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Jonathan didn’t give commitment he won’t run in 2015 – Clark


Yesterday, First Republic Minister of Information and Ijaw leader, Chief Edwin Clark spoke on the conviction of former governor of Delta State, Chief James Ibori by a London court. In this concluding part of the interview with SOLA ADEBAYO, he speaks on the 2015 presidency and the probality of President Goodluck Jonathan contesting the election. He also speaks on sundry issues. Excerpts:

You were involved in the various consultations which led to the emergence of President Goodluck Jonathan as presidential candidate of PDP in the 2011 election, was a commitment ever extracted from Jonathan, especially by the Northern political leaders that he would not seek a second term mandate of Nigerians?

There was no time he gave such committment. Let us make it very clear, this country, Nigeria belongs to all of us. Who is qualified to become the President of Nigeria? Anybody who has no defect has the right to be the ruler of this country. It is not an exclusive right of certain people. The people of Nigeria for the first time unanimously voted for President Jonathan, this is the first time across religious divides, across ethnic divides, across political divides, people voted for this President. So they expect so much from him and he knows that. So the issue of whether he would run in 2015 or not has not arisen. The man has three more years to go for him to decide whether he wants to contest for the second term or not. And he has advised his ministers, his functionaries that nobody should talk about politics of 2015. Some of these northerners who are making these statements are just being vicious. They just want to create problems for Jonathan as some of them threatened to make this country ungovernable for him. So this is part of it. Jonathan has not told anybody that he is going to contest in 2015. He has told his people that nobody should talk about it.

But he has said that he has a right to contest, are you not aware of that?

Yes, he has a right to contest. If Obasanjo did eight years and governors are doing eight years, Shagari was going to do eight years, what prevents him from doing eight years if he wants to? But if he does not want to, that is his own deci-sion but he has no reason to give commitment to any group of persons or any person in this country. He is a Nigerian, he has a right every Nigerian has. None of them gave com-mitment to anybody. Obasanjo did not give commitment even though in 2003 Atiku, his vice, wanted to take over from him. At that time they did not care whether Obasanjo has a second term. Nobody will do this to Jonathan. Let us see what Jonathan can do for the people of this country in the next three years. He is obligated to do that because they voted for him and they expected so much from him. His transformation agenda should be completed and he should not talk about second term until towards the end of his first term. I think that is the position.

Are you convinced that he is delivering on the mandate given to him?

He is performing. What do you mean?

Are you not aware of the problem, for instance, in the power sector?

Which power sector? There are saboteurs. He has been trying. You also remember that there is certain time it came up to 4,000 megawatts but due to the fall in water and lack of gas, this thing happen everywhere in the world but the power sector is a priority to his government. There is a conspiracy against him that all the things that were never done by Obasanjo, by other people, are being descended on him. He has just taken office for one year.

It is two years…

Not two years. Not at all.

What about the one year he got due to the death of Yar’Adua?

The one year he got when they harassed him, they intimidated him, that he has no right to become the President of this country. How many people would be free enough to do something for their country under that circumstance? This is the first time he has been elected. By May, he will be one year in office. And if he fails that is his own business, God has put him there. All that we are saying is that please you have voted for him, we are appealing to Nigerians to have an open mind, give Jonathan a chance. When you harass him he cannot perform. He is a human being. But Boko Haram said they are going to run him out of government in the next three months, what is your reac-tion to that?And you believe in that?

I am asking you for reaction, are you bothered?

Boko Haram is not against Jonathan. We are not afraid. How can we be bothered? Bothered about what and who? I don’t want to comment on that because as far as I am concerned it is irrelevant because Boko Haram is fighting their own people, who neglected them, who give nothing to them. They had no school for them, who had no medicare for them. How many of our people in the South have been killed? Is it because Jonathan is the President of the entire country? Otherwise Boko Haram know their enemies; Jonathan is not the enemy of Boko Haram and I think that if he finds the leaders and negotiate with them, they will tell him. They are not anti-Jonathan.

How can you claim that they are not killing people from the South when they were invading churches and killing worshippers?

Is it not also true that they have been killing northerners? What happened in Kano where about 186 people were killed? How many southerners were killed? Are they not burning mosques and are they not attacking primary schools owned by Muslim?

Is it not the duty of the government to protect lives and property and punish criminals?

The government is doing everything possible to contain Boko Haram. The number of Boko Haram leaders that have been arrested, the number of Boko Haram, who are also Nigerians that have been killed. It is not what one is happy about. You killed Boko Haram, they are Nigerians and those Boko Haram are killing are Nigerians. So we will find a way to ensure that this thing stops. What do you want the President to do? Do you want him to go to Maiduguri and stop them? He is doing everything possible to contain them and he will contain them. The leaders of Boko Haram should come out. You can’t negotiate with faceless people. When Yar’Adua decided to negotiate with the Niger Delta militants, they came to him, they saw him, he saw them and he fraternise with them. Let Boko Haram leaders come out and I am very sure the President will negotiate with them.

Do you subscribe to the views in certain quarters that Boko Haram was an invention by the North to truncate the second term aspiration of President Jonathan in 2015?

A few of the northerners may do that but majority of the northerners will not contemplate that. Have you read the interview given by Senator Kanti Bello? He mentioned people like Atiku who are professional presidential candi-dates. He said Atiku has no principle but he has ambition for presidency. He is jumping from one party to another. Those are the people who believe that unless they are rul-ing, nobody should rule. The same Atiku in 2003 wanted to take over power from Obasanjo, who was his boss. In 2007, he left PDP to contest presidency on the platform of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN). Today, he is back in the PDP and wants to push Jonathan out, he will never succeed. Kaita is one of the persons canvassing for Atiku, feeling that unless Atiku becomes president of Nigeria, there will be no peace in this country. And if it is found that they are actually doing it, the government should be bold enough to arrest them. Nobody is above arrest, we need peace and stability in this country and no individual should create problem for the government.

What is your reaction to the call by the North for the review of the revenue formula?

That is why we are calling for a National Conference.

Do you support the convocation of a Sovereign National Conference (SNC) now?

No. I don’t support the SNC. People do not know the meaning of SNC. What most of us have agreed to do is let us have a national conference where all Nigerians will meet, from the various ethnic nationalities to discuss the basis of our living together in this country. It is only those who want to break Nigeria that talk about SNC.

Will national conference not be a waste of time and resources if it is not sovereign in view of the fact that similar conference convoked by previous administration did not achieve any result?

It will not be a waste of time. When we have a national conference, the mere fact that we sit together to discuss the problem of this country as it affects everybody is a step forward. Why should a man from the North talk about 13 per cent? The constitution says minimum of 13 per cent. It has not been increased. During the 2005 national conference in Abuja, the conference recommended that it should be increased to 18 per cent. We wanted 25 per cent, we wanted 50 per cent. So the North should look inward, collect taxes from their people, develop their areas. Agriculture is their mainstay, they should develop it. We depend on them agriculturally. So, as far as I am concerned, they have no case but if they want to resume the issue of offshore/onshore, the issue of derivation, let us go to the national conference and discuss it.

http://nationalmirroronline.net/politics/37500.html

God in Aso Villa
By Sam Omatseye

"I always make my supplications to God that, in selecting me as the President of this country, the Vice President, the Governors, members of the National Assembly, the ministers, we are not the best material but God knows why he chose us and we pray He should use us to change this country.”

This is not the sort of line you expect from the leader of over 100 million people. It is what some psychologists call false humility. By that line, President Goodluck Jonathan wants us to be sorry for him. He wants us to ask God to help him do his job, to confront the darkness and violence of Boko Haram, to slake the pent-up rage in the land with regards to poverty, infrastructure decay, deaths from diseases, housing deficits and the everlasting oppressions of power failure.

The words are twisted lyrics of surrender, the sort that makes us as a people unable to blame anything except powers outside ourselves. It is a recipe for paralysis.

The President implied in those words he delivered in the church in the Presidential mansion that it is now up to God to deliver Nigeria. The reason is that he with his team is not the best, and so the best cannot dawn on our circumstances unless God uses them to do it.

The President has been in office for over two years, and he is still speaking as though he took over office in March this year. His appeal to God and the scriptures do injustice to the faith and the holy book. The holy book does not imply that we surrender.

It is true that God chooses those who are regarded as little, but who told Jonathan that God chose him? Is it because he visited churches and some of the leaders liberally granted him their blessings? Sentiments gave him that office, not God and not his ability. Many Nigerians are waking up to this fact.

Since he decided to wax Biblical, I will today. First, God chooses the best. The people outside only think they are not the best. Paul wrote that not many mighty or wise in the world are chosen, but God choses the lesser ones to confound the wise. Jonathan has not confounded the wise. He has actually emboldened them to lash at the ineptitude of his government.

David confronted Goliath. He was the last son of Jesse. But God chose him. When God of the Bible chooses, he invests them with the Holy Spirit and unction to perform.

Jonathan lacks performance. He calls himself a transformational leader, but the term has dressed up an inept Nigerian leader.

In the book, Transformational Leadership written by Bernard Bass and Ronald Riggio, the notion refers to men who lift a people to heights they only dreamed. To paraphrase Ralph Waldo Emerson, they make their people live the life they imagined.

