APC CHIDES FG OVER PERSISTING ASUU STRIKE THE All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday lamented the inability of the Federal Government to end the strike by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) that has paralysed academic work in public universities in the country for the third month running. In a statement issued in Abuja by its Interim National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party chided the Federal Government for what it described as insincere and amateurish handling of the strike and said “the tepid and half-hearted way the government has handled the strike has shown that it does not place much premium on education, which is the path to national development.” According to the party, “there is no better indication of the government’s disdain for education than the fact that the President Goodluck Jonathan administration has continued in its profligate ways even as students caught in the web of the strike remained at home when they should be engaged in serious academic work.” APC said since the strike started, the Jonathan administration has “thrown at least two mega, money-guzzling dinners in Abuja, perhaps the best example of the aphorism ‘Nero fiddling while Rome burns’. In one of such frivolities, the President and his party folks feasted joyously at a post-PDP convention dinner even as hapless students were bemoaning their fate over the strike. “Yet, some ministers had the temerity to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by saying the government will shut down if it meets ASUU’s demand. What an affront! They did not say Nigeria will shut down when the country paid out N3 trillion in non-existent fuel subsidies; they did not say Nigeria will shut down over the N1 trillion spent in the last eight years on less than 500 people; they did not say Nigeria will shut down due to Federal Government’s monumental profligacy, which includes spending billions of naira to pamper ex-militants, some of whom are now so overfed that they are threatening the country’s very existence!” APC added: “It is particularly shocking that the government has carried on as if everything is normal, without bothering about the fate of the students who have been marooned at home since the strike started. Perhaps this is because the children and wards of those at the helm of affairs are luxuriating in schools abroad, or because they are too comfortable to worry about their less-fortunate compatriots.” APC also said, “the fact that the strike has persisted despite Jonathan’s directive, widely reported by the media, to the Federal Government’s negotiating team to do everything possible to end the strike, says a lot about the administration’s credibility. “In fact, the negotiations between ASUU and the Federal Government were called off two days after the President issued his directive. So much for credibility!” The party reiterated its earlier call on the government to immediately implement the agreement it willingly reached with ASUU in 2009 and stop wasting its energy on why the agreement cannot be implemented, saying, “agreements are meant to be respected, not repudiated.” A NIGERIAN, Emmanuel Ehkator, has been sentenced to three-year jail term by a District Court judge in Pennsylvania in the United States of America, Yvette Kane, for criminal conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), the anti-graft agency that investigated the scam in Nigeria before the extradition of Ehkator to the U.S. in 2011, said yesterday that the convict is also to pay $11 million restitution to the victims. “The conviction of Ehkator, 42, who was arrested in Nigeria by the EFCC in August 2010 and extradited to the United States in August 2011, followed his plea of guilt,” the EFCC said in a statement. Justice Kane also ordered Ehkator’s forfeiture of properties in Canada and the contents of several bank accounts in Nigeria. EFCC spokesman, Wilson Uwujaren, said that while the trial lasted, the prosecutor informed the court that Ehkator was part of an attorney collection scam with the convict contacting U.S. and Canadian law firms by e-mail claiming to be individuals or businesses outside North America who were owed money by entities in the United States and asked for legal representation to collect the money. The prosecutor was said to have further told the court that, often, the prospective “clients” said the money owed came from a real estate transaction, tort claim, or divorce settlement. “Once the law firm agreed to represent the out-of-country client, the law firm would be contacted by the U.S. entity purportedly owing money with an offer to pay the client by cheque. The client would instruct the law firm to deposit the cheque in the law firm’s trust account, retain the law firm’s fee, and wire the remaining funds to accounts in Asia. “The cheque that was then mailed to the law firm would be a counterfeit cheque, a fact that would be discovered only after funds from the law firm’s trust account had been wired to the Asian bank,” the prosecution said. The counterfeit cheques, which appeared to be drawn on legitimate accounts from well-established financial institutions, often included a telephone number for the financial institution. Lawyers attempting to determine the validity of the cheque would call the number only to reach another conspirator who would falsely verify the cheque. The court was also told that Ehkator’s involvement in the scheme makes him responsible for losses of more than $7 million and up to $20 million. Ehkator’s co-defendant, Yvette Mathurin, has also been charged for conspiracy and is awaiting extradition from Canada while another co-conspirator, Kingsley Osagie, was arrested as he arrived in Atlanta from Nigeria and is currently awaiting trial in the Middle District of Pennsylvania. According to the EFCC’s statement, other co-conspirators are pending extradition from several foreign countries as investigation continues against other members of the large, multi-national conspiracy. Aside from the EFCC, other agencies that investigated the crime were the United States Postal Inspection Service, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States Secret Service, the Toronto Police Services and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 19:49:42 +0000
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