Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State has given 50 new cars to magistrates as part of efforts to enhance the dispensation of justice.

While handing over the vehicles, Sanwo-Olu said that the cars were in the first batch as more would be provided to go round all magistrates in the state.

According to him, his administration will identify other arms of government that are also very critical and support them.

“This is just a testimonial to say that it is not about us, but about what we can give others.

“The Deputy Governor, myself and all of us do not count ourselves worthy to buy a car yet because we know that what is expected of us is service.

“We are happy that we can do this for our colleagues in the judiciary side to enhance the efficiency of their work so that Nigerians will feel it and benefit from it,’’ the governor said.

The state’s Chief Judge, Justice Kazeem Alogba, commended the government for the gesture in spite of the financial constraints of the state.

Alogba said that the cars were not mere tools of comfort for the magistrates, but “tools to enhance their work.”

“The only thing is that they will be able to work more comfortably and your administration will take the credit for that because you will begin to see results.

“We are very grateful as this has shown that as we pledge our full support to this administration, you have promised that you will be our pillar of support, you are living the talk,’’ he said.

Nigerian music rave of the moment, Teniola Apata popularly known as Teni the Entertainer has finally released her highly anticipated EP which she dubbed “Billionaire“.

‘Billionaire‘ EP is her debut body of work, it comprises of six wonderful tracks with no features. It comes after she released the lead single off the project, early this month.

Ahead of the release of the “Billionaire” EP, a few days bac, Teni released the track, “Billionaire” which is also a follow up to her last single “Power Rangers”.

Stream the Billionaire EP HERE:

It would be recalled that earlier this year, Teni became Africa’s first YouTube Artist On The Rise. Artist On The Rise is YouTube’s strategy to promote new artistes in their trending tabs. What this implies is that her song Case will be promoted by YouTube on its US trending page, ads and event appearances.

The Senate yesterday justified the N125 billion proposed by President Muhammadu Buhari as the National Assembly budget for the 2020 fiscal year.

“The National Assembly has a lot of staff to take care of in both chambers. The number of committees is large too because of the volume of work. So, there is no way we can operate with a small budget,” said spokesman of the Senate, Adedayo Adeyeye, in an interview with The Guardian.

His comment came as Italy’s parliament voted to cut down the number of legislators in both houses. While the Senate will now have 200 lawmakers from 315, the chamber of deputies will have 400 as against 630.

“The bulk of this money is spent on issues that promote legislative operations. Unfortunately, many people believe that legislators take the largest chunk of the money. Our salaries are open for public scrutiny,” Adeyeye said.

“The truth is: it is either we want to have a working and effective National Assembly that is properly funded or we do not. Running the system in the National Assembly is very expensive.”

The spokesman, however, failed to provide details on how the N125 billion would be spent, declaring that he was yet to get the specifics.

The National Assembly has in the past come under intense criticism over its failure to release the details of its budget.

Also, the Senate has reintroduced a bill seeking to establish the National Assembly Budget and Research Office (NABRO).

The Eighth Senate passed the bill on May 3, 2019. Buhari, however, did not assent to it. The proposed office, among other functions, will report yearly to the Senate and House of Representatives all items funded in the preceding financial year for which no appropriation was made by the National Assembly, and all items contained in the Appropriation Act in the preceding financial year but which were not funded by the Federal Government.

Lawmakers, meanwhile, continued debate on the 2020 budget yesterday with Senator Emmanuel Bwacha saying the document does not reflect Nigeria’s readiness to diversify its economy. He also accused his colleagues of being insincere in their handling of the budget.

“I’m saying this because, since 1999, budget implementation has not reached 70 per cent. This is very worrisome. We are discussing the 2020 budget estimates. Is it fair to say that we have a 2019 budget, which has not been implemented? As we speak now, nothing has been done. We have the 2019 Appropriation Act and we are discussing the 2020 budget proposal.

“Oversight functions have become a ritual. We have to take it seriously as a parliament. We refused to address this aspect of our shortcomings. We are only prepared to speak from both sides of our mouths. We need to walk the talk if we really want to achieve significant growth in our economy,” he said.

