Police uncover illegal gun factory in Benue

The Benue State Police Command on Tuesday uncovered an illegal gun manufacturing factory in the Oju Local Government Area of the state. The Commissioner of Police, Fatai Owoseni, who led his men to the factory located at Amyuwogbu-Ibilla in Oju, said the legal factory owner, Abi Odah, was arrested alongside his son, Kingsley Abi and one Thomas Ode, aka Tommy. Owoseni, who paraded the three suspects at the Oju Police Division, stated that the police were investigating a case of abduction and rape when they stumbled on the illegal factory. He said 19-year-old Kingsley and his friend, Tommy, 17, were earlier arrested following an allegation of abduction and rape of a 15-year-old girl. The CP added that when policemen got to Kingsley father’s home, they found prohibited items in the father’s workshop located behind the house. The commissioner added that further probe into the activities of Odah, who was a blacksmith, revealed he was fabricating weapons while disguising them as Dane guns for hunters. “Some of the locally-fabricated guns use AK-47 ammunitions,” Owoseni said. Odah, who said he fabricated Dane guns for hunters, however, said not all the tools belonged to him.

Trump’s not a liar. He’s a madman.

By Dana Milbank Columnist May 29 at 5:01 PM Email the author

Even by President Trump’s standards, this Memorial Day weekend was memorable for the sheer volume of balderdash, bunk, poppycock and patent nonsense flowing from the White House. Balderdash: Trump went after the “failing and corrupt” New York Times for citing a senior White House official “who doesn’t exist” and admonished the newspaper to “use real people, not phony sources.” It turned out the senior official in question had spoken at a White House briefing arranged by Trump’s aides and attended by dozens of reporters. Bunk: Trump attacked “the 13 Angry Democrats” working for Robert S. Mueller III, apparently referring to prior party registration. But Mueller himself is a Republican, appointed by a Republican who was himself appointed by Trump. Poppycock: He called for “pressure on the Democrats to end the horrible law that separates children from there [sic] parents once they cross the Border into the U.S.” There is no such law, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has acknowledged that family separation “inevitably” results from Trump’s “zero-tolerance” enforcement policy. Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt?” Trump asked. I can picture the GoFundMe campaign: “Paul Manafort, a young and beautiful 69-year-old, had a promising career ahead of him selling access to the White House before he was cruelly indicted . . . ” Early in this weekend’s monsoon of malarkey, New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman tweeted that Trump told “demonstrable falsehoods” — and she was roundly ridiculed on Twitter for failing to say Trump was lying. She defended herself by saying Trump’s pronouncements “can be hard to label” because “he often thinks whatever he says is what’s real.” Haberman is right, but there’s another reason not to label Trump’s untruths “lies”: Calling him a liar lets him off easy. A liar, by definition, knows he’s not telling the truth. Trump’s behavior is worse: With each day it becomes more obvious he can’t distinguish between fact and fantasy. It’s an illness, and it’s spreading. I’ve been writing for two years about his seeming inability to separate truth from falsehood: from his claim that he opposed the Iraq War to his belief that his rainy inauguration was “really sunny.” The man who ghostwrote Trump’s “Art of the Deal” marveled at Trump’s “ability to convince himself that whatever he is saying at any given moment is true.” Trump has acknowledged as much himself. In a 2007 deposition — he was suing author Timothy O’Brien for asserting that Trump’s net worth wasn’t in the billions but in the range of $150 million to $250 million — Trump was asked how he calculates his net worth. “My net worth fluctuates,” Trump said, “and it goes up and down with the markets and with attitudes and with feelings, even my own feelings. . . . I would say it’s my general attitude at the time that the question may be asked.” Of course, Trump’s “feelings” don’t change his net worth any more than they change the weather. That he thinks they do is his problem — and ours. Writing last week for NBCNews.com, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at University College London, along with a researcher, offered an explanation for Trump’s mendacity. Noting that the daily average number of Trump falsehoods has been rising since he took office (as measured by The Post’s Fact Checker), the professor, Tali Sharot, pointed to the biological process of “emotional adaptation.” People tend to feel uncomfortable when they tell lies, but research has found that the discomfort is reduced each time a person lies — thereby increasing the frequency of lies. Trump’s fictions are so pain-free that they may not feel like lies to him — honestly. And, ominously, they may seem less glaring to others over time. Sharot noted that people “may desensitize to the president’s falsehoods in the same way that they do to overused perfume, making them less likely to act to correct this pattern of behavior.” You can see this in the repeated failure of congressional Republicans to call out Trump’s untruths, when they obviously know better. And you can see it in administration officials’ determination to support whatever Trump says, no matter how ludicrous. (The White House held a briefing Tuesday to support Trump’s attempt to blame Democrats for immigrant family separation.) Trump may not be able to separate fact from fiction, but those who knowingly back up his falsehoods are liars. So what should we call the twaddle and claptrap Trump spouts? I propose “Trumpery.” Defined as “worthless nonsense,” it also has a felicitous echo of “Trumped up.” Go ahead and say he’s lying, if you think so. To me, his facility with fallacy and his pain-free fibbery aren’t sympto­matic of a liar but of a madman.

