₦airaland Forum

declares Fani-Kayode's mistress, Chioma, wanted over $65,000 fraud


[b]The Police have disclosed why they declared the estranged mistress of a former minister of Aviation, Chief Femi Fani-Kayode, Miss Chioma Anaso, wanted, saying she failed to respond to a petition by a certain businessman, Mr. Ifeanyi Okorie, whom she allegedly duped of the sum of $65,000 under the pretext of executing a phantom contract.


In a petition dated March 10, 2009, exclusively obtained by Pointblanknews.com, Okorie narrated to the Abuja Police Command how Chioma, whom he described as a business associate, had cajoled him into lending her $65,000 “with a promise to repay the same within three months with an additional 30 per cent interest.”

According to Okorie, Chioma, who served as a Special Assistant to Fani-Kayode, had sought the loan to enable her obtain “some contracts for herself in the Ministry of Aviation using proxy companies unknown to her boss (Fani-Kayode)” since she had “run out of personal funds to finance certain aspects of these contracts.” Besides, Chioma had promised to secure plum contracts from the Aviation Ministry for Okorie, the petition alleged.

Okorie, who claimed to have handed Chioma the loan at Agura Hotel, Abuja, continued: “I waited patiently for three months for her to repay my money as agreed. However, to my chagrin, she became elusive…until the then Hon. Minister’s appointment expired,” adding, “and from June 2008 she has provocatively avoided even my calls.”



The embattled businessman, who claimed to have been in business since 1994, further told the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), that he was compelled to report the matter to the police since he was at his wits’ end and didn’t want to resort to self-help.

“Sir, all my efforts to meet Miss Anaso (at her No. 15 Frederick Chiluba Street, Asokoro home) have failed,” lamented Okorie, declaring that his fears that Chioma may have relocated to an unknown destination were fuelled by the “suspicious” glances occupants of the said house cast on him each time he visited in search of Fani-Kayode’s former mistress.

“I cannot proceed on self-help to bring Miss Anaso to account for her criminal atrocity against my finances,” penned Okorie, regretting that “I was even later to discover from informed sources that Miss Anaso did not have any contract to execute at the said time, and that even if she had, such contract was already executed and paid for before she used false pretence to defraud me.”

Okorie, who admitted that he trusted Chioma well enough not to document the transaction, appealed to the Police authorities to “promptly intervene” and save him from the ruin and psychological trauma Chioma allegedly unleashed on him.

On the receipt of the petition, a Police source told Pointblanknews.com, “we made several attempts to reach the said woman,” adding that, “when it became clear she was cleverly avoiding everybody, we were left with no option that to approach the Chief Magistrate Court, Wuse 2, for a Warrant of Arrest on Miss Chioma Anaso.”

By the Warrant, a copy which was exclusively obtained by Pointblanknews.com, “all Police officers” are empowered to arrest Chioma for “Criminal Breach of Trust and Cheating.” The Warrant was signed by Chief Magistrate David Ochimana and dated March 20, 2009.

A source close to the petitioner told Pointblanknews.com that their fear is that the $65,000 may have been part of the $250,000 on Chioma in June 2007, when she was reportedly arrested by officials of the Nigerian Customs at the Abuja International airport as she boarded a London-bound British Airways aircraft.

It took the intervention of an obviously embarrassed Fani-Kayode, who was out of the country at the time, as well as other very top government officials at the time, particularly the then EFCC chairman, Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, to disentangle Chioma from what would have been the web of prosecution by the Customs officials for failure to declare such amount of foreign currency. [/b]

http://pointblanknews.com/os1608.html

By Wale:

COLUMNISTS feed fat on issues and events of public interest that have been published or broadcast, and so last week when Taribo West opened up on the dangers that sex does to footballers, my day was made.

In an interview in the Weekend Soccer Star, Taribo West, who made a remarkable career as a dependable defender for the national team, the Super Eagles, zeroed in on Nigerian striker, Obafemi Martins, whose promising career in Europe seems to be dipping since he moved from Inter Milan in Italy to Newcastle United in the English Premiership.

At Inter Milan, Martins, nicknamed “Obagoal” or Weapon of Mass Destruction, was hot and lethal. In England, Martins has become a shadow of himself, picking injury here and there, and even for the national team, the Super Eagles, his services have been on and off and non productive. What could be responsible? Taribo West, who has since become a Pastor believes Martins’ problem is too much frolicking with women.

By the time Martins got to London where he made more money, he began to relax, and once a player begins to frolick with women, the tendency is to start getting injuries regularly. Taribo should know, because he too has passed through similar experience.

At France 98 World Cup, Taribo’s frolicking with women was legendary, but the problem was that Nigerian photo journalists were and still not professional enough to publish sleazy pictures of Nigerian sports stars as they regularly publish those concerning foreign stars.

So why did Taribo West pick on Obafemi Martins, out of the scores of Nigerians playing professional football in Europe? The answer is simple.