The 20th Century had such men as Winston Churchill, for leading his nation with rhetoric and moral authority to victory against the forces of evil. Franklin Roosevelt for doing same and shepherding America from the worst economic times in history. Nelson Mandela for saving his people from the woes and servitude of prejudice. Brazil’s Lula Da Silva for leapfrogging 30 million people out of poverty. They acted with a sense of destiny. These people were bold and drew out systematic plans, combining order with compassion.

Some of them believed in God, and in fact, many of the world’s leaders of the century, like Nehru and Ghandi believed in God, but they allowed God to work in them for the people. They did not speak in deceptive words of surrender. They confronted the nation’s woes with clear and identifiable vision. Can anyone today truly articulate what the vision of Jonathan is on any subject and how they will work in the next few years?

I doubt it. Some responders to this page have asked why I take on the President. Rather than engage me on facts and elementary logic, they careen into sentimental verbiage about him being chosen of God. The real transformational leaders work with wisdom. Even Jesus on earth emphasised wisdom. He spoke of revelation when he thanked God that He had not revealed the truth to the so-called mighty people but to babes. We can see that from his disciples. They lived on the fringe of the world’s intellectual wellspring. But they triumphed when they received power. What are Jonathan’s revelations? Is it to remove subsidies and promise to use the money for what government normally does like roads and hospitals?

Those who cavil at this column for taking on the President should realise that I have nothing against him as a person, but I have love for my country. I actually love him as a person. The bible says he whom I love, I chastise. Not that I love Jonathan less but that I love Nigeria more. He has not lived up to the wisdom and dignity of the office, and that worries me in the decay that assails our people in all spheres. He said the subsidy money will be used for what government is routinely tasked to perform. It is over a quarter, we can’t see signs. When President Obama released what was termed stimulus package to the states, we immediately saw the impact. Recently I saw roads and bridges fully constructed with the money. Texas Governor last year appropriated Obama-inspired jobs as his. This was barely two and a half years in office. Jonathan has job and infrastructure deficits.

Here is why Jonathan should be held accountable. One, he commands over 55 percent of Nigeria’s budget. Two, he controls the critical infrastructure in the country. The federal roads account for how well business is soldered to business between states. How good are the roads? He controls the police in a federalist contortion. It is the creative work of some states, namely Lagos and now Ogun, that the rise in crime is curtailed. Education at the primary level has its budget in his palms to a great degree. And education fails at that level. He controls the ports mostly, and he regulates the banks, and controls power and energy resources in the country. All mineral resources, most of them untapped, are under the Federal Government.

He holds the yam and the knife and he wants God to show him how to cut. My duty in this column is to tell him to do it and not ruin the yam. There are many hungry people at the table and outside the room who want him to cut the yam appropriately.

Jonathan only used that language of God to exploit the religious gullibility of Nigerians who turn coy when God’s name is used. They forget that Jesus warned that “ not every one that says “Lord, Lord, shall enter into my kingdom but they that do the will of my father…” That is what this column is asking of the President. Not his serpentine will and those of his fuddy-duddy and octogenarian advisers.

http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/columnist/monday/sam-omatseye/43252-god-in-aso-villa.html

2015: Parties disagree over Jonathan’s ambition


* He’s free to contest –Agbakoba, Idigbe

Major political parties, including the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC and the All Nigerian Peoples Party, ANPP, yesterday reacted to the declaration of President Goodluck Jonathan before an Abuja High Court that he was qualified to contest the 2015 presidential election.

ANPP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Emma Eneukwu, told our correspondent that the President would be rejected at the polls if he sought for a reelection, “having told Nigerians that he would not be seeking for a re-election.”

According to Eneukwu, “He has the right to contest in 2015, but he will fail because he made a promise that he would step down after one term. He will be taking Nigerians for a ride should he present himself again.

“President Jonathan has failed in all he promised Nigerians and he should not be talking of another term.”

For the constitutional stipulation that a President cannot be sworn in more than two terms, the ANPP spokesperson said that it was for the court to interpret that matter.

“When he was sworn in 2010, there were a lot of challenges in the nation as a result of the demise of the former President Umaru Yar’Adua. He was not elected at that time; his first election as the President was last year and it is expected that his first oathtaking was in May last year.

“But all the same, a man of honour should stand on his words and respect it. He should not be talking of reelection when he has done nothing with the power that was giving to him.”

But the CPC believes that the constitution clearly bars President Jonathan from standing for another election.

According to the CPC National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, “What is clear is that PDP and Jonathan have done two terms and the constitution clearly states that no one can stay longer than eight years, either as a governor or as a President.

“Where do we situate or account for the one year he did between May 2010 and May 2011? It is unfortunate that the constitution did not contemplate that situation; it has to take a strong and virile judiciary to interpret the constitution and for them to be able to floor whatever argument the President and his advisers will come up with.

“We call on all Nigerians to be vigilant and work to safeguard the constitution from being hijacked by a few powerful Nigerians.

“We, as a party, are going to be vigilant and we will challenge every illegal step by the President and PDP to the last point.”

But the PDP thinks that it is not debatable over the President’s qualification to contest 2015 if he decides to do so.

The party claimed that the whole debate was another antic of the opposition to distract the President from pursuing its transformation agenda.

PDP National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, told National Mirror yesterday that it was a great disservice for anyone to be talking about the qualification of President Jonathan to contest the 2015 election.

According to him: “The whole issue is a distraction to the government which has barely spent one year in office. We will not be drawn into the argument.

“Our concern now is to assist the President in his resolve to deliver the democracy dividends that he promised Nigerians when he was first elected into office last year.

“This whole thing is actually the plans of the opposition to distract the President and, therefore, we will not give them the latitude to succeed.”

Meanwhile, eminent lawyers yesterday warned Nigerian politicians to desist from playing politics with the development of the country.

They advised them to concentrate on providing the populace with the dividends of democracy.

The lawyers spoke while reacting to the controversy on whether President Jonathan was constitutionally empowered to contest for the presidency in 2015.

The lawyers, including the former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Olisa Agbakoba SAN; Anthony Idigbe SAN, and former NBA National Vice-President, Mr. Adekunle Ojo, agreed that nothing stopped President Jonathan from contesting in 2015. They also believed that it was too early to talk of elections when the President had not fulfilled the promises he made to Nigerians in the last elections.

Agbakoba said that constitutionally it was the President’s right to contest in 2015. “There are, however, other factors to be taken into consideration; factors such as the underlining Nigerian principle of rotation and the stability factor.”

The former NBA President said that the “Nigerian constitution is not like the American constitution that expressively provides for their presidents to take the oath of office only twice.”

However, Agbakoba said that the controversy is not necessary as it will distract the President from performing and fulfilling his campaign promises to Nigerians.

“Nigerians must learn to hold the public officers elected into offices accountable.”

Another lawyer, Idigbe (SAN) also agreed with Agbakoba on the constitution issue. He said that President Jonathan merely completed the tenure of the late President Yar’Adua, who died on May 5, 2010.

“The mere fact that he completed the tenure of someone else does not mean he is not constitutionally empowered to contest election when his own time comes,” he added.

Ojo said there was nothing in the 1999 Constitution preventing President Jonathan from running for presidency in 2015.

He said: “I am not one of those campaigning for President Jonathan to contest or not to contest the election in 2015. But as the things are, I personally don’t see anything under the constitution stopping him if he chooses to contest.”


http://nationalmirroronline.net/news/37295.html

Babangida Blasts Bamanga Tukur


Former Military President, General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, is still very bitter over the way the recent convention of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) turned out in Abuja. According to Babangida, fondly referred to as “IBB”, and who was a former presidential candidate of the PDP, the process that threw up the election of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as the National Chair-man of the PDP and those of the other national officers of the party was not only faulty but totally undemocratic.

Babangida spoke exclu-sively at the Government House in Benin City to Sunday Mirror through his spokesman, Prince Kassim Afegbua, who the soft-speaking former presidential aspi-rant of the PDP, this week re-leased to manage the media and publicity affairs of the re-election campaign organ-isation of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) candidate and Edo State Governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole.

According to the former military president, the days ahead do not look too bright for the PDP under the leadership of Tukur essentially be-cause of the circumstance of the election of the party boss. Tukur, he said, was elected through a process that co-erced his opponents to step down instead of facing them in an election. He argued fur-ther that the burden of such an undemocratic election is that the newly elected party chairman would have no moral justification to “look straight into the President’s face and challenge him if the President is seen to be devi-ating from the efforts of the political party.”

He said, “The process that threw up Bamanga Tukur is undemocratic. I was read-ing a statement credited to the Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Olisa Metu, talking that Babangida was not involved. How pitiable! I pity him. These are the people who were not even in the fringes when the party was being registered. When IBB, Danjuma, Aliu Gusau and the others were putting PDP together, where was Olisa Metu? Today, he has the guts to talk as if he owns PDP. What process threw up Metu himself as a party publicity secretary? Did he go through election?”

“Democracy is all about elections. Now, it is being discussed further in develop-mental terms as all-inclusive and participatory. You have to allow people to test their popularity at elections. When they are defeated, they will know in their hearts that they have gone through a process seen to be transparent, free and fair and that they lost the election of our country.”

Reminded of his criticism of Oshiomhole’s support of the Federal Government’s fuel subsidy removal and subsequent hiking of the pe-troleum product pump price in January, Afegbua said he still stood on his belief and position but understands why the governor supported the FG then. He thereafter commended Oshiomhole for giving him the opportunity to serve in the governor’s re-election campaign organisa-tion as its Director of Media and Publicity.

