₦airaland Forum

Dollyak:
Gosh. Some of you guys have too much times on your hands.

asadike:
lol. My igbo brothers will kill u before u even come close.

asadike:
what is unlawful about protest? well, oji onu ga na ekwu ihe masiri ya, mana ihe chi kwuru g'eme.

optionsxpert1:
1. Aff. mkting / CPA
2. BO trading
3. Info. mkting
4. G. adsense or blog monetization
5. Domain flipping
6. Freelancing
7. Ecurrency trading I.e buying and selling of ecurrencies like pm, paypal

If done rightly each should be able to to make @ least $100 / month.

Good luck.

FlapMarket:
Yes there is, for example you can import goods from abroad and sell them in Nigeria online platforms, for example at www.flapmarket.com

tripplephi:
THERE ARE SEVERAL AND THOSE OF US WHO DO IT DO NOT SELL OUR MATERIALS, SO AndyCole MAIL ME AND I WILL GIVE U A LIST OF THEM, THEN YOU CAN GO DO YOUR HUNTING THEN.

In order to ensure organised drug distribution system in the country, the federal government will on July 1 commence the implementation of the National Drug Distribution Guidelines (NDDGs).

The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Health, Linus Awute stated this at a press conference on Friday in Abuja adding that regulatory agencies like the Pharmacists Council of Nigeria (PCN) and NAFDAC will on that date resume the exercise of their mandate to ensure full compliance.

He said “We are hopeful that the existence of open drug markets in the country will be a thing of the past as the drug distribution system of the country has remained uncoordinated, chaotic and has resulted in the circulation of fake, adulterated, substandard and counterfeit drugs.

According to Awute, this chaotic drug distribution posed a very big challenge to the pharmaceutical sector in particular and the federal government in general, considering the negative impact the situation had on the entire healthcare delivery system of the country.

LEADERSHIP recalls that in order to address the ugly situation, the federal government established the Presidential Committee on Pharmaceutical Sector Reform and charged it among others to develop a strategy towards the institutionalisation of a well ordered drug distribution system.

The strategies adopted by the committee to achieve this include the development of the National Drug Distribution Guidelines in 2010 to provide guidance for drug distribution.

Mr Awute said “The launch of the document in 2012 signalled the take-off of its implementation while the deadline was for the establishment of State Drug Distribution Centres (SDDCs) by the state governments and Mega Drug Distribution Centres (MDDSs) by the private sector was declared on 30th June, 2014.

“The deadline was, however, extended to 30th June, 2015 to allow more time for the establishment of more SDDCs and MDDCs.”

He explained that as the new deadline date has drown near, it was imperative to remind stakeholders in the pharmaceutical sector and Nigerians so they would commence the full implementation of the National Drug Distribution Guidelines.

He said that state governments were allowed to upgrade their medical stores to the level of SDDCs, adding that states like Jigawa, Niger, and Ekiti had already commenced the implementation of the guidelines while Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Anambra SDDCs were ready for take-off.

He added that other developed MDDs structures included the Arsene Laboratory, World Wide Ventures and the Onitsha Mega Drug Distribution Centre waiting commissioning, even as the Pharmaceutical Society of Nigeria was supporting the establishment of ultra-logistics company with ongoing structures of the MDDCs in the six geopolitical zones of the country.

