₦airaland Forum

During last week when I was in South Africa as the Chairman of AU Commission of Inquiry on South Sudan and while with my fellow Commissioners, we were deliberating on how to help that new country out of its problem of security and violence, I received avalanche of news and cacophony of appeals and pleadings from some quarters of PDP leadership.

There are misunderstandings and misrepresentations which some of those appeals and pleas manifested; hence this explanation from me. Talking of inviting me back to PDP is wrong and it is a great misrepresentation as I have never left PDP and I will never leave PDP. I have said it before and I will say it again, I rose to become the President of Nigeria on the platform of PDP and for that reason alone, I will remain a card-carrying and ward-active member of PDP for as long as I have to be a political party member.

Secondly, nobody has personally offended me as a result of my membership of PDP. If, however, anybody or group feels offended by my continued membership, I will offer an unreserved apology but continue to remain in the Party. I have had occasions to say to the President, the Senate President and the Party Chairman separately that I have no quarrel with any individual or group in the Party. There are, for me, issues of principle, morality, honour , integrity, commitment and character which are paramount.

For instance, as a former President of Nigeria, the Chairman of West Africa Commission on Drug and a member of Global Commission on Drug, I cannot accept that the Zonal leader of my political Party and, worse still in my zone, will be an indicted drug baron wanted in America. How do I explain that to friends outside Nigeria? This is only one of the many issues that I have pointed and still pointing out.

I have national and international standard to maintain and reputation to keep and sustain. For these reasons, I opted to remain active only at the ward level of the Party till the leadership does the needful.

But under no condition will my commitment to Nigeria be diminished. And, for me, it is commitment to Nigeria first and any other commitment can only follow in second or third place. Where any other commitment is in tandem with what I see and understand as commitment to Nigeria, such other commitment will share a pride of place with Nigeria.

I must hasten to thank the President, the Senate President and the Chairman of PDP with whom, at their instances, these issues have been discussed and laid to rest. My interest and commitment to Nigeria go beyond partisan politics.

Today, Nigeria needs all hands on deck to deal with our pressing problems of security including the issue of Chibok girls, widening inequality, infrastructure, impunity, corruption, poverty and youth education, skill-acquisition, empowerment and employment. These are issues of concern to most Nigerians. We all need to join hands to move Nigeria forward. I don’t need to be begged for that.

Rather, I beg and appeal to those who are begging me to realize that we must put Nigeria’s interest above politics – party or personal – otherwise, we will all be judged at the bar of history if not the bar of current affairs. In addition, we must preserve, sustain and deepen democracy and democratic practices.
Statement by former President Olusegun Obasanjo

http://www.channelstv.com/2014/10/13/full-text-obasanjos-statement-pdp-come-back-plea/#.VDvq2nHy1bM.twitter

ehispapa:
I live in kaduna for 31 years dud and i was born right there at argungu road. we have a house righ in Daura road. i originaly got admission to study at government college Kaduna in abakpa before i went to Haward international in barnawa. just a little to let you know. name one industry in kaduna now?

NOCACO (One of the biggest cable manufacturers in Nigeria), Northern Noodles Ltd. (Indomie), NNPC, Peugeot Automobile, Osaka Steel plant, Paladin Paper mill, Remaining Textile coy, just to mention a few. There are still many of them littered there.

ehispapa:
This OP is a huge joke...i was born and bred in Kaduna and school at FUT Minna. guy i live all my life in the north and thank God i left there just some few years back. Dont decieve people with random pic of a minute beautiful places of the WHOLE north and posting trash. Imagine how it will look like if some one post pics of beautiful pics of the south...when i say south i hope you know all the southern states like LAGOS, RIVERS, DELTA, AKWA IBOM, ENUGU, just to mention a few and you are post Kaduna that i am right now. A place fulll of angwas and talakawas..keep deceiving those that have not been here before. Abeg south is far more better o

Guy are you for real? Are you comparing Kaduna and Enugu in infrastructural developments? Then you have never lived in Kaduna. Kaduna is alot better than Enugu in any sense: Population, Industries, Schools, Planning, Cosmopolitan nature, Roads, Infrastructural development, size, just name it.

Same Mr Aye dee of Linda Ikeji?

RockMaxi:

I neglected this post the first time I saw the topic but carefully looking at the pictures I'm like "seriously" ?