Obafemi Martins truly runs the risk of truncating his promising career if care is not taken to curb his propensity towards the pursuit of the profligate pleasure of the flesh. What is the simple word for this?

Among women, it is called nymphomania, among men, I guess we can call it sex-mania. Taribo West’s admonition to Obafemi Martins came a little over a year after the African Cup of Nations in Ghana and while I was there I picked up a lot of unsavouring stories concerning the sex escapades of some Super Eagles, especially Obafemi Martins.

[b]The urge to “sample” Ghanaian girls was so strong among the Super Eagles, some of them broke camp rules. But for the tearful pleading of the mother of one of the Super Eagles, he could have been expelled from Ghana 2008 by the NFF. If players to continental championships could display such flagrant disregard to rules, in pursuit of sex, you can imagine the extent they can go, if left on their own.

Taribo West’s warning to Obafemi Martins is timely and others should learn from it. At Tunisia 2004 African Cup of Nations finals, three Super Eagles were expelled for “importing” women from England to Tunisia and “camping” them in the same hotel. Out of the three, Victor Agali and Celestine Babayaro have faded out of the scene, Yakubu Aiyegbeni beat a retreat, got married, but is grappling with long injury.

But why are Nigerian newspapers and sports publications not up to international standard by publishing Nigerian sports stars in compromising pictures with their women, as they often publish European and American stars? Almost daily, you see Cristiano Ronaldo, Ashley Cole, Wayne Rooney, David Beckham etc. etc. frolicking with their spouse on the beach, or swimming pool. Why can’t the newspapers show up Nigerian stars too?[/b]I can recall only one, when Celestine Babayaro, (this same Babayaro again) was with some bikini-clad white girls at the Sheraton Hotel Ikeja swimming pool, shortly before the 2002 World Cup. The media has a role in showing up the other side of stars, because once you are a music, movie, sports entertainment, star, your privacy is no longer yours exclusively.

Whatever you do in public, is of public interest, and some of the things you do in your home, can also interest the public. There is an eternal price to pay for stardom.
Obafemi Martins should take Taribo’s word in good faith, and that goes for other sports stars. Thank God I’m not a star, but simply the Grandmaster

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Men struggling to finish at black colleges

Just [b]29 percent of HBCU males finish bachelor's degree in six years
The Associated Press
updated 7:06 p.m. ET, Sat., March. 28, 2009
MEMPHIS, Tenn. - They're no longer the only option for African-American students, but the country's historically black colleges and universities brag that they provide a supportive environment where these students are more likely to succeed.

That, though, is not necessarily true.

An Associated Press analysis of government data on the 83 federally designated four-year HBCUs shows just 37 percent of their black students finish a degree within six years. That's 4 percentage points lower than the national college graduation rate for black students.

One major reason: the struggles of black men. Just 29 percent of HBCU males complete a bachelor's degree within six years, the AP found.

A few HBCUs, like Howard and all-female Spelman, have much higher graduation rates, exceeding the national averages for both black and white students. But others are clustered among the worst-performing colleges in the country. At 38 HBCUs, fewer than one in four men who started in 2001 had completed a bachelor's degree by 2007, the data show. At Texas Southern, Voorhees, Edward Waters and Miles College, the figure was under 10 percent.

To be sure, women are outperforming men across education, and many non-HBCUs struggle with low graduation rates. And the rates don't account for students who transfer or take more than six years, which may be more common at HBCUs than at other schools.

Broad consequences
Most importantly, HBCUs educate a hugely disproportionate share of low-income students. Compared to other colleges defined by the government as "low-income serving," HBCU graduation rates are just a few points lower. Factoring in obstacles like lower levels of academic preparation, some research suggests that HBCUs do as well with black students as do majority-white institutions.

Still, HBCUs' low completion rates, especially for men, have broad consequences, on and off campus. Women account for more than 61 percent of HBCU students, the AP found. They have unprecedented leadership opportunities, but also pay a price — in everything from one-sided classroom discussions to competition for dates.

HBCUs educate only one-quarter of black college students, but produce an outsized number of future black graduate students and leaders. That group is distinctly female; HBCUs award twice as many degrees to women as to men.

The good news is some HBCUs are working hard to boost graduation rates — and succeeding. Experts say that proves failure isn't inevitable — but also means it's fair to ask tough questions of schools that are not improving.

HBCUs receive more than half their revenue from government. There is growing frustration with the waste of money — for students and taxpayers — when students have nothing to show for their time in college. President Barack Obama wants to return the United States to the top rank of college attainment by 2020. That will never happen if the colleges that do the heavy lifting of educating disadvantaged groups don't perform better.

Even some within the tight-knit HBCU community say the schools bear some responsibility. They say too many HBCUs have grown content offering students a chance at college, but resisting the hard work to get them through.

"I think HBCUs have gotten lazy," said Walter Kimbrough, president of Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. "That was our hallmark 40, 50 years ago. We still say 'nurturing, caring, the president knows you.' That's a lie on a lot of campuses. That's a flat-out lie."