President Buhari’s 2018 DemocracyDay Speech

I am happy to join the array of eminent Nigerians present here today, as we celebrate the 2018 Nigeria democracy day which marks the 3rd year of this administration and to reflect on the progress we have made in our democratic journey and governance in the last three years. A government elected by the people, must continually be in touch with the aspirations of the people, and work for their highest possible good. The theme of this year’s celebration “Peace Building and Good Governance for Sustainable Development’’ has been carefully selected to reflect our current opportunities and challenges. We have experienced rough times, but through good governance we have not allowed ourselves to be overawed by the existing of challenges. Weak governance is often at the core of rising inequality and unequal development resulting in social disruption and political unrest with negative impacts on growth and development. Accordingly, we have engaged in several rounds of dialogue and town hall meetings, targeted at peace building, between the aggrieved and in some cases warring factions and communities. We have worked hard to dialogue with and if they turn unreasonable decimate insurgents in various parts of the country. We are still grappling but successfully, with border disputes and restoring the much needed peaceful co-existence amongst our people and neighbouring countries. The rebuilding of the North East is ongoing, to return our internally displaced brothers, sisters and children to their ancestral homes. Our resolve to fight corruption was informed by the realisation that reducing corruption and ensuring the effective and just utilisation of public resources, are crucial for achieving sustainable growth and development in Nigeria. Corruption has been at the root of most of the development challenges of our country. There can be no progress in any facet of our national life unless we tackle and curb corruption. Good governance is the polar opposite to corruption. Accordingly, we will not relent in our efforts to eliminate it regardless of the opposition. It manifests itself in several forms including accelerating poverty, conflicts and civil disturbances, as those who feel short-changed, resort to violence and destruction. The security in the country today has considerably improved against the background of what we met in May 2015. Incidences of bombings in towns and villages have been drastically curtailed, series of plots have been averted and stopped and culprits arrested through the vigilance, patriotism and professionalism of our security agencies. The entire country has been freed from occupation of any of its parts by insurgents. While we grieve with our compatriots who have lost relatives and properties, we are unrelenting in equipping and preparing our troops to confront the agents of violence, who have been engaging in banditry and reckless killings in various parts of the country under whatever guise, until total victory is achieved. Again it is pertinent to note that insurgency and terrorism are world-wide phenomena affecting even the best policed nations. Our Economy is on the mend. We have achieved a good number of our set objectives, notably increased food production and food security; increased economic diversification into sectors that were hitherto neglected or under-explored. Our foreign reserves have reached new heights and the outcome in respect of investments in infrastructure expansion are manifest everywhere. Overall, we are on track. I thank and commend all who have worked so hard with us to achieve these successes. I assure you that our people will continue to see and experience more progress, more prosperity and greater security. Finally, I call on Nigerians to remain steadfast and to keep faith with this Administration, as we remain committed to peace building and good governance, to deliver the best of dividends of democracy to the Nigerian people. Thank you and God bless.