The high tension really charred the woman. This is serious.

which kin high tension, for that naija wey lite no dey? Abegi

We live in a lawless and uncivilised country where people uses horn any how. Our driving etiquette is nothing to write home around, it is shameful to say the least.

Some people can be crazy.

Heart2heart:
olodo-plantain, u should know that even nne gi wu Ibima knows that i am refering to nigerian olx. stop typing like poo. You turned ur own olx to den of scammers and you now want to form conglomeration and Group of coy ishh. ara agbakwala gi oh. we know that you all there are scammers. big time ndi oshii. leave other countries [size=10pt][/size]out of this. we are talking of naija own wey u and ur fellow scammers have bastardized. Ode..

You are very silly, i was even trying to educate your silly ignorant head and you dare insult me. This shows how poor and pathetic your upbring is.

Heart2heart:
one of them detected here: asala1:

You are sick. I am not a broke ass like you.

Wrong title. The money is for locomotives not rail lines.

Heart2heart:
[size=15pt]people will talk, scammers and liars (olx) go follow talk. You guys are just making this girl bigger. Her popularity is so alarming within this two days. [/size]

For you ignorance, let me help you:

OLX (short for online exchange) operates local online classifieds marketplaces accessible through the internet and through native apps on mobile phones. OLX operates in 106+ local countries with offices and local operations in Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Indonesia, Portugal, Poland, Peru, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Panama, Switzerland, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Thailand, Philippines, Pakistan, Kazakhstan and others.

Originally founded in March 2006 by Internet entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda and Alec Oxenford, OLX is now owned by global media and digital company Naspers.

Is this poster for real? Google and Lindaikeji competitors? For what nah? Gossip blog? You must be kidding brother! This should be in the JOKE SECTION.

I think she is here now: http://lindaikejionline.com

For some people saying she is innocent, will a company as big as google bring down her blog without ascertaining that she is guilty of the offence she was accused of? She sure knows she is guilty, almost all the bloggers in Nigeria are guilty of plagiarism. Some people don't take it serious, some others who knows the value of their time and money does.

mainheart:
very soon Aba would take over from Lagos

But not at this rate in which Aba people are migrating to Lagos daily.

AdeniyiA:
Yes they're all have pull-him-down, PhD syndrome. so pathetic

How? are u guys justifying what she did was right? SMH. Yahoo-Yahoo should be legal then.

saxophonist:
Like seriously this woman inspired me to start blogging and now i have my website, I always wanted to be like her. for me, I think she should not worry. she should buy a domain, even if its her full name. when she does, she should let us know, and we'll be ready to support her.

You can learn to be like her but learn not to plagiarise, its a serious offence.

chrisbaba1:
[size=13pt]And the fvcking Aye dee you hail is cyber squatting on her domain name, an id.iot without honour, thats wat he is. if you are going to point fingers then ur hands should at least be clean.......... He is jealous, and also wants to rip linda off, its as simple as that[/size]

Why are you ranting? She did what was wrong, they call what she did intellectual theft and sane people take things like this seriously. The fact that I reported a thief who stole my belonging to the police does not make me a bad person. This is not about jealousy guy! Will you say Apple was jealous of Samsung when they sue them from patent infringement? And BTW, Mr Aye is a journalist.

darlingnuel:
But seriously, Google is such an a$$ company! They just take down blogs without a second thought. Wtf

Copy right infringement is a serious case, she did it to someone who don't have the Nigerian mentality and he took it up.

The truth is that she stole someone's intellectual property. Why are we talking like she is innocent?

She offended @MrAyeDee who doesn't take shit.

BlackTechnology:
Explain pls so that people like me can understand

This was an advice from Mr. Ayo Sogunro some days back

Dearest Linda Ikeji,

Re: To the Guys That Want To Take Down LIB

Permit me the indulgence of a few lines to your eminent personality. I have been a constant fan of your work, although from afar. To be honest, I rarely open your blog volitionally, never scrolled through the news items on a slow day, never typed out the address on my browser to open it; yet, like hundreds of thousands of other Nigerians—I find myself falling into your domain through the intricacies of internet sharing and their damn hyperlinks. Despite this non-conscious increment of your page views, I dare say that I have had no cause to complain about the content of LIB—I expected to find gossip and entertainment not Shakespeare, and you have never disappointed me.

So, again, I am a huge admirer of your intrepid work.

