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  • BREAKING: Doctors run for dear life as gunmen invade Kogi Medical Centre during Covid-19 briefing

    There was pandemonium in Lokoja on Wednesday after unknown gunmen attacked the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Lokoja, Kogi state during a COVID-19 press conference.

    The hospital had scheduled a media briefing for the day to demand a COVID-19 screening center in the state and to also speak about the challenges health workers are facing with regard to the disease.

    The armed men were said to have arrived at the facility in three vehicles and shot sporadically to disperse the meeting.

    Health workers were said to have been harassed by the gunmen who took away laptops and vital documents.

    They were also said to have destroyed properties.

  • Buhari mourns with Kogi over death of CJ, Nasir Ajanah

    President Muhammadu Buhari on Sunday commiserated with Kogi State over the death of the state’s Chief Judge (CJ), Justice Nasir Ajanah.

    Buhari said the late CJ’s demise has left a huge gap in the Judiciary.

    He condoled with the family of the deceased as well as the people and government of Kogi State.

    A statement in Abuja by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said: “President Buhari condoles with government and people of Kogi State over the passing of Chief Judge, Justice Nasir Ajanah, whose brilliant legal career will remain a reference.

    “The President commiserates with his family, Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and the Body of Benchers over the demise of the legal luminary, urging family and all associates to find comfort in prayers and acceptance of the will of God.

    “President Buhari believes the late Chief Judge made a remarkable impact on the state, his chosen profession and community, with clear evidence that his death will create a huge gap in the Judiciary.

    “The President prays that Almighty God will grant the soul of the departed a peaceful rest,” statement said.

    The Kogi State government described Justice Ajanah’s death as a massive blow to the government and the people of the state.

    Ajanah died a week after the state’s Judiciary lost the President of the Customary Court of Appeal, Justice Ibrahim Atadoga.

    He was reportedly recuperating from an earlier surgery he underwent.

    Read Also: Kogi mourns Chief Judge Ajanah
    A source, who spoke in confidence, told The Nation that the late Kogi chief law officer had been battling a critical health challenge, which necessitated his being moved to Abuja for better medical attention.

    In a statement in Lokoja, the state capital, Information and Strategy Commissioner Kingsley Fanwo said the late Justice Ajanah will be solely missed for his “tenacity of purpose and outstanding commitment to the sanctity of the temple of justice”.

    The government promised to work with the family of the late CJ to accord him a befitting burial.

    The late Justice Ajanah was appointed CJ in 2009 under former Governor Ibrahim Idris.

    The ex-governor described Ajanah’s death as a great loss to the state.

    The Nigeria Basketball Federation (NBBF) described the CJ’s death as shocking and unfortunate.

    In a statement on Sunday in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, by its Media Officer, Afolabi Oni, NBBF said: “Justice Ajanah was a critical stakeholder in basketball in Nigeria and shared one of the core values of this present board in the area of grassroots development through his annual Justice Ajanah Inter-Local Government Basketball competition in Kogi State.

    “The Nigerian league system (men and women) has benefitted immensely from the talents discovered during this competition, with its 12th edition held last year in Okene.”

    The CJ died at an Abuja hospital where he was receiving treatment after reportedly showing COVID-19 symptoms.

  • Kogi loses another prominent leader, Andrew Aileku

    The Kogi State Government has announced the death of the pioneer Secretary to the State Government Chief Andrew Enumanu Aileku.

    He was 88 years old.

    Aileku was the third prominent citizen of the state to die within one week, after the chief judge Justice Nasir Ajana and the president of the customary court of appeal, Ibrahim Shaibu Atadoga.

    Aileku was the Secretary to the Government of Benue State before the creation of Kogi State in 1991.

    The Commissioner for Information and Communication, Kingsley Fanwo who made his death known in a statement commiserated with the family.

    He described Aileku as a seasoned administrator and an oasis of professionalism in his heydays as a journalist and a bureaucrat, who oversaw the administrative corridors of Benue and Kogi State like a collosus.

    “Born in 1932, the late Chief Aileku will be remembered for his selfless service to the people and Government of Kogi State.

    “He deployed his wealth of experience to put the state on a strong footing from inception.

    “It is sad that we lost the brilliant bureaucrat when the present administration is doing a lot to reposition the state in line with the global challenge of dealing with the economic fallout of the pandemic that has damaged the global economy.

    “A peaceful man in his lifetime, Chief Aileku died yesterday peacefully in his sleep. He was not sick before his death.

