₦airaland Forum

Daukuro paid $2.5m ransom to secure wife’s release — MEND
Written by EMMA amaize
Sunday, 08 February 2009
*It's not true—Amanyanabo

Warri—MOVEMENT for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta claimed yesterday that former minister of state for energy, King Edmund Daukuro, Mingi XII, the Amanyanabo of Nembe Kingdom, paid 2.5 million dollars in cash to the ransom-demanding hostage takers who abducted his wife, Mrs. Gladys Daukuro, to stop them from raping her.


Mrs. Daukuro was released on Friday, three days after her kidnap, last Tuesday, by six armed men at Agudama Street in the D line area of Port Harcourt, Rivers State shortly after the commissioning of her new restaurant and taken to an unknown destination.

Sunday Vanguard could not confirm the payment of the ransom from the family, yesterday. Spokesman of the MEND, Jomo Gbomo, in a press statement, said, “MEND can confirm that the former minister of state for energy, Edmund Dakouru, paid the sum of $2.5million (US Dollars) in cash to the kidnappers of his wife after they threatened to gang-rape her every day.

The security agencies were kept out of the negotiations as the family, like many in the Niger Delta, have lost faith in them”.

But the palace of the Amanyanabo denied last night that any ransom was paid for the release of Mrs. Daukuro. It recalled that the same MEND had vowed not to interfere in the matter, wondering why it was now talking about ransom. “The palace will not stoop so low to pay any ransom.

In any case, it is a sacrilege in Ijaw land for anyone to abduct the king’s wife”, sources told Sunday Vanguard

This not only common to yoruba people only.

@ osisi, your tribe is the one most guilty of this. I have been with a lot of igbo people and they just go on speaking their language not minding that someone is among them who doesnt understand a word. They go as far as doing this even in the office. Its can be terrible.
So osisi before you remoce the speck in another's eye please remove the log in yours first. Thanks

http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/28322/42/

Kidnap of expatriates spreads to S-West
Written by Leke Adeseri
Monday, 09 February 2009
*Portuguese abducted in Ondo Stat

AKURE—THE ill wind of kidnappings and abductions that has dealt a big blow to the nation’s oil industry and stigmatised the Niger Delta region seems to be blowing westwards as gunmen numbering about 50, last weekend, invaded the site of a construction company and kidnapped a Portuguese national, Mr. Luis Jose Rentad, in Irele, Ondo State.

Mr. Rentad was with a construction firm, Picolo Construction Company operating in Ajagba in Irele council area of Ondo State. This will be the first time an expatriate will be abducted in the South-West.

Vanguard learnt that the armed youths reportedly invaded the area in five speed boats, abducted Rentad, an engineer, and sped away into the creeks without leaving any message.

Reports by workers who witnessed the invasion said the militants were armed to the teeth with sophisticated weapons.

The engineer and others were working on a new road to link Irele town to Ese-Odo and Ilaje local government area when the incident happened.

As a result, fear has gripped other expatriates working across the state but reports have it that security operatives in the state have swung into action, after a security meeting called by the governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu.

The Ondo State Police Command confirmed the kidnap, but assured that the expatriate would soon regain his freedom.

According to the Police image maker, Adeniran Aremu, “we are working round the clock to secure the release of the expatriate.”

Aremu added that the Command is making frantic efforts in conjunction with the chairman of Irele council, Chief Albert Akintoye, to ensure that Rentad is released by the abductors.

He assured other expatriates working in the state of their safety, noting that security efforts in the state have been redoubled to prevent a recurrence in any part of the state.

Sources at Picolo Construction said the kidnappers demanded a certain amount as ransom before the expatriate could be released, but declined to specify the ransom demanded.

Only last week in Port Harcourt, gunmen kidnapped the wife of former OPEC president and traditional ruler of Nembe kingdom, Dr Edmund Daukoru, as well as a commissioner in charge of works at the Rivers State Independent Electoral Commission. Mrs Daukoru has since been released.