But this is not to say I have not had some mixed feelings—possibly on the verge of “beef”: as a writer who has managed to capture some viral attention on social media myself, I know how difficult it is to get to the top. Like you have rightly pointed out, you are highly ranked in the Nigerian cybersphere. And, you could say I envy—to use our recent diction—your super-megastar blog status.

Yet, this is not an automatic “hating”.

You see, I do not hold your successes against you. The fact that gossip and entertainment blogs rank higher than informative or analytical ones is hardly your fault—it’s just a simple reflection of our society’s intellectual values. More importantly, if you don’t make the money from this, someone else will, anyway. Considering your status as, I think, a single black woman, it is all the more inspiring that you are the one raking in all that cash and influence. Believe me, this is a really inspiring story—worthy of its own biopic sometime.

But on the other hand, here is the problem: we live in a world of laws and regulations, and most of your critics have come from that angle. And a lot of people cherish these legal values. In fact, some people are almost insane about the extent to which they are prepared to enforce laws. These people are passionate enough about their rights under the law to come across as your “haters”. I, for one, am willing to ignore a lot of these unreasonable laws—but not everyone one can be as patient as I am.

Now, what do I mean?

Take, for example, the other day when you published my letter criticizing that son of the Abachas: I was quite happy to see it posted on your blog even without you requesting permission. Practically the whole of Nigeria’s internet did, anyway. I didn’t mind. I am crazy like that. For people like me, we are happy to see our content shared around the world without restrictions, even where the person sharing it is making money from it. To people like me, the moral right to be acknowledged as the writer is sufficient, and we do not care much about the economic rights—which is why I will never get to buy a Range Rover.

You got the moral rights acknowledgment aspect correct in your response to these so-called haters. But, a lot of my writer friends are not haters, they are simply hard workers who would also like, very much, to buy their own Range Rovers someday; a difficult enough ambition in Nigeria, where writing is about the lowest paying job or business an African can have. Consequently, a number of my writer friends are very guarded, not just about the moral rights, but also about the economic rights of their writings.

Now, I do not necessarily agree with their position about sharing online content. This is where you and I are on the same page—afterall, we should all be grateful first to Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, who gave us this medium without copyright or licensing restrictions. But, we do not control the laws or the regulations governing copyright—and so we have to understand the point of my writer friends. These people are not “haters” and they do not want to take down your blog just to make some money. No, they are mostly writers with genuine economic copyright grievances—and that 2014 Range Rover Sport Supercharged didn’t help them to suddenly become more understanding.

Consequently, we should be able to see their perspective, considering also that Google sees their perspective.

All of these is why: first, as a publisher, you need a lawyer to help you circumnavigate the murky waters of copyright—forget the excuse that everyone else is doing it, and focus on doing it right; secondly, start some payment terms for the hungry, trekking, writers whose writing you “borrow”—you will be surprised how cooperative they can get. Thirdly, you may need an accountant too, just to balance the costs of all these economics. It’s a small price to pay to save yourself the burden of critics—and you may end up having to own, maybe, not a Range Rover. But you will rest easy from spammers, hackers, and critics who will stop at nothing to get you off the charts.

These, of course, do not mean you will not have genuine haters determined to make cyberspace a warfront for you—but for genuine haters, just like you said, you have “the backing of God”, same as the rest of us mortals. Meanwhile, get the backing of the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for all the other stuff. You’re in the big leagues now, and the legal world comes with the package.

On a personal note, I am also very keen on changing my car; My 2004 Honda Accord is so not supercharged and has become a bit of a drag with old age. A retainer with my firm would be a quietly and quite satisfactory arrangement for both of us. As a bonus: you get the services of a great writer into the bargain—particularly to help with all those pesky original content.

I look forward to your prompt response.

Yours respectfully, sincerely, faithfully, captivated and so on, etc.

Ayo Sogunro

http://ayosogunro.com/2014/10/07/re-to-the-guys-that-want-to-take-down-lib-love-letter-from-ayo-sogunro/

RIP.

It is not easy to treat ebola.

The first person to be diagnosed with Ebola within the US has died, Texas hospital officials have said.

Thomas Duncan, who caught the virus in his native Liberia, was being kept in isolation in a Dallas hospital and receiving experimental drugs.

Earlier the US announced new security procedures at entry points to check travellers for symptoms of the virus.