    “He will be greatly missed by his family, the people of Bassa LGA and the entire people of Kogi State.

    The Government of Kogi State will collaborate with his family to ensure a befitting burial for the departed hero. Burial arrangements will be announced later.

    “May God grant all the fortitude to bear the great loss.

  • Removal of Oshiomhole, dissolution of APC’s NWC not targetted at Tinubu – Kogi Gov

    Removal of Oshiomhole, dissolution of APC’s NWC not targetted at Tinubu – Kogi Gov

    Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, said the decision to remove former National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole and other NWC members was not targetted at undermining the influence of the APC National Leader, Bola Tinubu.

    He said the decision was to bring peace to the party.

    Governor Bello said this while featuring as a guest on Channels Television’s Politics Today, on Friday.

    He said: “The assertion that some governors decided to create the crisis in the party is unfounded. We can’t demolish a house that we built. Oshiomhole did not offend anyone and nobody offended Oshiomhole.

    “Senator Bola Ahmed Tinubu is a leader, a father, a founding member of this great party. He contributed immensely to making sure that the party attains the height it has attained today. He has paid his due and continues to pay his due,” he said.

    “Nobody, however highly placed or lowly placed you are in the party, will ever undermine that great leader. Nobody is undermining him. He is still a father; he’s one of our national leaders and he continues to contribute.

    “In the whole of this misunderstanding so far, nobody has heard him making any comments for or against anybody that has different or opposing opinions. Rather, he continues to maintain and play that fatherly role. Both APC and PDP gravitate towards him.

    “So, nobody is going to say that he’s being undermined or he’s going to be removed. No. We need him; he needs us and he will continue to be a leader of our great party.”

    Governor Bello added that the dissolution of the National Working Committee and other decisions reached at the National Executive Council meeting of the party on Thursday made the APC stronger.

    According to Bello, the progress that has been achieved by the APC will be proved in the coming elections in Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti, Osun states.

    He said, “APC is getting stronger, and like I said, it’s going to be proved in the next few days or the next few weeks to come in the election of Edo, Ondo, Anambra, Ekiti, Osun states.

    “It’s unfortunate that our colleague, my brother, and my in-law, Obaseki has left us, but as a party and a party-loyal man, we have to reclaim him.

    “I can tell you that there are up to 10 PDP governors ready to join APC and that would happen very soon.”

    Bello also debunked claims that the APC will fall apart when President Muhammadu Buhari, leaves office, saying those with such notions “are making a great mistake”.

  • Kogi COVID-19 ‘index case’ discharged

    Kogi COVID-19 ‘index case’ discharged

    The disputed Kogi coronavirus index case, Sheikh Ahmad Ejibunu has been reportedly discharged from the National Hospital, Abuja.

    Ejibunu, who is the Chief Imam of Kabba, whose identification as the first Covid-19 case in Kogi heightened altercation between the state and authorities of the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) is said to be in better condition and could return anytime soon to Kabba.

    He was reportedly discharged from hospital on Friday.

    According to a source, who pleaded anonymity, the Chief Imam has been discharged from hospital.

    The source added he is taking his rest with a family member in Gwagwalada.

    Ejibunu was a fortnight ago referred from the Federal Medical Centre, Lokoja to the National Hospital Abuja, where he was confirmed COVID–19 positive by the NCDC.

    The Kogi State Government however rejected the claim, saying that the NCDC did not carry along its Ministry of Health on the series of tests conducted on the patient.

    The state maintained its position of being COVID-19 free even after the announcement of a third case by the NCDC last Thursday.

    A spokesman by family of Ejibunu however issued a statement confirming the Chief Imam tested positive for coronavirus, which sparked another round of controversy.

    Governor Yahaya Bello last Monday, ordered a two-week lockdown of the Kabba-Bunu LGA, which was lifted the three days after on the premise that comprehensive tests were carried out in the community.

  • Tragedy: DPO, seven policemen, one civilian killed in Kogi bank robbery

    Tragedy: DPO, seven policemen, one civilian killed in Kogi bank robbery

    Nine persons, including eight policemen and one civilian, were feared killed on Thursday in Isanlu, Kogi State when a gang of armed robbers launched an attack on a branch of a first-generation bank in the town.

    The incident, which took place in Isanlu under Yagba East Local Government Area of the state has since sent panic across the region.

    It was gathered that the armed robbers invaded the bank in the evening, shooting sporadically with stray bullets hitting several persons.

    The robbers then proceeded to a police station in the town and killed the eight policemen.