Afegbua said it did not take much effort for IBB and Oshiomhole to reach an ac-cord that sent him to Benin City to come and help in en-suring the re-election of Oshiomhole.

Meanwhile, in a related de-velopment to the forthcoming governorship election in Edo State, a group of elders, leaders and members of the PDP in Oredo local concil of thetate on Saturday afternoon at the NUJ Secretariat announced that they were joining the ACN in support of Oshiomhole be-cause they “could no longer pretend like the others they were leaving behind that Edo State under Oshiomhole has been revived and transformed into a centre of massive, people-centred development.”

http://nationalmirroronline.net/news/37189.html

2015: I’m qualified to run –Jonathan


* Asks court to dismiss suit seeking to bar him

President Jonathan Goodluck has declared before an Abuja High Court that he is qualified to contest the 2015 presidential election.

He based his qualification on the account that he is currently doing his first term of four years in office as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution disqualifies any person who has been elected into the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria “at any two previous elections”, notwithstanding his meeting every other qualification.

Jonathan, however, declared at the weekend that contrary to the rumour making the rounds, he had not indicated or announced anywhere that he would be contesting for the presidential elections in 2015.

He made the clarifications on his qualification in his reaction to a suit filed by a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, before an Abuja High Court seeking its order to stop President Jonathan from contesting presidential election in 2015 on the ground that he is already in his second term in office.

The PDP chieftain, Mr. Cyriacus Njoku, had on March 20, 2012 filed the suit following a declaration by the President in March that he is serving his first term in office.

The applicant, is, however, claiming that President Jonathan is running a second term in office and cannot be a candidate in 2015.

He also said the President could not swear to an oath of office thrice as contained in Section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution.

Those joined in the matter are the President, the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as the third respondent.

But in a 15-paragraph counter-affidavit deposed to by a counsel, Osahon Okeaya-Inneh in the law firm of President Jonathan’s lawyer, Mr. Ade Okeaya-Inneh and Co., he described the suit as frivolous and vexatious that failed to disclose reasonable cause of action.

The deponent said:. “The first defendant is currently doing his first term of four years in office as the President of Nigeria as provided by the 1999 constitution as amended.

“President Jonathan’s status and position is formidably backed by the 1999 Constitution.

“The constitution of Nigeria only makes provisions for a president to contest for not more than two terms of four years each.

“The constitution recognises the President’s tenure of office to be four years.

“I was informed by Dr. Reuben Abati (an aide of the President) on April 4, 2012 at about 5.30 p.m. in his office and I verily believe that.

“The first defendant has not indicated or announced anywhere whether in words or in writing that he will contest for the presidential election in 2015.

‘The late President Umaru Yar’Adua contested and won the presidential election conducted in 2007 for one term of four years. He was the President from May 29, 2007 until sometime in May 2010 when he passed on. ‘Yar’Adua’s four years was to end in 2011.”

Jonathan also averred that on May 6, 2010, he was sworn in as the President after the death of President Yar’Adua, thereby completing Yar’Adua’s 12 months of the four-year tenure.

He insisted that this was the first time he was coming to power as the President of Nigeria through an election wherein he was voted as the presidential candidate of his party, PDP.

The President told the court that the plaintiff did not attach copies of his recent tax clearance certificate from the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS, and his PDP membership card as proof of who he claimed to be.

Consequently, Jonathan asked the court to discountenance the suit as it was meant to make the court to labour in futility because the suit was purely an academic exercise. The applicant, however, through his counsel, Mr. Osuagwu Ugochukwu, raised two questions for determination by the court.

These are:

*Whether Section 135(2) of the Constitution which specifies a period of four years in office for the President is only available or applicable to a person elected on the basis of an actual election or includes one in which a person assumes the position of President by operation of law as in the case of Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.

*Whether Section 137(1) (b) of the 1999 Constitution which provides that a person shall not be qualified for election to the office of President if he has been elected to such office at any two previous elections applies to the first defendant who first took an oath of office as substantive President on May 6, 2010 and took a second oath of office as President on May 29, last year.

However, the presiding judge, Justice Mudashiru Oniyangi, has fixed April 18 to hear President Jonathan’s application for an extension of time within which his lawyer can file his memorandum of appearance and counter-affidavit in response to the plaintiff’s suit dated March 20.

This is the second time that Njoku will take the President to court.

He had in August 2010 attempted to stop PDP from allowing him to participate in the PDP presidential primaries of January 2011.

Njoku, from Zuba Ward in Gwagwalada Area Council and with PDP registration number 1622735, had urged the court to ask the party to respect its principle on zoning formula in line with Article 7. 2(c) of the party’s constitution.

He said the declaration of Jonathan (third defendant) to contest the presidency on the PDP platform was contrary to Article7.2(c) of the PDP 2009 Constitution (as amended).

But the Chief Judge of the FCT High Court, Justice Lawan Gummi, dismissed the suit.


http://nationalmirroronline.net/news/37197.html

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Invite your friends to like our page. Thanks.

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Insecurity: Buhari, Tinubu, Lamido, others meet in Lagos


orried by the state of insecu-rity occasioned by the spate of bombings by the terrorists group, Boko Haram, some prominent Nigerians will today con-verge in Lagos to discuss the future of the country. The meeting is expected to take the form of a na-tional colloquium. Conve-ners of the meeting, Project Nigeria, said the occasion would be a platform for national action on the en-demic security and con-stitutional challenges con-fronting Nigeria.

Scheduled to be at the oc-casion, according to a state-ment by Mr. Oluwabori Obafemi, media consultant to the conveners, are for-mer Head of State and na-tional leader of Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), General Muhamma-du Buhari; national leader of Action Congress of Ni-geria (ACN) Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the gover-nor of Jigawa State, Alhaji Sule Lamido, and Senator David Dafinone.

Speakers at the occa-sion will include: Prof. Ben Nwabueze, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, Chief Eme-ka Anyaoku, Alhaji Lateef Adegbite, Alhaji Balarabe Musa; Professors Pat Utomi, Akin Oyebode and Itse Sagay; Barrister Olisa Agba-koba, Mr. Femi Falana, Mr. Fola Adeola, Pastor Tunde Bakare, Odia Ofeimun and Dr. Kayode Fayemi, gover-nor of Ekiti State.


http://nationalmirroronline.net/news/37093.html

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What is this about Kolanut in Igboland?

The Arts Thursday, April 12, 2012

By McPhilips Nwachukwu

Kola nut among the Igbo people of Nigeria is something bigger than that popular seed crop tree grown in the Central and Western part of Africa.


Yes. It goes beyond the red and yellow seed nuts hawked around in large trays by Hausa traders in small kiosks, village markets and around major cities.

Neither is it that large quantity of biennial agricultural crop grown, harvested and stored in large hand woven baskets by Yoruba farmers.

In Igbo land, kola nut is bigger than all of these. Here, it is food, and as such, attended with a deserving feast. Like yam, king of crops, it commands adoration and enjoys many acolytes . As a food, kola nut is eaten with relish.

Emotional and cultural attachment to kola nut in Igbo land makes it religiously infectious. Adherents of the culture of kola nut, which without exaggeration involves every Igbo of religious belief, gender and caste find in the kola nut lobes a cultural vehicle that coveys the people's world view.

Importance of kola nut in Igbo land

Kola nut is so important in the life of the Igbo to the extent that poetry of kola nut breaks the day for a typical Igbo home.

It is therefore not unusual to hear along side Christian families, who conduct their morning prayers, also the prayer voices of their traditional Igbo brothers, who welcome the birth of a new day with kola nut invocation:

Eze kere elu, kee ala, taa oji, Creator of Heaven and Earth, eat kola nut . Amadioha taa oji, Amadioha eat kola nut.

Ala Ezuhu taa Oji, Ezuhu land eat kola nut

Ndi nwe ezi taa oji, Founders of this habitat, eat kola nut.

Agwu isi taa oji, Agwu isi eat kola nut

In the same way, when kola nut is presentated to a visitor to one's home, it shows acceptance and welcome. A visitor presented with kola nut shows a sense of welcome in the same way that denial of kola nut denotes displeasure and disapproval.

Among the people, it is said in a proverb that: onye wetera oji, wetera ndu", which translates to " He , who brings kola, brings life." The implication of kola nut presentation therefore, implies establishment of love and trust. And that is why, it is believed that who ever partakes in the sharing and eating of kola nut with one has become one's friend and has entered into an oath of preservation of life with one. In this sense, kola nut becomes a communion food. A feast of love, trust and togetherness.

It is also for this reason that kola nut ritual has become the rallying vehicle in every Igbo man's socio- cultural and religio- political activities. Nothing is said at any event, no matter how serious the occasion may seem without the observation of kola nut ritual.

It is the first thing to be presented on the occasion of birth as much as on the event of death. It is presented on the occasion of divorce as much as on the event of political rally. In the same way, it inaugurates political meeting, it is equally used to sanctify the ground for ordination of priests.

Kola nut is so revered that even among the people themselves, there is a wonder why all the brouhaha about it. This expression of wonder is captured in one of the proverbs which says: Ihe eji etinye oji na efere bu ka akwanyere ya ugwu.