'Big Man on Campus'
Glancing around her classes at LeMoyne-Owen College in Memphis and in the stands at basketball games, sophomore Velma Maclin has noticed something odd. Most of the so-called "Big Men on Campus" are women.

"The ladies pretty much run the yard," said Maclin. Several male friends recently got discouraged and dropped out. She has little sympathy. She works the overnight shift at FedEx Corp. and says if she can stay in school, they can, too.

Women have probably outnumbered men at HBCUs for most of their history, but the proportion has been gradually rising, the AP found — from 53 percent in 1976 to about 61 percent the last few years.

On 17 HBCU campuses there are two women for every man. At a few, the ratio is three-to-one.

"I don't think any of us have put our finger on exactly why this seems to be exacerbating," said Norman Francis, the longtime president of Xavier.

It sounds like easy living for men at HBCUs, and some joke about the advantages.

"You have so many beautiful women around you (that) you get to see and so many to pick from. The net is real wide," laughed Eric Jefferson, a senior at North Carolina Central University in Durham, which is two-thirds women.

But while HBCU women are doing relatively well, many note the lack of gender diversity in their classes. The gender gap also weighs heavily on social life.

For many HBCU women, said Monet Phillips, an N.C. Central senior, the feeling is: "Even though that I'm the Monday woman, I'm going to be the best Monday woman so that when he's with the Tuesday woman or the Wednesday woman then he'll be thinking of me."

Money matters
Like their counterparts at any college, HBCU women enjoy rewarding, lifelong friendships. But the competition for men can sometimes strain.

"It's sad to say, but in the African-American community, it's hard enough for women to get along without the issue of men," said Bridgette Alexis, a LeMoyne-Owen freshman from Springfield, Mass. "You throw a small percentage of guys into the picture, and women who are looking and hoping to have boyfriends and relationships, and there's not enough for everybody to have one. So that just makes the situation worse."

Why do so many men drop out? Money is the reason you hear most. More than six in 10 students at the HBCUs the AP analyzed get Pell Grants, which go mostly to students from families earning under $30,000.

The faltering economy is hitting HBCU students hard. Fisk University in Nashville has lost 11 percent of its enrollment since August.

Another reason is preparation. On average, black students are less well prepared for college — and black men less so than women. The best black students are now also being recruited by majority-white institutions.

At Edward Waters, virtually every student takes developmental courses — essentially, to finish the high school education they never fully received. Only then can they start progressing toward a college degree.

Cultural factors
To explain the particular struggles of men, educators point to a range of cultural factors that affect black men everywhere, but which are especially visible at HBCUs.

Men have fewer role models, and also seem to think they have more opportunities without a degree. Educators also describe a constant battle against two poisonous ideas: that black men can't succeed, or that if they do they are somehow less than genuine.

Tyshawn Johnson, 20, a junior education major at Claflin University in South Carolina, says it's discouraging to see so few male faces on the campus, which is two-thirds female.

"When (men) come to school they think they're never going to make it," he said. "They start out and when they don't think they're up to snuff, they just quit. And that's why females will always dominate the college ranks."

There's no silver bullet strategy for boosting graduation rates. But persistence helps.

Elizabeth City State University, a public HBCU serving a low-income corner of North Carolina, tries to identify who's struggling and throw every possible resource their way. The best professors teach introductory and developmental courses. There are mandatory sessions to help students correctly apply for federal financial aid. When students drop out, ECSU calls them to find out what went wrong and try to persuade them to return.

The result is a graduation rate — around 50 percent — that substantially exceeds that of peers with similar student profiles.

New strategies, programs
At some HBCUs, there's a growing recognition that some strategies need to focus specifically on men.

Last semester, Philander Smith established mentoring programs for men and aggressively recruited them. Some are simple: Students who came from homes without fathers never learned to tie a necktie, said Kimbrough, the president, and were embarrassed not to have one during chapel. So the school teaches them how.

Graduation rates have improved from the teens to near 30 percent.

"There's still this idea that guys come to college, and if you need to help, you don't ask for it. To me that's the No. 1 barrier," he said.

"A lot of students are coming with issues students didn't even think about 30 years ago," Kimbrough said. "Our jobs have changed. I think we have to be much more intrusive."

'Urgency varies'
UNCF, the United Negro College Fund, which represents 39 private HBCUs, said on its Web site the "average graduation rate at HBCU(s) is higher than the average graduation rate for African-Americans at majority institutions" — a claim that is contradicted, both for HBCUs and UNCF members, by the AP's findings.

After inquiries from the AP, the organization removed that statement.

Karl Reid, UNCF's senior vice president of academic programs and strategic initiatives, says the group is working with researchers at Morehouse College, an all-male HBCU in Atlanta, to find ways to help more black college men. It hopes to increase black male enrollment 20 percent at its member schools over the next five years, and to improve overall graduation rates 10 percent.