The hurdles before Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila’s bid to become the next Speaker of the House of Representatives is far from over as the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court is currently hearing an ex-parte motion seeking to disqualify him from emerging as the Speaker of the House of Representatives on Tuesday alleging that he was previously ‎”convicted in the State of Georgia for unethical practices and was debarred as a lawyer for 36 months”.. Justice Abdul Kafarati is currently presiding over the suit which was lodged before the high Court by the Registered Trustees of Social Justice and Civil Rights Awareness Initiative. The group, in the suit filed pursuant to Order 26 Rule 8 of the Federal High Court Civil Procedure Rules, 2009, is contending that Hon. Gbajabiamila is not morally fit to head the third arm of governance in Nigeria, alleging that he was previously ‎”convicted in the State of Georgia for unethical practices and was debarred as a lawyer for 36 months”. Aside Gbajabiamila, the House of Representatives and the Attorney General of the Federation were equally cited as defendants in the matter. The ex-parte motion is being argued on behalf of the group by prominent Human Rights lawyer, Chief ‎Mike Ozekhome (SAN). In a supporting affidavit ‎that was deposed to by one Alojie Nmerengira, the plaintiff told the Court that its investigations revealed that Gbajabiamila was convicted by the Supreme Court of Georgia in 2007, even as it attached a copy of the order of the Court as ‘Exhibit A’. Nmerengira averred: “That I am the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the plaintiff organization by virtue of which I am very conversant with the facts deposed herein. “That the 1st defendant is a member of the House of Representatives who nurses the ambition of becoming the Speaker of the House in the next Assembly. That the 2nd defendant is the constitution body created to carry ‎out legislative functions for the good governance and advancement of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The Independent Petroleum Marketers Association of Nigeria (IPMAN) at the weekend said it has started discussing with foreign partners to refine crude oil abroad and import Premium Motor Sprit (petrol) and Kerosene into the country.
It added that it has no intention to claim any subsidy payment from the Federal Government through the method.
IPMAN National Secretary Danladi Pasali, who spoke to reporters in Abuja, explained that should the Federal Government approve the intervention, it would be a temporal relief arrangement pending the improvement of the capacity of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation’s (NNPC’s) refineries and the construction of greenfield refining entities.
According to him, the initiative was developed by the association’s new executives to assist the present administration to reduce cost in subsidy payment at the same time meet products’ demand.
His words: “We urged the Buhari administration to support IPMAN in mobilising our foreign partners in importing petroleum products at no cost or without subsidies payment to government.
”We have done all our mathematics that through our new model of Crude Oil SWAP arrangement; we can wet the country with petrol and kerosene and still gain from the transactions,” Pasali said.
Nigeria is currently consuming about 35 million litres of PMS. But only 30 per cent of the amount can be refined by the four local refineries at full capacities.
The IPMAN secretary said the association in the long run will construct two brand new refineries in the country with 400,000 barrel refining capacity with Blue Oil International.
He added that the association’s National President Mr. Chinedu Okoronkwo is in Lagos to monitor the distribution of the PMS to its members to stop its scarcity.
Pasali said with government’s cooperation, IPMAN members will stop fuel scarcity with their over 20,000 filling stations.

‘We handed over suspects to EFCC’

BANKERS were shocked yesterday to learn of the N8b currency scam for which no fewer than 22 suspects are to face trial today in Ibadan.

It was the topic of discussions in banking halls, a source told The Nation.

The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) has spoken on the scam in which six of its officials and 16 others from some commercial banks are involved.

The suspects, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) alleged, stole and recirculated, defaced and mutilated currencies amounting to N8b.

They include Patience Okoro Eye (Abuja), Afolabi Olufemi (Lagos), Kolawole Babalola (Ibadan), Olaniran Muniru Adeola (Ibadan), Fatai Yusuf Adekunle (Head, Security, CBN, (Ibadan) and Ilori Adekunle Sunday (Akure).

The remaining 16 suspects are from various commercial banks. They were found to have conspired with the CBN executives to swing the heist, the EFCC said.

CBN’s Director, Corporate Communications, Ibrahim Mu’azu, yesterday retraced the events that led the management of the apex bank to hand over the suspects to the EFCC for prosecution.

He said: “As soon as the Bank’s internal investigations concluded beyond reasonable doubt that some wrong doing had occurred, the affected members of staff who are middle-level officers were, depending on gravity of offence, either summarily dismissed or immediately placed on indefinite suspension on 21 October 2014, and all handed over to the EFCC for further investigation and prosecution. The CBN has also conducted a nationwide audit of all 37 branches of the Bank and found that this was an isolated scheme at Ibadan Branch. The Bank will continue to collaborate with the EFCC to ensure that affected CBN staff, as well as their accomplices in some commercial banks, are brought to justice.”

Mu’azu said the scam was unearthed during a routine internal audit of the bank’s cash destruction activities in September 2014. He said the CBN Briquetting Panel comprising Senior Bank Staff from various branches, noticed some anomalies at the Ibadan Branch, and immediately reported this to the Bank’s management.

