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Senate Halts Screening Of 3 Ministerial Nominees Over Alleged Forgery, Age Falsification

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The screening of at least three ministerial nominees was put on hold for reasons of age forgery and age falsification, among others, as the Senate commenced the exercise yesterday.

Of the 14 nominees listed on the order paper for screening, seven, including immediate past governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, were asked to take a bow and go, while four others were screened.

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Others asked to take a bow and go included two-term members of House of Representatives, Abubakar Momoh, from Etsako Local Government Area of Edo State; Senator Abubakar Kyari, who was in the 8th and 9th Senate and currently the Acting National Charman of ruling All Progressives Congress, APC; a senator in the 8th Senate, Senator John Enoh; and the immediate past governor of Jigawa State, Abubakar Badaru.

Also asked to take a bow and go were former Deputy Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Nkiru Onyejeocha, who represented Isuikwuato/ Umunneochi Federal Constituency, Abia State; former member, House of Representatives and Nigerian Ambassador to Germany, since 2017, Amb. Yusuf Maitama Tuggar.

But those whose screening was put on hold and asked to clarify issues were Prof. Joseph Utsev who is currently the Rector of Federal Polytechnic, Wannune, the home town of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, Senator George Akume.

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Utsev, who hails from Buruku Local Government Area of Benue State, is said to be the candidate of Akume.
The nominee in his resume indicated that he was born in 1980 and finished his primary education in 1989 at the age of nine, thereby drawing the attention of the Senate on how he would be in primary one at the age of three.

The two others were Senator Abubakar Sani Danladi, Taraba, who was alleged to have been banned by the Supreme Court from holding public office for ten years and Bello Mohammed from Sokoto State whose case had to do with his secondary school leaving certificate,

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The Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio said that those who had issues would have their cases looked into at the stage of confirmation.

The nominees whose names appeared on the Order Paper, but were not screened included Arch. Ahmed Musa Dangiwa – Katsina State; Chief Uche Geoffrey Nnaji – Enugu State and Stella Erhuvwuoghene Okotete – Delta State

The screening exercise, which commenced at 1.32 pm ended at 6 pm, starting with a two-term of House of Representatives member, Abubakar Momoh from Etsako Local Government Area of Edo State.

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Tinubu appoints Ajuri Ngelale as Special Adviser on Media, Publicity
Soon after Momoh introduced himself as a former councillor, local government chairman, ex-member, the House of Assembly and a two-time member who represented Etsako federal constituency, he was asked to take a bow and go.

The second to appear before the Senate at the hallowed chamber was the former governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike.

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Addressing the senators, Wike said President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would not regret nominating me as a minister, describing himself as a performer.

Wike, who noted that he executed and commissioned a series of capital projects across Rivers State when he served as governor, said: “Every day I was commissioning projects. Mr President will not regret nominating me as a minister.”

On his part, Senator Mpigi Barinada PDP, Rivers), said that over five million people from the state supported Wike’s ministerial nomination and urged his colleagues to free him.

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Akpabio then asked the former Rivers governor to take a bow and go, following a voice vote.

READ ALSO: BREAKING: Senate Forced Into Closed-door Meeting Over Ministerial Nominees

Even when there were shouts of resistance apparently from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, senators, the Senate president hit the gavel.

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Another nominee who appeared at 2.55 pm was Senator Abubakar Kyari, who was in the 8th and 9th Senate and currently occupies the position of acting National Chairman of ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.

Senator Kyari was asked to take a bow and go as a former senator and the acting national chairman of APC.

The next was the immediate past governor of Jigawa State, Abubakar Badaru, followed by a senator in the 8th Senate, Senator John Enoh; then the former Deputy Chief Whip of the House of Representatives, Nkiru Onyejeocha who represented Isuikwuato/ Umunneochi Federal Constituency, Abia State; former member, House of Representatives and Nigeria Ambassador to Germany, since 2017, Amb. Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, who were all asked to take a bow and go.

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When the matter of Supreme Court banning him from public office was raised, Senator Abubakar Sani Danladi, who was former acting governor and deputy governor of Taraba State, said: “There was nothing in Appeal Court, they just struck out the case for lack of merit.

