₦airaland Forum

^^^^ There is nobody in Sambisa . Sambisa has become the invisible forest of their propaganda.

titoetal: well, whatever they agreed on, I want to see states retaining more from the derivation from their area. This will make states with dormant minerals seek way to develop them. Agriculture, tourism and many other areas of generating income will be explored.
I've been and wish to remain an advocate of one Nigeria where justice and peace prevail but some people are trying to be smarter.
What is the sense of proposing 5% for North East, West and Central. That's to say the 5% Increase to ND must be given to them too. What of SE and SW?
My dear, let's keep praying for peace in this nation cos some people are bent on destroying it.

God Bless Nigeria.

There will be peace, because the north and their passive supporters understand change has come to Nigeria. I want all zones to grow, just as they allow states and regions enjoy the benefits of their God given resource. I am not even against the 5%, but it must cover the whole country. They tried to pull one over the heads of the delegates and have been stopped dead on their tracks.

titoetal: If the status quo must remain, then govt. must as a matter of urgency start the mining of solid minerals and other resources in the North. Even if there's no market for them yet, they should be kept in a volt.
The rate of the control should be 50% and not 18% before the oil dries up. If it's possible let's stop all oil exploration for now and develop our economy with other resources.
No one is sure if tomorrow the oil dries, the North might move for a full resource control.
There were stories in the past when the North wanted a separate state but the colonial masters advised them to ignore that idea so that they can use the resources in the South to develop their region.

Infact, there's more to what is playing out.

God deliver us from wickedness.

50% is not possible at this time. A gradual projection has been penned down in the resolution. I think is every 10 years. This gives Nigeria and other states a timeline to develop other tax generating ventures.

EmeeNaka: i dont really care about what you have to say if they are unreasonable. Fact is,Niger delta will never suceed in their quest for resource control.

Day late and a kobo short. As usual your kind are inconsequential to what happens in Nigeria. Sit and watch.

[s]

Ferdinandu: Everyone's eyes and ears in this Country has been painted and stuffed black with oil that nobody can see or make any useful contribution. Nobody has asked how far the already existing 13% has gone in developing the region. If the already existing 13% has been judiciously used these past 15yrs nobody will be complaining that the quota is not enough. If Niger Delta will continue to have Leaders like Ibori, Peter Odili and Co then 100% derivation and even the whole of Saudi Arabia oil combined together can never develop that region. 13% judiciously used will put a very wide margin of development between the Niger Delta and the rest of the country in 15yrs time, the rest should be distributed to other regions else those guys should start talking about how to go the way of USSR in this Country . Why should anyone ask for more if not to have more stolen money to buy uninhabited Castles and mansions in Europe and America and stashing the remainder in banks over there.

[/s]

EmeeNaka: The politicians from south south are using the issues of derivation to loot money and keep the eyes of their subjects away from them. If the 13percent derivation has been used judiciously, the South south will not have people that sstill suffers.

Those of you keeping the 87% are worse off, than the Niger deltan. You have to start growing a brain mister.

change has come to Nigeria, this reality is slowly dawning on northerners.

The Northern Delegates’ Forum at the National Conference has said the proposals by the Committee on Devolution of Power on the ownership and control of Nigeria’s mineral resources may split the country.

The forum said it was opposed to some of the proposals to protect the unity of the country.

The conference had witnessed rowdy sessions due to deep divisions among delegates on some proposals by the committee.

The rowdy session at the conference on Thursday had forced the chairman, Justice Idris Kutigi, to adjourn plenary abruptly till Monday.

Speaking to our correspondent on Friday in an interview, a former National Publicity Secretary for the Arewa Consultative Forum and spokesperson for the forum, Mr. Anthony Sani, stated that the deep divisions between the northern and southern delegates on resource control were based on their opposing views on how best to govern Nigeria.

The NDF’s spokesperson said, “The North believes resource control or ownership by constituent parts of the country would make the centre weak and tilt the country towards a confederal arrangement — a harbinger for split.

“The South is not bothered by such a notion, preferring, instead, that the federating units be allowed to develop at their own pace without minding whether some sections live on the cutting edge, while others live on the knife edge of survival.

“That is to say, it does not matter to such school of thought if Nigerians live as if they are on different continents.”

According to Sani, while the northern delegates believe in the concept of nationhood, where the people who were brought together to be one nation should be enabled to synergise and unleash their potential to promote balanced development, “the southern delegates think differently.”