O dighi ka ihe ana atubanye na onu ofu mgbe.", which translates to: " why kola nut is served in plate is to honour it. After all, it is so small that one can put in the mouth and chew at a go"

However, despite its smallness and some times, its very discomforting appeal because of large nicotine content, kola nut plays far higher roles for the people that it can not be ignored. In some places for instance, like in the village of this reporter, kola nut is used to trace seniority among constituting members of the family, village or community.

In a gathering like family or community meeting, when kola nut is presented by the host, it is passed round to the guests in culturally defined order of seniority and finally presented to the most senior person or family or village or community to bless and break.

In a situation whereby the person, who presents the kola is senior to the person who represents the most senior village or community in the midst, the kola will still be presented to the junior person to get his approval for the oldest person to bless and break the kola nut.

There are instances when kola nuts are not eaten or when one is not given the honour of breaking the kola nut. For instance, one is not allowed to break kola nut in one's maternal home. Second, women are not allowed to bless and break kola nut.

Other instances that may stop some people from eating a particular kola nut are when the lobes are seen to be "conducting " some kind of head count. The Igbo abhor counting of people since they believe it may bring affliction.

And because kola nuts are shared in lobes and each lobe signifies a number and among this people, number is symbolic, they become very wary about eating kola nuts with certain number of lobes. For instance, numbers like 3, 6, 5 and 4 are very symbolic in the people's cosmological belief. Some of these numbers, for some communities and villages represent different values. In some cases, strength, abnormality or number of constituents of a community.

So, while some villages may eat a kola nut with six lobes as a signifier of good fortune, another village may abhor it because it is a head counter of their village.

However, it is an unanimous view among the people that a three lobed kola is a kola of strength.So, a visitor, whose lot it becomes to be honoured with this kind of kola, which comes out rarely, is seen as such, a hero, a man of strength, Dike, as the people would, say.

Also, kola nut without lobes is not allowed to be eaten because for the people, it represents abnormality. It is called "oji gbara kpurukakpu", meaning kola without lobes. The moment it is noticed that a kola has no lobes , it is immediately withdrawn and replaced with finer specie with lobes.

In the same way that kola

nut is used in peaceful ceremonies, so also it is used in mediating crisis situations. It is perhaps in this way that the symbolic nature and role of kola nut becomes very manifest.

When two villages or families or husband and wife are at war or into disagreement, kola nut is taken to the traditional head of one of the offending parties as an appeal for cease fire, reconciliation or declaration of war.

It is a common saying among the people referring to somebody or a village, that " "achigara ya or ha oji", which means that "kola nuts are take to him or them" a situation that may arise say, from a person or village alleged of crime, adultery or poison.

The essence of "achigara ya oji" or "kola nuts are taken to him" becomes an instrument of summons to the accused to come and prove his innocence before the accuser.


http://odili.net/news/source/2012/apr/12/323.html

FG may transfer UNI-Abuja students to other varsities



The Minister of Education, Prof. Ruqayyatu Rufa’i, on Thursday announced that students of the suspended faculties of Medicine, Veterinary Medicine and Engineering of the University of Abuja, might be transferred to other institutions.

Rufai said the Federal Government would take this decision if at the end of six months, the university authorities were unable to meet accreditation requirements.

Rufai made government’s position known at a meeting with representatives of students of the university.

She also announced the setting up of a task team to liaise with the authorities of the University of Abuja to fast-track the provision of the necessary facilities.

She, however, said, government was yet to shift ground on its earlier suspension of three faculties of the university.

The minister said officials of the ministry, the NUC and TetFund would on Monday meet with regulatory bodies such as the Medical and Dental Council of Nigeria, the Veterinary Council of Nigeria and Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria to decide the way forward.

Rufai said, “The point is that these programmes will have to remain suspended; until in the next two, three months when we see progress of work done, I will not take any chance.

“We will continue our meetings with the various professional bodies in terms of preparations in case the six months period does not work.

“It is our hope based on what NUC has said and based on what the VC is saying that things may be fixed within this room we have given the university.

“Meanwhile, we will have a task team that will be working with NUC and the university to facilitate the possibility of having this accreditation and facilities. But in case it doesn’t work, we may have no option like you stated but to distribute you to various universities where we may have accreditation already in place.”

According to her, the VC is also required to fix the problems affecting other faculties within the university.

The minister however told the students, “Our wish is that even if you do not complete your education in University of Abuja, the programmes will not be scrapped, they will have to remain suspended until all the facilities required are provided.”

In his remarks, the Executive Secretary of the National Universities Commission, Prof. Julius Okojie, said with political will, appreciable progress could be made within the period.

Earlier, President of the University of Abuja Medical Students’ Association, Uchenna Anyanwu, read a resolution arrived at after a meeting of the body on the issue.

While appealing to the minister to give the Vice- Chancellor the needed support to meet the six months deadline, the students expressed a desire to be transferred elsewhere if this option fails.


http://www.punchng.com/news/fg-may-transfer-uni-abuja-students-to-other-varsities/

Look at the red point in the end of the nose for 30 seconds, Then look up to the roof of ur house then keep Blinking Ur eyes ... You will see The original woman's image
its awesome

https://www.facebook.com/AmazingStoriesAroundTheWorld

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How Men Can Decode Women's Menstrual Cycles
The clues are in her voice

“Are you on your period?” It’s a question most women have been asked at one point or another by their boyfriend or spouse during a disagreement. It turns out that some men actually can tell when it’s a woman’s time of the month—and it’s not because of bratty behavior.

In a study published online last month in the journal Ethology, psychologists Nathan Pipitone at Adams State College and Gordon Gallup at SUNY Albany asked three groups of men to listen to voice recordings of 10 women counting from one to five. Each woman was recorded four times over the course of one full menstrual cycle. (For those who aren’t familiar with the ins and outs of the female reproductive cycle, women are most fertile during ovulation, when their ovaries release an egg, and least fertile during menstruation, when they shed the unfertilized egg and the lining of the uterus.)

After the first group of men listened to all four recordings from each woman, played in random order, they were asked to guess which recordings were made during the women’s periods. The men had a one in four chance of guessing correctly, but they actually did so 35 percent of the time, a significant difference, the researchers say.

In 2008, Pipitone and Gallup showed that men find the voices of ovulating women more attractive than voices recorded during other points in the cycle, so for the second group in the new study, the researchers replaced the recording made closest to ovulation with one from a less fertile day. Even after the potentially telltale contrast was eliminated, the men pinpointed the voice recorded during menstruation 34 percent of the time.

Perhaps the most telling element of the study was the third experiment, in which a new group of men were not told that the research had anything to do with menstrual cycles. Instead they were asked to choose the most “unattractive” voice recording for each woman. They chose the menstrual recording significantly more often than was predicted by chance—again, 34 percent of the time.

In fact, according to the researchers’ calculations, all three groups singled out the voices recorded during menstruation more often than any of the other voices.

So what was it about the women’s voices that gave away their reproductive status? The men in group one who correctly identified the menstrual recordings said they could tell by the mood (bad versus good), quality (harsh versus smooth), pitch (low versus high) and speed (slow versus fast) of the women’s voices. When the second two groups were asked to score the voices based on these characteristics, they reported that menstrual voices sounded lower in mood, quality and pitch. “The men seemed to determine menstrual voices by picking the most unattractive voice,” Pipitone explains.

There’s already evidence that men subconsciously judge where a woman is in her cycle—lap dancers make 80 percent more money in tips when they’re ovulating compared to when they’re menstruating, according to a 2007 paper—but the new study is the first to demonstrate one way men make that determination.

A subconscious (and often conscious) aversion to menstruation makes sense in evolutionary terms, since males wanting to pass on their genes are better off seeking out females closer to ovulation. Over time, the ability to parse a woman’s menstrual cycle could have proliferated, as more perceptive men reproduced more successfully.

Pipitone says the adaptation is an example of the reproductive arms race known as sexually antagonistic coevolution, a phenomenon seen across living species, from humans to brine shrimp. Males show more interest in females when they’re fertile, so it makes sense that human females—who need a lot of help to raise their particularly helpless infants—hide their fertility status. (Female chimps, by contrast, broadcast their fertility with engorged Instruments.) Theoretically, human males retaliated by developing the ability to detect more subtle fertility cues such as those “leaked” by the female voice.

Hormones induce the vocal changes that give women away. “Vocal production is closely tied to our biology,” Pipitone says of men and women. For example, “Cells from the larynx and vagina are very similar and show similar hormone receptors.” The result is that, “The sound of a person’s voice contains a surprising amount of reproductively relevant information,” Gallup says. The obvious example: By speaking on the phone, we can determine a person’s gender and age. But researchers have also shown that voices alone can be used to directly and indirectly predict characteristics like facial appearance, body type, physical strength and even sexual behavior.

I think one of the most interesting results of the study is that across the board, men chose the menstrual voice around a third of the time. It would seem some men are more perceptive to women’s cycles than others. Pipitone and Gallup plan to investigate this question next.

Jennifer Abbasi is a science and health writer and editor living in Brooklyn. Follow Jen on Twitter (she's @jenabbasi) and email her at popsci.thesexfiles@gmail.com.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-01/how-men-can-decode-womens-menstrual-cycles

Photo Quiz! Can you tell which one of these women is ovulating and which one is menstruating?

Obasanjo Visits Oshiomhole, Keeps Reporters Guessing on Mission



In his characteristic manner, former President Olusegun Obasanjo left reporters guessing Sunday during an unscheduled visit to Governor Adams Oshiomhole at the Government House, Benin City.

