DAILY NEWSPAPERS REVIEW SATURDAY DECEMBER 12, 2020

ICC PROBES MILITARY, B’HARAM FOR WAR CRIMES, MURDER, OTHERS – PUNCH PG.3, THISDAY PG.6

The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, says the court has found a reasonable basis to begin investigating members of the Nigerian Security Forces for crimes against humanity, which they allegedly committed in the course of prosecuting the counter-insurgency war in the North-east.

Bensouda said the ICC was probing the Nigerian Armed Forces for conscripting children below the age of 15 into the military and “using them to participate actively in hostilities; persecution on gender and political grounds; and other inhumane acts.”

LEKKI SHOOTINGS: #ENDSARS PROTESTERS ASK PANEL TO SUMMON SANWO-OLU, FASHOLA, OTHERS – PUNCH PG.7, THE NATION PG. 4 & 5

An #EndSARS protesters’ lawyer, Mr Adesina Ogunlana, has asked the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry probing alleged killing of protesters by soldiers on the night of October 20 at the Lekki tollgate in Lagos to summon the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu. In a December 9 application he submitted to the retired Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel, Ogunlana said he wanted Sanwo-Olu summoned to explain his role in the Lekki shootings. Apart from Sanwo-Olu, the lawyer also applied for the panel to summon the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola; Chief Executive Officer of Loatsad Promomedia Ltd, Seyi Tinubu; Managing Director, Oriental Hotel; Divisional Police Officer, Maroko Police Station and the Lekki Concession Company Officials in charge of Information Technology Intelligence and Security.

SOWORE NOT LINKED WITH ANY VIOLENCE, REVOLUTION, DSS OPERATIVE TELLS COURT – PUNCH PG.11

An operative of the Department of State Services, Rasheed Olawale, admitted at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday that no act of violence or revolution was linked with SaharaReporters publisher and former presidential candidate in the 2019 election, Omoyele Sowore, who was arrested for allegedly planning to topple the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), in August 2019. The Office of the Attorney General of the Federation is prosecuting Sowore and Olawale Bakare on two counts of treasonable felony. They were accused of organising a protest tagged #RevolutionNow allegedly aimed at toppling the Buhari regime.

COURT GRANTS EX-AGF ADOKE 26 DAYS TO TRAVEL ABROAD ON HEALTH GROUNDS – PUNCH PG.11

The Federal High Court in Abuja, on Friday, granted permission to a former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke (SAN), to travel for medical check-up at the United Arab Emirates, where he was in exile for about five years. Adoke had fled to the UAE shortly after leaving office in 2015. He returned to the country and was immediately arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission as he arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja on December 19, 2019.

COURT ACQUITS EX-MINISTER WALI FOR ALLEGEDLY LAUNDERING N950M – THE NATION PG.5, DAILY TRUST PG.7 

A Federal High Court sitting in Kano on Friday discharged and acquitted a former Minister of Foreign Affairs, Alhaji Aminu Wali, over allegation of laundering N950 million. The court also discharged and acquitted on the same charge, Mr. Mansur Ahmad, the Kano State Campaign Coordinator to former President Goodluck Jonathan. Wali was arraigned in May 2018 alongside Ahmad and a former Governor of Kano State, Ibrahim Shekarau, by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC).

SALAMI’S REPORT AND MATTER ARISING – THISDAY PG. 12

The use of raw power to settle personal scores against perceived enemies, is a dastardly but palpable contemporary political reality. Our own nation’s political landscape has not been devoid of this aberrant behavior. Even though, our democratic dispensation is still in its infancy, yet it could be seen as being fully replete with these clearly very unpleasant but ubiquitous phenomena.