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The Delta State Government has called for an investigation into the circumstances which led to the killing 28 years old Joseph Pessu, allegedly shot dead by armed soldiers who were out to enforce the ‘sit at home’ order issued by the State Government as part of the effort towards containing the spread of coronavirus pandemic.
The boy who was reportedly shot at about 10 am at the Ogunu flyover bridge in Warri for allegedly refusing to stop for a check, was said to be driving towards the Warri NPA from Ubeji when he was accosted by soldiers enforcing the lockdown order.
According to a statement by the State Commissioner for Information, Mr Charles Aniagwu, the government was worried about the report of an alleged killing of a 28-year old man in Warri by security agencies on regular patrol duty.
The state government also sent a delegation to the deceased family to condole with them over the loss of their son. While the statement said the military authorities have been contacted to carry out an investigation into what led to the killing of the young boy.
While urging the people to remain calm and not to take laws into their hands, he said the government would conduct an investigation into the killing.
Aniagwu thanked Deltans for their cooperation so far by remaining indoors, suing for further cooperation with the State Government in the best interest of Deltans.
In the same vein, the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, has called for thorough investigation of the alleged killing of Joseph Pessu, an Itshekiri youth by men of the Nigerian Army enforcing the COVID-19 stay at home order of the Delta State Government.
Describing the incident as extra-judicial killing, the Deputy Senate President called for the arrest and prosecution of the culprit (s) to serve as deterrent to others.
Omo-Agege, while calling on all citizens of the state to desist from taking the laws into their hands as being reported in some quarters added that he has tasked the authorities to fish out those responsible and punish them in accordance with the laws of the land.
According to him, even if the deceased had flouted the order of the state government to stay at home, the best approach was to apprehend and hand him over to the police for prosecution.
While calling on security personnel to always maintain the rules of engagement as they enforce the lockdown order, he called on youths to exercise utmost restraint.
Also, the member representing Warri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Hon. Thomas Ereyitomi has berated some men of the Nigerian Army over the maltreatment, torture and human rights violations of people of his constituency, especially Warri indigenes and others in their efforts to enforce the lock-down directives of the state government.
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The market slump of crude oil price due to the global outbreak of Coronavirus pandemic is a wake up call for Nigeria to look towards a life without oil, Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has said.
This, according to him, would require bold policy changes to restructure the country’s mono-product economy.
Speaking as Guest of Honour at the 50th anniversary of the Nigerian Military School, Zaria, 1970 Set, Senator Omo-Agege also called on the old students to fashion out creative solutions to the challenges confronting the country.
He said: “The recent global outbreak of the COVID-19… obviously poses peculiar challenges, not only for personal health, but also for the economy and business. As we have seen already in the global oil and foreign exchange markets, these are frightening challenges that we must solve.
“Although the present administration has taken bold measures to stave off the outbreak from our shores, I am sure this global threat remains in the mind of every one of us here.
“We need to deal with the sharp drop in global oil prices and its impact on the 2020 budget and the exchange rate, and by implication, on the short, medium and long-term health of the economy.
“We will get through this, but it is going to require, more than anything else, bold policy changes to restructure the economy because it is still too dependent on crude oil.
“And this would necessitate some drastic changes in our ways of life. It will not be easy. I am very optimistic however, that we can do it. And my optimism about Nigeria going forward is in part because we have people like you who have the discipline associated with your Alma Mata”.
Recall that, last week, the Senate constituted a joint committee on Finance, National Planning and Appropriation to engage relevant federal ministries on the recent oil price crash.
This followed a Point of Order raised by the Senate Majority Leader, Senator Abdullahi Yahaya.
The Delta Central lawmaker, who also chairs the Senate Committee on Constitution Review, revealed that the panel would soon receive memoranda from Nigerians on the Fifth Alteration of the 1999 Constitution.
“I am glad to inform you that the 9th National Assembly has boldly taken up the gauntlet. Electoral reforms, Petroleum Industry Bill and reforms in the budgeting process are of special interest to the National Assembly.
“Recently, a Constitutional Review Committee of which I am honoured to be Chairman was set up by the 9th Senate. We have begun work on this important national assignment. How far-reaching this will be, depends on all of us. Soon, we will be having public hearings, as well as receiving memoranda. It is my hope that you will avail us your experience in this regard,” he stated.
He therefore called for support for the ongoing reforms of the Muhammadu Buhari administration, aimed at achieving sustainable economic growth for Nigerians.
The Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, on Sunday condemned in strong terms, the killing of eight persons in Uwheru Kingdom in Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State.