The visit, coming just a few days after he resigned as Chairman, Board of Trustees (BoT) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), left tongues wagging as to the motive, prompting reporters to swarm round the former President firing one question after the other.

The former President deflected the questions posted to him, saying “thank you very much, thank you very much”.

Obasanjo, accompanied by his wife later went into a closed door meeting with Oshiomhole for about 10 minutes after which he emerged and told the reporters that the visit was a private one

He said: “I must not be in Benin City without calling on the governor. “I would come back and then there would be opportunity to talk, but for now, thank you very much.”

Every effort to make the former President disclose his mission in Benin City proved abortive, as he insisted he would return to the state at a later date during which he would properly address the press.

http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/obasanjo-visits-oshiomhole-keeps-reporters-guessing-on-mission/113313/

The parable of the snake and rat
By Sam Omatseye

When the story of the President and the church broke into public scrutiny, I thought the President was going to say he had performed a miracle. He had played Jesus. He uttered a word about having a poor church in his subaltern hideout, Otuoke, and behold a 2,500-seater church.

Like Jesus who turned water into wine and urged his followers - President Jonathan included - to move mountains with their words of mouth, our President had turned a humble hovel of worship into a ‘glorious’ house of God.

But either the President had no faith in the power of his words or the potency of humour in the topsy-turvy world of politics, he came out through his spokesman to deny everything. It was not corruption, he said. He never gave anyone an order to build a church in his village. He only said the church did not befit his status as president of Nigeria.

If President Goodluck Jonathan understands the power of persuasion, he could have turned everything into a sort of high presidential comedy with a subtle apology and let the matter die a natural death.

The whole affair could have been hilarious if it was not so serious. What the President did is a reflection of either his naivety or wilful error. In either case, he has done the Nigerian people a grave wrong. It would be naivety, if he really did not know that what he did was an act of corruption. In his novel, No Longer At Ease, Chinua Achebe defined corruption as “improper use of influence.” Maybe President Jonathan thought that it would be defined as corruption only when he approached the Italian firm that worked on the church and asked them to hand him the money or if he asked them to directly build a church for him in his village.

If the President thought so, then he had failed woefully as Nigeria’s corruption czar. In this case, the innocent is guilty. If you are president, ignorance is no excuse, and the law does not recognise such innocence. Before mounting a throne as a people’s leader, you must know right from wrong. If the President meant that he did not influence the building of the church, then this is the sort of innocence we call naivety, and it is not an excuse when you lead over 100 million people.

We can see that the sort of donation he derived from the Italian firm is common among our political office holders, and that is why the President sees it as usual. A governor, a commissioner, a minister, a permanent secretary gives a contract to a business outfit, and the outfit looks for an opportunity to be grateful. The flourish of gratitude comes in different ways. It could be in the form of scholarship to the benefactor’s son, reconstructing the road leading to his street, buying him a $10,000 wristwatch or building a church for him in his village.

These things are common in the political and business worlds of Nigeria, and there is no doubt that it is wrong and it cannot be described other than as corruption. Those things come as influence. They are not necessarily solicited but accepted by some of our office holders. What Jonathan has done is not to keep their secret secret.

President Jonathan violated his oath of office. Some of his supporters say he is not the beneficiary of the church. Really? If he did not want to benefit from it, why did he complain about the lowly, decrepit quality of the place of worship? If he is a villager or habitue of the place on weekends and during vacation, was he not going to worship there? Is he not then a beneficiary?

The Italian firm, Gitto Contstruzioni Generalli Nigeria Ltd. (GCG), said it was an act of social responsibility. Social responsibility in Otuoke? If Jonathan were not president, would they know of a place called Otuoke? What other village have they performed their social responsibility? Is the firm not aware that Nigerians are not only Christians but also Muslims and worshippers of local deities? Why bring faith into the affairs of social responsibility in a secular state?

Not long ago, former Governor Timipre Sylva accused the President of overpaying the contractor who built the uncompleted Tower Hotel in Yenagoa and asked him whether the same contractor was not building a house for him in the village? If the EFCC is quick to dig into the affairs of Sylva, we should expect the same alacrity in the case of the President. At least we want to know the truth.

It was also disappointing that the Anglican Church accepted the gift. The Bible urges us to shun “all appearances of evil.” Like murder in the cathedral, the church donation is a living testimony of corruption. In Otuoke, it will become a monument to corruption.

When the President defended himself through Reuben Abati, what he did were two things. First, he gave an official stamp to the subterranean culture of corruption tearing apart the political and social fabric of Nigeria. He is saying, ‘yes, you can accept anything from a contractor or anybody you give a job in the course of performing your duty to Nigerians, even if not directly’. Two, he has shown that he is not fit to fight a battle against corruption.

The President has been described as a snake in this column, and that is as in regards to his political life. He plays the game, strikes his enemies with sly precision without regard to the consequence for the law and morality. That is why he violated the constitution in pursuing his dream in removing Sylva, sent soldiers to the streets of Lagos, imposed fuel subsidy removal, imposed Bamanga Tukur as party chairman, and a host of other absurdities. But he does not play snake with governance. He plays rat. The rat destroys without knowing the consequences. It nibbles at a wedding dress, leaves its droppings in the only food in the house a la lassa fever. In the analysis of evil,one philosopher refers to the rat that, in innocent hunger, bites a cable that eventually burns down an edifice, obliterating whole families and destroying documents compiled over a generation.

President Jonathan is the parable of the snake and the rat, one a subtle calculating marksman; the other an innocent destroyer just like the characters in John Steinbeck’s novel, Of Mice and Men, all of whom are weak and innocent but want to destroy those weaker than they. Whether as snake or rat, he has not ennobled us as a nation.

This is the first time we are having a story of corruption strike the bull’s eye of the church, which is supposed to represent the highest values. “The corruption of the best produces the worst,” wept philosopher David Hume. If the church is where we ascend to for comfort and protection from the buffeting of the world, and the Christendom is quiet about it, then we know that the Nigerian church is not of the ascension but of the descension.And the Presidency is at the bottom with it.


http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/columnist/monday/sam-omatseye/42494-the-parable-of-the-snake-and-rat.html

Religious disrespect and sarcasm at Easter: Emulate Jesus, Arewa charges Christians [Turn the other cheek


KADUNA-Arewa Consutative Forum, ACF, has asked Nigerians to emulate the sacrifices made by Jesus Christ through His death on the cross for mankind to be liberated from sin by loving and accommodating one another, saying that relative pluralism was needed for meaningful socio-economic development.

In its Easter message by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Anthony Sani, ACF said: ''Nigerians can make the most of their differences by loving and respecting them.''

He said: ''As we celebrate the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ who, through pains and sacrifice associated with crucifixion, brought about the message of reconciliation and hope, ACF wishes all Christians happy Easter.

''Jesus Christ broke barriers that hitherto existed by reaching out to people of all races,nations and culture of all classes and paid the supreme price to reconcile humanity to God.

''Yet, death could not hold Him when He resurrected from the death. It is in that spirit that Nigerians should make consciously-directed efforts and find ways of overcoming all those differences, be they religious, ethnic, regional or political, that divide the people.

''This is because Nigerians can make the most of their differences by loving and respecting them. Cultures, traditions, ethnicity and pantheonism may differ, but they are dynamic.

''Consider language as the basic element of culture and tradition can disappear from the face of the earth,but core value of humanity like love and sacred inviolability of the individual are for eternity. It is such consideration that ACF uses to wish all Christians a wonderful Easter celebration in the hope that we will all mimick Christ's unconditional love of our neighbours as ourselves.’

''That is about the only way to inspire peaceful coexistence that comes with tolerance, accommodation and relative pluralism, which are needed for any meaningful socio-economic development.''


http://odili.net/news/source/2012/apr/6/327.html

Jeffrey Daniel speaks! Nigerian Idol, an 'accident'

Showtime People Friday, April 6, 2012

By Ogbonna Amadi, Entertainment Editor

I taught Michael Jackson how to dance

I founded Shalamar

In the beginning

I was born and raised up by a single mother and two sisters in Los Angeles in the projects in the East Side of Los Angeles and were raised, on food stamps in the 60s; food stamps are what you get from the government to take to the market to buy food rather than using cash money.


Jeffrey Daniel, Then

Jeffrey Daniel, Now ...in Lagos, Nigeria



It's a kind of government subsidiary for welfare. We never owned a car, never had money or anything like that but I didn't even realize we were poor. My mother loved us and gave us everything we needed as far as affection, love, discipline, and education, she was a very intelligent woman and I owe a lot of what I am, if not all of what I am to her.

My mother was a classical pianist, (not famous), and she started gospel choirs in our neighbourhood, with the kids living in our neighbourhood. My mother, two sisters and myself would sing in church together on Sunday with my mother at the piano. I used to dance at home with my mother and my two older sisters. And as I grew older, the love for dance continued, it never stopped.

Birth of a dream

Well, not everybody was an entertainer back then. Everybody wasn't making a demo. You had to be a star to go into a real studio to make a record back then.

Now we have affordable studios, on laptops and computers, back then there was nothing like that. So I was just expressing myself through our culture. Looking back then and now, I can see that our culture was really African. Our rhythms, dance, that's what separated us from white America, that's what we brought from Africa to America.