More than 3,000 people have died in West Africa in the worst Ebola outbreak yet.

While Mr Duncan was the first person to be diagnosed within the US, three American aid workers and a photojournalist contracted the virus in Liberia.

Ebola spreads through contact with the bodily fluids of someone who has the virus and the only way to stop an outbreak is to isolate those who are infected.

Earlier on Wednesday, US officials announced travellers from Ebola-affected countries will face increased security scrutiny at American airports.

The Department of Homeland Security has ordered agents at airports and other ports to "observe" arrivals for potential signs of Ebola infection.

The new security measures, rolled out by the Transportation Security Administration, will reportedly take effect this weekend or early next week.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-29543956

When she was been stubborn. I have been following this case for like 5 days back on twitter, she stolen @MrAyeDee intellectual property without his permission. He complained, instead of apologizing, she said he is hating. He had threatened to take the case up and report her to google, maybe this was what happened.

But the truth is that she stole someone's original work without permission. It's wrong!

Set to take off in rolling steel rods from imported billets abi? Same old story! We need to wake up seriously, we can't have a steel plant like Ajaokuta and be happy to hear everytime that it is set to roll out steel rods from imported billets.

I don't know why the NA keeps lying, he died as a hero trying to save the country Nigeria. Let the people he fought for appreciate this.

Seems I can't share the video using the embedded codes, can someone help me out?

This video footage shows some of the Boko Haram fatalities along the Bama-Konduga Road (A4) after the first assault Boko Haram carried out against the town of Konduga on September 12th, 2014.

If you observe, many of the corpses look like those of kids, some of the Civilian JTF members (the guys with guns and RPG rounds walking around) also look like they are teens.

Here's the transcript:


Narrator: "Look at the (bodies) of the useless Boko Haram."
"So far I've counted 800+"
This statement was acknowledged by another spectator from the background. He says: "this is the hand work of Nigerian soldiers."
Narrator continues: "Look at this one. A very small boy."
"Look at you," he says talking to the corpse.
"So young. You're carrying a gun. How old are u?
"Clumsy lad"
Another spectator indicates: "they have charms."
The narrator dismisses the observation, saying: "useless charms."
"Are they potent?"
He resumes addressing the bodies: "keep on ingesting drugs and you'll continue to die miserably."
This is followed by a foul curse by another spectator as indistinct conversation in a dialect (perhaps Kanuri) is heard
A spectator asks: "among them all do you think there is any responsible person?"
Some women chat, speaking in other dialect.
A spectator sights another cadaver in the undergrowth and draws attention to it.
A spectator picks up a bullet lying by the body
The abdomen of the body is covered with leaves.
And the person who picks the shell of d bullet remarks: "this one was shot. And his body was burnt."
Abrupt FADE OUT.

VIDEO:
<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.liveleak.com/ll_embed?f=0dc24fcf84d5" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Source: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c71_1412170388 https://plus.google.com/+AyeDee76/posts/ezz3hm8PnJa

With quick and coordinated action by some of its top doctors, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, appears to have contained its first Ebola outbreak, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday.

As the epidemic rages out of control in three nations only a few hundred miles away, Nigeria is the only country to have beaten back an outbreak with the potential to harm many victims in a city with vast, teeming slums.

“For those who say it’s hopeless, this is an antidote — you can control Ebola,” said Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the C.D.C.


Although officials are pleased that success was achieved in a country of 177 million that is a major transport and business hub — and whose largest city, Lagos, has 21 million people — the lessons here are not easily applicable to the countries at the epicenter: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone. Public health officials in those countries remain overwhelmed by the scale of the outbreak and are desperate for additional international assistance.

Nigeria’s outbreak grew from a single airport case, while in the three other countries the disease smoldered for months in remote rain-forest provinces and spread widely before a serious response was mounted.

Ebola, Dr. Frieden said, “won’t blow over — you have to make a rapid, intense effort.”

While the danger in Nigeria is not over, the health minister, Dr. Onyebuchi Chukwu, said in a telephone interview that his country was now better prepared, with six laboratories able to make diagnoses and response teams and isolation wards ready in every major state.

After the first patient — a dying Liberian-American — flew into Lagos on July 20, Ebola spread to 20 other people there and in a smaller city, Port Harcourt.

They have all now died or recovered, and the cure rate — 60 percent — was unusually high for an African outbreak.

