Eritrea orders men to marry two wives or be jailed

Eritrean men have been asked by the government to marry more than one wife or risk being jailed for life.

This is contained in a statement in Arabic by the Grand Mufti (the highest official of religious law in the country) which scanned copy surfaced on social media sites on Thursday last week.

In the statement, Eritrea called for all men in the country to marry at least two wives and the government assured the men that it would pay for the marriage ceremonies and houses.

According to the government, the order is because there is an acute shortage of men occasioned by causalities during the civil war with Ethiopia.

Afkinsider.com said the document, which could not be independently verified, warned that any man or woman who opposes the decision “will face a life sentence”.

TheThe document in Arabic, which is in Arabic, says, “Based on the law of God in polygamy, and given the circumstances which the country is experiencing in terms of men shortage, the Eritrean department of Religious Affairs has decided on the following:

“First that every man shall marry at least two women and the man who refuses to do so shall be subjected to life imprisonment with hard labour.

“The woman who tries to prevent her husband from marrying another wife shall be punished to life imprisonment.”

More than 150,000 Eritrean soldiers were killed during the secession war from Ethiopia between 1998 and 2000. At the time Eritrea had about four million people.

Eritrea, is a country in theHorn of Africa. With its capital at Asmara, it is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast. The northeastern and eastern parts of Eritrea have an extensive coastline along the Red Sea, across from Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

The nation has a total area of approximately 117,600 km, and includes the Dahlak Archipelago and several of the Hanish Islands. Its name Eritrea is based on the Greek name for the Red Sea, which was first adopted for Italian Eritrea in 1890.

The country ranks that worst (189 out of 189) on the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business index.

A brief history of Ewatto

History
Ewatto, spelt as Ebho-Ato in Esan parlance and Evbo- Ato in bini parlane came into existence around 1460, according to his majesty HRM Ikhumhen 1 the Onogie of Ebho-Ato kingdom, Ato the founding father of our great kingdom alongside Ikhimi and Osa fled from the despotic government of oba Ewuarere of benin kingdom to form the kingdoms of Ebho-Ato (Ato's Abode) Ebho- Ikhimi ( ikhimi's Abode) and Ebho-Osa( Osa's Abode). These were corrupted to ewatto,ewohimi and ewossa respectively by the english man who were defficient of the esan alphabeth, diction,grammar and vocabulary.
Ato, an agrarian settled in the heavily forested south western flank of the the esanland bothering udo kingdom to the north, ubiaja kingdom to the north east, okhuesan kingdom to the east ohordua kingdom to the south and the neighbouring partner ewohimi kingdom to the west
The great ewatto kingdom is made up of well over fifteen clans and quarters namely egua idumhu-igie idumhu-egbon ogboso ogbokpa abhuru i dumu-iwe idumu-eka idumu-iselu idumu- iyase idumu-agbor idumu-uromi idumu-ema and the uhumebho clan made up of udumhu-arhu ikhekhe okpo idumu- oliha ozorguor idumu-ebo and the ela avenue which is an offshoot of idinwe clan. These clans where named after the founder who migrated to join the kingdom or who is an offspring of the Ato who seperated from his clan to form his own save for the three innermost clans ie idumuijie idinegbon and egua who are direct offspring of the Ato dynasty. Idinegbon as a clan may not be said to be totally of Ato dynasty because it was the abode of the kings slaves who were later infused into the kingdom though there were a lot of freeborn who are aborigines of idinegbon. Idumujie also hosted trickled of foreigners or slaves. These foreigners are infused into the one of the subclans of every clans making it impossible to actually dilineated the aborigines from foriegners
Idumu-iselu as a clan habours the largest portion of immigrant who trickled in from within and without the kingdom in worship of their deity apo. Most often these foreigners lived and died there living their children to continue there as their home. Also people take turn to assume the priestly service to this deity. Any new inductee into this priestly service of the deity apo will have to completely relocate to idumuiselu where he will lived and die

Lassa Fever: Buhari's Minister Blames Jonathan For Outbreak.

Lassa Fever: Buhari's Minister Blames Jonathan For Outbreak.

Minister of Health Prof. Isaac Adewole has said the current outbreak of Lassa fever in the country is because the administration of former president Goodluck Jonathan failed to implement a roadmap drawn in 2012.

The minister also disclosed that the ministry was going to begin testing on a potential vaccine that would be used to prevent the virus.