Senator Christopher Ekpeyong said the planned increase in VAT was incompatible with the budget. He explained: “If you increase the VAT to 7.5 per cent today for an investor or a contractor, he will pay educational tax of one per cent, he will pay ITF of one per cent, he will pay NITTF of one per cent, and some times, he goes behind to pay some percentage to the ruling party.

“These taxes are not mentioned. What is the result of the product the man will sell? For that reason, I am not in support of the VAT increase because already the VAT not mentioned is over 9 per cent and if you now add this to this, you will be having 10.5 per cent as VAT in the country.”

Similarly, the vice-chairman, Senate Committee on Tertiary Institutions and TETFund, Ojang Sandy Onor, described Buhari’s attribution of low receipts in VAT to the general election as a cover-up. According to him, the real reason is that the economy is not performing well.

He said: ‘If yesterday when VAT was five per cent we experienced lower levels of economic activities, today that VAT is 7.5 per cent, we risk not having economic activities at all, and the consequences are dangerous.”

But Senator Ajibola Basiru who seemed to support the proposal gave the reason for the lack of full implementation of the 2019 budget. “The budget was not fully implemented because it was passed and signed into law towards the end of the Eighth National Assembly. What struck me is that the revenue projections and infrastructure show a 70 per cent deficit in the 2019 budget, and in 2020, it has already been highlighted that N2.18 trillion will be the proposed deficit,’’ he stated.

“People are looking at the allocation to key sectors and the revenue to fund the projects. For instance, when you talk of the N256 billion being allocated to Works, I have it on good authority that what is even required to take care of the outstanding in the Ministry of Works and Housing is in excess of N500 billion. Yet, many people are hailing the N256 billion allocated for Works, describing it as huge. We should also be looking at the aspect of progressive taxation.”

The Lagos State House of Assembly yesterday threatened to issue a warrant of arrest on former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode and four others who served under him as commissioners.

This decision followed two preliminary reports presented by two different ad-hoc committees set up by the House to investigate the 820 buses purchased by Ambode and to appraise the 2019 mid-year budget.

Chairman of the nine-man ad-hoc committee set up to probe the 820 buses purchased by the former governor, Fatai Mojeed, while presenting the preliminary report, said it was discovered that due process was not followed in the purchase of the buses.

Mojeed added that the former governor used the refund of the Paris Club for the purchase of the buses without the approval of the House.

The lawmaker added that they demanded the budget instrument used for the purchase, but that there was no budgetary provision for it.

On his part, Chairman, Ad-hoc Committee on Mid-Year Budget Review, Gbolahan Yishawu, alleged that the commissioners involved were invited by the committee, but refused to appear without giving any excuse for their absence.

However, some members of the House while reacting to the matter, suggested that since the former governor and those officials who worked with him had been invited by the two committees and refused to show up, a warrant of arrest should be issued on them.

Obasa, therefore, said: “The Clerk should write them, including the former governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode and if they refuse, we will do newspaper publications and after that, we will issue a warrant of arrest.”

In another development, the Assembly has dismissed a petition alleging receipt of $200,000 bribe by one of its members, Moshood Olanrewaju Oshun, representing Lagos Mainland Constituency II in the Assembly.

Oshun had been accused of collecting the bribe from three companies to cover up for their non-execution of contracts worth over N9 billion awarded to them by the immediate past Akinwunmi Ambode administration.

In a petition, which was submitted to the Speaker, Mudasiru Obasa, by an anti-corruption campaign organisation, Stop Corruption Now Initiative and signed by its President, Olakunle Omisade, Osun, who is the Chairman of the House ad-hoc Committee on Environmental Sanitation, was alleged to have collected the said illicit money from contractors who were awarded various contracts bordering on the environment by the Akinwunmi Ambode administration to the tune of N9 billion paid upfront against established rules.

Raising the matter under urgent Matter of Public Importance yesterday, Tunde Braimoh stated that the Speaker sent the petition to the House Committee on Public Petition, LASIEC, Human Rights and Judiciary, which he chaired, on Tuesday.