"There seems to be a groundswell that we've got to get this right," Reid said. "Some schools get it." But he acknowledged, "the urgency varies."[/b]Every HBCU has success stories — students like LeMoyne-Owen senior Jerome Heard. With his good looks, good manners and a dynamite singing voice, it's hard to believe he had a 2.0 high school GPA. If LeMoyne-Owen hadn't taken a chance on him, he says he'd still be working at the Hobby Lobby store back home in Chattanooga.

Here he has a 3.6 and was named "Mr. HBCU" in a national contest that crowns an informal HBCU student "king."

"The teachers here just took me in and saw something in me, and said, 'I think you will be successful,'" he said.

But the harsh reality is many HBCUs don't have the resources to give every student that kind of attention.

Fixed on the experience
Howard and Spelman have endowments valued in the hundreds of millions, but Edward Waters has just $1.6 million. Flagship universities typically get the lion's share of state funding over public HBCUs.

In a perfect world, say experts like Kevin Carey of the think-tank Education Sector, HBCUs would have more resources to spend on the toughest students. But they don't, and "if you don't have the resources to serve students, you're not doing much good."

"Some of these institutions ,  have struggled along for some time and have just tried to be available, an option for students, and have focused on the experience," said Marybeth Gasman, a University of Pennsylvania historian of HBCUs. Many do heroic work with students others ignore, she said. But graduation rates below one-quarter won't cut it in an era of tighter accountability.

"You have to keep in mind these students may be taking out loans and going into debt and still not get a degree," she said.

Philander Smith's Kimbrough says neither HBCUs nor any college should admit students if they don't have the resources they need to get them through.

"I think it's immoral to take someone when the indicators suggest this person is not going to graduate, and I don't have anything special for them," he said. "I'm just taking their money."

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29933480//


MSN Privacy . Legal
© 2009 MSNBC.com

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Igbos baby factory horror!
•Fresh bodies exhumed
•Suspect runs private mortuary, cemetery
By LAMBERT TYEM, Abuja
Sunday, March 29, 2009


[b]Startling revelation of how Mrs Lillian Achomba, the woman who was arrested by the police for harbouring 42 pregnant teenagers, ran the home where she trains under-aged boys and girls in sexual acts emerged at the weekend with the police fingering some highly-placed Nigerians of collusion.

The X-Squad Unit of the Nigeria Police Force last week arrested Mrs Achomba on allegations of trafficking in pregnant girls whose ages range between 13 and 18 years.
The arrest of the woman followed a tip-off from the people of Umunkpeyi Nvosi village in Isiala Ngwa South Local Government Area of Abia State where she resides.

Speaking exclusively with Sunday Sun in Abuja, the Commissioner of Police in-charge of X-Squad said that the team of detectives dispatched to the woman’s alleged training camp found out that she ran a private mortuary and cemetery where those who die during training are preserved and buried.

According to CP Okorie, when the police operatives visited the cemetery and dug up one of the graves, they discovered a fresh body of an infant lying with its mother.
“We also discovered that the woman is using one private clinic called Mercy Maternity Clinic, Umukpeyi Nvosi, Isilia Ngwa South Council. When we investigated the clinic from the state government, we discovered (it) is not registered,” he said.
The CP also said that the woman camped the girls and young men and fed them at her expense, adding, “she fed the men with Indian hemp to serve as enhancement for them to sleep with the girls in order to get them pregnant.

“When any of them delivers, the baby is sold for N150,000 and the children whose HIV status is negative are offered at prices from N200,000 and above depending on the sex of the child,” the CP explained.
Okorie said the police once raided the camp and ordered its closure but that a couple of months after, the woman reopened the camp. [/b] “This woman is so rich that she bought over all the security agencies in the state as well as having a high connection in the state,” the police chief added.
He said the woman, who hails from Isiala Ngwa South in Abia State, is now threatening the police authorities to pay her N2million compensation for interfering with what she called her business and her fundamental human right via an Abia High Court.
But he said the police would soon arraign Mrs Achomba, Ukandu Achomba and Uzoma Ohuabunwa as prime suspects in the case.

He also frowned at the way lawyers were rallying round the suspects to get them off the hook.
According to him, 30 girls were rescued last week from the illegal camp and that 28 of them are pregnant while one of them, who was delivered of a baby on Tuesday, lost the child a few hours later.
Okorie disclosed that because of the condition of the ladies, the police resolved to return the girls to the Abia State government on Thursday to allow the social welfare in the state take care of them.


http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/mar/29/national-29-03-2009-02.htm

Great betrayal
• My husband contracted AIDS and continued to sleep with me – Dying AIDS patient
By HENRY UMAHI (umahi@sunnewsonline.com)
Saturday, March 28, 2009


[b]For the family of Mrs. Ugonna (surname withheld) fate could be cruel. The family is almost at extinction owing to the ravages of the dreaded Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS). The woman’s husband died of AIDS a few years ago. Four of her children, including the only male child, also died of AIDS. At present, she is lying critically ill in the village waiting for death.