Adewole disclosed these while briefing the Senate Committee on Health headed by Sen. Lanre Tejuosho (APC, Lagos) on the outbreak of the lassa virus in Nigeria.

Prof. Adewole put the number of cases as of today was 129 adding that the hospital which treated the deceased victim of the disease before referral to the national hospital was being investigated.

The minister said that the virus would have been defeated by now if there was the Jonathan administration had the political will to implement a roadmap designed in 2012 to forestall future occurrence.

He said: “In 2012 we recorded 1723 cases, after that, because of the severity, the post lassa fever outbreak workshop took place and an action plan to ensure this will never happen again was put in place.

“But this action plan was never implemented because it was never funded. We will dust the old plan, modernize it and look at if from the political perspective: what can we do to provide leadership, to provide support.”

On the vaccine being developed to tackle the disease, the minister said government has been “notified of a candidate vaccine which we will put through chemical trial to find out if it would work.

“We call it a candidate vaccine and we would want to run it through trials and that takes some time. Hopefully we will do that this year, once we consider it to be effective and safe then we put it to use.

“If it works then that means that we would be able to immunize people in the affected areas but for 

now we will continue with our surveillance,” he said.

He revealed that the vaccine was co-developed by some Nigerians while saying that the current outbreak is a national embarrassment because although there were about 1723 cases in 2012, the percentage death rate of the current outbreak was higher.

He added that the virus had been a yearly occurrence with 400 cases recorded in 2014 although not as publicized as the current outbreak.

“We can assure you that we are not going to sleep, we will remain at work, we are actively moving across the country,” he assured the committee.

On the recent death of a victim at the National Hospital in Abuja, he said that the ministry was investigating the hospital where the victim was first treated for one week.

He said that the Abuja victim actually came from Plateau state because he was ill and landed in a private hospital where he was kept for one week before he was referred.

He said that the dead victim was only referred to the National Hospital when he was already unconscious and therefore died 24 hours later.

“It is unfortunate because if we had picked this man earlier on, we would have been able to put him on medication and he could have been alive today.

“The situation which happened in that private hospital I have asked our people to investigate. We will sanction the doctor or the proprietor if we find any act on negligence on his or her part,” he said.

In his remark, the Chairman of the Committee said that the Senate will be willing to approve money for the health of Nigerians not just for Lassa but for other ailments

“I Have No Clue Where Chibok Girls Are; It Happened Under Jonathan” – Buhari Tells Chibok parents

President Muhammadu Buhari who stormed out of the venue after meeting with parents of the abducted Chibok girls has said it has not been easy to locate Chibok girls because it happened under Jonathan.

The Bring Back Our Girls Campaigners after several hours marching and protesting in Abuja insisted on meeting with the President.

Speaking to leading online news portal, The Cable, a leader of the Chibok campaigners, Aisha Yesufu said, “The president said he had no credible intelligence on the missing Chibok girls. He said he is somebody who does not lie. And he will not start by lying.”

“We are not saying the president should lie, but when you are saying there is no credible intelligence, and that the girls are scattered and married off; then how do we know? These are two things. “And he said it (abduction of the Chibok girls) happened during the last administration. I find it very worrisome. I remember one of the parents asked what he meant by saying it happened in the last administration. Does it mean the girls will not be rescued?

Bola Tinubu - "Why I collected N9million from Dasuki"

The National Leader of the All Progressives Congress, APC, and owner of the Nation Newspaper, Bola Tinubu, has returned his own share of the N9 million received from the Office of the National Security Adviser, ONSA, through the Newspaper Proprietor Association of Nigeria, NPAN. 

This is coming after the Sun Newspaper also surrendered its own share to the Federal Government and as the Punch Newspaper also suspended its membership from the association following its involvement in the arms scandal.

Recall that investigations from the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had traced a suspicious transfer of funds from the former NSA, Sambo Dasuki to Newspaper outlets including Tinubu’s own Nation Newspaper.
Obviously embarrassed by the trend of events following the arms scandal, Tinubu may have pressed on his company directors to file an explanation and immediately return his own share of N9 million received.

“We are again compelled to comment on the N9 million received by Vintage Press Limited as compensation from the government of ex- President Goodluck Jonathan through the Newspapers Proprietors Association of Nigeria (NPAN) for the seizure of our publications, The Nation and Sporting Life in June, 2014.
“We do this for two reasons. First, to restate the sequence of events that culminated in the payment , thereby debunking insinuations about the motive for the compensation. Second, to inform the public that the N9 million collected from NPAN on behalf of the Jonathan government has been returned to the association .
“This decision was arrived at on Wednesday by the Board and Management of Vintage Press Limited after a painstaking examination of the legal and moral issues arising from the compensation.”

