Images of Ebiraland

Gov. Yahaya Bello of Kogi State has appointed Mrs Folashade Ayoade as the new Secretary to the State Government ( SSG). In a statement issued in Lokoja on Tuesday, signed on his behalf by his Chief of Satff, Mr David Onoja, the governor also named Alhaji Momoh Jubril as the new Accountant-General of the state. The list of appointees included 20 new Special Advisers and three Senior Special Assistants on print media, electronic and new media. The new Senior Special Assistant on print media is Mr Ademu Idako who was until the appointment the Correspondent of the Newswatch Daily and Chairman of Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union of Journalists in Kogi Mrs Petra Akinti Onyebule and Mr Gbenga Olorunpomi are the new Senior Special Assistants on Electronic Media and New Media. Also appointed are Brig-Gen. Olusola Okutimo as the Security Adviser to the governor, Mr Ibrahim Mohammed, Legal Adviser and Mr Abdulkareem Mohammed as the Director-General, Protocol. The governor also approv

Reposted from Today.ng The immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation, Mr. Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN), has written to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo over the Malabu oil deal, saying the deal was transparent and was done according to the law. The former AGF, however, accused former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and the Abacha family for his ordeal with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), few months after his exit from office. In a letter to the vice-president, Adoke said he had already informed the incumbent AGF, Malam Abubakar Malami (SAN) after he was served with a letter from the EFCC inviting him to its office for an interview on the Malabu Oil Transaction with Shell/ENI that the resolution of the Malabo oil deal was done transparently. According to him, he was unable to immediately honour EFCC invitation as he was “in his end of semester examinations at the University of Leiden, in the Netherlands”. “However, on deep reflection, I found the invitation ra

B y Dr. Ozohu-Suleiman After the euphoria that greeted his emergence and eventual inauguration as governor of Kogi State, Alhaji Yahaya Adoza Bello is gradually settling down to the business of governing the state. There is no doubt that Nigeria’s  youngest governor is taking on the enormous task of putting life to the long-held hopes and aspirations of the people of Kogi State for an inclusive government that will deliver socio-economic development to lift them out of the deprivation they have endured under the past administration. With high expectations birthed by the ‘new direction’ agenda in Kogi State, many in the state are waiting to taste the pudding as promised abundantly in the inaugural address of the governor.   Like the old maxim, the true test of a political leader is not how well he campaigned, but how effectively he is able to meet the responsibilities of the office. Although Bello’s emergence is widely seen as divinely ordained, nothing will make his time in Lugard

Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Yahaya Bello has ordered the immediate redeployment of some staff of the Kogi State Specialist Hospital, Lokoja. Those affected are the heads of Administration and Accounts departments and the Revenue Officer of the hospital. The Governor who was on an on-the-spot assessment of the hospital decry the sorry state of facilities at the hospital and queried a situation where some staff in sensitive positions have stayed put for about eight years even where it is obvious that things were wrong in the system they are paid to make better. The Governor who described health care as one of the cardinal programmes of his administration, promised to explore opportunities within and outside the state to upgrade health care facilities in the state and assured that everything will be done within the resources available to the state government to improve the welfare of medical workers in the state. He called for a change in attitude among the workers and urged them to

By Ismail M. Kabir The independent national electoral commission (INEC) has declared Ahmed Salawu Ogembe of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the Kogi Central senatorial re-run election held over the weekend. INEC returning officer, Prof. Rotimi Ajayi made the declaration this afternoon at the Okene local government secretariat. Officials from INEC, agents of the 5 political parties that participated in the election and other stakeholders from Kogi central district witnessed the event. This declaration is a reverse of the earlier decision by INEC when it declared the election inconclusive on Saturday following the cancellation of the exercise in about 27 polling units in Okene and Adavi LGAs where over 19,000 registered voters were affected. INEC reasoned that since the number of registered voters affected by the cancellation exceeded the leading margin by Ahmed Salawu Ogembe of PDP, no winner could be declared. Following further consultation by the electoral body, it resol

"When purpose is not known, abuse is inevitable" ~ Myles Munroe It time we ask whoever is going to preside over our local government to come out and tell the people the purpose and function of local government as enshrined in the Nigeria constitution. Too  many avoidable blunders have been made in Okehi local government but swept under the carpet. Time to carry the public along in the happenings of Okehi is now. It is called public office so all our activities must be made public to the good people of Okehi. The poor don't live in functional market economies as the rest of us do, but in political economies where corruption and broken systems extend from local government to moneylenders. Under the Local Government Act 1989, the function of local government is very broad. Sections 1 and 3A of the Act states that local government’s purpose is ‘…the peace, order and good governance…’ of their municipal district. In practice, this means that individual councils could  det

By Kingsley Fanwo In the last 48 hours, we have watched in measured awe, how a few renegades under  the former Speaker and former principal officers of the House, who have become suddenly interested in the affairs of Kogi State at a time when their intervention should have quietly flown in as compliments to the administration that has shown that what Kogi has been lacking all along was purposeful leadership. As much as possible, those of us on the side of history have restrained ourselves from playing up the politics of the State House of Assembly for a dichotomy of reasons. One, what happens in the State legislature shouldn't be the concern of the Executive in a democratic setting that protects the principles of power separation. Two, we have clearly seen a nexus between the agitators for control of the House and politicians who crave to change the capital of Kogi to the Atlantic Ocean. However, there are certain salient enlightenment we need to roll out to douse the thirst of