The illness? AIDS.
However, apart from the fact that the widow has lost her children and on the verge of death, what pains her most is that her husband, who could pass for the harbinger of death, deliberately infected her with the dreaded disease. As she dies piecemeal, she cannot come to terms with the betrayal.

Ugonna’s husband contracted the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) many years ago. He was diagnosed of the disease without his wife’s knowledge. The man hid the truth from his wife and continued having unprotected sex with her. The woman got infected and has developed full blown AIDS. Today, the once beautiful, bubbly woman, who is in her late 30s, is now a shadow of her old self, with death at her doorsteps. She looks gaunt but her spirit remains high.

“I am a victim of love and circumstance. I was betrayed by the man I loved with my whole being and gave my all. It is quite unfortunate. Yes, it is a tragedy,” she said, taking each word at a time.
Saturday Sun gathered that Ugonna’s ordeal began shortly after the demise of her husband nine years ago. Pregnant at the time, she was admitted to the General Hospital in her community when her health began to nose-dive.

Doctors had run tests on her and the tale began to spin. The verdict was that her problem was the same as the one that had killed her husband. Shockingly, she told the doctor she was not aware of the exact sickness that took her husband’s life. The sad news was eventually broken to her.
It was gathered that the development triggered health crises in her. However, she was eventually delivered of a baby boy, the first in seven pregnancies. Unfortunately, the baby did not live long.

Before then, Ugonna had also lost three other female children in quick succession, at infancy. It is believed that the dead children were also victims of the secret shame of their father. However, first three children, between the ages of 12 and 17, are healthy. It is believed that the lucky three were born before the deadly virus reared its ugly head in the family.

Ugonna’s family members are furious that their brother-in-law landed the family in this problem. They consider it as callousness on his part for having concealed the true nature of his sickness from their sister, thereby denying her the opportunity of seeking early treatment and better management of the situation.

With tears rolling down her cheeks, Ugonna’s younger sister told Saturday Sun: “It’s a nightmare for all of us. In fact, our mother was so shocked that she died. Again, considering the stigma associated with HIV/AIDS/, you will see that one cannot adequately quantify what the family has been through. While he was philandering, he did not think about his family. He did not consider it wise to play safe, as they say, at least for the sake of his wife. Even after it was confirmed that he was HIV positive, he still carried on as if all was well, sleeping with my sister and all that. He did not think it necessary to take her, as his wife, into confidence so that something could be done about her case before it becomes late. They were still having children and they were dying; he still didn’t have the conscience to act right.

“All these years, we have been trying to manage my sister at a great cost. We have been objects of ridicule in the village because of this. Even the surviving children are traumatized. As I said before, this is a nightmare. I would never have believed that my brother-in-law could behave the way he did. Even when his business went down, we supported them financially to the best of our abilities. While it is not good to speak ill of the dead I will not fail to say that man is from the pit of hell.”[/b]A source, however, disclosed that when the man was at the pang of death, he made efforts to speak with the wife. But having lost strength and energy, owing to the ravages of AIDS, he was not audible or strong enough to pass his message. No one could tell what he wanted to say.
Meanwhile, Ugonna’s family is appealing to public-spirited individuals and organizations to come to its aid at least for the sake of the three surviving children, whose future looks bleak.

“Nigerians should please help our sister and her children, as we have exhausted all our resources over the years catering for them,” cried one member of the indigent family.
Ugonna has not come to terms with what has befallen her. She cannot understand how or why the man who met and married her when she was barely 20 years old could be so secretive even to the extent of putting her life in danger.

Saturday Sun gathered that while her husband’s sickness lasted, she was there for him, doing virtually all she could to make his burden light. In fact, on several occasions, she sought financial favours from her immediate family to take care of his medical bills as well as other needs.



http://www.sunnewsonline.com/webpages/news/national/2009/mar/28/national-28-03-2009-01.htm

lol.

Alleged plot to kill Tinubu Police quiz AC’s spokesman Lai Mohammed 28/3/2009


Yusuf ALLI, Managing Editor, Northern Operation, Emmanuel OLADESU, Deputy Political Editor, Lagos

