Nasarrawa Governor Makura demolishes private radio

Security operatives and officials of the Nasarawa State Urban Development Board (NUDB)  demolished a private radio station in the city, ‘Breeze FM’. 

 Police shot sporadically at the premises of the station to disperse crowds who attempted to resist the demolition.Hundreds of sympathizers arrived the radio station as earlier as 6am, but no one was injured in the incident.

Speaking with newsmen shortly after the exercise, owner of station, Nawani Aboki, said that the reason for the demolition was political and that it was aimed at gagging the Press. 

Aboki said, “Due process was not followed. You can see that the wall is down now. It was marked yesterday and was demolished this morning. Like we said, he had a different reason for it.  Whatever reason he gives officially is not the real one. This demolition was carried out because I don’t belong to the same political party as the governor. He is afraid that the station might not support his political ambition. Part of the reasons is that the station aired a report on the ongoing Labour strike in the state.”

Aboki added, “we have the right to air the Labour strike news.  We even begged the government to come and present it’s part but they declined. I want to assure him that what he thought he killed will remain, will come back and grow.

“Let him continue to do what he likes but his time is also coming to an end. We wish him well but we will meet in court. We must remain calm in this situation. Let’s not take laws into our hands; let us ensure that we follow due process and we all will meet in court.”

But Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Publicity, Ahmed Tukur, said that radio station was demolished for violating building regulations and that the station was one among the five structures demolished yesterday.

 He said shops at the police A division and a house belonging to the elder brother of the governor were also demolished.

Tukur added that the station was not targeted for anything other than issues that have to do with building plan. He maintained that the structure was approved as a residential area and that the station’s mast was hazardous to people in the area.

 “If tomorrow the station acquires an appropriate site, government will approve it immediately. The governor has no ulterior motive against the station. About three different independent radio stations in the state reported the Labour strike and they were not affected by this action,” he said.

Efforts to gets the Nasarawa State Ubarn Development Board  (NUDB) to react to the development proved abortive as our correspondent could not reach the chairman of the board, just as his subordinates declined to comment on the matter.

Meanwhile, the state branch of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ) has condemned the action. 

Addressing newsmen, the state NUJ chairman, Dogo Shama, described the government as an “open attack on the Press, adding that it was aimed at depriving citizens of  the right to balanced reports. 

Shama said the state council of the NUJ will take action against what he called government’s attempt to gag the Press. He added that the chapter would liaise with the national body of the NUJ for further action.

 “If there was any problem with the station or its location, government should have resolved the matter in a matured manner,” he said.

https://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/al-makura-demolishes-private-radio-station/198574.html

The Youngest French leader since Napoleon, Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron

                                                                              

                                                                          Emmanuel Jean-Michel Frédéric Macron (

French: [ɛmanɥɛl makʁɔ̃]; born 21 December 1977) is a French politician who is the President-elect of France. A former civil servant and investment banker, he studied philosophy at Paris Nanterre University, completed a master's of public affairs at Sciences Po, and graduated from the École nationale d'administration (ENA) in 2004. He worked as an Inspector of Finances in the Inspectorate General of Finances (IGF) and then became an investment banker at Rothschild & Cie Banque.
A member of the Socialist Party (PS) from 2006 to 2009, Macron was appointed as deputy secretary-general under François Hollande's first government in 2012. He was appointed Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs in 2014 under the Second Valls Government, where he pushed through business-friendly reforms. He resigned in August 2016 to launch a bid in the 2017 presidential election. In November 2016, Macron declared that he would run in the election under the banner of En Marche!, a centrist  political movement he founded in April 2016. Ideologically, he has been characterised as a centrist and a liberal.
Macron qualified for the runoff after the first round of the election on 23 April 2017. He easily won the second round of the presidential election on 7 May according to preliminary results, making the candidate of the National Front, Marine Le Pen, concede. At 39, he will become the youngest President in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon.

Macron was a member of the social party (PS) from 2006 to 2009

 From 2012 to 2014, he served as deputy secretary-general of the Élysée, a senior role in President Hollande's staff.  He was appointed as the Minister of Economy and Finance in the second Valls Cabinet on 26 August 2014, replacing Arnaud Montebourg.  As Minister of the Economy, Macron was at the forefront of pushing through business-friendly reforms. On 17 February 2015, prime minister Manuel Valls pushed Macron's signature law package through a reluctant parliament using the special 49.3 procedure.

In August 2015, Macron stated that he was no longer a member of the PS and was now an Independent Macron founded an independent political party, En Marche!, in Amiens on 6 April 2016. A liberal, progressive political movement, the party and Macron were both reprimanded by President Hollande.  On 30 August 2016, Macron resigned from the government ahead of the 2017 presidential election.  On 16 November 2016, Macron formally declared his candidacy for the French presidency after months of speculation. In his announcement speech, Macron called for a "democratic revolution" and promised to "unblock France".

Macron attracted criticism for the time taken to spell out a formal program during his campaign; despite declaring in November, he had still not released a complete set of proposals by February, attracting both attacks from critics and concern among allies and supporters.  He eventually laid out his 150-page formal program on 2 March, publishing it online and discussing it at a marathon press conference that day. Macron accumulated a wide array of supporters, securing endorsements from François Bayrou of the Democratic Movement (MoDem), MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit, the ecologist candidate François de Rugy of the primary of the left, and Socialist MP Richard Ferrand, secretary-general of En Marche!, as well as numerous others – many of them from the Socialist Party, but also a significant number of centrist and centre-right politicians. The Grand Mosque of Paris urged French Muslims to vote en masse for Macron.Many foreign politicians have voiced support for Macron, including European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, German Chancellor Angela Merkel,  and former US President Barack Obama.

In March 2017, Macron's digital campaign manager, Mounir Mahjoubi, told Britain's Sky News that Russia is behind "high level attacks" on Macron, and said that its state media are "the first source of false information". He said: "We are accusing RT (formerly known as Russia Today) and Sputnik News (of being) the first source of false information shared about our candidate...On the evening of 5 May 2017, just before the French Presidential Election on 7 May, it was reported that nine gigabytes of Macron's campaign emails had been anonymously posted to Pastebin, a document-sharing site. In a statement on the same evening, Macron's political movement, En Marche!, said: "The En Marche! Movement has been the victim of a massive and co-ordinated hack this evening which has given rise to the diffusion on social media of various internal information"