Senator Omo-Agege in a statement by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Yomi Odunuga, in Abuja, urged the Nigerian Army to fish out its personnel alleged to have accompanied the killers to perpetuate the heinous crime.
He also called on the Nigeria Police to immediately bring the suspected herdsmen who carried out the unprovoked attacks to justice.
The lawmaker called on security agencies to restore normalcy to the affected communities, even as he appealed for calm.
On Thursday, according to the statement, suspected herdsmen allegedly aided by soldiers, were said to have attacked Avwon, Agadama, Ohoror, and other communities of Uwheru Kingdom, Ughelli North Local Government Area of Delta State.
They reportedly killed over eight persons with several others sustaining serious injuries and property, including farms, destroyed.
In his reaction to the attacks, Omo-Agege said: “I condemn the unprovoked attacks and killing of my constituents and the destruction of their property by suspected herdsmen.
“The attacks on Avwon, Agadama, Ohoror and other communities of Uwheru Kingdom, is one too many.
“I call on security agencies to bring the perpetrators to book by ensuring that they face the wrath of the law.
“I assure the people of Uwheru Kingdom that this matter will not be swept under the carpet and that the full weight of the law will be brought on those found culpable”.
A coalition of civil society organisations recently accused Senator Omo-of perjury and felony while practising law in the United Staes of America.
The groups under the aegis of Coalition of Civil Society and Youth Groups in Nigeria (CCSYGN), also vowed to occupy the National Assembly unless Omo-Agege is prevailed upon by the Nigerian Senate to resign from office and his senatorial seat declared vacant.
However, in a dramatic twist, one of the groups, Centre for Policy Advocacy and Leadership Development, has distanced itself from the allegation and apologised for being part of the coalition.
The group’s leader, Edwin Olorunfemi, in a statement sent to journalists on Saturday, January 18, stated that he has extricated himself from the coalition’s stance, adding that the allegation is false.
He described the outburst of the coalition as a ‘pull –him-down’ campaign mounted on behalf of some faceless politicians.
Part of the statement read: “I have also seen incontrovertible evidence of his acquittal of the alleged crimes by the California Superior Court, cannot in good conscience allow my name to be used for the conscienceless onslaught against the innocent DSP.
“Nonetheless, envy, hate and the politics of controlling things in Delta state and the Niger Delta has motivated some so-called VIPs who are desperate to hijack and destabilize the current progressive leadership of the National Assembly to call for a hatchet job against DSP Senator Omo-Agege but I hereby table my sincere apologies as I withdraw.
“We stand before you today to unequivocally announce that I have seen the light and abreast with the truth in respect of the dark motivations behind this fallacious campaign against DSP Omo-Agege and that I have unambiguously withdrawn from the ungodly campaign that we were misled into joining.
“In the interest of Nigeria, let us all desist from the propaganda that remains the hands of Esau and the voice of Jacob; government also has further role to play in curbing the unemployment and under-employment that makes scores of youth vulnerable to being tempted by elites who use idle youth and civil society groups to score propaganda points against perceived rivals. “I sincerely apologize to DSP Senator Ovie Omo-Agege and I thank you all for your kind understanding.”
Omo-Agege has since debunked the allegations, describing the groups as a band of sponsored individuals bent on tarnishing his reputation.
In a statement by his media aide, Yomi Odunuga, the Delta state lawmaker accused the group of attempting to mislead gullible people with lies and propaganda.
“The fact is, at a point in his brilliant and bright legal career in California, USA, Senator Omo-Agege, then a young attorney, was alleged to have broken the law in California but in the end, he was found not guilty,” Odunuga said.
The highest socio-cultural umbrella body of the Urhobo Nation, the Urhobo Progress Union (UPU), has described the call for the Deputy President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, to resign, both as a Senator and Deputy President of the Senate, as a reprehensible grand scheme to further rape and deprive the country’s fifth largest Nationality of her rightful place in the National Scheme.
In a statement issued by the Office of the UPU President-General, Olorogun Moses Oghenerume Taiga, the UPU, while describing the allegation against Senator Ovie Omo-Agege as most obnoxious, odious, repugnant and devilishly wicked, said that those calling for Senator Omo-Agege’s resignation are enemies of the “Live and Let Live” basics of democracy, which include fair hearing, due process, based on irrefutable facts.
The Statement declared that, “for avoidance of doubts, the UPU has never supported criminality or immorality in the polity. Therefore, ordinarily, if there was any iota of substance in their call for his resignation, the Urhobo Nation would have been boxed into a tight corner, but would still have stood firmly and stoutly for moral rectitude. Rather, the call, by the group, lacks the slightest whiff of believable scent.