It would be recalled that last year some militant youths invaded the same Irele council area. They sacked the police station before carting away the ammunition in the station’s armoury.

http://www.vanguardngr.com/content/view/28271/90/

Tears For My Country
Written by Les Leba
Monday, 09 February 2009
The Nigerian media last week widely reported the comment made by Senator Russ Feingold, Chairman of the U.S. Subcommittee on Africa that Nigeria was a failed state with hardly any forceful response to avert the consequences of the global recession.
Senator Feingold’s observation may not have cut so deep if we were in a despotic or dictatorial dispensation as a nation.

The citizens of totalitarian regimes may be charitably labeled as victims and consequently excused from the plethora of the sins of their oppressors who invariably exercise power with the barrel of the gun rather than by the popularly expressed will of the people; the handful of citizens who dare to make, even, constructive criticisms of government policies do so from exile or at great risk to their lives.

But, here we are in a supposedly full-blown democracy, that should provide fertile ground for free speech, freer markets, efficient resource allocation, rapid development and improved welfare enhancement of our people, and yet, our nation has only succeeded in earning the ignominious tag of a ‘failed state’, in spite of our enviable natural endowments and vast markets!

Why, we may ask, do the salutary dividends of democracy continue to elude us? True, we share the same democratic structures with the most successful countries in the world; yet, the results of our efforts continue to fail to lift us from the rungs of the world’s poorest nations.

In other words, if the system is not to blame, then the problem must be with the people who operate the system, particularly the political leadership. Even if foreign observers adjudge our elections as free and fair, Nigerians are not fooled by the motivation of the quality of people who aspire for political office and consequently pilot our destiny.

While, for example, political aspiration in successful economies are critically driven by the need to serve or the zeal to make things better for the majority, if not all, Nigerian politicians, on the other hand, see politics as business and they make no secret about this.

We recall a Senate President in the recent past, who brazenly declared that politicians spend a lot of their resources, and may even borrow or sell property to seek political relevance, so they should not be blamed if they sought to recoup their investment!

Incidentally, even though the Senate President who made this observation was forced to step down, regrettably, the reason for his ouster had nothing to do with his views on politics as a business investment in Nigeria.

It would be an oddity as things stand, to find a political office holder, either from the Federal Executive or the Legislature whose fortunes have remained static after a year or so in office!

This is an admission that financial discipline cannot be a popular credo in government, and such best practices would run counter to the aspiration of virtually all who hold office, either as a result of individual election victory or political patronage!

Nigerians are sickened and frustrated every morning as they are assaulted with blazing media reports of both minor and aggravated frauds perpetuated individually or in concert by holders of public office, either in the Executive or Legislative arms of government!

For example, a cursory glance at a few newspapers on Friday, 6/2/09 reveal a cesspool of corruption and deceit that would present formidable obstacles to any attempt to redeem the lot of our people from poverty; the Punch Newspaper edition of that day carries a front page lead story on tension in the House of Reps “over a series of unresolved financial matters, including the N1.4bn which members allegedly spent on Christmas and Sallah festivals in 2008”.

The Punch report continues ”…Each of the 360 lawmakers in the House was given N4m (N2m for each of the festivals), which was later deducted from their entitlements. However, the Lawmakers disagreed with the House leadership, claiming they had thought that the money was a gift”.

The question that begs to be answered is, how much is the official salary and other allowances for the Senators for them to feel that N4m of the people’s money can be given to each one of them as gift? Besides, who has the power, apart from the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Allocation committee (RMAFC) to determine Legislators’ remuneration?

The protest against deduction of N4m from allowances must be an indication that such gifts had been enjoyed in previous years, without any subsequent deductions!

In the same Punch story under reference, the Chairman of the House Committee on Media and Public Affairs also made mention of outstanding reports on the floor of the House; these reports include the power probe, which investigated the expenditure of trillions of naira on elusive power projects in the country; the investigative report on the probe of non-remittance of over N3 trillion revenue by government agencies and parastatals between 1999-2008!