Braimoh, who stated that the address of the petitioner was not traceable and that there was no phone number where the petitioner could be located, said: “The committee considered this and noted that the petitioner could not be located. We noticed some discrepancies in the petition, and it was frivolous and smack of acrimony.

“It is a criminal offence that attracts punishment. The petitioner is not even available to establish his case. Under the rules of the House, the petitioner ought to disclose his address.”

The committee then recommended that the petition should be struck out because the petitioner was faceless, adding that members of the public should embrace decorum in approaching the House and beware of information in the social media.

While the Majority Leader of the House, Sanai Agunbiade (Ikorodu 1) stated that the writer of the petition had a motive, which could be malicious and scandalous, Tijani Olumo (Ajeromi Ifelodun 1) said that the matter was a diversion to take the Assembly away from its focus.

Obasa, therefore, urged his colleagues to disregard “the frivolous petition,” saying: “It is common with my years of experience to see such a petition only for the petitioner not to come at the committee level. It is either the petitioners were looking for favour. I have received reports even from television stations on the matter.

“This is wrong and the media should scrutinise whatever they receive about people. When you damage people’s reputation, how do you want to mend it. You don’t think about his wife and children. What do you want him to tell them. I am even used to it as the Speaker because it happened to my predecessors,” he said

Stoke City of England midfielder, Oghenekaro Etebo, made a late minute withdrawal from the Super Eagles’ team yesterday ahead of the international friendly match against Brazil in Singapore.

His withdrawal and that of Ola Aina, who had a ‘domestic accident,’ has reduced the initial 23 players to 21.

Their withdrawal notwithstanding, officials of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), say it would not hamper the team in Sunday’s match against Brazil.

The match is generating interest, not only among Nigerian football fans but across the globe, as it is coming 23 years after the famous victory for Nigeria at Atlanta ’96 Olympics Games.

Coach Gernot Rohr has opted not to replace the two late withdrawals.

The Franco-German already replaced defender Kenneth Omeruo with Tyronne Ebuehi, while Efosa Solomon-Otabor joined the camp following France–based Samuel Kalu’s unavailability.

No reasons were offered for the stepping aside of Etebo.

The remaining 21 players trained yesterday morning and two training will follow today.

“The official training session will take place on Saturday, with the match scheduled to kick off at 1 pm Nigeria time on Sunday”, the NFF stated.

Solomon-Otabor and forward Peter Olayinka are coming into the Nigeria senior camp for the first time ever, while Ebuehi returns for the first time since the Russia 2018 FIFA World Cup.

Former junior international midfielder Ramon Azeez also makes a return, and defenders Abdullahi Shehu and Chidozie Awaziem, as well as midfielder Wilfred Ndidi, is back after missing the 2-2 draw with Ukraine in Dnipro last month.

The Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP) yesterday alleged that the Federal Government had been mounting undue pressure on the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, to accept a list of some persons allegedly selected to be members of the presidential election petition appeal tribunal.

At a press conference held on the alleged plot yesterday in Abuja, the spokesman of CUPP, Ikenga Imo Ugochinyere, said the coalition had vowed to reject any such move to handpick justices to seat on Atiku Abubakar’s appeal.

Atiku was the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the 2019 election which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared was won by President Muhammadu Buhari. He has approached the Supreme Court to appeal the judgment of the Court of Appeal which dismissed his petition against the declaration of Buhari as the winner.

Ugochinyere, at the press briefing, said that the opposition would not have confidence in a handpicked panel of justices to hear Atiku’s appeal in violation of the seniority tradition.

“We have it on good authority that the APC-led Federal Government has been mounting undue pressure on the Chief Justice of Nigeria and indeed the entire court to accept a handpicked panel and jettison the age-long tradition of the court of selecting the most senior justices of the Supreme Court to sit on the panel.