READ ALSO: Uproar As Senate Okays Fresh $800m World Bank Borrowing

“At the Supreme Court, the same thing happened as Mrs Mary Odili said the Federal High Court Jalingo was wrong to have passed the judgment in that manner because when I was a deputy governor in 2007, they used their executive power at that time to nullify me so from Supreme Court, I had to go back to the Federal High Court, Jalingo since the Supreme Court said there was no basis for the Federal High Court,, Jalingo to do that judgement.

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“Then the same jurisdiction of the Federal High Court Jalingo now sat on the same judgement and set aside that judgement that is hanging on me.”

Responding, Akpabio said: “The Federal High Court, Jalingo, gave a judgement against you that you were not qualified to contest on the basis of perjury, that you lied on oath in respect of your date of birth, then later the Federal High Court sat on the same matter and cleared you?

“What we are saying is that the moment the Federal High Court gave the first judgement they become Funtus Officio in Law and can no longer sit as appellate court over its own judgement, so you will definitely say what you want to say, we will study this because it is in the interest of Nigeria and it is in public interest, We will give him chance to finish, as soon as he finishes, he can take a bow.”

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Senator Danladi continued: “On the same issue , Senator Shaibu Lau took the matter to Federal High Court, Abuja, here sir. The Federal High Court gave me the judgement and he now went to Appeal Court which affirmed the judgement of the Federal High Court.

”He now went to the Supreme Court, the court game me judgement, so there was no judgement from Supreme Court. As I am talking, the Supreme Court is hearing me, there was no judgement. If there is judgement, it is here.”
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Hiroshima Marks 80 Years As US-Russia Nuclear Tensions Rise

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Japan marked 80 years since the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Wednesday with a ceremony reminding the world of the horrors unleashed, as sabre-rattling between the United States and Russia keeps the nuclear “Doomsday Clock” close to midnight.

A silent prayer was held at 8:15 am (2315 GMT), the moment when US aircraft Enola Gay dropped “Little Boy” over the western Japanese city on August 6, 1945.

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On a sweltering morning, hundreds of black-clad officials, students and survivors laid flowers at the memorial cenotaph, with the ruins of a domed building in the background, a stark reminder of the horrors that unfolded.

In a speech, Hiroshima mayor Kazumi Matsui warned of “an accelerating trend toward military buildup around the world”, against the backdrop of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the chaos in the Middle East.

READ ALSO:Ukrainian Drone Strikes Kill Three In Russia

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These developments flagrantly disregard the lessons the international community should have learned from the tragedies of history,” he said.

Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba said it was Japan’s mission “to take the lead… toward a world without nuclear weapons”.

The final death toll of the Hiroshima attack would hit around 140,000 people, killed not just by the colossal blast and the ball of fire, but also later by the radiation.

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Three days after “Little Boy”, on August 9, another atomic bomb killed 74,000 people in Nagasaki. Imperial Japan surrendered on August 15, bringing an end to World War II.

Today, Hiroshima is a thriving metropolis of 1.2 million but the attacks live on in the memories of many.

On the eve of the ceremony, people began lining up to pay their respects to the victims in front of the cenotaph.

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Before dawn on Wednesday, families who lost loved ones in the attack also came to pray.

Yoshie Yokoyama, 96, who arrived in a wheelchair with her grandson, told reporters that her parents and grandparents were bomb victims.

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My grandfather died soon after the bombing, while my father and mother both died after developing cancer. My parents-in-law also died, so my husband couldn’t see them again when he came back from battlefields after the war.

“People are still suffering,” she added.

Wednesday’s ceremony was set to include a record of around 120 countries and regions including, for the first time, Taiwanese and Palestinian representatives.

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The United States — which has never formally apologised for the bombings — was represented by its ambassador to Japan. Russia and China were absent.

READ ALSO:Anxiety As Trump Deploys US Nuclear Submarines Near Russia After ex-President’s Comment

Nihon Hidankyo, the grassroots organisation that last year won the Nobel Peace Prize, is representing the dwindling number of survivors, known as hibakusha.

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As of March, there were 99,130 hibakusha, according to the Japanese health ministry, with the average age of 86.

“I want foreign envoys to visit the peace memorial museum and understand what happened,” the group’s co-chair Toshiyuki Mimaki told local media ahead of the commemorations.

Pope Leo XIV said in a statement that “in our time of mounting global tensions and conflicts”, Hiroshima and Nagasaki remained “living reminders of the profound horrors wrought by nuclear weapons”.

