The Israeli army said Wednesday it had “evidence” that militants were responsible for the blast that killed hundreds at a Gaza hospital, saying a review proved others were at fault.

“The evidence which we are sharing with you all confirms that the explosion at the hospital in Gaza was caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired,” military spokesman Daniel Hagari told a press conference in Tel Aviv.

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The comments came after an explosion at a Gaza hospital compound on Tuesday evening killed at least 200 people, according to health officials in the war-torn enclave, sparking protests across the Middle East and wide-ranging condemnation.

“There was no IDF (Israeli army) fire by land, sea or air that hit the hospital,” Hagari said.

“Our radar system tracked missiles fired by terrorists in Gaza at the time of the explosion and the trajectory analysis of the rockets shows the rockets were fired in close proximity to the hospital.”

Following the blast, the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which runs the territory, pinned the blame on Israel.

The war of words continued on Wednesday with Hamas firing back at Israel’s latest comments about the strike, saying “Its outrageous lies do not deceive anyone”.

Israel “is directly responsible for this horrific massacre which was carried out… with American weapons only the occupation possesses”, Hamas said in a statement.

For more than a week, Israel has carried out a withering bombardment of Gaza – retaliation for the killing of 1,400 people who were shot, mutilated or burnt to death in shock cross-border attacks launched by Hamas on October 7.

Dist. Prof. Bart Nnaji, OON, CON, NNOM, FAs, FAeng 

Prof. Nnaji is a global citizen and a distinguished scholar with an immaculate track records of global scientific research, patriotism, and love for the Igbo nation

Former Minister of Power, Prof. Bart Nnaji has narrated how diesel suppliers and generator dealers are allegedly sabotaging some efforts by the federal government and power distribution companies to have steady electricity supply in Nigeria.

He disclosed that some of the generator and diesel dealers approached him, complaining that he (Nnaji) was ruining their businesses.

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Nnaji, who is the founder of Geometric Power, identified diesel suppliers and generator sellers as obstacles for those who are into power generation business in the country.

He stated this in Umuahia while participating in FLO 94.9 FM programme in the Abia State capital tagged, “the South East Political Roundtable”.

According to the Minister, “There are two areas when you talk of cabals in the sector. The diesel suppliers and generator users.

“Nigeria is a big user of generators because of our enormous power needs and those who are in the business would not want any interruption.

“The diesel suppliers feel that a stable power supply would destroy their business. In fact, some of them came to me that I am ruining their business and I advised them to get into a better business, maybe power generation.”

Continuing, Nnaji disclosed that like some other sectors, the power sector has some cabals who make gains from the problems of poor power supply.

“A graphic picture of how dangerous the diesel suppliers can be is when we were in government, somewhere in the South West, some men cut down 30KVA lines to stop electricity supply to thousands of users.

“Unfortunately the diesel supplying company sponsored the operation; incidentally the power cable fell on one of them who later confessed to the crime,” he said.

A Benue High Court sitting in Makurdi, has held that former Governor and his deputy, Mr Samuel Ortom’s and Mr Benson Abounu’s suit against the Governor and Government of Benue sought to delimit the governor’s constitutional powers.

Delivery the judgement on Wednesday, Justice Theresa Igoche struck out the suit for being speculative and seeking to limit the constitutional powers of a democratically elected State Governor in Nigeria.

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Igoche further described the suit as an academic exercise that sought to delimit the constitutional powers of a governor as contained in Section 5 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

She said, “This court and in fact all other courts will not act on speculation. In my view, this suit is premature at this stage as there are no sufficient facts to support the reliefs sought in this originating summons.

“Even on the ground two of the grounds upon which this application is predicted,
*I agree with the applicants counsel that the suit as presently constituted aims at delimiting the constitutional powers of the Governor granted by section 5 of the Constitution.

“This case is not saying that the Governor’s exercise of powers cannot be questioned at all.
“What I am saying in the instance case is that the plaintiffs have not brought sufficient evidence of any act of the defendants to warrant the determination of the questions set out in the reliefs in the originating summons.”

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Ortom and Abounu had dragged the governor, Benue Government, Nigerian Army, Nigerian Police Force, DSS, Hinga Biem and all members of the State Assets Recovery Committee before the high court.

Ortom, the immediate past governor of the State and his deputy in the suit challenged the retrieval of vehicles and property donated to them and their cabinet members by the Benue Executive Council before their handover on May 29

They alleged that, such action of retrieval was a constitutional affront to their collective rights to ownership of property legally and legitimately vested in them by the then State Executive Council members.

Their counsel, Douglas Pepe (SAN) said the cause of action was potent and alleged that over 32 vehicles donated to the Plaintiffs by the Benue State Executive Council before they left office on May 29th had been taken custody off by the Defendants.

Pepe held that their decision to take the custody or seize the 32 vehicles was an affront to plaintiffs right to ownership of property.

He urged the trial court to restrain the defendants and their agents from interfering with any of the property donated to them by the past administration.

However, counsel to the Governor, Government of Benue State, Chairman of the Assets Recovery Committee and other defendants Mohammed Ndarani (SAN) challenged the jurisdiction of the court to entertain the matter.

Ndarani also held that the entire case of the plaintiffs was based on speculation as it failed to give identity of the cars and properties allegedly taken from the Plaintiffs.

He also urged the court to dismissed the suit because its sought to limit the executive powers of the governor to appoint and appropriate committees to help in the administration of the State.

Ndarani said the terms of reference of the committee to decipher the extent of their powers and to help determine whether the committee had overlapped its authority were not before the court.