Sani stated, “Any recommendations which hype the gap of incomes among constituent parts of the country is not good politics or good economics. This is because the nation is strong only with balanced development. Wide disparity in incomes among groups and among individuals is counter-productive.”

He stated that the stance of their southern counterparts on some of the proposals had shown that there might be a hidden agenda against the North.

The forum’s spokesperson said, “It is not correct to submit that the North is more firm on resource control than any other issue. The loud voice about resource control is not from the North but the South.

“The North never came to this conference with an agenda. This is precisely because the region did not consider the problems of Nigeria to be in the structure, form of government or in the Constitution but in the failure of leadership at all levels due largely to the collapse of national ideals, moral values, as well as in the way we do things.”

A delegate representing the South-West geopolitical zone at the confab, Mr. Yinka Odumakin, however, said resource control would not break up the country. According to him, “unity is not uniformity.”

“We reject that argument. Let everybody move at their pace. Let nobody holdsanybody down. Their idea of nationhood is what will lead to a break-up because there is a limit to which people can wait for their destiny to be held down,” Odumakin stated.

Odumakin, a member of the confab Committee on Government Restructuring and Forms of Government, accused the North of slowing down the progress of the country, saying that it was time to release the creative energy of every section of the country.

He said, “The argument (that the regions will not develop evenly) is so porous. The sections of the country cannot develop at the same pace. In fact, what they (North) have done over the years when they had power was to drag back sections that were moving ahead; to hold everybody down so that nobody would develop.

“They are not ready for development, yet they are holding everybody down and they have put the country in a bind over the years. If I cannot do this, you cannot do it; that is the cause of backwardness and that is why the country has remained in a mess.”

Odumakin, who is also the spokesperson for the Yoruba socio-political group, Afenifere, argued that if the late Chief Obafemi Awolowo had relied on the North, he would not have been able to achieve great feats in the defunct Western Region.

“Over the years, all these feats were reversed that today, you may not be able to distinguish between the region and the rest of Nigeria. That is what they want; equalisation of underdevelopment and backwardness,” he added.

Also speaking, an Anambra State delegate to the confab, Prof. A. B. C Nwosu, faulted the argument of the northern delegates on resource control. He stated that there was nowhere in the world where all the sections of the society develop at equal pace.

He urged the North to place justice and fairness above other sentiments on the issue.

“Any society that is not built on justice cannot stand. What they are asking for is not justice at all; it is not fair,” Nwosu stated.

He said communities where certain mineral resources are explored must derive benefits from the exploration.

He stated that, “It is not appreciating this fact that is leading to all kinds of funny arguments.”

Nwosu, who is also a member of the Devolution of Power Committee, said the problem started when the confab proposed an intervention fund for the North-East, which is mostly affected by Boko Haram insurgency.

A member of the Consensus Group at the comfab, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari, had on Wednesday said the group had agreed that the oil producing states be given not less than 18 per cent derivation.

Gambari said the group had also agreed that a new fund to be established — the Fund for Stabilisation, Rehabilitation and Reconstruction — which he put at five per cent of the Federal Allocation, would be out for principally the North-East, North-West and the North-Central.

But a majority of the delegates, including members of the Gambari group, had faulted the report and rejected it.

However, Nwosu said, “The unreasonable thing that stopped this is that the North wants it to include the North-East, the North-West and the North-Central. That is the ultimate in being unreasonable. What of those of us in the South-East? What of Biafra? What of what happened to us in the North? The professor asked.

He further asked why all the regions were concentrating on oil, when other valuable resources were being carted away by foreigners without proper taxation.

Nwosu said, “As I speak to you, they are taking away gold, barite and other resources from Nasarawa, Zamfara and other states. This is worth billions, according to NEITI, which cannot be wrong.

“No royalties are being paid but why is it that nobody is complaining about this. The Chinese and the Lebanese are carting away our gold, barite and precious metals and we are not getting royalty. But we are fixed on oil.”

He added that the proposed 18 per cent derivation and five per cent for mineral development was “right and just.”

In her submission, another member of the Devolution of Power Committee and Niger Delta activist, Annkio Briggs, said she was surprised by the position of the northern delegates.

She said, “I am not speaking for the South-South at the confab, I am speaking for the people in the Niger Delta that have not had electricity for over 50 years of exploring and exploiting oil and gas in the area.

