately, the rascality of the current president of the NLC, Joe Ajero has destroyed the successes already recorded. It must be noted that the NLC and its political commission have become a bundle of contradiction and paradox.

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“The Nigeria Labour Congress has written several letters to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC and to the party on the need to conduct a national convention.

“In fact, the NLC has queried even the rationale behind the one year extension which was graciously granted by the NEC in session in Asaba, which is in line with the party constitution.

“The leadership of the party in its wisdom has decided to yield to their agitation for a convocation of a national convention.

“Article 14:4b of our party constitution mandates the National Secretary in consultation with the National Chairman to ‘issue notices of meetings of National Convention, NEC, NWC amongst others.

“ It is in the exercise of this power that the national chairman and national Secretary have called for the convention following the decision of the national executive council of the party.

“It is therefore ironical for the same NLC which has been agitating for a convention to now be demanding the rationale for the call for a convention.

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“At this point, the leadership of the party wants to ask the NLC, what exactly do they want? If Joe Ajero is interested in the leadership of the party, he is therefore advised to resign as the President of the NLC and join in the contest for the National Chairmanship of the party that is scheduled for the convention on the 27th of March, 2024.”

He further said, “We must note that undue interference by the Nigeria Labour Congress on the affairs of the party has become worrisome and it has become needful to emphasis here the distinction that the Labour Party has a life of its own different from that of the Nigeria Labour Congress.

“ In fact, the 1999 Constitution states clearly that once a political party is registered, it has a life of its own whereby it can run it’s own affairs without any interference.

“The Electoral Act and the Constitution provide that no organisation can own any other organisation. The NLC as an organisation can not claim the ownership of the Labour Party.

“The constitution of the party is clear that it is only those who subscribe to the party and those who are financial members of the party are the owners of the party and therefore can have a say on the affairs of the party.

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“The interference of the present leadership of the NLC on the party is really choking and we can hardly breath. It is this NLC leadership which pressured on the Party not to give His Excellency, Alex Otti the governorship ticket for the 2023 general election on the ground that he was allegedly not workers’ friendly when he was a Chief Executive of a bank.

“But today, that same Alex Otti is doing Labour Party proud with the work he is doing in Abia state.

“Again, the same NLC attempted to prevail on the leadership of the party to upload a different candidate other than Senator Athan Achonu after he won the Imo state party primaries under the Labour Party.

“It will shock Nigerians to know that members and officials of the NLC are not even card carrying members of the Labour Party. All over the country, NLC members have been found to be supporting either the APC or the PDP.

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“It is again of importance to make certain clarification as to the so called judgements that were referred to by the NLC, we must indicate clearly that the Labour Party is not in default of any court judgment whatsoever.

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“The agreement reached by the NLC to call for a convention is what we are following, we have fully implemented that agreement and the convention is in line with the agreement. We are therefore not in any default of court judgment as erroneously implied by the NLC.

“We therefore want to advise the NLC and its commission that it should focus only on its statutory responsibilities of defending the workers and the workers’ right.

“Today minimum wage is N30.000 while a bag of rice is N80.000. We hear about NLC talk about ethos and ethics of the Labour movement and the Labour Party, this is also an NLC that cannot call or sustain a strike for one or two days without calling it off.

“This is an NLC which cannot think of calling a protest and sustaining it in order to get the attention of the government for the interest of the workers.

“The present NLC should take a time to listen to the opinion Nigerians have formed about them. Can the NLC of today in any way be compared to NLC of the then Hassan Sumounu, Adams Oshiohmole and a few others in the past?”

The LP Spokesman said the leadership of the Trade Union Congress, TUC and it’s Political Commission under the leadership of Comrade Festus Osifo for their commitment to labour related issues and their refusal to sign the press release which the NLC issued.

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The party equally advised Joe Ajero to emulate leadership of Ayuba Waba, Olaleye Quadri and Osifo in working closely with the party.

It noted that the ill-intended Press Release by the Political Commission also made a reference to spurious allegations made by the suspended National treasurer, Oluchi Opara and it attempted to give it some credence.

Adding, “This clearly exposes the mischief by the NLC to hoodwink the people. We have stated clearly that the total money received by the party was N1.3billion and no other report has contradicted it.

“So for the NLC to be quoting that spurious allegations goes to show that they are part of the challenges Labour Party has been facing.

“We are shocked that NLC which was a victim of a recent harassment, threat to life and brutalization of its president would express shock over similar treatment meted to our chairman, Barrister Julius Abure who was brutalized for political reasons and nothing more.

“We must also state clearly that our leader, Peter Obi made reference to the audit of the campaign account and not forensic audit for the Labour Party. In any case, we have stated clearly that the Labour Party is open to forensic audit of its accounts.

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“We are even calling on the NLC to send its own external auditors to check our financial books. We are also calling on Peter Obi to expedite action on the auditing of our accounts. And for the NLC to be using this as a cheap blackmail is to show their high level of desperation and mischief.”
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