Nigerians may not hold their breaths for the outcome of these reports as several such investigations have failed to punish or expose those public officers who dipped their hands into public treasury for self aggrandizement; in any case, the leadership of the House is yet to clear the odium of the N2.3bn car scandal blown open by a notable legal activist.

The Punch Newspapers editorial of the same date refers to bickering at RMAFC, the commission that is supposed to be “actively involved in diversifying the nation’s revenue base and prudently allocating the resources in line with the mood of the nation”.

In December last year, 25 of the 37 Commissioners of the RMAFC had petitioned Secretary to the Government on the unconstitutional and undemocratic style of the Chairman of the Committee.

The Chairman, Mallam Tukur, on the other hand, countered that the real grouse of the Commissioners was his insistence that they collect a monitoring allowance of N32,000 instead of the N400,000, which they had illegally collected, and his invitation for the EFCC to step in and recover the excesses from the Commissioners.

With such bickering relating to self aggrandisement, the decisions of this committee with regard to accountability and public welfare may be suspect.

In the same editorial, the Punch noted that escalating cost of running government has left little or nothing for development projects because of the bloated allowances to public office holders.

The editorial went on to claim that “In a nation blighted by unemployment and poverty, it is widely speculated that a Senator and his House of Reps counterpart earn up to N10 million and N7m respectively in a month as salaries and allowances.

It is no surprise that, in spite of the obvious, development need for recurrent appropriations in the nation’s budgets may never fall below 65%, and our hopes for infrastructural development will continue to be a mirage!

Again, in the Business page of the Punch, under the title “26 Jostle for PPPRA Top Job”, the related story confirms that Dr. Oluwole Oluleye, the Executive Secretary, would not be returned to the position. “Oluleye was suspended in October 2008 over the alleged disappearance of N64 billion from the Petroleum Support Fund!

In the same vein, in the Abuja News page of the Daily Independent (page A4), the report noted that a Non-Governmental Organisation by the name of ‘Banking Ethics Organisation of Nigeria’ has petitioned the National Assembly, accusing the management of the Central bank (CBN) and that of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) “of making the country lose about $125bn or N14.625 trillion revenue in the last five years!

The Group’s petition, which has been referred to the Justice Committee, claimed that the two organizations in their transactions caused great loss to the country, when money moves from NNPC to CBN! The Group lamented that in spite of the financial meltdown all over the world, yet, we are throwing money away; this is an irony”.

The above is a selection of fraud-related incidents in our body polity from just two newspapers in one day. The question as to whether these investigations will be resolved fairly and squarely in the interest of the people is another issue, but from the antecedents of our political and executive elite who hold public offices, we may expect that if any opportunity provides itself for further self-enrichment, the reports may never see the light of day, and if they do, they will be couched in such language that no one will be found guilty and punished severely as deterrent to other would be looters of public treasury.

Maybe only a handful of Nigerians truly recognize that abundant mineral resource endowment in a country may not bring much relief to the poor without a well-articulated and sincere monetary and fiscal policy.

My heart bleeds at the wholesale deceit on which our monetary policies are founded.

There is nothing more fraudulent than consciously killing over 140 million hapless Nigerians slowly with monetary policies, which are designed to increase the wealth of just a few Nigerians and their partners in the banking sector, while the rest of us are promised paradise in 2020.

How else do you explain a system that ensures we borrow our own moneys back from the same banks where they have been deliberately placed by the same people who instruct us on this path of perdition, or how can we say we still have dollar reserves when the naira fraudulently and unconstitutionally substituted for dollar allocations have been spent by the recipients?

It is a classic case of eating your cake and having it; indeed, the way our monetary policy is structured, we may be able to recycle the same dollars many times over in naira, but at great peril to all that is good for the economy.

In other words, high interest rates, comatose industrial landscape, increasing unemployment, insecurity in the land; these are all the offshoots of the deliberate arrangement which ensures that rising or indeed, falling dollar revenue will mean the same thing; i.e., increasing poverty for our people, while the makers of our monetary and fiscal policy and their friends in the banks have the last laugh and clink their champagne glasses in celebration with members of the Legislature and Executive, who provide them with the same cover associated with godfathers!