“We have lacked and wanted it because our resources have been used to develop Nigeria, excluding us; when Abuja is having eight-lane roads being constructed day and night. Abuja may be the capital of Nigeria; it is in the northern part of Nigeria.”

She decried that a second runway had been approved for the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja, while the airport in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, which had existed before the creation of Abuja, had not been built to international standards.

Briggs said, “That resource control may lead to the splitting of Nigeria is the most selfish thing I have heard since we have been discussing the issue of derivation. This is the most unreasonable and selfish reason.

“Are they saying that we should not develop until the rest of Nigeria develops along with us? The reason why everybody is thoughtful about what we are talking about at the conference today is very clear that everybody cannot develop at the same pace. There are people who want to go to school and there are those who don’t want to.”

The inability of the delegates to agree on the percentage of derivation to be paid to the oil-producing states had forced the confab to adjourn before time on Tuesday.

The conference adjourned at 12.58pm instead of the usual 3.30pm that the delegates had agreed to since the commencement of the Ramadan.

While some of the delegates, especially those from the South-South, were clamouring for increase in the 13 per cent derivation currently being paid to the zone, others, especially those from the North, said the status quo must be maintained.


http://www.punchng.com/news/resource-control-may-split-nigeria-northern-delegates

oduastates: Then you never knew the warri of old.the place to be and be seen in the SS.

Shut the hell up and close your mouth forever. Please tell me about the old Warri. So sick of you yorubas with rubbish lies

oduastates: I am not saying that river state is not suffering from some of the same problems,however you cannot tell me that amarchi is not hitting the right notes in any areas.
As at 1994 ,river barely edged delta .that was because of the presence of shell base.Now,delta cannot stand near port harcourt at all .
In fact ,in the last 5 years ,that gap has been expanding exponentially.
These things do not happen in a vacuum .

Don't be a bloody liar here. There was never a time, in last 30 yrs delta state was close to Rivers, when it came to economic development.

oduastates: Your cry is as ridiculous as the cry of northern governors blaming the federal government for lack of education and the rise of Boko haram.
I see a place as ghettorized as all the ghettoes around the country.
The question is ,
Why does remain it like that in spite of all the money flowing/circulating in the region?
Why do so many of SS citizens have to migrate for opportunities when they have all the resources to make their home ,some of the most beautiful and economically buoyant in the world?
We can all see with our own eyes how far The little akpabio decided not steal can go ,even if most of those projects are white elephants with little or no economic value to the people?
Why can't bayelsa ,akwa ibom ,delta attract investment the way river state is shadowing Lagos ?

The reason :
Just imagine for a minute that the black crude were not in the river .
What do you see?
Is it not the same poverty?

It is not the oil pollution that is the problem ,
The problem are SS leaders whom I rank the second most heartless in that country.
Like I have always said,the violence /insecurity/lack in Nigeria is a measure of the corruption ,lack of rule in that region.
All the bunkering money is flowing in that region.
Osun state feeds 300,000 children daily.the state is not an educationally disadvantaged state by any measure.Do you see a disadvantaged state like bayelsa ,zamfara ,yobe ,nassarawa doing anything close to that?
Ok if they are not spendingoney on teacher's salary,building/maintaining schools ,distributing textbooks etc,then what are they spending money on?
Even with the presidency,the south south is not attracting game changing investment .Rather ,apart from rivers state ,they are moving out to be replaced by vermins aka corrupt Nigerian businessmen and politicians.

What a delusionist, you are

EmeeNaka: what you said is true. The most corrupt leaders in Nigeria must be from Niger delta though GEJ is an exception. That Niger delta is filled with heavy and eternal criminals.

See this moronic ediotard, please name your place, so I can list 10 heavy criminals than anyone found in the Niger delta.

mars123: anwer the question?come on...give me some credit.

if you say so

mars123: I know your type...what you just wrote is all you're capable of writing,nothing more,nothing less!

You should have answered the simple question.

mars123: I don't know which part of the country you're from but its a clear fact wherever you're from lack good roads,infrastructure,good schools...you want to criminalise an insult to the president eh?let me teach you something,your country is the richest country on the continent with human and natural resources,which is a blessing to the black race...but everyone in Nigeria suffer from those problems I listed above...its enough reason to loose your mind if you've actually gone to poorer countries that are doing better...that been said,whoever leads the country and is still unable to use these resources we possess for the benefits of the citizens deserves to be castigated.I want you to think of Nigeria as a country with smart people and not a large community of fools just because the foolish ones are leading us.