[b]THE National Publicity Secretary of the Action Congress (AC), Alhaji Lai Mohammed was yesterday arrested and quizzed in Lagos by the police. Sources said Mohammed was whisked away for questioning over his statement on the alleged plan by some people to assassinate the former Governor of Lagos State, Senator Bola Tinubu. Reacting last night, the party said that the police had detained its spokesman over the allegation that some people were planning to assassinate Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu. In a statement in Abuja, the AC said the police had “invited its chairman and national publicity secretary, Chief Bisi Akande and Alhaji Lai Mohammed respectively, to share information with them (police) over the allegation. ”Though the duo were asked to report at the police headquarters in Abuja , they were later directed to report to the PSO of the Inspector General of Police in Lagos on Friday. ”When Alhaji Lai Mohammed inquired from a Commissioner of Police at the Force Headquarters, Mr. Ali Amodu, whether the directive issued to them to report in Lagos on Friday was a ploy to detain them over the weekend, the Commissioner assured the AC spokesman that the police have no plan to detain them over a mere allegation. “He said the AC officials were only needed to shed light on the assassination allegation ”Though our chairman could not make it, Alhaji Lai Mohammed went to the IG's PSO as scheduled, to share the information he has with them, but the police have been playing all sorts of tricks just to ensure that he is detained over the weekend. ”As at the time of issuing this statement, our spokesman has spent several hours at the Kam Salem House at Moloney, Lagos , without any indication that he will be allowed to go home. "We condemn this brazen attempt to intimidate the opposition. We condemn the use of the police by the PDP-led federal government to score a cheap point. We say unequivocally that it is all part of the PDP's plan to rig the forthcoming governorship re-run in Ekiti.
"We call for the immediate release of our spokesman, while putting on notice those bent on silencing the voice of the opposition that no amount of intimidation or harassment will cow us at the AC." [/b] Last week, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had equally accused the AC of destabilizing tendencies, saying that its leaders should be charged for treason.

In a telephone conversation last night, the AC chairman said Mohammed’s arrest was a grand design by the PDP to liquidate the opposition in the country.

"The Nigerian police want to turn the puppet of PDP. PDP told us very recently that the opposition was being treasonable and wanted to destabilize the Yar’ Adua Government.

"But, police refused to arrest the PDP leadership or invite them for explanation. I don’t know why they are now swinging into action for what Alhaji Lai Mohammed issued out as publicity secretary.

"Why PDP was suspected to have killed Funso Williams, their governorship candidate in Lagos, the police could not find the answer.

"When PDP was suspected to have killed Dr Ayo Daramola, their governorship candidate in Ekiti, the police had no answer.

"When PDP was suspected to have killed Chief Bola Ige, the police effort was abortive. Now that the AC raised an alarm, as a matter of self defence, police began to arrest AC leaders and release them on bail.

"In other words, the police have become a puppet of PDP which they want to assist to foist a one-party system on Nigeria", he fumed.

Akande said despite the war against AC, the party would not be intimidated.

"If Nigeria, God forbids, becomes a one party state, it will not be too easy for anybody, including the police.

‘We of the AC shall not allow our leaders to be intimidated by the police, which act in total submission to the whims and caprices of the PDP.

"We shall remain in the struggle. We shall not allow one party state in Nigeria. We shall refuse to be intimidated," he maintained.

Also former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar yesterday condemned the arrest of Mohammed.

The former Vice President spoke through his Media Coordinator, Alhaji Garba Shehu. According to him, "the freedom of expression is a God-given right which no government can take away from its citizens.

"Lai is doing a diligent job for the party and the nation for which he must not be harassed."

The statement read, "Atiku also wants the police to jettison the idea of detaining suspects arbitrarily."

Former governor of Osun State, Chief Segun Osoba expressed shock at the arrest. He said the police have derailed.

"It is shocking to me, because I don’t know when the complainant became the accused. Police is too partisan," he said.

Afenifere Renewal Group (ARG) also condemned the arrest which it said was in bad faith.

It’s National Publicity Secretary, Mr Yinka Odumakin cautioned against unnecessary incarceration, urging the police to charge to court people in their net.

Odumakin said instead of caging Mohammed, the police should investigate the allegations he raised and

Lagos State AC publicity secretary, Mr Joe Igbokwe said the arrest was consistent with the pattern of waging a relentless war against the progressive forces.

"The police force is a national institution and it should desist from operating from the pocket of PDP," he said.

http://www.thenationonlineng.com/dynamicpage.asp?id=80651

Alhaji Lai Mohammed was later released on bail at about 6pm.

ibkaye:
What the f. . .? What culture is this?

igbo culture.

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who cares.nexttttttttttttttttt.

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migwo.

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Akoko-Edo.

How China’s Taking Over Africa, and Why the West Should Be VERY Worried
More news stories on Africa
Andrew Malone, Daily Mail (London), July 22, 2008

On June 5, 1873, in a letter to The Times, Sir Francis Galton, the cousin of Charles Darwin and a distinguished African explorer in his own right, outlined a daring (if by today’s standards utterly offensive) new method to ‘tame’ and colonise what was then known as the Dark Continent.

‘My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race,’ wrote Galton.

‘I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law.’

Despite an outcry in Parliament and heated debate in the august salons of the Royal Geographic Society, Galton insisted that ‘the history of the world tells the tale of the continual displacement of populations, each by a worthier successor, and humanity gains thereby’.

A controversial figure, Galton was also the pioneer of eugenics, the theory that was used by Hitler to try to fulfil his mad dreams of a German Master Race.

Eventually, Galton’s grand resettlement plans fizzled out because there were much more exciting things going on in Africa.

But that was more than 100 years ago, and with legendary explorers such as Livingstone, Speke and Burton still battling to find the source of the Nile—and new discoveries of exotic species of birds and animals featuring regularly on newspaper front pages—vast swathes of the continent had not even been ‘discovered’.