He said the committee was also not shown to have completed it work to conclusively establish whether they had permanently taken custody of any vehicles, hence for investigative purpose, temporary taking of custody of vehicles is allowed under the constitution.

The counsel stressed that, if such frivolous suits were allowed to linger, development would be greatly hampered across the country.

The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos has thrown out the charge filed by the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCON) against Senator Ifeanyi Ubah and his company, Capital Oil and Gas limited, over an alleged N135bn debt

Justice Nicholas Oweibo dismissed the charge following an oral application by counsel for AMCON, Oluwaseun Onabowu, seeking the withdrawal of the suit.

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At the last sitting of the court on June 13, the court had directed that criminal summons be issued on Ubah and his company, Capital Oil and Gas Limited.

The court gave the directive in the criminal prosecution of the Senator by the Federal Government of Nigeria on an 8-count charge bordering on his alleged indebtedness to AMCON.

In Wednesday’s proceedings, counsel for the complainant informed the court that following a consent judgements reached in a sister case which was before the court in Abuja, parties had agreed that the case against Ubah should be withdrawn in Lagos.

The counsel urged the court to strike out the charge filed against the Defendants.

Ifeoma Esom, counsel for the defendants also confirmed to the court that agreements have been reached with the complainant.
In his ruling, Justice Oweibo struck out the charge.

In its eight-count amended charge AMCON had alleged that Ubah and his company Capital Oil and Gas Industries Limited conspired together in making false claims.

It stated that the claims were in relation to the actual values of certain assets transferred to AMCON under a consent judgement he and his company made with AMCON.

Also, the defendants were also alleged to have obstructed AMCON in the realization of part of his outstanding debt of N135Billion by frustrating the sale of a property at Banana island, Lagos.

Former Vice Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Bode George, has claimed that the crisis in the party made it easier for the 2023 elections to be manipulated.

Recall that the candidate of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar, is currently challenging the victory of President Tinubu of the APC at the Supreme Court.

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Speaking in an interview with Arise TV on Wednesday, he stated that the party was divided into factions, making it easier for the results of the election to be manipulated.

He said, “The real postmortem analysis has to be done behind closed doors and not for public hearing. However, everybody now knows there’s no oneness in our party. It was a divided party, and so the opposition was able to manipulate.

“It’s not a matter of discipline or indiscipline; it is well stated in the constitution of the party; we deviated from it, and we were put straight down; they gave us an uppercut.

“They manipulated the result of the elections, as we can see. What bothered me was that Prof. Yakubu told us that they have gotten a new system, and we are going to use an electronic system. Only to be told on the day that they had a glitch and reverted to the manipulation of the past.

“So, we are in court, and we will see what is going to happen. However, imagine if the party was a solid rock; nobody would ‘cheat’ us.”

Chief George also stated that regardless of the decision of the Supreme Court, the party must be ready for reconciliation to return itself to its glory days.

“I am still hopeful as we head to the Supreme Court, but if a decision is made, we must be prepared to come down state by state to resolve the crisis created before the elections.

“We can disagree, but we must not be disagreeable,” he added.

Elisha Abbo, the All Progressives Congress (APC) senator recently sacked by the Appeal Court, has tendered apology to the Senate President Godswill Akpabio for accusing him for plotting his removal.

Addressing newsmen after news of his sack broke, Abbo had said Akabio targeted him for opposing his emergence as head of the National Assembly.

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Abbo had aligned with Senator Abdulaziz Yari, who was involved in a keen contest for the position.

When he featured on Arise Television on Wednesday, the lawmaker who represented Adamawa North Senatorial District said, “I have to say with all sense of humility and responsibility that the press release we issued yesterday was premature and based on the available information at our disposal.

“As of today, we have discovered a lot of things, and yesterday night, I had a discussion with the Senate President, and I am convinced that he is not involved.”

He quoted Akpabio as saying to him, “I swear by my mother’s grave that I’m not involved; I don’t even know that you’re in court. For a number three citizen to come up to tell me that he has sworn on his mother’s grave, a woman that he loves so much, a woman who brought him up after he lost his father at the age of six, I don’t see a reason why he would lie,” he added.

The Appeal Court sitting in Abuja, on Monday, nullified the election of Abbo and declared the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Amos Yohanna, as the winner of the February 25 senatorial election.

Abbo had blamed his fate on the Senate President.

He alleged that Akpabio was behind his ousting saying it was because he did not support him to emerge the President of the Senate.

Senate President Godswill Akpabio has named Senator Lola Ashiru (APC, Kwara) as the new deputy leader of the Senate.

Akpabio made the announcement at the commencement of plenary on Wednesday.

Ashiru replaced Senator Dave Umahi, who is now the Minister of Works.

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Umahi was the deputy leader of the Senate before his resignation from the Red Chamber.

Ashiru was the deputy Chief Whip of the Senate.

Akpabio also named Senator Peter Onyekachi (APC, Ebonyi) to replace Ashiru as deputy chief whip.

The Senate has confirmed Mr Ola Olukoyede and Muhammad Hassan Hammajoda as the chairman and secretary of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

The red chamber also confirmed the appointment of Mrs Halima Shehu as the National Coordinator and the Chief Executive Officer of the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIP).

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They were confirmed following their screening on the floor of the Senate during Wednesday’s plenary.

Olukoyede, in his presentation, promised to be impartial in fighting corruption.

“The EFCC mandates don’t discriminate. Whether you are in ruling or opposition parties, we will chase you when you commit financial crime,” he said.