He said on further investigation ordered by the CBN Governor, it was discovered that a systematic scheme, which had been on for several years, was being run in which mutilated higher denomination notes originally meant for destruction were swapped with lower denomination currencies. This practice known as interleafing, basically labels a box with a higher value than its true content.

Mu’azu said as soon as the bank’s internal investigations concluded beyond reasonable doubt that some wrongdoing had occurred, the affected members of staff, who are middle-level officers, were, depending on gravity of offence, either summarily dismissed or immediately placed on indefinite suspension on 21 October 2014. They were all handed over to the EFCC for further investigation and prosecution.

The CBN has also conducted a nationwide audit of all its 37 branches and found that this was an isolated scheme at Ibadan Branch. Mu’azu said the bank will continue to collaborate with the EFCC to ensure that the affected CBN staff as well as their accomplices in some commercial banks are brought to justice.

An economist, Henry Boyo, said he was not surprised when he heard about the scam, alleging that there are even bigger fraud going on within the CBN which the public take for granted. “It did not surprise me at all. It was expected. What is clear is that the institution of the CBN is fraught with fraud. Whether it is the intervention fund or monetary policy strategy, it is the more you look, the less you see,” he said.

Boyo said the practice whereby the CBN carries out regular mopping up of excess liquidity from the system is in itself questionable. He said over N6 trillion is mopped up from the system annually, and that the one for the first quarter has already been conducted, with N1.5 trillion taken off the system. Commercial banks were paid 10 to 15 per cent interest, which came to about N600 billion profit, he said.

Boyo alleged that the intervention fund running into billions of naira also needed to be examined just like the Polymer note scam.

But another economist, Brown Okorie, said the mopping up of excess liquidity in the system is the statutory function of the CBN, used to bring down inflation and achieve exchange rate stability.

He pointed out that the apex bank had several tools which it could use to control the inflation rate, but emphasised that the best option at the moment would be to reduce the excess liquidity in the system. “The CBN will look at the indicators and decide what tools to use to control the inflation rate, which will all be aimed at reducing excess liquidity in the system,” Okorie said.

2face Idibia has just been hit hard by a supposed childhood friend of the superstar, Eric Amodu. In an open letter to 2face, Eric has addressed the superstar on his latest rant against the Nigerian government with 2face having said: ‘Since 1999, the government hasn’t done anything worth celebrating’ just days ago. Read Eric’s open letter below.. ‘Too bad you threw the bomb at yourself on this. You are my friend but the truth must be told. Question 1. Name a single soul you’ ve ever helped? Question 2. Why did your fellow childhood friends deserted you? Question 3. What have you given back to the society that made u? Infact lets go deeper First of all, OJB produced you and brought you to limelight and even gave you a song for free without you paying a dime. But you threw your back at him when the world was rallying round to save his life. Not even a dime from you when lesser musicians gave their widows mite. No any Idoma sons could say he’s on your scholarship list yet you have the mouth to talk back at the people that you helped in eating from their states’ funds. You ate the resources meant for Benue State during Akume days in PDP as a governor when he bought you a Camry. How about Donald Duke when he was the PDP governor of cross Rivers State? He lavished the state resources for you and still paid 20 million naira just to reunite the plantation boiz yet you have the guts to say PDP did nothing? Better still, you for reject all the money. Akwa-Ibom state governor under the PDP-led government lavished the money meant for the state to sponsor your wedding. Why didn’t you kick against it when he gave you eight jeeps and sponsored several people to Dubai just to attend your wedding? Jolly Nyame wasted the state resources on you and you practically abandoned Lagos for Taraba just because you began to taste the juicy side of unmerited resources from government coffers. Don’t forget… when you sang ‘I dey feel like so so so and so person… because you de spend for me.’ Over 70% of the names you mentioned were PDP people you joined in eating away the future of their states. Brother man, sorry to say this… you don’t even stand the moral ground where conscience speaks to talk about PDP. I would love Banky W, the little Davido that just started, Ice Prince, Don Jazzy and so many others to talk because they don’t dine with the PDP and their states’ funds yet they’ve given a whole lot to the society. On your wedding day, you took away the pleasure of the eyes from Nigerians to Dubai so that dem no go fit benefit even small thing from you. Stingy life.’ With his open letter now going viral online, Eric has taken to Twitter to say: …

GOVERNOR Kasim Shettima of Borno State yesterday revealed that the Chibok girls may be living in bunkers inside the Sambisa forest, and called on the military to investigate this during their operations in the vast area.

