₦airaland Forum

Bensonite:
[b]If you say so but the Ijaw land has 70% of the oil [/b]and 97% of the boys you call militant that cripple oil production by a third. If you are from the SS or south name one man that commands the respect he has. This however does not take away his excesses but do jump here and claim he is not relevant.

ndi-igbo:
Ndi igbo wise up. United we stand divided we fall

Kobojunkie:
WOW  . . . another atrocious retort.

Higher literacy rate in a country like Nigeria EQUALS Quality Education?? What else? Highest # of graduates per year signals Quality Education? ROFL

Kobojunkie:
How much longer with the daftness?

Kobojunkie:
Learn not to comment on things you are ignorant of. Free DOES NOT make education of better Quality. It simply makes what is available QUALITY. If the man announced that he was really interested in improving quality, let him say so. No need for you to try to connect the disjointed so you can post another flimsy line on nairaland for the man -- even if you expect to be paid to do so.

He further charge the HRH, Eze Samuel Ohiri led-state Council of Traditional Rulers to ensure that Igbo language was spoken in all the state ministries, primary and secondary schools in the state.

mama-gee:
[color=deeppink]Is it a let-down or an insult if a woman calls on the phone and asks "O lee otu gi na "umuaka" di, by that term she's referring to a 15 and 17 year old and she even goes tot he extent of telling the woman to come and collect puff-puff and fried chicken for them.

Is it an insult or just a culture thing?[/color]

Okonjo-Iweala Drops Jumbo Salary Request, Makes Demand For Jumbo Ministry


Nigeria's Goodluck Jonathan's intention to appoint Mrs. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala continues to create intrigues in Abuja just as she has reportedly dropped her demands over pay.  

But she has raised a new request:  the merging of the Finance and National Planning ministries into one under her leadership, Saharareporters has learned.

As the intrigues over her proposed appointment mount alongside intense pressure on Mr. Jonathan by lobbyists of every colour, Empowered Newswire has reported that previous discussions of dollar-denominated salary for Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala may have hit a legal brickwall because of a 2007 Court of Appeal ruling that declared the previous dollar salary structure paid Okonjo-Iweala and Mr. Olu Adeniji (who she would later succeed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under the Obasanjo administration) was an illegality. Both Ministers were ordered to refund the excess salaries paid them.

In that ruling, the Court of Appeal said such a dollar salary was an illegality even if the salary differential wass paid by an organization such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which was reportedly   involved in the payment of the controversial dollar salary at that time.

After dropping the initial demand for a jumbo pay, Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala is said to have have demanded that in addition to merging the Ministries of Finance and National Planning into a single entity, she wanted to be given the freedom to formulate and control Nigeria's fiscal and monetary policies during her tenure as Minister.  She has also reportedly a free hand to choose all the members of Jonathan's economic team members in and outside of thegovernment.

Officials in the US also confirmed yesterday that Mr. Jonathan had always shown keen interest in at least two of Nigeria’s top officials at the World Bank: Dr. Okonjo-Iweala and Ms Oby Ezekwesili, wanting them to return to the government as ministers in charge of some critical portfolios.  Both former ministers played prominent roles in Obasanjo’s economic reform team.

But only one of them, Dr. Okonjo-Iweala has been more forthcoming about returning to her old position as federal minister apart from her request for a differential salary which ignited a controversy within the government from the outset.  Some presidency officials are irked by her brazen requests, with one of them describing her as being too ambitious and wanting to run a parallel government in order to bolster her political ambition to run for president in 2015.  Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala has not indicated such an ambition.

Those who opposed the request for a dollar-salary for any federal minister point out that since the controversy that greeted the dollar salary that former president Olusegun Obasanjo approved for the Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala and Chief Adeniji, other foreign-based Nigerians have been named to the cabinet without being paid  dollar salaries.

They cite Olusegun Aganga, Nigeria's most recent Minister of Finance.  Mr. Aganga, it was learned yesterday, neither asked for nor enjoyed a dollar-denominated salary.

Before his appointment as finance minister by Jonathan, Aganga was a Managing Director at Goldman Sachs in London. Incidentally, Mr. Aganga, who was described as cocky and colorless by a presidency official, is unlikely to return to the cabinet, especially if the FG strikes an agreement with Okonjo-Iweala.

Others critics of Mrs. Okonjo-Iweala's conditions for accepting a ministerial position say some  Nigerian ministers who formerly worked in top US schools and institutions  did not receive dollar salaries from the Obasanjo administration.  One such person is Ms. Ezekwesili, who worked with Prof. Jeffrey Sachs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard before being named by Obasanjo as Senior Special Assistant.  She created and managed the successful Due Process Unit of the presidency, from which she became Solid Minerals minister, and then education minister.

It would be recalled that former FCT Minister Nasir Rufai was instrumental, by his own personal disclosure at a New York event in 2004, to the appointment of Okonjo-Iweala as minister and the approval of a dollar salary for her at that time.

President Jonathan is said to be interested in including technocrats in his administration for two reasons:  to keep the international goodwill and endorsement that followed his recent election, especially from some strategic and friendly Western nations and governments.



A US diplomatic source said that friendly western leaders had hoped that Jonathan would constitute his cabinet early enough as he had promised so that he would be able to beat the current political fights and jostling from his party members.

One of the sources said "we had hoped he would name his cabinet on day one of his new term," because as the source explained,  Jonathan gave the impression to some western leaders during his recent international outing of strong determination to make real change happen in Nigeria.