“The UPU is well briefed that this odious matter has long been disposed of in the earliest days of Senator Omo-Agege’s entry onto the Political arena. Our Senator has been going to the United States of America, before he became a Senator, and even recently, as his family partly resides there. Even, as we speak, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege’s Californian Law License is very much active.
“On the issue of the forcible seizure of the Mace of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Senator Omo-Agege was exonerated of any complicity by an Abuja High Court sitting in Bwari.”
The Statement called on all those who feel Omo-Agege has a case to answer to go to court, “instead of this undemocratic resort to mudslinging and nuisance to the public peace.”
The Statement urged the Civil Society Coalition, threatening to mobilise a noisome coterie of those they would be misinforming against our Senator, to have a rethink.
The UPU said that the role and position of the Urhobo Nation in the Nigerian Project, not only in size, but even more critically in her economic wellbeing, dictates that her rights be fully recognised, and upheld, such that no frivolous group should lightly contemplate depriving her of her rightful place in such a critical chamber of Policy-making, as the Senate. It declared that the Urhobos are constitutionally and legally, as well rich enough in numbers to also, mobilise her own people to counter any form assault on her rights.
The Statement also put the entire Urhobo Nation on the alert, reminding all that this is the all-time highest position any of their nationality has ever held. It states that “it behoves all Urhobo persons the need to be vigilant and watch one of theirs being casually and callously rubbished.”
The UPU Statement also urged all Urhobo leaders in the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, “to sheathe every sword, put their house in order, and end internal wrangling that embolden others to feel free to hatch such schemes to put down such a great nationality as the Urhobo Nation.”
Deputy Senate President, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, on Monday described the conviction allegation by a Delta-based youth group as “unscrupulous band of mischief makers”, for saying that he had been convicted in a California Court in the past.
Reacting through a statement, which was issued by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity Yomi Odunuga, he said political jobbers were working hard to reopen issues that have since been resolved in Omo-Agege’s favour.
He said the Deputy Senate President visited the United States of America and Canada for personal and official reasons last week to promote the nation’s political ideology, saying that his visit has nothing to do with conviction allegation.
“On the contrary, an unscrupulous band of mischief makers at home calling itself a ‘youth group’ purportedly led by one Solomon Adodo is seeking to mislead gullible people with lies and propaganda by calling for the immediate resignation of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, over a spurious and malicious allegation of a conviction by a Californian court.
“Ordinarily, we would have ignored this latest effort by political jobbers to drag the name of the Distinguished Senator into disrepute.
“However, in a political environment like ours where silence could be misinterpreted as consent and evidence of guilt, we make haste to dismiss the entire allegation as not only unfounded and illogical; it is the residue of the warped imaginations and misleading rumour peddled without conviction some years back.
“While the distinguished Senator remains completely unperturbed by the nattering nabobs of negativity and their faceless sponsors, it remains clear that this is another feeble round of mere shadow- chasing that ultimately amounts to nothing.
“For the umpteenth time, we would like to reiterate the fact that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege was cleared of all charges in the said case and he was never a convict in the USA as being alleged. Till date, he travels freely to and within the country without any hint of harassment.
“We publish herewith details of our response to the same spurious allegation on September 25, 2018: “To this extent, by way of ‘fair commentary’ only, we will speak to the non-existent criminal conviction knowing that the matter is now in court and therefore subjudice. We will meet the blackmailer in court.
“The fact is, at a point in his brilliant and bright legal career in California, USA, Senator Omo-Agege (then a young attorney) was alleged to have broken the law in California but in the end, he was found not guilty.
“Accordingly, he was declared innocent by the honourables Lance A. Ito (who presided over the popular O.J. Simpson murder trial case) and G. Magnera of the Court of California, County of Los Angeles. Omo-Agege had to fight hard for his innocence and God vindicated him against the expectations of evil men like the most sadistic blackmailer in the world.
“Today, he remains an active member in good standing at the State of California Bar Association – an impossibility if a valid and subsisting conviction were hanging on him. These are verifiable public facts and truths.”
“We state, without any equivocation, that Senator Ovie Omo-Agege is committed to his mandate and would not be distracted by the antics of disgruntled and defeated politicians hiding behind a so-called ‘youth group’ without any meaningful antecedent, seeking to stir up confusion through mere mischief and without facts.
“Let it be put on record that while his media office has been strictly instructed not to descend into the gutter to play their piggery games of petty mischief, the Senator has nothing to hide and he would continue with his passionate desire and populist dynamism, towards making Nigeria a better nation for future generations”, the statement concluded.