Shettima who stated this in Abuja at a conference organised by the Savannah Centre for Diplomacy, Democracy and Development (SCDDD), said that his government believes that the bunkers existed because truck loads of building materials have been making their way into the Sambisa forest for quiet some time unhindered.

The governor who was represented by the Secretary of Borno Elders Forum, Dr. Bulama Mala Gubio, also said that the Boko Haram sect once built such a bunker in Maiduguri which held up to about 500 people.

“The military should investigate this claim. We suspect Boko Haram has built a lot of bunkers in the Sambisa forest.

We believe the Chibok girls are living in bunkers inside Sambisa forest. A lot of building materials have been taken inside the forest without hindrance,’’ he said. On the number of persons so far killed by insurgents in the North east, Shettima stated that the number is far greater than what is reported in the local and international media.

Against the report of 13,000 killed so far, he said the figure was more than 300,000,adding, people who were practically slaughtered were more than those who were gunned down. “This year alone, more than 70,000 people were killed before Boko Haram was knocked out. So far, more than 300,000 people have been killed. I lost 29 of my siblings. I buried them myself.


Any time I hear in the media that 13, 000 people were killed so far, if not that Islam forbids suicide I would have committed suicide”.

“The magnitude of atrocities committed by the Boko Haram sect is unprecedented in history.

Even Pharaoh did not slaughter people. So far over 900 schools have been destroyed in Borno State and 176 teachers have been killed. We keep rebuilding schools and Boko Haram members keep destroying the newly built ones,” he said. The governor also narrated the ordeal of the Internally Displaced Persons(IDPs) in the three states under emergency rule.

He stated that Borno State spends N600 million monthly to sustain the displaced persons, while the Federal Government has only given the state N200 million to tackle the problem for six years.

Shettima noted that the state currently saddled with the problem of returning the IDPs to their communities because there is no source of water, no health centre, no schools and other basic amenities in such places. As for source of water, he reminded that the wells have been stuffed with bodies of executed victims of Boko Haram attacks.

He further recommended that a judicial commission be set up in the reconstruction process of the North east.

Mr. Akin Osuntokun served as one of the campaign managers of President Goodluck Jonathan in the last election. In a chat with KAMAL TAYO OROPO, he examines the role the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should play after its electoral defeat.

After losing out in the last election, especially at the centre, what’s left for the Peoples Democratic Party; What should the party be doing now? THE problem of the PDP is like the problem of political party system in the country. It is a reflection of how developed or how far Nigeria has developed its political system.

So, it is not merely a crisis bedevilling the PDP, it is also a crisis of the party system. We have to note that democratic rule and political party system in Nigeria is relatively new.

However, that does not excuse the flaws and different shortcomings the party exhibited. Yet, the fundamental way you have to look at it is from the prism of the shortcomings of political party system.

The political parties we have, to say the least, are more or less mere avenues for contesting election; not political parties as such. They are not rooted in any identifiable ideological conformity.

For instance, a large chunk of PDP members are now in the All Progressives Congress (APC). So, how do you interpret any of these two parties in terms of ideological identity, if at least, 30 per cent of members of the PDP can go to the APC and become the bedrock of the party? We have a very peculiar situation here and it will take time for things to settle down.

Also, ethno-regional cleavages are very apparent in our selection process, and this was very obvious in the last election. You only need to look at the patterns of votes to understand what I mean.
You have a situation in which the president-elect got largely 90 per cent of his votes on the basis of where he comes from and where he stands in terms of ethno-regional identity.