Ask yourself, between you and the leadership, who is really the foolish one

Some people think Nigeria and Nigerians give a crap about them and what they think. They are sadly mistaken. Sowore should punch his card and take a number with the other Jonathan haters. The man no get una time.

I still support the confab delisting LGs from the constitution. They are nothing but a wasteland of political idleness.

Omoyele Sowore is the publisher of New York-based Sahara Reporters, known for its hard-hitting reporting that is keeping Nigeria’s government officias, individuals and corporations on their toes.
Recently, Mr. Sowore suddenly walked into our newsroom in Abuja. Our reporters sat down with him for an interview during which he spoke about his work and the political cum economic situation in his country.
=============
PT: We are glad to have you here, we will just be asking you a few questions. Now just tell us briefly how Sahara Reporters operate?
Sowore: Well, I started off first as a news website about 7 years ago basically collecting information from citizens, processing them and publishing them and distributing them through our media platforms across the globe. In the last three years, it has escalated and upgraded to become a complete multimedia outlet that has an online TV and now an online radio platform and of course the important thing to mention is that it is surrounded by Internet users.

PT: Now, 7 years down the line, will you say you have achieved the original vision. How far have you come?
Sowore: To be fair to myself and everybody who has worked with me on this platform, in my estimation I have far exceeded my expectations of these platforms. I just wanted to set up a website that I could use in communicating with Nigerians, Africans and the rest of the world about happenings in sub-saharan Africa and doing so from the safety of the United States of America. I was expecting on an average, on a daily basis, of 200 or 300 people reading us and feeding back to us in giving informations but after 7 years, it’s gone way beyond that expectation. But in terms of the fulfilment of the mission, yes the site has covered a good distance but I think there’s still a few more to be done.

OMOYELE SOWORE
PT: You publish very damning reports, how are you able to ensure your safety and that of your colleagues?
Sowore: Our first mission is to make information available to people in a way they can use as they want. That mission has been fulfilled. The second aspect of our mission is to speak truth to power. And the third aspect of it, in some cases and in most cases, is to damn the consequences for as long as the people who need to benefit from it get it, they can use it. They can take it to run and that can help them redefine their power because in a lot of ways I think for a lot of people, I think the kind of information we provide and the way we provide them is their only way of fighting back the myriad of problems they are confronted with by government.
The last part of your question is about safety. Our mission is also to help ensure that citizens can turn the trajectory of fear against oppression, that people should no longer be afraid of people who are doing evil or who are stealing their commonwealth, people who are robbing them, people who are denying them their fundamental future, they should be the ones that should be afraid and that would mean by saying we are turning around the trajectory of fear.
As for how we feel safe or unsafe, I think somebody has to do what we do and when you do it, it’s not hard to understand that they come with consequences. It’s a very dangerous job as you know. All over the world, the business of telling the truth always come with consequences and a lot of safety issues but what we’ve also not done is to put the safety pin on ourselves so we do whatever we can to stay safe. But our primary or major concern is not safety, it is the delivery of our mission.

PT: How did you just walk into Premium Times? We were in shock! How did you just get here without being arrested?
Sowore: First and foremost, I’m not a criminal and I’ve said that many times. I navigate my way through the country as much as I can so I travel as much as its permissible to help me get to where I need to get to. I won’t disclose the rest of how I got here but I’m here and that’s the most importan thing and I can pretty much go anywhere I want. I take my freedom very seriously, especially the freedom of movement.

PT: That leads us to the next question. Do you consider yourself a free Nigerian in Nigeria?
Sowore: No! And I don’t think that there are Nigerians in the majority who live in Nigeria who feel free. Part of the reasons why I take the risk that I take, if you want to call it a risk, is to share in the pain, in the difficulty, in the bondage that you can be in a country where you want and love to be but not free to. I’m not the only one who is not free in Nigeria, a lot of Nigerians are not free. As I’m speaking to you today, more than 2oo females who undertook secondary education in Borno state have been held hostage by a non-state actor like Boko Haram — just a ragtag group of militants. Those ones are not free, their parents are not free. There is a sense of siege even where you are today so freedom is relative and I’m saying that nobody can claim to be free in this country for as long as this country is in bondage and is being run as an open prison.