Buhari Copied Jonathan’s Budget, It Is The Same — Charles Soludo

The 2016 budget presented to the National Assembly by President Muhammadu Buhari has followed the path as those of his predecessor, Goodluck Jonathan, former Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria Prof. Charles Soludo has said. Speaking at the 13th Daily Trust Dialogue in Abuja on Thursday, Prof. Soludo noted that “We cannot make progress in the 21st century with the ideas of the mid 20th century.” He insisted that defeating old bad ideas could be better that initiating new ones. “The government has its heart on the right place but it is struggling to put them into play. “The present budget is more of the same to the previous ones. Mr. Vice President [Prof. Yemi Osinbajo], If you scale your budget on the scale of GDP, it is almost the same with the previous government. “It has a historic 37% deficit as we never had it before. The truth is that you are borrowing 37% with only 30 per cent on capital project,” Prof. Soludo stressed.

Missing budget: Senate sets up search c’ttee

SENATE President, Dr Bukola Saraki, tacitly admitted, yesterday, that the 2016 budget was missing from the National Assembly, when he openly said a search committee set up by the Senate for the missing document would present its report today.

Saraki

Saraki’s confirmation of the report came just as Vanguard gathered that the search committee quizzed aides of President Muhammadu Buhari in the National Assembly as well as staff of the offices of the clerks to the Senate and House of Representatives, yesterday.

Vanguard sources said those interrogated gave useful information to the committee which would be presented to the Senate in plenary today.

The Senate President, who had earlier at the beginning of Senate’s session, yesterday, announced to senators that copies of the 2016 budget document would be made available to them today, in readiness for general debate on it next Tuesday, eventually owned up on the missing document while responding to Senator Abaribe’s point of order.

Abaribe had, through Order 42(1) of the Senate standing rule, drawn the attention of the Red Chamber to media reports that the budget document was missing and called for immediate deliberation on it by pointedly asking the Senate President: “where is our budget?”

He said: “The matter that I refer to through this order, is what is in every newspaper today, everywhere in all the talkshows in  the radio of a missing budget and therefore Mr President, I want to bring to your attention and that of all my colleagues that yesterday ( Tuesday)  in our closed door session, this matter also came up and some of us who are worried, who have been inundated by messages from our constituents who are really worried about what their fate will be in 2016, are asking us, where is our budget.

“That is why Mr President, I think, it is definite and it is urgent that we look into this matter of missing budget now.”

Abaribe’s submission pushed Saraki to admit that the budget document was not in sight in the Senate, contrary to the earlier denial of the Senate that the document was missing.

Saraki did not only confirm that the issue was raised and discussed at the Senate closed door session on Tuesday but also said a search team had been set up to look for the missing document.

Search c’ttee to submit report today

Saraki added in his response that the search committee set up on the missing budget is expected to file in its report today, which according to him, would help in ending the quagmire.

He said: “Because of the importance of this matter raised through your point of order, I will take it as an exception in not ruling you out of order.

“You know we were all part of the decision at the closed session yesterday (Tuesday), and as part of that decision, we are still waiting for those we have referred to carry out the assignment to come back to us.

“I think they will come back to us by tomorrow (today) and we will go into a closed session again and finish up the report and we will be able to debate it properly.”

Anyanwu, Nwaoboshi, Ndume differ

Speaking to journalists after Senate plenary, yesterday, on the controversy, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Privileges, Senator Sam Anyanwu (PDP, Imo East), confirmed that the search committee had already swung into action at unraveling circumstances that led to the missing budget.

According to him, ”the committee has as at this morning queried some people suspected to be involved in the missing document.”

He, however, added that the committee as disclosed by the Senate President at plenary, would turn in its report to the Senate today for deliberation.

Also, a member of the committee, Peter Nwaoboshi (PDP, Delta North), confirmed that the budget document was missing and the committee was investigating it.

He said: “The document is missing. We want to find out. We have interviewed some people so far this morning. We are continuing in the next few minutes with out investigation. And we are almost at it. We will conclude in the next few hours because we have already known what is happening.”

However, the Senate Leader, Ali Ndume, in his reaction, insisted that the document was not missing and that it would be distributed to senators today for commencement of general debate on it next Tuesday.