It wasn't until I saw the TV show 'Soul Train' in 1971 on television that I knew and I saw my destiny. I decided I wanted to be a Soul Train dancer.

Before Soul Train, black people were just on TV being comedians and drug dealers chased by the police. They used black people to show that dark, negative image on American television. When I saw Soul Train, it was the first time I saw young black people looking good and doing what I loved to do most and that was dance.

So my whole life was 'I had to be on Soul Train',I had to be on that TV show. And I eventually became a dancer. Soon Soul Train started a record company and that's what started the group Shalamar. So I owe a lot of my life to Soul Train as well. Even though I wasn't getting paid, my career started from there because the whole world got to see us, even in Nigeria. Shalamar was the beginning of my professional career.

Rocking with Shalamar.

Well, I founded the group. Jodie Watley happened to be my dance partner so she was always going to be in the group but we were looking for another girl who could sing because e didn't know if Jodie could sing. But I trained her, she auditioned for Dick Griffey and we said oh, okay we don't need another girl, this is fine.

We started off with one singer named Gary Mumford that's who we booked first but he didn't work out. Eventually, I brought in Gerald Brown. At the same time I asked Gerald Brown to join, I'd asked Howard Hewitt to join but he had other obligations so he declined.

But then the second time I asked Howard, he joined. The first hit that Howard made with us was called 'The Second Time Around', it was our first real single. It was ironic because, the second time I asked him and the first single was called the second time around.

We went on to sell 25million albums worldwide, and broke all kinds of records. They were calling us the replacement of the Jacksons on the R 'n' B music scene

As I danced on Soul Train, I had no idea that Michael Jackson was watching me. I couldn't imagine that. I'd go back on Soul Train and dance periodically and Dick Griffey would tell me, 'Jeffrey, you gotta stop dancing on that TV show you're a star now!' but I never believed that.

I'm a street dancer that is what I have always been. If I'd had stopped dancing, I'd would have introduced the backslide which is now called the moonwalk, I never would have introduced body popping. It's on YouTube, me and two other guys dressed in black with newspaper.

That video shows the first time we did the moonwalk on American television. At first I never knew there would be the internet or that there would be a YouTube. I didn't know that the things that I was doing then were going to be kind of a milestone in the entertainment industry. We were just doing what we did. It is funny because my dancing and my musical career have always coincided with each other.

Michael Jackson as my dance student

Shalamar, we were doing a series of concerts at Disneyland and then my road manager Stanley Dillard said, he said 'Jeffrey, your student is coming to see you.' I said 'who?'

He said 'Michael Jackson is coming to see you at Disneyland' and I said, 'really?' So Michael brought little Janet Jackson with him and they stood on the side of the stage and watched because I was already doing the backslide on stage and body popping and people were going bananas. So Michael wanted to know this dance so he came down to watch us and the next thing I knew, I got a phone call and that is when I started teaching him in 1980.

But he didn't do it the moon walk until 1983. I did it on Soul Train in 1979 and in 1982 on Top of the Pops on British television but Michael would do it a year later in the Motown 25th with Billy Jean.

We worked together from 1980 to almost 2000. The last job I had with him was in the late 90s' and then I moved to Japan in 2000 and I've been in Japan since until now I'm in Nigeria.

The MJ experience

First it was unbelievable. Michael had a reputation for being very illusive and introverted. Suddenly you're just one on one with him, and you're like, all right. Okay, I have to admit, at first I was star struck, of course I was. It didn't take Thriller and Billy Jean for him to become a star, he was a superstar for the black community from the day one, so for me just being one on one with him was amazing. Our relationship was great.

We really had a lot of fun together and we talked about everything. He was very inquisitive so he asked about everything.

He and I are both virgos. I was born August 24th, he was born August 29th and we did not know that we were so much alike in a sense that I'm the kind of person who would wait for someone to propose to me. I had that problem with girls.

Girls are waiting for me to make the first move while I am waiting for them so a lot of times nothing happens. They think I'm not interested because I'm not jumping on them, but I just don't jump on things like that. Our musical tastes were also very similar.

…And the beat goes on

Because I was Michael's choreographer, everybody wanted me. I worked with the actress singer, Vanessa Williams, I did her debut video. I did Johnny Hughes debut video, I worked with Arnold Schwarzzeneger and Danny DeVito on the movie Twins, Baby Face, LL Cool J, Will Smith for the Grammy's, Japanese artistes that you wouldn't know, UK artistes a group called Incognito, LaToya Jackson, Randy Jackson, Marlon Jackson, I didn't work with Janet because I was Michael's choreographer and she had her own.

Getting on the Nigerian Idol stage

I bought my ticket in April and I said, I wanna know Nigeria. It didn't just start then though. I had this idea two years ago, that Nigeria should be the new place for black people all over the world and I thought 'if this nation gets it right and stands still, it could represent black people all over the world.

I came for a couple of weeks and wound up staying for three months, I didn't leave until late July. Because I was here, the opportunity for Idol came about because they were putting it together. My manager, Tunde Babalola, connected me with them, we had a meeting and they couldn't believe I was even here.

I went back home to Japan and they finally got together and organised it and I flew back here and became a judge on Nigerian Idol. I didn't come to Nigeria to take something or get something, I came to be a part of the people. I came to give if they would allow me.

Because I took a leap of faith, I started off as a judge and now I'm the directing talent manager as well. There's a lot on my table right now, some I can't speak on because I don't want to jinx it, I want people to see it when it begins to happen. I'm beginning to see my dream come true.

I didn't just come to Nigeria as an entertainer. I want to be a part of the infrastructure, a part of helping bring the society together and make Nigeria better

. I'm only one person, there are a lot of politicians, a lot of activists who are working, but I will still make my contribution, as minute as it might be.

The Nigerian experience

First, I'd never been a judge in my life so I had to develop that very quickly. Also travelling to the different cities, Enugu, Calabar, Abuja, was amazing.

Nigeria has the biggest black population in the world! Would you imagine how many Michael Jacksons and Aretha Franklins would be here? And to see all these talented people come was exciting! The biggest problem I had was rejecting people, because I feel it's not up to me to tell a person what they can or cannot be in life, but now it's my job to!

So sometimes it's difficult for me but I try to do my job and I try to be honest, but I'm not trying to degrade people or make them feel belittled. I don't think that's part of it. I'm there to encourage people not to give them the hardest judgement.

Don Cornelius

He was a great man. The music has lost a real legend. I was in Nigeria when it happened and I cannot begin to say how much of a loss it was. He was a great man



http://odili.net/news/source/2012/apr/6/338.html

Mantu explodes: “Those who dropped for Tukur were cowards”


Why there is crisis in the Plateau
Explains role on Obasanjo’s third term bid
The problem with the oil sector

Senator Ibrahim Mantu was Deputy Senate President during the regime of former President Olusegun Obasanjo. In this interview with Augustine Aminu, he opens up on a number of burning issues including his role in the botched third term bid and the recent PDP National Convention.