PT: What do you think should be done? What does Nigeria and its people need to do to make the majority of its citizens to be free?
Sowore: They have to decide to be free and that has to be psychological. I am psychologically free but I’m not physically free because I cannot move as freely as I should. And then they have to decide collectively to be physically free but that’s where there’s a lot of work because people have to take away the shackles of fear. They have to stop being afraid of those in power, they have to confront them and demand that they leave so they can be free especially those who have been holding back their freedom. And talking about freedom, you are talking about a wide range of freedom. It’s not just the freedom to move but the freedom to worship, the freedom to go to school, the freedom to give and have opportunity, the freedom to hope in a country of one’s birth.
PT: You have been very critical of successive administrations. What’s your impression of the Goodluck Jonathan administration?
Sowore: In an order of successive administrations in my lifetime I think this would be the worst in terms of delivery of services, in terms of organisation, in terms of even the style of governance, in terms of transparency, in terms of economic management and of course in terms of security. So this is the worst government in my lifetime that I have seen. You would say maybe Abacha was worse but you can understand Abacha was a military dictator. Nobody voted for him. He just hijacked power and he did whatever he wanted with it. But even within that framework as you can see, the Abacha regime is actually better than the Jonathan regime and I’m sorry to say this because you could almost feel that this country was more secure during those days. The value of the naira under Abacha’s regime was higher than the value of the naira under Jonathan regime, in fact it’s double that rate now. There were perhaps even better roads, in some cases better schools, in some cases better opportunities.

PT: So you are saying even within the framework of the Abacha regime…
SoworeCuts in) By the time you look at the entire corruption that Abacha perpetrated in his five years in power I guess, we are looking at 10billion dollars. Jonathan’s people stole at least 20 billion in less than 3 years from just sales of crude oil alone. If you add that to what the oil marketers or importers stole, which was 6.8 billion dollars, so you are looking already at 28 billion dollars stolen under Jonathan’s regime which is three times more than what Abacha stole during his regime. I’m not making this comparison saying that Nigerians deserve any of these leaders from Babangida to Abacha and the rest of them. I condemned successive administrations but it’s important to state that in clarifying my position as to which government is worse. This is my own statistical definition of how bad things have gone.

PT: But this government is building the airport road in Abuja. Did you not pass through the airport road? They also say they are creating jobs. Will you ever say anything good about the Jonathan registration?
Sowore: There is a difference between what the government says its doing and what we know the government is doing. For example, they claim to have created 1.5 million jobs and we have been asking for the last two months for them to provide us the sector of the economy or society where those jobs were created and nobody can give us answers. If the U.S says they have 240,000 jobs, they can tell you how many of them were from the hospitality business, academics, road construction. All of the sectors that we count, nobody can provide those sectors for you. The airport road you are talking about was awarded under Yar’adua so it’s not Jonathan that awarded the airport road that you are talking about. It’s possible that he attempted to construct such roads but none of those roads I see today exist to my understanding. They said a few months ago that they had turned around the power sector by privatising the power sector. As we speak today, you and I know that they have only invested more money in buying more darkness for the Nigerian people.

PT: The government also says it’s rebuilding the airports….
Sowore: Which airport did he build? Is it the leaking airport in Lagos where the materials that were bought were fake? And they are falling apart already. That one you can verify. You are a journalist and I don’t need to tell you these things. Theirs is a tokenistic government and governance of mediocrity that is wrapped up in propaganda. That’s not the way countries are governed. You can’t govern a country with propaganda of how many airports are under construction. You actally judge a government by how many airports they are able to construct within a reasonable period of time, within a reasonable cost in terms of resources.
PT: What do you think of Boko Haram and the way the government is handling the insurgency?

Sowore: First and foremost, I think Boko Haram is a security problem. It’s just like how the Niger Delta militancy was a security problem but this security problem doesn’t mean that they can be tackled the same way. If government does its job, it decreases the amount of people that get attracted to any kind of crime. So for as long as the Nigeria police is not doing its job and is bogged down by corruption, for as long as the Nigerian army is ill-equipped and incapable of fighting any kind of war inside and outside of Nigeria, it will be difficult to make Nigeria safe. All these problems, as small as they look, can become really really big and it’s compounded by the incompetence of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Goodluck Jonathan, who doesn’t have a clue how to resolve any of these problems. That’s why every small problem in this country under his regime has escalated to become a major problem. When they were extra-judicially executing Boko Haram people, we were the ones warning them that this would become a major problem. But they were calling us names because we were asking them not to kill people. They said we were sympathetic to terrorists, NO! We were just saying that if you do things the wrong way, they will haunt you in a bad way especially where you have a government that doesn’t even know how to tackle any of these problems.

