Sapele Power petitions IG Idris over police harassment - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

The operator of the 1,020MW Sapele Power Plant, the Sapele Power Plc (SPP), has petitioned the Inspector General of the Nigeria Police, Mr. Ibrahim Idris, over the use of Police to settle business scores by Seistech, reports NaijaAgroNet.

In a petition to the police high command on the details of the contract with Seistech, the management of Sapele Power noted that during the power privatisation exercise, SPP, along with its assets which include two storage tanks and a jetty located within the power plant, was acquired by Eurafric Power Limited.

The petition also noted that sometime in 2016, Seistech Energy Limited, an oil and gas company, approached SPP for the lease of one of its storage tanks in the plant for storage of crude oil produced by Mid-Western Oil & Gas Company Limited. A Storage Lease Agreement dated September 6, 2016 was negotiated and executed.

Sapele Power says Seistech had now failed to meet the terms of the agreement and has resorted to intimidation, attempt to forcibly takeover its facilities and threat to life, among others.

Just as the company also alleged complicity of the Police in the matter for which it has petitioned the Inspector General of Police, asking that he puts a stop “to the use of the police to perpetuate illegality.”

“Few months into the transaction, Seistech became bankrupt, and unable to meet its financial obligations under the contract, Seistech then introduced Mid-Western to assume its financial responsibility and Mid-Western effected tank rental payments on behalf of Seistech. Subsequently, Seistech had a fall-out with Mid-Western and payment for the tank rental was suspended.

“Rather than look for creative means of liquidating its indebtedness, Seistech chose to cunningly cook up lies and misinform our business partners, regulatory authorities and unsuspecting third parties that the rented tank did not belong to SPP, rather, belonged to Seistech.

“As a result of this development, we terminated the tank rental contract with Seistech and asked them to pay up outstanding rental debt, evacuate the products from the storage tank in question and vacate our premises immediately.

“Instead of complying, Seistech surreptitiously and continuously sought ways to defraud us by evacuating product in storage without settling its indebtedness (presently in excess of N600,000,000 (Six Hundred Million Naira). So far, its threats and activities have impeded our activities and smooth operations of the power plant”.

Sapele Power Plc maintained that to undermine security and control of the its power plant, within which the storage tank is located, Seistech, with the connivance of the Police, deployed mobile policemen from Mopol 33 into the plant, leading to a faceoff with SPP’s mobile policemen from Mopol 44 with threat of gunfire exchange.

Ozo Nweke Ozo/ED, Ops

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Hungry children can’t learn says Applegate, petitions congress

NaijaAgroNet:

A resident of Spencer, Indiana in the United States, Ms Rebecca Applegate has petitioned the Congress against the plans to take food out of the mouths of hungry school children, insisting that hungry children cannot learn in any circumstance, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The petition on change.org and made available to NaijaAgroNet which has garnered over 3,330 supporters, Applegate wondered if anyone has been so hungry they could not concentrate on anything and then imagine being a 6-year-old trying to learn how to read with an empty stomach.

Applegate, who is a second-grade teacher, noted that in a rural community where most families struggle to make ends meet despite both parents working, families rely on the free or reduced cost meals provided to their children at school.

“Unfortunately, some in Congress are trying to pass a law that would cut off these meals for many of our most vulnerable children,” she decried.

According to her, the Improving Child Nutrition and Education Bill of 2016 currently in the United States Congress, is misleading as the bill will make it harder for the poorest schools, wondering if schools like hers would ever qualify for community eligibility.

Community eligibility, Ms Applegate said, is an option for schools when there are so many disadvantaged students, all students qualify for free lunch.

“This saves resource strapped school districts from having to individually track each eligible student in the lunch line and prevents low income students from going hungry,” she said, stressing that if this bill becomes law, it would jeopardize approximately 3.4 million students in the 7,000 schools that have already implemented community eligibility.

“My school would be one of them, and I can’t stand by and let my students go hungry,” she said, appealing for support against allowing the Congress to take food away from hungry children.

Often, she said, children come to class hungry and cannot wait to go to breakfast, hence, they are restless and even confess often they have had very little or nothing to eat the night before.

“I personally pay for peanut butter crackers and other snacks to pass out mid-morning to keep my students going. Without free meals, I am not sure what these children are going to do,” Ms Applegate said.

She further enjoined well-meaning individuals to join her in asking Congress to reject H.R. 5003, the supposed ‘Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016’ insisting that hungry children cannot learn.

“We should be feeding and empowering our youth, not leaving them hungry,” Applegate maintained.

One of Applegate supporters stated that “Even as an adult, can you read or learn in a hungry situation, the answer is NO, so why wish that for small ones. It’s the way we treat them now will determine how they will treat us when we get old and they are in the centre of authorities.”

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Ezu River corpse: MASSOB cries foul says they are our members, petitions UN, FG

Information reaching NaijaAgroNet puts credence to the story ran by us that initial investigations at the break of the news that some corpses dumped in Ezu River in Anambra State boundary with Enugu State was the handwork of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), with serious implication for upstaging epidemics in over 100 communities along the riverines.

Reports by Leadership stated that the Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) has identified the corpse as its members in Police custody.

MASSOB went on to list some of their names, alleging that they were in Police custody, invariably killed and dumped in Ezu River, just as the group petitioned the United Nations, Federal Government, United States’ President Barack Obama, United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), and Amnesty International to name a few.

The group also insisted they identified the corpses of those found floating in the Ezu River at Amansea community, Awka North Local Government Area of Anambra State as those of their members arrested by Police on November 9, 2012.

Director of Information, MASSOB, Comrade Uchenna Madu, maintained in a press statement made available to newsmen Friday that the controversial corpses were those of their members who were arrested by security agencies in different parts of the Anambra State last year but were never released, nor charged to court.

He contended that Police secretly executed them alongside other criminals and dumped same in the river to cover their tracks. 

“MASSOB, with a deep sense of grief and sorrow, wishes to inform Mr. Ban Ki Moon (UN Secretary General), President Goodluck Jonathan, US President Barack Obama, United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC), and Amnesty International about the gruesome murder of MASSOB members by the Special Anti-Robbery Squared (SARS) of Nigeria Police Force, Awkuzu, Anambra State,” he said.

Some of the victims’ names as given by MASSOB include Basil Ogbu, Michael Ogwa, Sunday Omogo, Philip Nwankpa, Eze Ndubisi, Ebuka Eze, Obinna Ofor, Joseph Udoh and Uchechukwu Ejiofor. 

Madu further pointed out that these victims were arrested at MASSOB’s security office at Onitsha, Anambra State, on November 9, 2012, by a combined team of Nigerian security agents - Army, Police and SSS - and were later handed over to SARS’ headquarters in Awkuzu, Anambra State, where they were detained until their suspicious disappearance. 

“We got information from an insider at SARS headquarters, Awkuzu, that armless MASSOB members detained at SARS were secretly killed alongside other robbery suspects,” he alleged. 

Reacting, the acting spokesman of the Anambra State police command, Mr. Emeka Chukwuemeka, said that it was only the outcome of the autopsy being conducted on the specimen taken from the corpses that could state whether the claims by the group were true or false.

NaijaAgroNet equally confirms that MASSOB may have visited the SARS in Awkuzu only to discover that their members in custody are missing.

Meanwhile the Anambra State government have began to build borehores to enable the affected communities have some alternative water supply, especially the Amansea town. 

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