Same thing goes for the president himself, where you have the south-south and southeast voting for him en masse. But looking at the problems afflicting the PDP, you will recall that the party did not actually start as a political party, but started as a nationalist movement, to fight, specifically, against the ambition of General Sani Abacha to perpetuate himself in office, and secondly, to fight down the entrenchment of military dictatorship, as well as, to fight for the restoration of democratic rule. Virtually everybody was there.

But since coming to power, the party has more or less been held together principally by power of the incumbency at the centre.

You will also recall that the other two political parties that emerged alongside the PDP in 1998 –– the All Peoples Party (APP) and the Alliance for Democracy (AD) –– were part and parcel of the PDP. It was never a question of ideology; there was no serious ideological slant differentiating these political groupings. And of course, that brings up the question of allocation or zoning of power, which is good in principle.

But it also demonstrated that we are more or less institutionalising the recognition of ethno-regional divides. The outcome of the last election was determined largely by the perception of the people in north that it was their turn and that they were wrongly deprived.

So, they mobilised; it was an ethno-regional mobilisation like I said. That in itself is derived from the political parties saying that power should rotate among the zones.

They are more or less saying that each political party should adopt it as a policy, but that is not paramount. Meanwhile, you can look at the problems bedevilling the PDP in terms of social upbringing. Using, as an example, the analogy for social upbringing of having two children.

While one child has everything that he needs, the other just struggling to get somewhere. The one that has everything, the PDP in this case, gets so complacent and the other child, the coalition that that gave birth to the APC, were fighting as underdog and opposition.

While the opposition was throwing everything in the battle ring, the PDP, on the contrary, was getting soft and complacent. Don’t forget, this is the very first time the party was challenged very seriously. Also on the downside from the PDP perspective, what happened in the last election was reflection of the power politics in Nigeria.

We have the two most entrenched power blocs, as represented by the northern oligarchy and Yoruba political establishment, working against the party.

The former Eastern Region of Nigeria, comprising today’s southeast and the southsouth, in terms of capacity to exercise power and in terms of capacity to assert itself in Nigeria’s power politics, is the most vulnerable. The zone is not as strong as the north or the southwest.

Whether we like it or not, that is the only place the PDP was strong. Against that backdrop, will you say that the party could disintegrate? Of course, there is always a possibility of that. Since there is no more political power at the centre, the party could shrink the more.

It probably will shed some weight until it has a reasonable number of committed members that will play a viable opposition, until such a time that there will be an implosion within the APC.

The most realistic option for now is an implosion within the APC, and if the PDP holds its ground, it will be the main beneficiary. The APC consists of power blocks that will not often agree and the party is going to experience some kind of internal haemorrhage and when it does, maybe a faction out of it and the ruminants of the PDP could seize the initiative.

This is the direction I see of the political system in the country. The PDP falters and the opposition waiting in the wings benefits.

The APC falters and the opposition waiting in the wings takes over as well, until such a time membership of a political party is ideologically based. When we get to that point, the number of cross-carpeting from one political party to another would be drastically reduced.

While that may well be the situation in the nearest future, do you see the PDP discharging this role to the benefit of the polity and what can be done to save the party from self-destruct? The party can (play the opposition role), just that it will be a bit difficult.

If the APC had not come out to say that those of you coming from the PDP, you are no longer welcome, only God knows the number of PDP members that would be left. Political party survives if you have some personalities that can rally other members of the party.

President Goodluck Jonathan, by virtue of the position that he has held, should easily be able to play that role, but he is not a very assertive political personality.

I’m not very sure if he may be able to function in that capacity given his personality. No doubt, he is a good man, but to play that role of holding the party together requires a bit more assertiveness. I’m not sure if he can effectively play that role. As such, this is part of the problems PDP has to face up to.

There is also the role of financial support, which is a very crucial ingredient. I don’t know how much of that was obtained to ensure the durability of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) all through to the APC. The PDP today will soon discover that the country contains non-viable states.

But it is good that many people are now expressing the concern over having a strong opposition and they are looking in the direction of the PDP. It gets better when group of Nigerians have decided to put their money where their mouth is. There are some young Nigerians, who have expressed desire to rebrand the PDP, maybe some kind of glad tidings would emerge from this desire.