A diplomatic source also told Empowered Newswire yesterday that the delay in naming the cabinet, about a month now since the president was inaugurated, and the reported names of the politicians dominating leaked versions of the list, are all being closely watched by western diplomats in Nigeria as well as officials in their home capitals.

Commenting on the dollar salary controversy, Dr Baba Adam, a public commentator, said: “Anyone in Diaspora deserves what they are earning in their current positions outside Nigeria.  We understand the skill-set many of us in Diaspora can bring to Nigeria, however, it is very bad for anyone in Diaspora to knowingly request the Nigerian President who swore to defend the Nigerian Constitution to violate the Nigerian Constitution and/or disrespect a Court ruling by paying their salary in dollars or any other currency."

In a statement released earlier in the US, Adam noted, “We strongly urge Nigerians in Diaspora who are willing to go back to serve in any position to accept the Nigerian salary remunerations prescribed by law.  After all Minister's salary and allowance is thousand times the earning of an average Nigerian.  After their service, Nigerians in Diaspora, if they wish can return to their jobs and earn their Diaspora jumbo salary."

Based on a legal suit filed by the late Chief Gani Fawehinmi, the Court of Appeal in Abuja in July 2007 granted the reliefs he sought in the case including:

*A declaration that the purported authorization by the President to the effect that the salaries of Finance Minister, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala and External Affairs Minister, Mr Olufemi Adeniji be paid in foreign currencies was unconstitutional and amounted to an abuse of office;

*A declaration that the yearly salary of USD247,000 (about N36 million) being paid to the 3rd defendant, Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala , the Federal Minister of Finance is a flagrant violation of Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances , etc) Act No 6 of 2002 which prescribes a yearly salary of N794,085.00 for every Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria;

*A declaration that the yearly salary of USD120,000 (about N17 million) being paid to the 4th defendant Ambassador Olufemi Adeniji, Federal Minister for External Affairs is a flagrant violation of Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, etc) Act No. 6 of 2002 which prescribes a yearly salary of N794,085.00 for every Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria; and

*An order compelling the 3rd and 4th defendants to stop the Federal Government of Nigeria, its agents, servants, privies or howsoever called particularly the 1st defendant from paying Ministers or any other public officers covered by certain political, public and judicial office holders’ salaries and allowances etc Act No 6 of 2002 outside the salaries prescribed in the said Act.

Chief Fawehinmi also contended that besides the jumbo salaries and allowances being paid in foreign currency, the illegality involved the point that the payment of the salaries into the foreign accounts of the Ministers contradicted the provision of the Code of Conduct for public officers which frowns against maintenance of foreign accounts while holding public office.

He further contended that the approval of different  salary scales for the two ex-ministers offended an Act of the National Assembly tagged “Certain Political, Public and Judicial Office Holders (Salaries and Allowances, etc) Act No 6 of 2002, which prescribed the yearly salary of N794,085.00 for every minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. The court then asked the former ministers to refund the money paid.

amaka2011:
please!! is it Bad, for an igbo man to get married to yoruba lady
please nairaland i need your advice,

Ileke-IdI:
All we in the SW are saying to the North/SE is. . . . this time, dont bring your rubbish our way.

Good luck to Boko harams and Boko IYCD. May the best have more blood in thier hands.

EzeUche!:
Now they want to use religion? It is bad enough we use regions.

Onlytruth:
Anioma state to be added to SE zone, plus one extra state for EVERY zone = Equitable zonal configuration of Nigeria.

I'm not sure that solves all the problems, but it would help.

If not that, then all zones should have only ONE state each, with minor adjustments to include split tribes into homogenous zones.

[size=15pt]Bandits kill two in Ekiti communities[/size]

By Yaqoub Popoola Correspondent, Ado-Ekiti

Armed bandits suspected to be nomadic herdsmen have killed two persons in two Ekiti communities.

The victims, a pregnant woman and a commercial cyclist, were killed at separate attacks, which were carried out at bad portions of Ado-Ekiti-Ijan-Ekiti roads.

The identities of the victims have not been ascertained at press time.

Reacting, the Ekiti State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Mohammed Jimoh, said the command was aware of the robbers’ menace, but said the State Commissioner of Police, Olayinka Balogun, had mobilised his men to the dreaded spot.

“We are aware of the situation and we have commenced 24 hours patrol of that road. We are quite aware that they are using the deplorable state of that road to commit the crime.

“I want to assure the people of the state that we are on top of the situation and we will stop at nothing to ensure that the perpetrators are apprehended and brought to justice.”, Jimoh said

A source told newsmen in a telephone conversation, that the pregnant woman was being conveyed by a motorbike from Ilupeju, a subsidiary community of Ijan Ekiti to the state capital, where she was said to have suddenly ran into the robbery gang.

The source said the robbers were already dispossessing some victims of their personal effects and as the motorcyclist was trying to make a u-turn and return to Ijan Ekiti, one of the robbers shot at the woman at the back and she died immediately.

The motorcyclist, who narrowly escaped the robbers’ bullet, was said to have immediately fled the scene after the woman had somersaulted from the bike and started bleeding profusely.

Another commuter that was killed on the spot was said to have resisted the robbers’ attempt to dispossess him of some of his valuable effects before he was shot.

Several other people, according to the source, were said to have been wounded by these dreaded killers’ gang at the black spot.

alj_harem:
the hausa, fulani, kanuri have been in some of this lands even before the migaration of idomas from the SE

EzeUche!:
If he falls then does that mean that an Igbo man rises?

alj_harem:
name 1 ngwa that has ever being the governor of there own state abia

alj_harem:
who told you they enslaved anybody

so because a few people are ruling, it mean they are in slave

is sambo not hausa