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned that “the very weapons that brought such devastation to Hiroshima and Nagasaki are once again being treated as tools of coercion”.

READ ALSO:Russia Strikes Ukraine After Kyiv Offers Fresh Talks

– Younger generation –
The attacks remain the only time atomic bombs have been used in wartime.

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Kunihiko Sakuma, 80, who survived the blasts as a baby, told AFP he was hopeful that there could eventually be a nuclear-free world.

“The younger generation is working hard for that end,” he said ahead of the ceremony.

But in January, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ “Doomsday Clock” shifted to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest in its 78-year history.

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The clock symbolising humanity’s distance from destruction was last moved to 90 seconds to midnight over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

READ ALSO:Russian Strikes Kill 16 In Kyiv

Russia and the United States account for around 90 percent of the world’s over 12,000 warheads, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

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SIPRI warned in June that “a dangerous new nuclear arms race is emerging at a time when arms control regimes are severely weakened,” with nearly all of the nine nuclear-armed states modernising their arsenals.

Earlier this month, US President Donald Trump said that he had ordered the deployment of two nuclear submarines following an online spat with former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

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Rare 1937 ‘Hobbit’ Discovered In House Clearance Sells For $57,000

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A rare first-edition copy of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit” sold for 43,000 pounds ($57,000) at auction on Wednesday, after it was found during a house clearance in South-West England.

Purchased by a private collector in the United Kingdom, the book is one of 1,500 original copies of the British author’s seminal fantasy novel that were published in 1937.

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Of those, only “a few hundred are believed to still remain”, according to the auction house Auctioneum, which discovered the book on a bookcase at a home in Bristol.

Bidders from around the world drove the price up by more than four times what the auction house expected for the manuscript.

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“It’s a wonderful result for a very special book,” said Auctioneum rare books specialist Caitlin Riley.

The surviving books from the initial print run are now considered some of the most sought-after books in modern literature,” Auctioneum said in a statement.

Auctioneum unearthed the book during a routine house clearance after its owner passed away.

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“Nobody knew it was there,” Riley said. “It was just a run-of-the-mill bookcase.”

READ ALSO:Shooter Injures Five Soldiers At US Military Base

It was clearly an early Hobbit at first glance, so I just pulled it out and began to flick through it, never expecting it to be a true first edition,” she said.

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“I couldn’t believe my eyes,” she added, calling it an “unimaginably rare find”.

The copy is bound in light green cloth and features rare black-and-white illustrations by Tolkien, who created his beloved Middle-earth universe while he was a professor at the University of Oxford.

The book was passed down in the family library of Hubert Priestley, a botanist connected to the university.

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“It is likely that both men knew each other,” according to Auctioneum, which said Priestley and Tolkien shared mutual correspondence with author C.S. Lewis, who was also at Oxford.

“The Hobbit”, which was followed by the epic series “The Lord of the Rings”, has sold more than 100 million copies worldwide.

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The sagas were turned into a hit movie franchise in the 2000s.

A first edition of “The Hobbit” with a handwritten note in Elvish by the author sold for £137,000 at Sotheby’s in June 2015.

AFP

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Relief For Applicants As Germany Eases Visa Process, Opens Visa Centres In Nigeria, Others

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Germany has expanded its Schengen visa services by launching four new application centres in Africa and the Middle East, including two in Nigeria.

The centres, located in Abuja, Lagos (Nigeria), Yaoundé (Cameroon), and Nicosia (Cyprus), are part of a new seven-year partnership between Germany’s Federal Foreign Office and VFS Global, the international visa processing firm.

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Until now, Nigerians applying for German Schengen visas had to go through the German Embassy in Abuja or the Consulate General in Lagos, where limited capacity and high demand often caused delays and long appointment wait times.

READ ALSO:Immigration Issues Travel Advisory To Nigerians On US Visas

The new visa centres are expected to significantly ease the process, cut down on waiting periods, and improve overall access for applicants.

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Germany continues to be a major destination for Africans and Middle Easterners pursuing education, healthcare, tourism, and job opportunities.

Meanwhile, VFS Global has issued a warning to the public about fake websites and individuals offering fraudulent visa appointments for a fee.

Recent figures indicate Nigeria had a 45.9% Schengen visa rejection rate in 2024—the third-highest globally after Bangladesh.

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