    An eyewitness revealed that the robbers forced their way into the banking hall using dynamite to destroy the security doors of the facility.

    He added that an undisclosed amount of money was carted away by the bandits during the attack.

    “They attacked the community police station and killed so many officers, even passersby were not spared,” the eyewitness said.

    The incident has disrupted commercial and other activities in the town.

    William Aya, the spokesman of the Police Command in Kogi, confirmed the robbery incident and the invasion of the police station, but added that the casualty figure was “still hazy”.

    “The Commissioner of Police, Ede Ayuba, has dispatched the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the operation, to Isanlu to ascertain the true situation,” he said.

    Mr Aya promised to brief the press “as soon as details are available.”

  • Again! Kogi rejects NCDC’s third COVID-19 case

    Again! Kogi rejects NCDC’s third COVID-19 case

    The Kogi State government has again denied the existence of any Coronavirus disease recorded for the state as announced by the National Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, at its Thursday nationwide update.

    The NCDC announced 348 new cases of COVID-19, with Lagos State recording 163, FCT 76 and Rivers State 21.

    In the latest update, Delta, Nasarawa and Niger states recorded eight cases each, while Enugu recorded six.

    Bauchi, Edo, Ekiti, Ondo and Gombe recorded five cases each.

    Others include Benue four, Ogun two, while Osun, Plateau, Kogi and Anambra had one each.

    Read Also: Police kill two kidnappers in Kogi
    However, in a Facebook post by the Kogi State Commissioner for Health, Dr Saka Haruna, said that the ministry and indeed the state government remain unaware of any such case, just has it denied knowledge of the first index case and another. He described the new figure credited to the state as mere assumption.

    “The purported New Case: We are not aware of who the patient is, where and when the Test was conducted,” he wrote.

    There has been a running battle and open mistrust between the Kogi State government and the NCDC over what the government described as opaqueness in the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in the country.

    It accused the NCDC of commercialising the pandemic, a venture Governor Yahaya Bello said that would ‘not to be a part of.’

  • Melaye counters Kogi Government, says reported cases of COVID-19 cases real

    Melaye counters Kogi Government, says reported cases of COVID-19 cases real

    Reports of coronavirus in Kogi are real and authentic, Senator Dino Melaye has stated.

    He spoke on the heels of brickbats between Kogi State Government and the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) over the latter’s announcement of two cases of coronavirus in the state.

    Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Kingsley Fanwo, however disagreed with the centre’s report, insisting Kogi remains COVID-19 free.

    Melaye, in a statement on Saturday, affirmed one of the cases is from Kabba and the patient personally known to him.

    The statement reads: “I want to announce that the Covid-19 case in Kogi is real and authentic and cannot understand why any responsible government will want to deny and invariably kill her citizens.

    “One of the cases is from Kabba and the victim is personally known to me. I cannot be part of those who will play politics with the lives of my people.

    “COVID-19 is real but not a death sentence, if handled early enough. Family members of the Kabba victim who got referral to Abuja from Federal Medical Center in Lokoja and all those who had contact with him should please surrender themselves for test so as to curtail the spread.

    “Kogi State government must come down from her imaginary high horse and start contact tracing to help curtail the spread. It is illogical to think we will be free with our proximity to affected states. God will hear our cry and heal our land. God bless Okunland! God bless Kogi West! God blesss Kogi State.”

  • CRA condemns Kogi Chief of Staff’s disparaging remarks about Christianity

    CRA condemns Kogi Chief of Staff’s disparaging remarks about Christianity

    The Christian Rights Agenda (CRA) has condemned, in strongest terms, an insult on the Christian faith by Mr. Abdulkareem Jamiu Asuku, the Chief of Staff to Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello.
    The CoS, who, on Radio Kogi 93.5 FM on Monday, while discussing a lingering quarrel among Muslims in Ebiraland over which sect produces the Chief Imam of a mosque in Okene, veered off the context of the discussion by alluding to denominations in Christianity. He compared the dichotomy among the Islamic sects to Christian denominations, and disparaging Christians for not being true followers of Jesus Christ.
    In a statement signed by its Acting Director of Publicity, Tom Chiahemen, CRA argued that Pharm Asuku’s comments were not only an insult on Christianity, but they also epitomized the hatred and bigotry against Christians in the government of Governor Yahaya Bello.
    The CRA is a Christian organization set up to advocate the respect for the rights of Christians in line with the principles of freedom of religion, thoughts and beliefs, enshrined in the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
    The statement said, “Kogi governor’s Chief of Staff’s comments steams of discrimination, bigotry, hatred and the kind of bias that should not be in the heart of a government official. The Bible says, “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” (Matthew 12:34). Apparently, this Chief of Staff spoke from the prevalent disposition of the government at Lugard House in Lokoja, and that is unfortunate. A government and those who run it should be all-embracing. Governor Yahaya Bello is not a governor of Muslims, except he wants to be seen to be so. But if his CoS is showing open disdain for the Christian faith, it means the administration is doomed.”