Since you left office as Deputy Senate President, you have remained largely silent. How is life outside office?
Since I left office in 2007, I have been on what I call political sabbatical. That is why you have not been reading about me in the papers. It gave me time to do what the late Bola Ige used to say that is, ‘sit down look’ and when you sit down and look, it gives you time to meditate; you reflect on the past and you watch things from a very careful perspective and you come out with perhaps new ideas and see where you went wrong in your own life and what is going wrong with the system.
Perhaps you will be able to proffer some solutions to move the country forward. However, about two months ago, I had to come out of my sabbatical to market Alhaji Bamanga Takur as the National Chairman of the PDP. He came several times to request me to lead his campaign organisation. I was reluctant at first, but when we discussed and he told me his mission, I could see clearly that if such a person gets that position, the likelihood of restoring the lost glory of the PDP were very high and if I could be a contributing factor to restoring the lost glory of the PDP whose platform I used to come to the Senate and became the Deputy Senate President then of course it will be worthwhile contribution because it is like payback. So he convinced me and I decided to join his campaign organisation as the Chairman of the organisation and we started moving round. That was the first time people started seeing me again in public functions.
There was wide spread reports that other candidates were forced to step down for Bamanga Tukur. How would you reconcile that with the quest for internal democracy in the party?
First and foremost, Bamanga Tukur inherited a system; the changes he will introduce in the system are what are going to make the party different. Coming back to the issue of somebody being cajole or forced to step down, I think those who claim that they stepped down because they were forced should bury their heads in shame because what they are saying is that they don’t have a mind of their own. If they believed in themselves they should have gone in for the election no matter what. I will go in for it and prove to the world that I am a man of my own mind; that I don't care whether I am elected or not, but I must exercise my civil right.
So, I think that they should bury their heads in shame because they are telling Nigerians that they don't have a mind of their own, that they are just being controlled by certain powers. Why should anybody allow himself to be pushed around. I don’t think anybody stopped them. If they had been denied obtaining nomination forms or denied the right to contest, then I could have said something is wrong. They could even go to court for that, in pursuit of what is rightly theirs. But they were not denied the right to contest. They themselves went to say they were withdrawing. Whether somebody persuaded them to withdraw or not that is their own business. They have told the world that they are stepping down for this man. So who do we believe now? The lamentation after they have told the world that they are stepping down because there is a better candidate than themselves is like medicine after death.
As far as I am concerned, the convention was peaceful and that is key. It was well anchored and well conducted. I would want to see more competition. I am not condemning consensus; if consensus is well arrived at by the consent of the candidates, nothing wrong is with that. In fact, that is keeping in line with African tradition because it is our tradition that when two people are looking for something, the elders will say, “go and settle among yourselves and bring us one person, but when sometimes the people cannot do it, the elders will chip in and come in with words of wisdom. Now when you consent to that kind of decision and you withdraw, there is nothing wrong with that. But considering what goes on behind the scene before these things emerge, I will like to see more competition and people challenging other people for the positions because that is the way to develop our democratic culture. Democracy is about the right to choose
One of the targets of the PDP is to recapture the South West states. Are you convinced that the current leadership of the PDP can achieve that for the PDP?
To my own mind, it is not something that should be left alone for the national leadership of the party. It also depends on the quality of leadership that they elected at the state levels. People are looking at the leadership at that stage as a mirror. If the people who are leading the party at the state level are people who don't have good records, obviously you will find out that the followership will be poor. As I speak to you now, I don’t know much about the quality of leadership that has just been elected in the south west states. But I do hope and pray that they are the best. I am aware that there are some factions. I think the first thing they should do is to reconcile their differences and come out with a strong formidable family. That is going to be the beginning of the possibility of their taking over the lost states.
When you were Deputy Senate President, you were always having problem with your then State governor, Joshua Dariye. What were the problems?
The point is that as you know there is always conflict of power when there are two forces in a particular area. The governor is the chief executive of the state. He was number one citizen of that state. I was also Deputy President of the Senate and number five citizen of the nation at that time. We were very close from the beginning. Our disagreement was virtually caused by go-betweens. This one will come and tell you something different and tell the other person another thing. And unfortunately those go-betweens will never allow you people to sit down when they are there so that they can be confronted and perhaps dealt with.
These go-betweens are the ones who are always at work, creating division and misunderstanding among political leaders; but you, see in politics, you must always remember that there is no permanent enemy or permanent friend. There is only permanent interest. And when you have that kind situation, to reconcile with somebody you disagree with in the past will be very easy. But I see some people making enemies as a permanent feature. There is no way any politician will make enmity a feature in his life. If you do that, you lose a lot because nothing is permanent, even life itself. It is my prayer that before I die, if there is anybody I am having disagreement with, I will like to reconcile. Those who know me will tell you that I don't have political enemies. The moment something happens, it has happened. The next thing I will be looking for is how to reconcile our differences and put the past behind
We also remember a little friction with you and your former ADC when he addressed the press that you are the one behind the crisis in the states.
Let me make it clear that I will never join issues with any of my subordinates. He can say whatever he likes but he is not the kind of person I will join issues with. He made allegations and those allegations are weighty, but everybody knows that in every crisis of Plateau state, government had set up panels with very highly reputable people. In all the report of these distinguished Nigerians, nobody has ever mentioned my name as having a hand in any of the crises.
The crisis in the Plateau has become perennial. Is it that people like you cannot find solution to the issues?
The problem now is becoming more complicated than before especially with the advent of Boko Haram. Originally our problem in Jos could be described clearly as ethno-religious. But now it has gone beyond that, because we don't have Boko Haram in Jos, but recently they have extended their activities to Jos. So that has further complicated an already complicated situation. There have been committees that had been set up by the Federation Government and Plateau State Government and we came out with all sorts of suggestions. Unfortunately, what is happening in the country is that reports are not implemented. We have the Solomon Lar committee which came up with a lot of recommendations but they were not implemented. If the report of the committees had been implemented, perhaps, the problem of Jos would have been over. But I believe that the people of Jos, the so called indigenes and settlers, have learnt their lessons. We have engaged in these crises for long, and nobody has been wining; we are always losers. Both sides are losing precious souls. I think everybody in Jos is praying to God in heaven to restore lasting peace. As you know, Plateau was the most peaceful state in this country. Suddenly the devil decided to come and destroy this wonderful people’s way of live.
Are you not worried about the security situation in the country?
Who is not worried? It is only someone with mental case that should not be worried. You know and I know that if there is no peace in this country, there is no way we can develop. Without peace and stability in any country, there cannot be development. We are talking of attracting international investors, they can only come in when they know they can enjoy peace. Again, we are talking about youth unemployment, we can only achieve youth empowerment by establishing industries; again we need to attract foreign investors. If you look at the road constructions going on across the country, some of the expatriates have left sites because a few of them have been kidnapped by kidnappers and Boko Haram in north east has sent major companies away from the country and in the south the story is the same. There is insecurity everywhere. So instead of progressing we are retrogressing. So everybody should be worried about the state of security in the country. So all hands must be on deck to join forces with security agents to assist them in identifying those enemies of Nigeria in our midst, because I believe that whatever happens there must be the hand of certain indigenous people. People are saying the Boko Haram people are from neighboring countries, but they are being accommodated by our own people.
A lot of people are attributing the problem to poverty which has led to anger among Nigerians. We will recall that when the Obasanjo administration wanted to remove subsidy, you were the Chairman of the Palliative Committee and you made many recommendations.
The problem of Nigeria is that government will set up a committee and get the best brains to be members; people will work to the best of their abilities to come up with solutions but things end there. If the recommendations of our committee were taken, we would not be in the problem we are in now over fuel subsidy and so on. We came up with a sort of price control mechanism called modular system whereby if price in the international market goes up we save some money and when it goes down, instead of bringing down pump price, we save the difference and when prices go up again, we will now use the excess gain to cushion the effect and that is what goes on in most civilized countries. We had to go to many countries to be able to come up with this system. All the recommendations of our committees were not implemented apart from buying some buses. Now we are still talking about palliatives. There is nothing new in what people are recommending now. Our report was very comprehensive. If our recommendations were taken, by now we would have had so much money which has been used in the past to subsidies the pump prices. We recommended that government should encourage the building of local refineries. Government gave licenses to people but the question is, why is it that none of them build refineries? People are in business to make profit. Government must provide deliberate incentives to encourage people to invest. They did not do that. Now the cost of building a refinery now is more than twice of what it will cost in the past. So we must learn implement recommendations by committees. Even in the present administration you see a lot of committees but we need to implement. Every time the President speaks, he comes out with something from his heart for the good of the nation. He touches on fundamental issues but implementation if is the problem. We need to set up enabling environment for investment. We need to ensure that there is adequate power supply even the creation of employment go hand in hand with all these issues we have mentioned.
What is your view about the National conference?
I don’t see anything wrong in family members coming together to discuss issues that are of common interest to them.
All these Nigerians talking of Sovereign National Conference are talking within the contest of together. Nobody is taking about separation. If that is the case, then why don’t we sit down and talk. The only problem is that people are using different words for different things. What do they mean by sovereign? What is sovereign? Why bring in something that will cause confusion and make people think you have a different agenda. Many people feel we need to talk. Nigeria was amalgamated in 1914 but people feel we did not have more say in that amalgamation; that it was done by the colonial powers and today, more than 100 years, it appears that we have not really become one. In order words we are still like a mixture. We should actually be a whole if everything has to go on well. We should put the nation first before any local interest. God has given us abundant natural resources and quality human resources. There are only few countries that are as endowed as Nigeria in the whole world. We are so lucky we don't have natural disaster here. It is just for us to learn to live together.
Some people think that one of the ways to solve the problem is through zoning of leadership positions, what is your view?
In 1990, I was going to be elected as National Chairman of NRC. I have been shortlisted, unanimously by the state chairmen. Immediately we came out of the meeting, the press asked me what I was going to do differently as National Chairman, and I said I was going to give a level playing ground for all Nigerians. I said we had a situation where some people are second class citizens in their own country. I said I was going to make sure power shifts from the north to the south. I am the first politician from the north that advocated power shift and zoning in 1990. I believed that the situation where power just settles in one particular region does not augur well for the rest of the people. My decision was based on the experiences of the Biafran war and this war happened because some people felt they were marginalized. So, I felt if another section of this country says it want to secede base on the same issue of marginalization, it could lead to another war. I didn't want that to repeat itself. I wanted everybody to feel he is a first class citizen. That eventually cost me the job anyway. They said all manner of thing, that I was an igbo man (laughs) believe me, today if we have a leader that will turn our poverty into prosperity nobody will want to border where he is from.
Many Nigerians believe that you played a key role in the Obasanjo botched third term bid. Is that correct?
Third time is actually what is called tenure elongation clause. There were 102 clauses that were to be amended in our Constitution to meet the expectation and aspiration of our people. This Constitution was actually put together by the military and people feel that we should start changing some provisions to suit the democratic dispensation. In democracy everybody has a right to voice his or her opinion and if there are people who serve as umpire, they will take a decision. The question here is why was there so much noise about third term. Some people wanted Obasanjo to continue in office, some people felt he should go immediately. Others felt he was the best thing that ever happened to this country, when they look back to 1999 before he came in; when Nigeria was a Pariah nation and this man came and restored the lost glory of Nigeria and in restored the dignity of the citizens they wanted him to continue. In his first tenure, Obasanjo was going round the world trying to shore up the image of the country. a lot of people criticised him. I remember the late Gani Fawehimi even took him to court that he was more of an absentee president because of the number of time he spent outside trying to change the perception of the world about Nigeria. He wanted to let the world to know that we now had a new Nigeria and it paid off and people started coming into the country
A lot of things changed and some people felt that he should be left to continue and of course he was elected for a second term. Obasanjo himself wanted to do only four years but people felt that what they have seen in the first four years; if they allow him to continue he might even do more. By his second tenure, we had even forgotten where we were in 1999. I was Chairman of Constitutional Review Committee. I was not an advocate of third term but because I was in charge and I had a very special relationship with Obasanjo and many people suspected Obasanjo was actually looking for a third term and they saw me as the hatched person to get that done. And they now decided to start attacking me because they felt if they attack me very well the thing will not see the light of the day. So they started using the media to attack me. I never had a headache because God knows that I had no hidden agenda.
I ask people that if there was anybody I have ever spoken to to support third term, he should come out, up till now nobody has come out, yet nobody believes that Mantu is innocent just like Obasanjo is saying he was never interested in third term and nobody believes him. But what is important is your conscience. Assuming Obasanjo wanted third term, surely he would not take it by force. Since it was going to go through the people to decide, all they needed do is tell their members in the National Assembly not to support it. But people threw away the baby with the bad water and we are paying dearly today. Look at how much we spent to make the previous amendment and all that amendment was contained in our amendment which we had already proposed. If they had thrown away the tenure elongation clause and passed all the rest, we would not have a duplication of process.
The message i want to leave with Nigerians on this third term issue is that just as you have a right to say there should be no third term, somebody also have a right to say I want third term and since the debate will get to the National Assembly both of you will have to talk to your representatives. But to say somebody who wants third term is an enemy of the nation is wrong. That is not democracy. People have a right to say whatever they want they want to say.