PT: What do you think of the future journalism, especially in Nigeria?
Sowore: As you know, we have what you call legacy media, the old big-time guys who produce big newspapers and now there’s new media where everybody has moved to. My own genre is citizen journalism which is something that is completely different because I’m not trained for journalism. I’m just collecting and passing information based on the guarantee of the United Nations Human Rights Article 19 that allows anybody no matter who he is to exchange information. That is where I derive my own expertise and it is my fundamental rights to do what I’m doing. My own suspicion is that the old legacy journalism will have to die a natural death to feed into the new media. What I mean by natural death is that the way they do journalism in the olden days is not going to work anymore. The truth today is that, you can ask any of the big media how many newspapers they are distributing on daily basis. Probably not up to 50,000. Let’s give them 200,000 combined together. That’s the same kind of readership we can get in a breaking news within two hours when we have really big news. You should also look at the channels of distribution of news, it has changed. The idea of holding newspapers on the street with a vendor with an apron is no longer the way journalism is done anymore. So the future of citizens journalism is actually the future because the citizens themselves see news first and report them first. What we do and how we are going to become the future is that the citizens are going to be driving journalism through the use of small technological devices and finally through the entrenchment of community. The devices feed the news, the community discusses and debates and distributes the news. That’s new media, that’s the future of media.

PT: Do you consider yourself a journalist?
Sowore: No. I actually studied Geography and Planning at the University of Lagos, went to do my Masters in Public Administration at Columbia University in New York. So, I do not consider myself a journalist but you do not have to go to journalism school to be a journalist. I think anybody who is smart enough to report can be referred to as a reporter, not necessarily a journalist. Journalism is actually an old word of people who keep journals and nobody does that anymore.
PT: What’s your motivation for the things you do? You seem to be a troublemaker, giving people sleepless nights. What’s your motivation? Do you want to be appointed to government?
Sowore: I don’t think I can survive in government for one night because I have no motivation to subscribe to the kind of deceit that goes on in government. I cannot be a minister who goes to a meeting and start praising the president and claiming that things are alright when things are not. I’m the kind of person who would show up and tell Mr President you are running a bad country, this place is terrible. And they are going to hate me for it. I’m however not ruling out the possibility that I am capable of governing this country better than all these characters that are governing the country and I am serious about it but that is not to say I’m trying to position myself for political office.

PT: You now live abroad. Is there a possibility that one day you will return home to play a role in the affairs of your country?

OMOYELE SOWORE

Sowore: I’m here now and I’ve returned. You see if I don’t show up in your office, you won’t know I’m in this country. That’s one of the things that is very interesting in my lifestyle and what I do. I go in and out of Nigeria as it’s convenient for me and whenever possible. It’s not that I don’t want to confront them at the airport by travelling through the airport but I also don’t want this work to be disrupted so if it takes a few more hours to travel here, it’s ok. And that takes me back to the issue of motivation for the work I do. I just dread the fact that at my age I have to live in another country just because I want to practice my trade or to live any kind of life I consider to be an acceptable standard of life. I want to live my life here. I want to drink Nigerian water. I want to live in a house that doesn’t have walls. I want to be able to drive from Lagos to Abuja in the middle of the night without fear of being attacked or being kidnapped or being blown up by anyone. I want to have a country in which I can live and be proud of. Right now, we just have a country no one can claim to be proud of, including the people governing the country.

PT: So if your people in Ondo state ask you to run for office, what will you say to them?
Sowore: The concept of my people has been bastardised that if any group of people approached me to come and run for office, I would be shocked. I would wonder if I won a lottery. You know that concept is a scam. It’s only the corrupt elements who have stolen so much that get those kinds of invitation. The people prefer them to people like us. You know, the idea of inviting anyone who even claims to be honest, who wants to run an honest administration does not appeal to this concept of my people you just referred to. It’s like an anathema . If I want to run, I will go to my people and say ‘look! We have to fight to free this place from this buccaneers and you can imagine what will happen. They don’t invite you to that kind of war.

