₦airaland Forum

FORGET THE BRAKE. YOU’LL DRIVE ELECTRIC CARS WITH ONE PEDAL




WITH THE PRODUCTION of Tesla’s mass-market Model 3 now underway, and first deliveries due on Friday, electric cars are about to hit the mainstream. For people driving EVs, it means a raft of changes: plugging in at night instead of hitting the gas station, keeping an eye on a battery meter instead of a fuel gauge, and most importantly, a change in the way they drive.
To get the maximum benefit out of driving an electric car, the accelerator (you can’t call it a gas pedal anymore!) controls both the speeding up and slowing down. Pressing the pedal makes the car go, as usual, but lifting your foot makes the car slow down, hard, not coast.

It’s a quirk that takes some getting used to. At first, it can feel like the parking brake has been accidentally left on. But most drivers eventually prefer it because it makes inching forward in traffic much easier than swapping your foot back and forth between pedals.
In a conventional car, brake pads clamp onto a metal disc, with friction converting the kinetic energy of a speeding car into wasted heat. But when electric cars slow down, the electric motor runs as a generator, recovering some of that previously wasted energy to top up the battery. Depending on how much regeneration the software engineers allow when designing the car, the force can be powerful enough to slow the car most of the way to zero, meaning drivers only need to use the brake pedal to come to a full stop.

Nissan will become the first automaker to introduce full one pedal driving in the latest iteration of the electric Leaf, due later this year. It will have an “e-Pedal” option. The pedals will still look the same, but the brake will be pretty much redundant, and computer controls will give the traditional accelerator extra functions. Lifting off won't just slow the car with regen, but will bring the car to a full stop, and will even hold without rolling backwards on hills.

“I think this is the logical next step,” says Jeffrey Miller, an engineering professor at USC. In a Tesla, owners can already choose exactly how much lifting off the accelerator slows the car on the giant touchscreen. In Chevrolet’s Bolt, drivers have a paddle behind the steering wheel to request extra regeneration, just as they’d tap to downshift and slow down with a sporty automatic gearbox.

A next-gen Leaf driver will never need the brake pedal, although it will still be there, for those “aggressive braking situations” according to Nissan. (In other words, panic stops.)

The advantages of maximizing regen braking are huge. Maintenance costs are lower because barely-used brake pads last for many thousands more miles. There are fewer particles of dust created which pollute the air and waterways. Stopping distances will be shorter too, as the car will start slowing down as soon as the driver begins to lift off the accelerator, rather than when he moves his foot to another pedal.

Most importantly, energy is recaptured rather than wasted, so the range in electric cars is improved. (A Tesla engineer described the experimental regen braking system on the Roadster in 2007, and calculated it was around 65-percent efficient at recapturing energy.)
Regenerative braking does mean electric car owners need to take extra care on slippery roads, because slowing the car aggressively can cause the tires to slip. For drivers, learning to ease off the accelerator rather then jerk a right foot over to the brake means forgetting many years of expecting a car to coast.

The concept isn't new. Engineers experimented with regen brakes on the very earliest horse-free carriages, and it’s widely implanted on electric trains. A boost in the number of electric cars on the roads is going to make it much more common though, and mean a modern generation of drivers is going to have to forget what they know about pedals and learn a new way to stop.


https://www.wired.com/story/look-ma-no-brake-youll-drive-electric-cars-with-one-pedal?mbid=synd_digg&mc_cid=b64cf828cd&mc_eid=11978db777

Just finished watching Going In Style. Very cool movie. Reminds me of Morgan Freeman's role in The Shawshank Redemption.

abumeinben:
Loving this...seems history has been twisted.

For those who cannot read "unpictured" novels like me, here are the bullets:


2. Another reason for "Nigerian" alignment was because Zik insalted the Yoruba race, just like kanu is doing now. For example, claimed the Old man, kanu said "any Igbo man in a church lead by a Yoruba man is a fool!"



4. Each of the three regions had her Constitution, one of which was and I quote "Freedom to secession and self determination", but was removed by Gowon when he superglued the 3.



6. The north has the largest deposits of minerals in the country, gold, diamond, uranium, tin. They should comot thia eyes from "awa oyeh" in the Delta.



8. Tinubu and rigging of election don be 5 and 6 since 1993 when they said officials during senatorial election say make dem go house because of heavy rain, say deh nor fit continue. So later deh con yeh say some people go back and deh con win, plus including Tinubu.




The message of the epistle:
Let us also work, let us begin to tell our children that they need to work. Let us institutionalise the dignity of labour; it is not here anymore.

I believe you had A1 in your SSCE . Your summary is apt.

Continued

I tell you this, and maybe this is unknown to them, the Northern part of Nigeria has the best mineral resources this country can ever think of. There is gold, there is diamond, there is uranium, everything you can think of is in the North, but why are they not prospecting it?

Why?

If you can stay at your desk as managing director of one company and sign documents, and you get bribe of N100 million just for signing a document, and you tell that same man to come and establish a factory costing N100 million but will not get profit from it for the first five years, do you think the man will do such a thing?