Nigeria’s diplomatic missions abroad should do more like the Nigeria High Commission in Canada, towards catering for citizens’ needs and projecting national interest, Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has said.
Speaking during a visit to Canada where he attended the 25th Biennial Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth, Senator Omo-Agege lauded staff of the Nigeria High Commission in Ottawa, Canada for being sterling examples for other Nigerian foreign missions.
Omo-Agege equally expressed deep appreciation to Nigeria’s Acting High Commissioner, Mr. Joseph Atodo and staff of the Nigeria High Commission in Ottawa, Canada for being sensitive to the needs of Nigerians living in the country.
Omo-Agege, who paid a courtesy visit to the High Commission, said: “I thank you for the good job that you have been doing and the way and manner you have been projecting our government and our country.
“Unlike our missions in many other countries, the reports we have been receiving through the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is really good, most especially in respect of the way and manner you take good care of our citizens’ needs here in Canada.
“Also, worthy of praise is the way and manner you have also projected the vision and mission of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Next Level Agenda.
“Apart from being the Deputy President of the Senate, as most of you know, I am also a stakeholder in the Next Level Agenda; therefore, when I see the value you add to the agenda, in support of the President, I want to acknowledge that you are doing much for the nation’s interest.
“So, I want to thank you. I came here to attend the conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers from Commonwealth nations; we have done most of the plenary work and the critical workshops are coming to an end.
“I extend my deepest appreciation to the acting High Commissioner and all of you for the very warm reception given to me; since I arrived Canada, you have made us to feel very much at home that it’s like we are in Nigeria and you have taken good care of us .”
Earlier, the Acting High Commissioner, Mr. Joseph Atodo, had introduced Senator Omo-Agege to staff who came from various geo-political zones of Nigeria.
The Deputy President of the Senate was accompanied by his Senior Special Assistant on Monitoring and Evaluation , Dr. Felix Okpe and veteran journalist, Mr. Oma Djebah who is currently a Mass Communication researcher at McMaster University Ontario, Canada.
The National Assembly’s support for the Buhari administration is all about Nigeria’s long-term development and not mere politics, Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ovie Omo-Agege has said.
Senator Omo-Agege who was conferred with various awards of recognition by five groups drawn from the Northern and Southern parts of Nigeria at his office on Tuesday in Abuja, stated that the 9th Senate Legislative Agenda draws heavily from Buhari’s Next Level Agenda so as to ensure a populist, development-focused unity of purpose.
Senator Omo-Agege who was represented by his Chief of Staff, Dr. Otive Igbuzor received an award for ‘Excellent Performance and Nationalistic Support’ from the All Progressives Congress (APC) North West Forum led by Honourable Aliu Hussain while Niger Delta National Leaders and Development Stakeholders Forum, an umbrella association of 70 associations also gave him award of ‘Icon of the Niger Delta’.
Similarly, while the National Association of Northern State Students’ Union (NANSSU) awarded him ‘Icon of Integrity and Exemplary Leadership’, the Isoko National Youth assembly led by Prince Solomon Akpotu presented an award in recognition of effective representation for the Niger Delta and projection of its development issues, even as the Northern Youth Assembly of Nigeria presented him with another award for ‘Exemplary Leadership’.
According to Aliu Hussain who led the APC North West Forum, many youth in the North deeply appreciate the passionate patriotism and nationalistic disposition of Senator Omo-Agege and other committed APC leaders who have ensured timely passage of the national budget, regard for due process and populist leadership.
“Senator Omo-Agege, we are supporting you 100 percent. Come rain, come shine, we shall continue to appreciate your genuine efforts and we now regard you as Sardaunan North West,” Hussain stated.
Responding on behalf of Senator Omo-Agege, Dr. Otive Igbuzor thanked all the groups, stressing that the commitment to Nigeria’s growth and development requires being embraced by all citizens.
“Thank you for acknowledging the role of the Deputy Senate President in the 8th Senate and the role he has been playing now; as you all know, he is a core Buharist and prepared to support programmes of the Buhari administration towards taking Nigerians to the Next Level.
“Senator Omo-Agege is a very detribalized Nigerian and with your support, he will play his role with more vigour. We assure you that as far as the office of the Deputy Senate President is concerned, it is Nigeria first, Nigeria last.
“We are committed to making Nigeria great again, we are committed to fighting corruption, taking Nigeria to the Next Level and we are committed to President Muhammadu Buhari’s plan to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty and we are committed to the new security strategy.
“We are hopeful that with diligent implementation, there will be improvement in security, there will be more inclusiveness in the economy,’ he stated.