Headline

Wike To FCT Officials: Wahala Don Come, I’ll Increase Your BP

Published

2 years ago

August 23, 2023

Peeved by the growing level of filth and haphazard transportation system in the nation’s capital, Abuja, the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory FCT, Nyesom Wike, has charged top officials of the administration to sit up or seek redeployment elsewhere.

Specifically, he ordered the director in charge of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, AEPB, to clean up the city, saying he would be on his case to the point of increasing his blood pressure.

On transportation, Wike told top officials of the secretariat in pidgin that wahala don come.

He gave the charge yesterday in Abuja while receiving handing over notes from the Permanent Secretary in the FCTA, Mr Olusade Adesola.

He said: “I will ensure that Abuja gets the best. You will see projects upon projects, and projects that will be completed and not abandoned.

“I am not a party to abandoned projects. I start a project when there is money, as such we will look into our finances before we begin any project.

“I believe in the renewed hope of President Bola Tinubu, and Nigerians will see the difference in no distant time”.

He said in the meantime, there had to be immediate deliverables to assure the people that the government was determined to turn the fortunes of the territory around.

“We are here to deliver the short-term deliverables for people to see that Abuja is coming back to what it was supposed to be. People are complaining of street lights not working, I am complaining too. We must fix it within the shortest possible time”, he said.

The former Rivers State governor charged the director in charge of street lights to do everything possible in the shortest possible time to restore lights to the streets of Abuja.

On sanitation, Wike said he would be mounting immense pressure on the director in charge to the point that he might even develop high blood pressure.

He declared: “You must be ready to work hard. I must make sure I give you BP, so you must work hard. You can’t be sleeping when the environment is dirty. You can’t be a director for anything.

”It is an opportunity for us to tell Nigerians and Mr President that we cannot disappoint. If you are in charge of sanitation, buy your drugs, carry them all the time because I will disturb you all the time to make sure Abuja is clean.”

On transportation, Wike said: “Wahala don come, there are too many illegal bus stops in the city. I have respect for women, but this one I will not. If you don’t have the capacity, let us replace you now.

”In this job, people will not like you, but in the end, if you do it well, you will be appreciated. Things are tough, yes, but we cannot live in a lawless society because things are tough.”

On her part, Minister of State in the FCT, Dr Mariya Mahmoud, said with the support of staff, what Wike had done in Rivers would be replicated in the FCT.

“I am of the firm belief that, together, and with your support, we will replicate what the Minister (Wike) has done in Rivers in the nation’s capital, especially at the area councils and satellite towns.

“This is so that the lives of our people in the rural areas will be positively touched. It is also instructive to state that maximum commitment, cooperation, and loyalty are expected from all staff because it will not be business as usual.

“We will run with the vision of President Tinubu, which we will be unveiling as we hit the ground running,” she said.

Earlier, the permanent secretary assured the ministers of the unalloyed support of the entire staff of the FCT Administration in ensuring the actualisation of the mandate of President Tinubu.

Also, Executive Secretary, Federal Capital Development Authority FCDA, Shehu Hadi, thanked Wike and Mahmoud for accepting to serve and reposition the FCT.

Headline

Serbia Indicts Ex-minister, 12 Others Over Train Station Tragedy

Published

18 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Serbian prosecutors filed an updated indictment on Tuesday against 13 people, including a former minister, over a fatal railway station roof collapse that has triggered a wave of anti-government protests.

The prosecution said all those indicted, among them former construction minister Goran Vesic, face charges of “serious crimes against public safety” over the tragedy that killed 16 people last November.

“The indictment proposes that the Higher Court in Novi Sad order custody for all the defendants,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

The roof collapse at the newly renovated station in Serbia’s second-largest city, Novi Sad, became a symbol of entrenched corruption and sparked almost daily protests.

Protesters first demanded a transparent investigation, but their calls soon escalated into demands for early elections.

The Higher Public Prosecutor’s Office in Novi Sad initially filed an indictment at the end of December, but judges returned it in April, requesting more information.

The accused were released or placed under house arrest following the decision.

The prosecutor’s office said it had complied with the judge’s request and had now completed the supplementary investigation.

The prosecutor specialising in organised crime and corruption in Belgrade is leading a separate, independent investigation into the tragedy.

That investigation is focused on 13 people, including Vesic and another former minister, Tomislav Momirovic, who headed the Construction Ministry before him.

In March, the European Public Prosecutor’s Office (EPPO) launched a third, separate investigation into the possible misuse of EU funds for the station’s reconstruction.

AFP

Headline

Kazakhstan Bans Forced Marriage, Bride Kidnapping

Published

18 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Kazakhstan has banned forced marriages and bride kidnappings through a law that came into effect Tuesday in the Central Asian country, where the practice persists despite new attention being paid to women’s rights.

Forcing someone to marry is now punishable by up to 10 years in prison, Kazakh police said in a statement.

“These changes are aimed at preventing forced marriages and protecting vulnerable categories of citizens, especially women and adolescents,” it added.

Bride kidnappings have also been outlawed.

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“Previously, a person who voluntarily released a kidnapped person could expect to be released from criminal liability. Now this possibility has been eliminated,” the police said.

There are no reliable statistics of forced marriage cases across the country, with no separate article in the criminal code prohibiting it until now.

A Kazakh lawmaker said earlier this year that the police had received 214 such complaints over the past three years.

The custom is also present in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan, where it mostly goes unpunished due to indifferent law enforcement and stigma surrounding whistleblowers.

The issue of women’s rights in Kazakhstan gained media attention in 2023 following the murder of a woman by her husband, a former minister, a case that shocked Kazakh society and prompted President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to react.

“Some people hide behind so-called traditions and try to impose the practice of wife stealing. This blatant obscurantism cannot be justified,” Tokayev said last year.

AFP

Headline

Russia Arrests Woman For Detonating Bomb On Railway

Published

18 hours ago

September 16, 2025

Editor

Russia’s FSB security service said on Tuesday it had arrested a woman in her fifties accused of detonating explosives in a bid to sabotage the Trans-Siberian Railway.

The suspect was allegedly working on behalf of Ukrainian intelligence, the FSB said, in the latest incident of alleged covert activity during the countries’ conflict.

“In August 2025, following the instructions provided by the adversary, the suspect manufactured a homemade explosive device from publicly available components, placed it on the railway tracks and triggered it,” the Russian agency said.

“She recorded the moment of the explosion on her mobile phone camera and sent the footage as a report to the handler to receive a reward.”

The statement did not name the suspect but said she was born in 1974 and carried out the alleged attack in eastern Siberia’s Zabaikalsky region.

The FSB warned Russians that it was monitoring social networks and online messenger services such as Telegram and WhatsApp for evidence of Ukrainian services recruiting Russians to carry out sabotage.

Separately, the agency told state news agency TASS that a man had been sentenced to 18 years and six months for transporting explosives on behalf of a “pro-Ukrainian” group.

A resident of the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, had, the FSB said, established contact through the Telegram app with a banned “terrorist organisation”.

He allegedly retrieved explosives from a cache on the orders of this group before waiting for “further instructions”, according to the same source cited by TASS.

He was jailed by a military tribunal.

AFP