Meanwhile, even the CBN Governor has indicated at a recent seminar that we should not expect interest rates to fall to single digit, even when other serious economies are pulling down their Central Bank rates to all time lows below 2% so as to stimulate industrial activities and arrest the recession! My people, we are in bondage!

SAVE THE NAIRA, SAVE NIGERIANS

What a funny post. im glad u al lke it.


I am d MD of 3D technologyes.
We do a lot of elecronic works and i seriously need your patronage right now.
We do GPS programming and have done nigeria map on gps though it is not finish yet though.
Please buy our products.

I finished with first class in university and have been abroad for masters.
Please brothers and sisters help me out.
i need to eat

Returnee Nigerians with experience in Europe/America wanted for the following jobs:

1. Bus drivers with BRT- experience needed, you must have driven London Buses previously

2. Guards in Shoprite, Grand Square, Park 'n' shop in both Abuja/Lagos - experience of manning gates in America/Europe a must

3. Railway attendants on the new Lagos/Abuja metro railway system - experience of cleaning trains and tubes at Waterloo London, a must.

4. Cleaning the streets of Abuja/Lagos - experience of cleaning streets in America/Europe wanted.

5. New age cab drivers, newly introduced in Lagos -experience of cabbing in America/Europe a must.

I am congratulating him for making a decent toy!! and not with 4 bottle crowns and St. Louis empty box like we all do.

http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/index.php/content/view/11415/55

Nigeria’s Image Problem
Written by Nneka Emehelu
Friday, 06 February 2009

I have been living and working in the United Kingdom for over six years now, I have always been proud of my Nationality until recently, A friend of mine asked me to help her search for a job using my internet facility, I invited her over to my flat, so I could help her fill out the online application. When we got to the monitoring form part, a form that is used according to employment policy to monitor equal opportunity, the form is to help check that people from the same Nationality, Race, Religion, Sexuality, Ethnicity among other criteria gets fair opportunity and equal treatment. On this organisation monitoring form, they had, Nigeria listed, Nigeria was the only nation that was actually listed, usually, the format is African, British, Black British, among others, but in this case they had Nigerian and a column for applicants to tick if they are from there.

I was going to tick it but my friend quickly nudged me, she screamed out no! When I asked her the reason for her refusal to tick the column she quickly lectured me on how that may limit her chances, and the fact that they listed Nigeria separately may mean they have had enough of us, I told her to be positive and see it the other way, that they could be looking for a Nigeria to fill up the position, the half full cup rather than half empty cup mentality. She declined my suggestion, saying she will only waste her time, then I asked her what nationality she wants to tick, she said Black British, I quickly reminded her that she would need to show her Passport on the interview date, if she gets short listed. She said it doesn’t matter as she would have made it to the interview and had the opportunity to prove herself.

Long story short, she got short listed went for the interview, said it was going well until she revealed her ID at the end of the interview, the people photo copied her ID and before she got home, they had emailed her to say how sorry they were, and that she has not been successful, she wept on my shoulders inconsolably, she tried to convince me that she did not get the job because of her Nationality, she went on to tell me, how they had actually asked her when she will be available to resume, and how they confirmed that they had the right contacts for her references. I told her employees usually do that in spite of whether they will take you or not, they check all that details as that is part of the whole interview process, she insisted that they were friendly until she produced her Nigerian Passport, she said she noticed a sudden coldness, their smiles faded, and they quickly shook hands to bid her goodbye and then to fulfil all interview rules, they reluctantly copied her ID.

