Tag: northwest

  • Kaduna hosts Northwest constitution review hearing Wednesday

    Kaduna hosts Northwest constitution review hearing Wednesday

    By Gabriel Udeh, Kaduna

    The North West zonal public hearing of the Senate Committee on the Review of the 1999 constitution has been scheduled for Wednesday in Kaduna state.

    The two-day public hearing will be chaired by Senator Kabir Gaya, according state issued and made available to journalists on Monday in Kaduna.

    The public hearing which will be hosted by Kaduna State Government, will be held at Hassan Katsina House and sittings will commence at 10am and end at 5pm daily from Wednesday to Thursday.

    A statement issued by Special Adviser on Media and Communication to Governor Nasir El Rufai, said that contributions from civil society groups, professional associations, trade unions and other interested bodies from the North West states of Kaduna, Kano, Jigawa and Katsina states will be collated during the hearing.

    According to media adviser Mr Muyiwa Adekeye, ‘’the public hearing will receive memoranda and contributions on 17 broad issues, including Gender Equity and Increased Participation of Women and Vulnerable groups in governance, the Federal Structure in governance and Power Devolution.’’

    The Special Adviser also listed ‘’Local Government Administration and Local Government Autonomy, Public Revenue, Fiscal Federalism and Revenue Allocation, as well as Constitutional Provision for the Establishment of State Police.’’

    The statement further said that the ‘’public hearing will deliberate on Judicial Reform, Electoral Reforms that will make INEC deliver transparent, credible, free and fair elections, Political parties, Independent candidature and election management. ‘’

    Also slated for deliberation are Socio-economic rights as contained in Chapter II of the constitution, Residency and Indigeneship, Removal of immunity in prima facie criminal cases, timeline for the Assent of Bills and Passage of Appropriation Bill, Adekeye said.

    Adekeye further said that the issue of State and Local Government creation, strengthening the office of the Accountant General of the Federation, Auditor General of the Federation and Office of the Attorney General of the Federation will be discussed at the event.

    ‘’Federal Capital Territory Administration, the Legislature and Legislative Bureaucracy, Constitutional Roles for Traditional Rulers and any other issues that promote the unity and good governance of the nation will also be deliberated upon,’’ he added.

  • Military kills 13 bandits, recovers several ammunition in N/West

    Military kills 13 bandits, recovers several ammunition in N/West

    No fewer than 13 armed bandits have been killed by the military under Operation Hadarin Daji in several villages in the war theatre area covering the three states of Zamfara, Katsina and Kebbi.
    This is confirmed to newsmen in Gusau by the Acting Force Information Officer of the operation, Capt. Abayomi Orii-Orisan, in a statement on Friday.
    He said that the operations also resulted in the interception of large cache of ammunitions, 4,630 rounds of 7.62mm special ammunitions around Moriki town in Shinkafi Local Government Area of Zamfara where many other bandits were fatally wounded,
    He further said eight suspected bandits, including a female, were arrested along with the recovery of seven AK-47 rifles, eight loaded magazines, 22 motorcycles, two Dane guns, four GSM phones and 30 jerrycans of petrol.
    According to Orii-Orisan, the operations bursted a drugs counterfeiting cartel where 350 cartons of fake drugs were recovered.
    He said the joint operations involving Army, Air Force, Police, DSS, Civil Defence and other sister security agencies were carried out in all the areas of coverage between the Feb. 10 and Feb. 20.
    He named affected villages, local government areas and states to include Tungar Mata, Tuduki,  Kawaye and Mararaban Kawaye villages in Anka Local Government Area, Moriki town, Belhi, Ruwar Kura, Kyaram, Gallai and Shirkai villages of Bukkuyum Local Government Area, all in Zamfara State.
    Tsauwa, Dankar and Yan Gayya villages of Batsari Local Government Area of Katsina State, and Gallai, Shirkai and ‘Yarkuka villages in Kebbi State.
    He said while the joint operations commander and Acting General Officer Commanding 8 Division of the Nigerian Army, Sokoto, Brig.-Gen. Aminu Bande, assured members of the public of the determination of all personnel in the operation to rid the area of all criminal elements.
    He equally advised the bandits to lay down their arms and embrace peace or face the consequences. (NAN)
  • Syria army says retakes key northwest town

    Syria army says retakes key northwest town

    Syria government forces recaptured a strategic highway town in the northwest from jihadist and allied rebels Wednesday, in the latest blow to the country’s last major opposition bastion.

    Maaret al-Numan, a former anti-government protest hotspot turned ghost town after weeks of bombardment, lies on a key highway connecting the capital to second city Aleppo.The M5 highway has long been in the sights of the government, as it seeks to revive a moribund economy ravaged by almost nine years of war.

    “Our forces managed in the past few days to stamp out terrorism in many villages and towns,” including Maaret al-Numan, an army spokesman said.

    In 2011, Maaret al-Numan was one of the first towns in the northwestern province of Idlib to rise up against the Damascus government.

    The following year, it was captured by rebels fighting against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.It is the latest town to fall in a Russian-backed offensive on the Idlib region this year.

    The region of some three million people is dominated by jihadists from Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate, but allied rebels are also present.

    The government has slowly chipped away at the south of the bastion, despite several deals between government ally Russia and rebel backer Turkey intended to avert a broad military offensive.

    Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Moscow on Wednesday of “not honouring these agreements”.

    – ‘Cleanse all Syrian soil’ –

    Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the government’s advance into the south of Idlib in recent weeks, seeking safety closer to the Turkish border further north.

    The violence has displaced around 358,000 people in Syria’s northwest since December, the United Nations says.In areas north of Maaret al-Numan, bombardment by government ally Russia has prompted a fresh wave of displacement in recent days, with hundreds of vehicles cramming a key exit route, AFP correspondents reported.

    Aid groups have warned the latest violence is only compounding one of the worst humanitarian disasters of the nine-year war.

    Government forces, which now control around 70 percent of Syria, have repeatedly vowed to retake the entire country, including Idlib.

    After Maaret al-Numan’s recapture, the Syrian army was bent on continuing the fight “until all Syrian soil has been cleansed of terrorism”, the spokesman said.

    On Wednesday, army forces swept the town for booby traps and unexploded ordnance after all rebels were either killed or withdrew, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.- Mosaics museum –

    The town was once a defiant hotspot for anti-Assad protests, drawing in crowds from surrounding villages, but today its streets are largely empty.

    The exodus of civilians fleeing the government’s advance has caused traffic jams in Syrian towns closer to the Turkish border
    It is home to a museum of Roman and Byzantine-era mosaics, which volunteers sought to protect with sandbags through years of war.

    What remains of rebel-held territory includes more than half of Idlib province, as well as slivers of adjacent Aleppo and Latakia.Government forces and the rebels were locked in clashes in the south of Aleppo province on Wednesday, the Britain-based Observatory said.

    To the north of Maaret al-Numan, the front line had been pushed back to within 10 kilometres (six miles) of the town of Saraqeb, the next stop on the M5 highway, its director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

    The civil war has killed more than 380,000 people and displaced more than half the country’s population since it erupted following the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

    Several UN-backed rounds of peace talks have failed to stem the bloodshed and a parallel track led by Russia and Turkey has gained precedence in recent years.

    On Wednesday, UN envoy Geir Pedersen visited the foreign ministry in Damascus.

    A long-awaited committee to draw up a post-war constitution for Syria met in October in Geneva, but Pedersen has acknowledged it made little progress.