Yet Sir Francis Galton, it now appears, was ahead of his time. His vision is coming true—if not in the way he imagined. An astonishing invasion of Africa is now under way.

In the greatest movement of people the world has ever seen, China is secretly working to turn the entire continent into a new colony.

Reminiscent of the West’s imperial push in the 18th and 19th centuries—but on a much more dramatic, determined scale—China’s rulers believe Africa can become a ‘satellite’ state, solving its own problems of over-population and shortage of natural resources at a stroke.

With little fanfare, a staggering 750,000 Chinese have settled in Africa over the past decade. More are on the way.

The strategy has been carefully devised by officials in Beijing, where one expert has estimated that China will eventually need to send 300 million people to Africa to solve the problems of over-population and pollution.

The plans appear on track. Across Africa, the red flag of China is flying. Lucrative deals are being struck to buy its commodities—oil, platinum, gold and minerals. New embassies and air routes are opening up. The continent’s new Chinese elite can be seen everywhere, shopping at their own expensive boutiques, driving Mercedes and BMW limousines, sending their children to exclusive private schools.

The pot-holed roads are cluttered with Chinese buses, taking people to markets filled with cheap Chinese goods. More than a thousand miles of new Chinese railroads are crisscrossing the continent, carrying billions of tons of illegally-logged timber, diamonds and gold.

The trains are linked to ports dotted around the coast, waiting to carry the goods back to Beijing after unloading cargoes of cheap toys made in China.

Confucius Institutes (state-funded Chinese ‘cultural centres’) have sprung up throughout Africa, as far afield as the tiny land-locked countries of Burundi and Rwanda, teaching baffled local people how to do business in Mandarin and Cantonese.

Massive dams are being built, flooding nature reserves. The land is scarred with giant Chinese mines, with ‘slave’ labourers paid less than £1 a day to extract ore and minerals.

Pristine forests are being destroyed, with China taking up to 70 per cent of all timber from Africa.

All over this great continent, the Chinese presence is swelling into a flood. Angola has its own ‘Chinatown’, as do great African cities such as Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

Exclusive, gated compounds, serving only Chinese food, and where no blacks are allowed, are being built all over the continent. ‘African cloths’ sold in markets on the continent are now almost always imported, bearing the legend: ‘Made in China’.

From Nigeria in the north, to Equatorial Guinea, Gabon and Angola in the west, across Chad and Sudan in the east, and south through Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, China has seized a vice-like grip on a continent which officials have decided is crucial to the superpower’s long-term survival.

‘The Chinese are all over the place,’ says Trevor Ncube, a prominent African businessman with publishing interests around the continent. ‘If the British were our masters yesterday, the Chinese have taken their place.’

Likened to one race deciding to adopt a new home on another planet, Beijing has launched its so-called ‘One China In Africa’ policy because of crippling pressure on its own natural resources in a country where the population has almost trebled from 500 million to 1.3 billion in 50 years.

China is hungry—for land, food and energy. While accounting for a fifth of the world’s population, its oil consumption has risen 35-fold in the past decade and Africa is now providing a third of it; imports of steel, copper and aluminium have also shot up, with Beijing devouring 80 per cent of world supplies.

Fuelling its own boom at home, China is also desperate for new markets to sell goods. And Africa, with non-existent health and safety rules to protect against shoddy and dangerous goods, is the perfect destination.

The result of China’s demand for raw materials and its sales of products to Africa is that turnover in trade between Africa and China has risen from £5million annually a decade ago to £6billion today.

However, there is a lethal price to pay. There is a sinister aspect to this invasion. Chinese-made war planes roar through the African sky, bombing opponents. Chinese-made assault rifles and grenades are being used to fuel countless murderous civil wars, often over the materials the Chinese are desperate to buy.

Take, for example, Zimbabwe. Recently, a giant container ship from China was due to deliver its cargo of three million rounds of AK-47 ammunition, 3,000 rocket-propelled grenades and 1,500 mortars to President Robert Mugabe’s regime.

After an international outcry, the vessel, the An Yue Jiang, was forced to return to China, despite Beijing’s insistence that the arms consignment was a ‘normal commercial deal’.

Indeed, the 77-ton arms shipment would have been small beer—a fraction of China’s help to Mugabe. He already has high-tech, Chinese-built helicopter gunships and fighter jets to use against his people.

Ever since the U.S. and Britain imposed sanctions in 2003, Mugabe has courted the Chinese, offering mining concessions for arms and currency.

While flying regularly to Beijing as a high-ranking guest, the 84-year-old dictator rants at ‘small dots’ such as Britain and America.

He can afford to. Mugabe is orchestrating his campaign of terror from a 25-bedroom, pagoda-style mansion built by the Chinese. Much of his estimated £1billion fortune is believed to have been siphoned off from Chinese ‘loans’.

The imposing grey building of ZANU-PF, his ruling party, was paid for and built by the Chinese. Mugabe received £200 million last year alone from China, enabling him to buy loyalty from the army.