“The disquiet and bad blood caused by the APC in the Supreme Court now is a clear desecration of the highest temple of justice in the land. The opposition and most Nigerians will not accept a handpicked panel, neither will the pronouncement of such panel command the requite respect and confidence of the people of Nigeria and we in the opposition,” the group said.

The coalition of opposition parties noted that “the Supreme Court is, for the people, the last hope of the judiciary. The actions of the Supreme Court must inspire national confidence and deliver not just judgment but justice, and that path to justice is not only about the law but about the ordinary man believing that justice has been done.

“The Supreme Court is supreme and its words must be for the protection of the society and the people and the law. A grave error was done at Appeal Court and the nation is waiting to see how a man who violated the Electoral Act and was supposed to have been disqualified managed to survive at the Appeal Court. That court failed in both the issues of law and issues of national interest.”

In a reaction, the judge dismissed the allegation that the CJN was being pressurized to alter the composition of the appeal tribunal.

A senior staff member in the office of the CJN, who did not want to be named, described such allegation as blackmail.

Noting that the CJN had encouraged anyone with evidence of corrupt practices against the judiciary to send such to him, the judicial officer accused politicians who might have lost the election of being behind the allegation.

“It is blackmail, and it is because judges are not meant to speak to the public; so, they keep quiet while people pass judgment left, right and centre. In every election, there must be a winner or loser. So, people should not feel that it must be their candidate,” he said.

Presidency officials did not respond to requests for a reaction to the allegation. Also, efforts to reach the National Publicity Secretary of the APC, Lanre Issa Onilu, on phone as at 6.23 pm to react to the issue were not fruitful as he neither picked his call nor replied messages sent to him.

Nevertheless, at an interactive session with reporters penultimate week, he described a similar allegation as baseless.

“Ideally, we would not have responded to the so-called CUPP which is just an arm of PDP. Faced with the challenges that we currently have in this country, it is a complete waste of time to respond to charlatans.

“It is not in our practice to arm-twist any institution whatsoever, least of them the judiciary. We understand the importance of this arm of government; we understand that we are all surviving and living on the rule of law, and the only way to undermine the order and security of a nation is to undermine the judiciary. By the time you strangulate these judicial officers, then you are charting a path to the collapse of the institution that we all rely upon to survive as a nation.

“So, it is clearly not our practice but we also understand where PDP is coming from. We understand that for their 16 years in office, that was the practice, and perhaps they imagine that this is the instrument that any other political party would want to apply. We don’t need to strangulate the judiciary and we don’t need to undermine any institution. We don’t need to disparage the judiciary.”

The Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption (PACAC) yesterday said the N1 trillion recovered by various government agencies was all used to finance the 2017 and 2018 national budgets.

The chairman, Prof. Itse Sagay, made the disclosure while fielding questions from newsmen on what he described as “unprecedented” strides by the panel after he led the members to the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

His words: “I don’t need to tell anybody, it is unprecedented in the annals of this country that we could be recovering so many assets illegally acquired mainly by public servants.

“And the more remarkable aspect of it is that this recovered loot is being ploughed into the national budget every year, and used for the Social Investment Programmes. So, you hear about the feeding of over 12 million schoolchildren with a nutritious meal every day.

“You hear of poor families being supported to survive and stand on their feet or over 500,000 young people who are being trained in all sorts of skills and paid N30,000 a month by the government and the interest-free loans given to small-scale businesses all over the country.

“It is all part of this money, not a kobo of it is left. Everything is ploughed back, and I think the country should know that it’s very unprecedented. This has never happened before in the history of this country, everything is ploughed back.”

The constitutional lawyer said the committee, has, as part of its assignment, built the capacity of relevant anti-graft agencies to effectively discharge their duties.

He said: “We have succeeded in improving the quality of prosecution by giving the agencies a lot of capacity building, train them in the manner cases should be prosecuted and how charges should be drawn. Judges up to the Supreme Court have also benefitted from this programme.”

The chairman boasted that the panel had ensured that “nobody talks about fuel subsidy corruption anymore.”

Sagay hinted that PACAC was working towards recovering the N5 trillion owed the Asset Management Corporation of Nigeria (AMCOM) by high-profile Nigerians.