I explained to her that all that cry and wasted journey and time to attend the interview would have been avoided if she had taken my advice in the first place and stated her real ID in the application form. She insisted that she took the right decision; I gave in to avoid further argument. It then dawned on me that she is another smart Nigerian. If you are shopping on EBay, an online shop, some of the traders that enlist there products will have a notice that they will ship there items to any part of the world except Nigeria, others advised Nigerian fraudsters not to contact them, Western Union will do on line money transfer to any nation except Nigeria, you have to go into any of there branch or agents to transfer money to Nigeria. Absurd! When I inquired why, I was told smart Nigerians has shown them there true colours, another embarrassing one is when you are buying air line ticket to Nigeria with credit or debit card, some will give you the option of presenting the card at the airport, others will suggest you come into their office to authorise the transaction, there are others that will insist they can only take cash or bank transfer from Nigerian Passengers, Again I tried to find out why, I was told that Some Nigerians are in the full time business of stealing other peoples credit card details and using them to purchase tickets for either themselves or their acquaintances.

I remember, going on lunch break with a colleague, we met another colleague who works in a different department, she came and joined us at our table, while we were eating slowly, we delved into a conversation about holiday and were one intends to go, I told them I will be going to my country, I described my country as sunny, hot and lovely, the other colleague from a different department asked me where am from originally, I told her Nigeria, she literally choked on her food, I asked her why, she said she had always had the impression that am from the Caribbean, then she looked at me quizzically and asked me if am serious, I got upset at that question but maintained my calmness, I quickly asked what she meant by that, then she told of how she was conned by certain Nigerians who said they were having difficulty opening a bank account and how they have been working for someone who has promised them to pay them in arrears if they will produce an account, she said she had pity for them as she could identify with their predicament since she is from a black minority ethnic group, she said, she gave them her account details, and the next day, a huge sum of money was paid into her account, She quickly rang them but suggested to them that they should give her four days for the check to clear.

The money became available on the fourth day, she went into the branch and withdrew some of the money for them, but because it will take her up to six working days to withdraw the whole money, she suggested that they can use her card and draw the money themselves from ATM machine, she gave them her pin number and wisely moved her balance to another account. Two weeks she had not heard from them, then she tried calling them, the number had suddenly ceased to exist, she decided to pay them a visit, they had moved, she went into her bank branch to order for a new card, her bank told her that a letter had been sent out to her inviting her to a court, and how she has been paying in dud checks and cashing them, and that she also took an overdraft of £1,000.00 pounds. She eventually went to court. Long story short, she paid back the sum of £11,000.00 pounds to the bank. I empathised with her and tried to tell her that, that shouldn’t make her hate all Nigerians but before I could finish my statement she got up and walked out without finishing her lunch or saying goodbye. I felt so embarrassed for the sins committed by others who are so much in a hurry to get rich to prove a point to their mates and family back home that they are doing well.

What Nigerians in Diaspora who prey other people’s pocket are doing is far from doing well, they are doing damage to what ever is left of our nation reputation, they are damaging the image of our people and it will take years to regain our good name. We need to start now, to save the face of our future generation. Those in Nigeria can help by not expecting too much from there relatives in Diaspora, their expectation puts these people under pressure to under take all sorts of evil tasks to prove their worth. The government should provide jobs; make the economy vibrant for Nigerians to survive. They should seek means to eradicate poverty and rid the nation of corruption which is actually the main cause of this problem. Leaders should be made accountable. Offenders should be severely punished. Educative messages and adverts should be used to disabuse people’s mind of this get rich quick syndrome. A. These 419 guys should be tracked down and brought to book. This is the only way forward. If nothing is done now, we will all be treated as criminals if we identify ourselves as Nigerians any way!!!

Nneka Emehelu writes from London



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children - daddy , its raining - the roof is leaking, the generator has packed up again, the borehole pump is bad . . .

daddy - abeg don't disturb me - i still have plenty of unspent money in my savings account - i am doing well

Igbo gurls are becoming more realistic and have more value for other people
I think Yoruba girls are becoming more diplomatic, money conscious and unmarriable!!!
Most Yoruba girls dont believe in the institution of marriage as such
The era of SURULEREare gone for them
They are now looking for OLORUNSOGO.