It is going to be tough going forward, but like you are inferring, Nigeria needs PDP for it to have a functional democracy. Specifically, and in principle, it needs functional opposition –– maybe PDP or any other party.

What we are saying is that the country needs a functional opposition party, whether that party is PDP is another thing. But frankly, it looks as if the only option we have now is PDP, that is in specific term, but generally speaking, there is nothing stopping Nigerians from gathering together to form a third party; that is a theoretical option. The good thing is that Nigerians are not oblivious to the need for a viable opposition.

Do you think the option of looking in the direction of PDP is informed by its national spread and the possibility of a new party emerging may not appear attractive to so many people? If I must be frank with you, I think many Nigerians, looking in the direction of the PDP, are shedding crocodile tears.

After you demonise people beyond redemption for regime change, you now want them to play a noble role. Now, that purpose of getting out of power has been achieved, but the stigma has come to stay from the extreme demonisation of the PDP. As we speak, you would hardly find any Nigerian who would want to identify with the party, and this is as a result of sheer propaganda and media bias. Don’t you think you are being a bit unfair to the media? No.

You people are the ones leading the demonisation. A PDP man you demonise today, the moment that same individual moves into the APC you will start celebrating him. And conversely, you celebrate a man today, but moment that individual joins the PDP you will start demonising him.

I can give you half a dozen examples of such double-standard, starting with the chairman of the Buhari’s transition committee. No one has been talking about charges against him. Perhaps, you are referring to a section of the media and surely not the entire media? How do you mean? I am talking of the entire media. You have done nothing but condemnation of everything PDP.

Is it not the media that is saying that the Jonathan-led government has done nothing and it is an unmitigated disaster? It is unbelievable.

I primarily started writing my column precisely because of this battle of mischief in the media. On one or two occasions the government has been forced to respond to some of these mischief. Until Nigerians learn to take responsibility for our failures, we would continue groping in the dark.

Hypocrisy is one of the things hindering the development of this country. One immediate challenge the PDP has to confront right now is the continuous stay in office of its national chairman, Alhaji Adamu Muazu. There have been calls that he should resign as result of the failure of the party at the polls.

What is your position? Whether Muazu has done anything right or wrong is immaterial at this point and the reality of the outcome of the election; he should simply resign.

I’m not holding him, as an individual, responsible for the outcome, but somebody has to take responsibility for what has happened.

The national chairman of the party should be the first person in the line of duty to take such responsibility. I don’t need to say whether he has done well in his office or not; it has nothing to do with that, but let us try something new.

It is almost like football team, regardless of the coach, you change the coach moment the team fails to perform. The PDP needs to be rebranded. The party needs to be reborn and someone must take responsibility.

May 29 handover: Jonathan relocates to Glass House as renovation of President’s residence reaches advanced stage


President Goodluck Jonathan has relocated from his main official residence at the Presidential Villa to another section of the vast complex,preparatory to his exit from office in less than two weeks.

He and his family have moved to the Glass House to allow for the renovation of the main official residence of the president for its next occupan, General Muhammadu Buhari, investigation has shown.

President Jonathan is scheduled to conduct Buhari and Vice President-electYemi Osinbajo round the complex on Thursday, May 27.

Reliable sources said the President and his wife have moved their personal belongings out of the official residence to their Otuoke,Bayelsa State residence.

The movement of their belongings commenced soon after the release of the result of the March 28 presidential election.

One of the sources said: “ I can confirm to you that most of the first family’s property have left the State House.

“The President is now staying in the Glass House with very few belongings.

“Intensive renovation of the President’s residence is going on now. Minor repairs are going on in some parts of the house. Cleaning and repainting of the entire residence with white paint is in progress.”

The furnishing aspect of the renovation will wait until the incoming president takes over.

He will be the one to determine the kind of furniture he wants .

The source applies to the flowers around the residence.

Renovation of the President’s office, according to another source, will also wait until Buhari assumes office.

The colour of the painting and furniture for the office will be done to his taste.

Another source said: ”The State House staff are in high spirit, waiting and hoping that the promised change of the incoming government will benefit them and the nation at large.”

The Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Dr. Reuben Abati was not in the office yesterday afternoon and could not be reached on telephone to get his views on the latest development.