    The CRA added that “Christian denominations in Nigeria have not carried out cold-blooded murders; massacre of innocent persons in villages and cities; destruction of properties; raping of women, men and children; hatred, and outright genocide that is the stock-in-trade of some religious groups in Nigeria. An evidence of this is the fact that Ebiraland is the hotbed of senseless sectarian and ethnic killings in Kogi State in spite of the fact that the majority of the people in that part of the state belongs to one religion. Christianity does not advocate mass murder, hatred, and all the evils that manifest in Ebiraland.”
    The Christian organization added that “Christian denominations have, instead, fostered freedom, peace, trust, respect for each other, and even led to development. In Nigeria, the Redeemed Christian Church of God is not at war with Deeper Life Christian Ministry; neither is the Baptist Church at war with Methodist Church. Churches are not daggers-drawn at each other, unlike what happens in Okene over the position of Imam of the mosque.”
    The group called on Kogi State governor to change his bias towards Christians in Kogi State, and counsel his staff against disparaging the Christian faith in the name of settling a dispute among Islamic sects.

    The CRA added that contrary to Asuku’s disparaging insinuation, the various Christian denominations in Nigeria, as “true followers of Jusus hrist,” do not, and have always condemned, cold-blooded murders; massacre of innocent persons in villages and cities; destruction of properties; raping of women, men and children; hatred, and outright genocide being reported in some parts of Nigeria.

    An evidence of this is the view of many Nigerians that Ebiraland is the hotbed of senseless sectarian and ethnic killings in Kogi State in spite of the fact that the majority of the people in that part of the state belongs to one religion.

    The CRA is of the candid opinion that instead of dissipating his energy disparaging Christianity, Governor Bello’s Chief of Staff, who ought to have been worried about this public perception of Ebiraland, should have been finding ways of how to change the narrative.

    The Christian organization added that “Christian denominations have, instead, fostered freedom, peace, trust, respect for each other, and even led to development. In Nigeria, the Redeemed Christian Church of God is not at war with Deeper Life Christian Ministry; neither is the Baptist Church at war with Methodist Church. Churches are not daggers-drawn at each other, unlike what happens in Okene over the position of Imam of the mosque.”

    The group called on Kogi State governor to change his bias towards Christians in Kogi State, and counsel his staff against disparaging the Christian faith in the name of settling a dispute among Islamic sects.

  • Cross River is last man standing as Kogi officially records two coronavirus cases

    Cross River is last man standing as Kogi officially records two coronavirus cases

    Nigeria, on Wednesday announced 389 new Coronavirus cases, the highest the nation has recorded in a single day since the pandemic struck in February.

    The nation now has total confirmed Coronavirus cases of 8,733, according to the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control, NCDC, on Wednesday.

    Lagos contributed to the soaring figures recorded, as the state rakes in 256 of the cases, the highest it has recorded since the pandemic was first discovered in the state in February.

    Katsina, Rivers, Kano, Adamawa and Akwa Ibom recorded 23, 22, 14, 11 and 11 cases respectively, while Kaduna, rakes in seven cases, just as Gombe, Plateau, Abia, Delta, Niger, Kogi and Oyo recorded two cases each, while Imo, Borno, Ogun and Anambra have one case each.

    Kogi State has now joined the league of states with Coronavirus virus after two cases were detected on Wednesday.

    Five deaths were recorded in Nigeria on Wednesday while the total number of patients discharged so far stand at 2,501.

    TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) reports that the only state in Nigeria with no official COVID-19 case is Cross River.

    States that record Coronavirus on Wednesday

    Lagos-256
    Katsina-23
    Edo-22
    Rivers-14
    Kano-13
    Adamawa-11
    Akwa Ibom-11
    Kaduna-7
    Kwara-6
    Nasarawa-6
    Gombe-2
    Plateau-2
    Abia-2
    Delta-2
    Benue-2
    Niger-2
    Kogi-2
    Oyo-2
    Imo-1
    Borno-1
    Ogun-1
    Anambra-1