In another disturbing illustration of the warm relations between China and the ageing dictator, a platoon of the China People’s Liberation Army has been out on the streets of Mutare, a city near the border with Mozambique, which voted against the president in the recent, disputed election.

Almost 30 years ago, Britain pulled out of Zimbabwe—as it had done already out of the rest of Africa, in the wake of Harold Macmillan’s ‘wind of change’ speech. Today, Mugabe says: ‘We have turned East, where the sun rises, and given our backs to the West, where the sun sets.’

Despite Britain’s commendable colonial legacy of a network of roads, railways and schools, the British are now being shunned.

According to one veteran diplomat: ‘China is easier to do business with because it doesn’t care about human rights in Africa—just as it doesn’t care about them in its own country. All the Chinese care about is money.’

Nowhere is that more true than Sudan. Branded ‘Africa’s Killing Fields’, the massive oil-rich East African state is in the throes of the genocide and slaughter of hundreds of thousands of black, non-Arab peasants in southern Sudan.

In effect, through its supplies of arms and support, China has been accused of underwriting a humanitarian scandal. The atrocities in Sudan have been described by the U.S. as ‘the worst human rights crisis in the world today’.

The government in Khartoum has helped the feared supporter of APC militia to rape, murder and burn to death more than 350,000 people.

The Chinese—who now buy half of all Sudan’s oil—have happily provided armoured vehicles, aircraft and millions of bullets and grenades in return for lucrative deals. Indeed, an estimated £1billion of Chinese cash has been spent on weapons.

According to Human Rights First, a leading human rights advocacy organisation, Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles, grenade launchers and ammunition for rifles and heavy machine guns are continuing to flow into Darfur, which is dotted with giant refugee camps, each containing hundreds of thousands of people.

Between 2003 and 2006, China sold Sudan $55 million worth of small arms, flouting a United Nations weapons embargo.

With new warnings that the cycle of killing is intensifying, an estimated two thirds of the non-Arab population has lost at least one member of their families in Darfur.

Although two million people have been uprooted from their homes in the conflict, China has repeatedly thwarted United Nations denunciations of the Sudanese regime.

While the Sudanese slaughter has attracted worldwide condemnation, prompting Hollywood film-maker Steven Spielberg to quit as artistic director of the Beijing Olympics, few parts of Africa are now untouched by China.

In Congo, more than £2billion has been ‘loaned’ to the government. In Angola, £3 billion has been paid in exchange for oil. In Nigeria, more than £5billion has been handed over.

In Equatorial Guinea, where the president publicly hung his predecessor from a cage suspended in a theatre before having him shot, Chinese firms are helping the dictator build an entirely new capital, full of gleaming skyscrapers and, of course, Chinese restaurants.

After battling for years against the white colonial powers of Britain, France, Belgium and Germany, post-independence African leaders are happy to do business with China for a straightforward reason: cash.

With western loans linked to an insistence on democratic reforms and the need for ‘transparency’ in using the money (diplomatic language for rules to ensure dictators do not pocket millions), the Chinese have proved much more relaxed about what their billions are used for.

Certainly, little of it reaches the continent’s impoverished 800 million people. Much of it goes straight into the pockets of dictators. In Africa, corruption is a multi-billion pound industry and many experts believe that China is fuelling the cancer.

The Chinese are contemptuous of such criticism. To them, Africa is about pragmatism, not human rights. ‘Business is business,’ says Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister Zhou Wenzhong, adding that Beijing should not interfere in ‘internal’ affairs. ‘We try to separate politics from business.’

While the bounty has, not surprisingly, been welcomed by African dictators, the people of Africa are less impressed. At a market in Zimbabwe recently, where Chinese goods were on sale at nearly every stall, one woman told me she would not waste her money on ‘Zing-Zong’ products.

‘They go Zing when they work, and then they quickly go Zong and break,’ she said. ‘They are a waste of money. But there’s nothing else. China is the only country that will do business with us.’

There have also been riots in Zambia, Angola and Congo over the flood of Chinese immigrant workers. The Chinese do not use African labour where possible, saying black Africans are lazy and unskilled.

In Angola, the government has agreed that 70 per cent of tendered public works must go to Chinese firms, most of which do not employ Angolans.

As well as enticing hundreds of thousands to settle in Africa, they have even shipped Chinese prisoners to produce the goods cheaply.

In Kenya, for example, only ten textile factories are still producing, compared with 200 factories five years ago, as China undercuts locals in the production of ‘African’ souvenirs.

Where will it all end? As far as Beijing is concerned, it will stop only when Africa no longer has any minerals or oil to be extracted from the continent.

A century after Sir Francis Galton outlined his vision for Africa, the Chinese are here to stay. More will come.

http://www.amren.com/siteinfo/information.html

The people of this bewitching, beautiful continent, where humankind first emerged from the Great Rift Valley, desperately need progress. The Chinese are not here for that.

They are here for plunder. After centuries of pain and war, Africa deserves better.

;d ;d