PT: Now just tell us, how have you been able to make Sahara Reporters sustainable?
Sowore: I have said it openly and would continue to say it because of all the new media in town, we have been the most transparent to the extent that you can google and find out how we get our funding. I started this with my own money. It was so cheap. I started Saharareporters with 20 dollars hosting the website with an individual whose server got knocked out when I had the first DDOS attack and I went to yahoo and from there it grew bigger. So I started with my own funds. I raised some little funds at the beginning from some people. And then I got foundation funding, Ford Foundation and then the foundation with link to ebay known as Omidyar Foundation. To limit the damage that can be done to our conscience and brand, we do not take government ads, we do not take from people praising people or people who want to greet others for birthdays and things like that. We focus mainly on product advertisements and ensure that whatever we are taking, we make it very clear that those cannot affect our editorial decisions.

^^^^He has time for blood suckers and parasites , I don't.

nduchucks: dummy

^^^^ The civilized man has spoken again. It really sucks to be you

^^^^^I can see how your civilized men are practicing democracy in your neck of the woods. I rather remain a bushman, than be called civilized, like your people.

Some ediot is waiting to kill this resolutions in the NASS or spill innocent blood. Now he wonders why, they are called terrorists. Bloody sucking bastarddds.

Which Ediot posted this crap here? Is Prof. Utuama from the Northern senatorial zone??

FrankC3: Not that I am very interested in this issue, but this your argument is not really making much sense to me. If Aregbesola completed his OND/HND and earned the qualification that comes with it, why did he not declare it as his highest academic qualification? Is it not clear to you that the only reason why ANYONE at all, including Aregbesola and Nwoye and any other person will present a lower certificate to INEC is because he could be afraid of the legal and future political implication of presenting a document he never 'really earned'?

If Aregbesola has a higher degree than WAEC, he should present it to the electorates, it is their right to know. If he can't do so, then people are right to reinforce the conclusion of INEC that WAEC is his highest qualification, if he likes, he can be an MIT PhD holder.

I personally see nothing wrong with a WAEC holder contesting for high offices, after all, my technicians often leave me in awe of their skills and grit and they have just C&G. I will start having issues with them, just I am having with Aregbesola fans around here, when they start telling me that the papers they presented as their highest academic qualification for employment is not really their highest qualification, and instead of showing me their latest or highest qualification, they start telling me about how they have run their family and business successfully and how they have gathered all awards and membership from NASA and MOSSAD.

Your bold sentence is the crux of the matter. Why create a political issue, when waec gives you the cover you need

Looking for a ticket to the World Cup finals? Well, it’s going to cost you.

FIFA, soccer’s world governing body, has long sold out of tickets for Sunday’s game in Maracana Stadium, but fans are still bidding big bucks in secondary markets.

Ticket prices for the game between Argentina and Germany range from $5,000 to $20,000 each, according to various ticket resellers.

eBay has tickets for between $3,000 and $12,000 as of Wednesday. Many of those have received hundreds of bids, and prices could climb even higher as the game day approaches.

Ticketbis, another ticket reseller, is offering them for as much as $6,500, while Viagogo, the global market for ticket resales, had them listed for between $5,000 and $20,000 earlier this month.

Related: The World Cup’s most marketable stars

Tickets to Sunday’s game have a face value of between $440 and $990, depending on seating location, and FIFA says that demand for Sunday’s game is ten times that of capacity.

Maracana holds up to 75,000 fans.

But jacking up the price of tickets on the secondary market is illegal in Brazil.

That country has a long-standing law against scalping. Known as “the Fan Statute,” it’s a criminal offense to supply a ticket for more than its face value.

Fans are being warned of risks for buyers of scalped tickets, such as ending up with fake tickets or not getting their tickets at all. FIFA is even warning that it won’t honor scalped tickets at the gate.

A lot of the demand for World Cup soccer tickets has come from an unusual place this year — the United States.

While the sport still lags behind baseball and the NFL in popularity, more Yanks are following soccer — or football — as it’s known in most places.
According to Viagogo, the United States has been the second-largest market for ticket sales for this year’s games. The company attributes that largely to the proximity between the U.S. and Brazil and to soccer’s increasing popularity in the United States.

In fact, ticket purchases by Americans have outpaced those in several countries where football is by far the most popular sport, including Argentina, Mexico, Portugal, France and Italy.


http://businessdayonline.com/2014/07/tickets-for-argentina-vs-germany-wc-final-could-cost-more-than-20000