Themed: “Sustaining Growth through Diversification of the Economy,” the conference will hold on Thursday, August 10, 2017 at Renaissance Hotel, Isaac John Street, GRA, Ikeja, Lagos.

A statement by GOCOP Publicity Secretary, Olumide Iyanda, disclosed that Governors Nyesom Wike, Abdulafatah Ahmed and Darius Ishaku of Rivers, Kwara and Taraba States respectively have confirmed their presence at the conference as Special Guests.

Others are the Minister for Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed; the Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Tukur Buratai; the Chief of Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar; the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas; the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris; and Corps Marshal, Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC), Dr. Boboye Oyeyemi.

Also confirmed are the President, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote; the Group Chairman, Mutual Assurance Plc, Chief Akin Ogunbiyi; the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Nigeria LNG, Tony Attah; the Chairman, Zinox Technologies Limited, Leo Stan Ekeh; the Director, United Nations Information Centre in Nigeria, Ronald Kayanja; and the Founder, Oodua People’s Congress, Dr. Frederick Fasehun.

Keynote Speakers at the conference are university teacher, Prof. Akin Onigbinde; the Managing Director of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Bayo Onanuga; and a former Governor of Anambra State, Peter Obi.

Former Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of the Sun Newspapers and now the Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to President Muhammadu Buhari, Femi Adesina; and the Managing Director and Editor-in-Chief of New Telegraph Newspapers and also the President of the Nigerian Guild of Editors, Funke Egbemode, will participate in the discussion.

A new GOCOP executive council will be inaugurated at the conference.

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The newspaper, according to a statement by Senior Special Adviser to the president on media and publicity, Femi Adesina, rather than rush to print an unsubstantiated story, would have done better to confirm the information at its disposal, from many available military and government information channels, “would have avoided the self-inflicted wound of publishing a one-legged story that is not completely true, and damaging its brand in the process.”

The statement said that while Gen Olonisakin is due to retire from the Army next week, having satisfied the official number of years in service, he is yet to be replaced and that the Chief of Naval Staff has a short while more, and President Buhari could, therefore, not have approved his replacement yet.

“This administration has repeatedly pledged commitment to transparency and accountability, and one of the hallmarks of that is making information available to the media. But when some sections of the media would rather speculate, than cross-check and double check information, then it borders on deliberate mischief. That, surely, is not the way to go, for national cohesion and development,” Adesina said.

Read This: Defence minister, DHQ denies report on retirement of Service Chiefs

Recalled that both the Defence Headquarters and Minister of defence, who was erroneous credited to have despatched letters to Olonisakin and Ekwe Ibas have since refuted the report, describing them as fictitious and malicious.

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A statement by Col. Tukur Gusau, Public Relations officer to the minister said that there was no such communication between the office of the Honourable Minister of Defence and the service chiefs directing any one of them to hand over his office and proceed on retirement.

“The appointment and replacement of service chiefs is a prerogative responsibility of the office of the President and Commander in Chief. Please endevour to always balance your stories from the right sources to avoid mischef,” the statement said.

Similarly, the Director Defence Information, Brigadier General Rabe Abubakar described the rumours as baseless and unfounded, adding that the service chiefs are still discharging their official responsibilities.

General Rabe said “It is disturbing and embarrassing the cooked up stories going round in the social media. There is no iota of truth in the misleading information. We ask the public to ignore the report as baseless and unfounded,” he concluded

Some online media(not NewMailNG) allegedly reported that President Muhammadu Buhari had approved the retirement from service of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Gabriel Olonisakin, and the Chief of Naval Staff (CNS), Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas.

Some of the media even claimed that the Minister of Defence, Brig.- Gen. Mansur Dan-Ali (rtd), had since sent letters to the Service Chiefs, wherein they were directed to handover on or before Friday, December 16.

The media further speculated that Olonisakin and Ibas’ disengagements were based on their attaining the official years of retirement from the military.

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Magu who was speaking on Thursday, when he visited the Naval Headquarters in Abuja on a courtesy call said the recession prevalent in Nigeria today was as a fall out of the corruptive tendencies of our leaders.

According to him, except Nigerians resolve collectively to abhor corruption in all forms, there will be no future for the youths.

He also said that it is disturbing that federal, State and Local Government allocations are persistently being misappropriated. “If 50 percent of the allocations at the three tiers of governments are judiciously put to use, we would not be where we are in terms of underdevelopment and infrastructural decay”, he explained.

The EFCC boss said that his visit to the Naval headquarters was in furtherance of the inter-agency collaboration between the EFCC and other government agencies.

“EFCC alone cannot fight corruption; we need all hands to be on deck. We have come to appreciate you for the robust relationship that exists between the EFCC and the Nigerian Navy, and we want to leverage on that to stem corruption in Nigeria”, Magu said.

He appealed to the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas to help mobilize women in Uniform, especially in the Nigerian Navy, to come out on December 7, 2016, to be part of the flag off of the Women Against Corruption programme by the wife of the President, Aisha Buhari.

The Chief of Naval Staff, in his response agreed with the EFCC Chairman when he said “corruption fuels insecurity and responsible for lack of development. We just cannot afford to continue like that”.

He however advised the EFCC chairman that more attention should also be paid to corruption in the private sector.

He also said that after the flag off of the Women Against Corruption programme, “efforts should be made to look seriously in the direction of the children as there is the need to catch them young”.

“In whatever you are doing, be rest assured that we would be there to support you in kill corruption in Nigeria; because like the President said, if we don’t kill corruption, corruption will kill us”.

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This is contained in a statement issued by Lt. Cdr Edward Yeibo on behalf of the command’s Flag Officer Commanding (FOC).

Yeibo said that two of the four suspected oil thieves were arrested while loading the barge with diesel.

He further reiterated the Navy’s Zero Tolerance to crude oil theft, pipeline vandalism, illegal oil bunkering and other sundry crimes in the Niger Delta Region.

According to him, the operation, which led to the arrest of the suspects, was in line with the Chief of Naval Staff, Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ekwe Ibas’s strategic directive to the Navy.

He quoted the Commander, Nigerian Navy Ship SOROH Commodore Habib Usman, as saying that a barge and five wooden boats laden with about 600,000 metric tonnes suspected to be illegally refined Automated Gas Oil and 2 suspects were arrested.

Usman said the suspects were arrested by the Nigerian Navy Ship SOROH around Beama community in Nembe Local Government Area in the waterways within Bayelsa.

The wooden boats were suspected to be used to convey the illegally refined Automated Gas Oil from the refining points to the barge for loading.

“As of the time of the arrest one of the boats had finished trans-loading its product into the barge.

“Consequently, the personnel of Forward Operating Base FORMOSO with gunboats and tug boat towed the barge to its jetty for further investigation.

“However, the wooden boats were destroyed, the two suspects are in custody for preliminary investigation and prosecution,” Yeibo was quoted in the statement.

He added that the FOC, CNC Rear Admiral Mohammed Garba had assured that the Navy will make the sea lane of communication accessible for all legitimate users and frustrate maritime criminalites in its Area of Responsibility.

According to him, there is no hiding place for crude oil thieves as the Navy will continue to sustain patrols in the maritime environment.

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