http://www.peoplesdaily-online.com/news/national-news/33925-mantu-expodes-those-who-dropped-for-tukur-were-cowards

President moves to erase predecessor’s legacies

The resignation of former Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Board of Trustees, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, has been traced to the disagreement between him and President Goodluck Jonathan over attempts to discredit some of his legacies by the government.

Obasanjo shocked political watchers when he issued a statement earlier in the week announcing his resignation of the leadership of the PDP’s influential organ further confirming his weakening grip and control in the country as Jonathan further asserted himself.

Chief Obasanjo was the president of Nigeria between 1999 and 2007 and he is reputed to have a hand in the emergence of his successors, iAlhaji Umaru Yar’Adua and the incumbent, President Jonathan.

However, like the late Yar”Adua, President Jonathan has since started distancing himself from the former president, particularly over political issues which Obasanjo felt strongly about.

A source told Saturday Mirror that the emergence of Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as the National Chairman of the party against the Obasanjo’s choice of the former Agriculture Minister, Adamu Bello, may have deepened the feud between the leaders.

Obasanjo was key to the understanding between President Jonathan and the political class that he would serve only one term in office, but sources say that the enthronement of Tukur recently was a clear indication that Jonathan may not be keen on keeping to his words.

The former president was also disturbed by the political development in the party, particularly as President Jonathan who is the PDP leader reneged on his promises to ensure that South-West produces the Speaker for the House of Representatives.

It would be recalled that Obasanjo vowed to resign his chairmanship of BoT should the injustices meted to South-West is not revisited.

This recent violent shut down of the operations of MAEVIS Limited, which has a concession to manage facilities at four key Nigerian airports initiated by the Obasanjo’s government gave a clear signal of the moves by the present administration to rubbish the legacies of the former leader.

Persons familiar with the development confirmed that throwing MAEVIS out of the airports, coming on the heels of the crushing defeat that former Obasanjo suffered at the PDP convention that produced Alhaji Bamanga Tukur as the party’s chairman, finally compelled the former PDP BOT Chairman to severe ties with his godson, whom he single-handedly positioned and installed as president.

According to a source who spoke to Saturday Mirror, “Obasanjo had wanted a former Minister of Agriculture to become the PDP chairman but Jonathan outwitted him and ensured that his choice of Tukur carried the day and within matter of days, a concession originally brokered during Obasanjo’s tenure, was forcefully ended.”

An aide to Obasanjo said he saw the attempts to forcefully end the MAEVIS concession as “a calculated attempt to rubbish his legacy” and criminalise economic decisions that were taken with national interest at heart.

The former president was said to have frantically tried to reach out to President Jonathan to appeal for him to give MAEVIS a breather because the concession between the company and the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN) was first hatched under his administration and solidified during the tenure of late President Umaru Yar’Adua.

“The attempt by Baba to meet Mr. President to explain the sensitivities and national implications of the concession suffered repeated setbacks until that company was eventually thrown out,” one of the sources, who does not want to be named, said.


http://nationalmirroronline.net/news/36394.html

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U.S, UK issue security alert on Nigeria



The United States and Britain yesterday raised a security alert on Nigeria.

They warned that the country faces a “high risk” of attack by Boko Haram terrorists during this weekend’s Easter holiday.

But the Police have put their men on high alert, with Inspector General Mohammed Abubakar ordering surveillance on all places of worship during the Easter celebrations.



The UK Foreign Office and the US Embassy in Abuja, issuing the updated travel warnings, noted that Boko Haram carried out attacks on Christmas Day last year.

The UK advised its citizens to avoid travel to Borno, Niger, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Sokoto and Yobe states.

“There is a high threat of terrorist attack during religious festivals,” the UK warning read.

The US warning noted the near-daily attacks in Nigeria, noting that there have been “continued threats, including several that mention US interests”.

The warning also noted that personnel from the US Embassy no longer travel to northern Nigeria, a rule put in place after a Boko Haram attack on Kano in January killed at least 185 people.

“The US Embassy continues to monitor closely the ongoing threats posed by Nigerian extremist and criminal groups, and their stated intentions to carry out attacks against the Nigerian government and western interests and targets in Nigeria,” the message read.

The police chief directed zonal and state commands to provide adequate security to all places of worship during the Easter celebrations.

The Commissioner of Police, FCT Command, Mr. Ade Shinaba, placed a travel restriction on police personnel.

The IGP’s statement said zonal Assistant Inspectors-General and Police Commissioners should ensure proper coverage of all vulnerable points and highways during and after the period.

The police boss praised Nigerians for being co-operative with policemen in their various communities and called for more support and understanding of the security challenges.

The statement praised for their tireless and selfless service to the nation.

The statement reads: “The administration of the force is committed to giving a new lease of life to the Nigerian Police and ensuring that its past glories are restored, as a highly dedicated, motivated and efficient police force”.

Abubakar urged Nigerians to avail the force with useful information to track down criminals.

Shinaba directed police patrol teams to be very proactive and maintain adequate security around worship and recreation centres.


http://www.thenationonlineng.net/2011/index.php/news/42214-u-s-uk-issue-security-alert-on-nigeria.html

ACN replies PDP, Presidency
Friday, 06 April 2012 00:



Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has slammed the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Presidency for going hysterical and resorting to the worst form of crudity in their reactions to its (ACN) call on the National Assembly to commence impeachment proceedings against President Goodluck Jonathan for soliciting and accepting a church 'gift' in contravention of the Constitution.

''For the avoidance of doubt, there was nothing exculpatory in the pedestrian statements issued by the PDP and the Presidency. Instead of employing facts - if they have any - to explain to Nigerians what they felt transpired, they resorted to name calling and endless ramblings. What an opportunity gone down the drain,'' the party said in a statement yesterday by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed.

''Since the statements did not deny that the church in question was constructed or 'renovated' by a foreign construction firm taking contracts from the government and that the church is situated in the President's community, and since they did not refute the statement credited to the President himself that he solicited and received the 'gift', then, we are compelled to renew our call on the National Assembly to urgently launch impeachment proceedings against the President.

''While we will not like to deviate from our well-acknowledged style of dwelling on issues to trade words with an increasingly confused and an apparently overwhelmed presidential spokesman and a greenhorn PDP spokesman seeking relevance, we will like to put it on record that their statements are full of sound and fury, signifying nothing' apology to William Shakespeare.

ACN said the presidential spokesman's explanation that the church's renovation is part of the construction company's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and that the church does not belong to Jonathan or his family is too untenable and actually compounds the issue.

''What is this company's track record of CSR in Bayelsa or any other state in Nigeria, where it has obtained billions of naira in contracts? Why did the company choose the President's village to do its CSR? Even if it is CSR, is it not a gift to the President's community? What qualifies that community for this CSR above any other community? Assuming it was even legitimate CSR, shouldn't the President see the obvious conflict of interest in a church where he worships being gratuitously renovated by a government contractor?

''In other climes, the President and the company will give a full account and a full scale investigation will be launched. Instead of the President's handlers to be remorseful for what is, at the very least, a poor error of judgement by the President or his community in accepting this Greek Gift, they resorted to firing darts at imaginary political opponents of the President.

''The reactions never mentioned the fact that the President himself, in his now trademark Freudian Slip, admitted soliciting and receiving the 'gift' from the construction firm. One would have expected that they will put a lie to this by causing the President's speech at the inauguration of the church to be played for Nigerians to hear.

''The truth is that the President's handlers are either grossly incompetent or are terribly overwhelmed by the demands of their office. Otherwise, they would have ensured that the President does not make statements that will put him in bad light. Had they done that, they would have saved themselves from having to issue, in regular intervals, statements that do no credit to the competence and professional standing of those who sign them,'' it said.

http://www.compassnewspaper.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1823:acn-replies-pdp-presidency&catid=35:headlines