Meanwhile, local health workers paid 18,500 face-to-face visits to repeatedly take the temperatures of nearly 900 people who had contact with them. The last confirmed case was detected on Aug. 31, and virtually all contacts have passed the 21-day incubation period without falling ill.

The success was in part the result of an emergency command center financed in 2012 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to fight polio. As soon as the outbreak began, it was turned into the Ebola Emergency Operations Center.

Also, the C.D.C. had 10 experts in Nigeria working on polio and H.I.V., who had already trained 100 local doctors in epidemiology; 40 of them were immediately reassigned to Ebola and oversaw the contact tracing.

The chief of the command center, Dr. Faisal Shuaib, gave credit to a coordinated effort by the Health Ministry, the C.D.C., the World Health Organization, Unicef, Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross.

Also, he noted, Nigeria has significant advantages over poorer countries where the outbreak is out of control.

It has many more doctors per capita, some educated abroad at top medical schools.

Continue reading the main storyContinue reading the main storyContinue reading the main story
It has standing teams of medical investigators, with vehicles and telephones, who normally trace outbreaks of other ills like cholera or Lassa fever.

Lagos University Teaching Hospital was able to do Ebola tests in six hours.

The hospitals where patients were isolated were equipped to do tests for electrolytes and blood proteins, both of which must be kept in balance as patients are fed orally or intravenously to replace fluids lost to diarrhea and vomiting.

And air-conditioned hospitals let people wearing protective gear work longer without overheating.

Nigeria also had some luck. Although the first patient, a businessman named Patrick Sawyer, was vomiting on his flight in, none of the roughly 200 others on the plane fell ill. Others did after helping him into a taxi to a hospital.

And a patient in Port Harcourt went to her church and became violently ill during a ceremony in which the congregation laid hands on her. But none became infected.

Dr. Sue Desmond-Hellmann, the Gates Foundation’s chief executive, said she was “heartened to see this positive result of the efforts of so many in Nigeria.”

On July 17, Mr. Sawyer defied medical advice and left a hospital in Monrovia, Liberia, where he was being held for observation after caring for his sister, who died of Ebola, although it was unclear whether he knew what she had.

Nigerian news reports said he used Liberian government contacts for permission to leave, flying to Lagos by way of Ghana and Togo. He planned to go to an economic development conference there and then fly back to Coon Rapids, Minn., for his children’s birthdays, according to media interviews with his widow.

Taken to a small private hospital after he collapsed, he denied any contact with Ebola victims and was initially treated for malaria. He died on July 25.

“That hospital had zero infection control,” Dr. Frieden said.

A nurse who helped reinsert an IV line when Mr. Sawyer was delirious and bleeding wore no gloves, had a cut on her hand and did not wash it, he said. She later died.

After malaria treatment failed, Ebola was “high on the index of suspicion,” Dr. Shuaib said.

He learned about Mr. Sawyer’s diagnosis as he sat chatting in his office with a colleague.

“I thought: ‘Oh, my God, not Nigeria. Not Lagos.’ I knew the potential for it to spread in a densely populated place.”

Even though the emergency center swung into action quickly and aggressive contact tracing was possible because Nigeria’s Port Health Services obtained records of Mr. Sawyer’s travel, there were still problems.

It took 14 days, Dr. Frieden said, for the first isolation ward to open in a former tuberculosis ward.

“Health workers initially wouldn’t go in,” he said. “They were afraid. We ultimately trained 1,800 staff.”

Wards were reconfigured to add space between beds, put in washing stations with chlorinated water and create rooms where doctors and nurses could carefully don and remove protective gear. The worked in teams of two so they could watch each other and prevent mistakes.

Also, according to a C.D.C. study released Tuesday in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, inaccurate news media reports before the government began offering official information “created a nationwide scare.”

Sales of false cures, including “Blessed Salt,” shot up, and two Nigerians died of drinking large amounts of saltwater.

But Dr. Shuaib emphasized that even terrified Nigerians did not deny the virus’s existence or attack health workers, as happened in the other countries. “No conspiracy theories entered the debate,” he said.

Nigeria’s success shows how important preparation is, said Dr. Frieden, adding, “Some countries that could well be the next Lagos still don’t have a clue about how to deal with this.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/01/health/ebola-outbreak-in-nigeria-appears-to-be-over.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0