Earlier, President Muhammadu Buhari restated his administration’s commitment to tame graft with a view to reducing the cost of governance in the country.

He commended the committee for their great work.

Deploring the situations in the past where seized assets were returned to looters on account of regime change, Buhari stated that he had ordered for all forfeited assets to be sold, “and the money put in the Treasury Single Account.”

There are so many foods that are eaten which are meant to boost the brain’s function, however, little attention has been given to foods that can boost the mind. Below are some foods that are good for your mental health.

Oily fish

DHA [(Docosahexaenoic acid) is an Omega-3 fatty acid, which helps improve both short and long-term memory, contributing to optimal brain health. Additionally, a diet high in Omega 3 fatty acids can also help to boost feelings of mental health and wellness and reduce levels of anxiety. Oily fish such as salmon, trout and prawns, or if you’re not keen on seafood, a fish oil supplement are good sources of DHA.

Berries

Berries such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries work as antioxidants for reducing the damages caused by free radicals in the body and these antioxidants have also been found to assist in improving symptoms associated with anxiety and depression. These berries also contain a compound called polyphenolics, which have been found to improve memory, concentration and attention span.

Yoghurt

Yoghurt has been used to aid digestion. However, according to recent research, Yoghurt can also boost mental health. It is very effective in lowering levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. The probiotics in Yoghurt helps to serve this purpose.

Walnuts

Walnuts help your long-term brain health, probably that is why they look like the brain. Walnuts are full of antioxidants, which aid inhibition of oxidation in the brain and body. Even more amazingly, these nuts can also lead to the growth of new neurons, this means walnuts can help us to grow new brain cells, an essential aspect of maintaining good mental health.

All around the world, especially in Africa, young girls find themselves in an insane environment where sexual abuse is inevitable and seen or accepted as a norm.

In most cases, some of the abused girls have no voice, can’t speak or open up for fear of being stigmatized.

These young girls are molested, threatened, deceived, trafficked and sometimes confined to a place against their will and freedom for selfish purposes.

This cruel and mindless abuse happens in homes, offices (where an employer will want to have carnal knowledge of a young lady before employing her) colleges and it is becoming a trend.

A very recent case is the one of ‘Sex for grades‘ scandal in the University of Lagos and the University of Ghana. An undercover reporter of the BBC, Kiki Mordi, herself a victim of sexual abuse while in the university, exposed lecturers of the schools for attempting to lure young girls into sleeping with them.

Sequel to these reports of sexual abuses, and the inability of the girls to speak up, ‘Talking Boxes’ an initiative has now been introduced in Kenyan schools by a UN-funded non-governmental organisation, Polycom Development.

The initiative is to enable young girls to speak up and be assured that there are people who want to genuinely hear them and fight for their cause.

The ‘Talking Boxes’ have been set up in 50 schools already and are usually placed outside bathrooms and discreet places to allow for privacy especially in mixed schools.

Jane Anyango, founder of Polycom Development says that some of the girls who are willing to speak do not have weighty issues in their hearts . “That is why I have thought of coming up with a way of listening to these girls’.

When school girls report sexual abuses to us, we refer them to other organisations that can help with counselling or assist them to file a case with the police, she adds.

Anyango also pointed out that not all notes in the ‘Talking Boxes’ are about sexual abuse “… sometimes, they ask questions that they are shy or embarrassed to ask in person’.

In one of the notes, a girl asked what is pregnancy and how can one get pregnant?”

A 14-year-old with an abusive, drunken father, wrote “I now feel free because I can express myself and get help. We feel more comfortable. We feel happier”.

Rape is unlawful sexual activity typically involving sexual intercourse done forcibly or under threat of injury against a person’s will. Rape is a worldwide problem.

It is estimated that approximately 35% of women worldwide have experienced some form of sexual harassment in their lifetime.

In the majority of countries that have data available on rape, it is reported that less than 40% of women who experience sexual violence seek help while less than 10% seek help from law enforcement.