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Arms funds: Reps to grill service chiefs, IGP, others Monday

The House of Representatives Ad Hoc Committee on the Need to Review the Purchase, Use and Control of Arms, Ammunition and Related Hardware by Military, Paramilitary and Other Law Enforcement Agencies in Nigeria has invited the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu; service chiefs and other heads of paramilitary agencies.
The security and service chiefs are to explain the procurement and deployment of arms and ammunition in their respective agencies.
On Saturday the House Committee on Defence has met with the Ministry of Defence on the $1bn special security fund released by the Federal Government in 2017, part of which was used to pay for 12 Super Tucano fighter jets in the United States.
Reactions had greeted the comments made by the National Security Adviser, Major General Babagana Monguno (retd.), who said during an interview with the Hausa Service of the British Broadcasting Corporation on March 12 that $1bn funds meant to purchase arms to tackle insurgency during the ex-service chiefs’ tenure got missing.

Senate anti-open grazing bill ready for first reading

Senate anti-open grazing bill ready for first reading
The sponsor of the anti-open grazing bill in the Senate, Kola Balogun, has said the much-awaited proposed legislation would soon come up for first reading at the red chamber.
Balogun, a Peoples Democratic Party member representing Oyo South Senatorial District, who confirmed this to our correspondent on Wednesday, however, withheld details of the bill.
Recall that in February senators from the Southern and Middle Belt areas of Nigeria, had started mobilizing their colleagues from the core northern areas of the country to support the yet-to-be-introduced new Senate anti-open grazing bill
Findings by our correspondent had shown that a principal officer of the upper chamber was coordinating support for the bill being sponsored by Balogun.
The Senate had last month passed a resolution, urging the state governments to implement the National Livestock Transformation Plan.
The red chamber described the project as “a modern scheme designed to eliminate trans-humans movement in order to prevent farmer-herder conflict and activate the highly productive livestock sector in Nigeria.”

Serving senators and members of the House of Representatives from Kogi State have said they have not made up their minds on whether to receive the COVID-19 vaccine or not.
The President of the Senate, Ahmad Lawan, took his own vaccination on Tuesday and announced a two-week schedule for other senators to have the vaccine.
But speaking with our correspondent on behalf of his colleagues on Friday, the leader of the Kogi lawmakers’ forum in the National Assembly, Smart Adeyemi, said the federal legislators from the state had yet to take a decision on the matter.
Adeyemi, who is also the Vice Chairman of the Northern Senators Forum, said all the 12 National Assembly members from the state were solidly behind the governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who has been insistent that there is no COVID-19 in the state.
He said the only consideration that could make them go for the vaccination would be to prevent them from infecting their constituents in the state in the event that they travelled home.

Following the alleged attacks on Christians and church properties in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, amid the ongoing crisis over the use of hijab , the Archbishop of Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion), Kwara State, Most Reverend Israel Amoo, says such attacks may lead to a bigger crisis.
The cleric advised the Kwara State Government to return to the negotiation table with all stakeholders towards finding a lasting solution to the hijab controversy in the state.
Amoo, in a statement said the Christian Association of Nigeria in Kwara State had made the position of the owners of missionary schools in the state known in clear and unambiguous terms.
Adding that these schools have been in existence for many years. We even learnt on good authority that the incumbent Governor of Kwara State (AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq) attended one of them. Over the years, Christian and Muslim students have been coexisting therein without acrimony on a religious basis. Why are we now creating these problems to heat up the polity unnecessarily?
Amoo reminded the governor that the issue was already with the Supreme Court and that all parties needed to maintain the status quo pending the outcome of the matter.

Power consumers have raised the alarm that power distribution companies were now selling the free meters that were provided for electricity users by the Federal Government.
In October 2020, the Federal Government inaugurated the National Mass Metering Programme in respect of which the Central Bank of Nigeria issued a framework for financing the scheme.
The programme was inaugurated to increase the country’s metering rate and eliminate arbitrary estimated bills that were given unmetered customers by Discos.
Through the scheme, the CBN provided financing support to the Discos for the procurement of meters for customers from local meter manufacturers.
The meters were meant to be installed free of charge in the residence of beneficiaries, but power users on Friday alleged that some Discos were beginning to collect money for the meters.
They told our correspondent that some Discos claimed that the scheme was being run alongside the Meter Asset Providers programme, but argued that the MAPs had not been successful, which was why the government introduced the NMMP.
Power distributors, however, said they would not want to comment on controversial issues in the sector at the moment.