No

That is what is wrong. They are getting cheap money. They are not used to labouring for money; they are used to cheap, easy money, they don’t want to work. They don’t have the need to work. But we are saying to them, work and then reap from the proceeds of your labour, but they say no, we don’t want proceeds of any labour, we don’t want to labour, we just want proceeds.

But some Southerners are even against restructuring?

Mention one!

President Obasanjo!

Gen. Obasanjo is an enigma of a sort. You have people like that. You can be an enigma for good purpose, and you can be an enigma for a bad purpose. Awolowo was an enigma for good purpose, for liberation, for freedom, for development of his race. Obasanjo is the opposite, and I will tell you why.

The totality of Obasanjo is a Northern product, his brain, his intellect, his orientation is Hausa. What do I mean? He has been a product of the Caliphate Army. Everything he has been in life has been the result of his being in the Caliphate Army. Don’t forget that this same man was imprisoned and was brought out by the caliphate.

But as AD leader of the House, you rallied round Obasanjo?

Yes, I did.

That was because he was Yoruba, you then did not see him from the Caliphate angle?

I did not. If you watched me on television in those days, if you asked me about Obasanjo I would tell you that the last person I would vote for as the president of this country was Obasanjo.

But when he became president you rallied to support him?

At a point! And I will tell you why.

Why?

In the history of this country, no president has ever done as much as Obasanjo has done to develop the economy of this country. We were in the woods, owing Tom, Dick and Harry before Obasanjo came. He paid all the debts, and we started to have external surplus. Who wouldn’t support a person to do that? When we saw that in him we said let’s give this man a chance.

For that reason we supported him, but there was an undercurrent going on and let me say this for the first time. Atiku (Atiku Abubakar, former vice president) was using some members of the House to undermine him (Obasanjo) on a daily basis, and we thought that was not good. That was not fair.

Were they AD members or PDP members?

PDP members! In fact, when I say PDP members, I mean top PDP members.

Including Speaker Na‘Abba?

Possibly! Most likely, probably and we saw it, and we thought that was not fair.

During the move to impeach Obasanjo you were in the Speaker’s Office when Atiku came to mediate. Is it true that Atiku had a private briefing with Na‘Abba in an inner room?

Na‘Abba is very close to Atiku. Do I need to say more than that? That Na‘Abba could have been working for Atiku? Do I need to say more than that? And we saw it, and there was no point. Everything Obasanjo did was not good. There was nothing he did that was good in the eyes of Na‘Abba. If Obasanjo was going to the toilet, it was bad, if Obasanjo was having breakfast it was wrong for him to have breakfast and it got to the point that Na‘Abba was putting posters around Abuja pushing himself as Speaker. And we said no, this should not happen and I stood up with my AD members and fought it.

We didn’t vote Obasanjo, no. If tomorrow you ask me to vote, I will not vote Obasanjo; but in those days he was doing some right things and we supported the right things he was doing. This is the typical thing about the Yoruba race if I don’t like you and you are doing the right thing I will still support you. That is the Yoruba man for you. The sense of justice is innate in us; I don’t care what anyone says.

In the days of NCNC, my senior brother was in the Western House of Assembly as an NCNC member. He was a minister in the Old Western Nigeria House of Assembly as NCNC member. That is us!

But Paul Unongo in a recent interview with Vanguard, accused the sage, Obafemi Awolowo of introducing ethnic politics when NCNC members overnight defected to the Action Group?

This is what happened. We say in Yoruba that there is a limit to your wanting to be nice to a person. If that person now wants to see you as a fool, we can say, stop there my brother; I am not a fool. What happened was that the NCNC was a nationalistic party; the AG was not that much of a nationalistic party. In the whole of Lagos, all council elections were being won by NCNC even though Yoruba were the people being voted for such as Adelabu, Fadahunsi, Olaitan. We didn’t see any difference between us and the Ibo man; we were all human beings, we were just looking at the programmes of each party.

This thing had been brewing since Zik and Awo were in London. They had these various associations, and it was Zik in one of those associations who said this (Awo) is a Yoruba man, don’t follow him and that was how that thing started. When they came back, Awolowo just overlooked it but when Zik was winning in Lagos and was now disparaging our culture…

In what way?

You know it. We tried to swallow it and pretend that there was nothing – Nnamdi Kanu is doing the same thing now. Yes, Kanu is doing the same thing, but we will pretend as if we don’t know.

Kanu in one of his videos said that if any Ibo man goes to a church headed by a Yoruba man, that man is a fool!

What did Zik say?

It is like he said that he is going to rule us whether we liked it or not. He was going to be in charge, he was going to rule the East, he was going to rule the North, and he was going to rule the West.

We said we didn’t mind you ruling the East, we won’t come there. We won’t come to fight election in the East, and we never did. So, why don’t you fight election in your own area and we fight election in our own area?

All Awolowo did was to say fair enough, this is our house, it is entirely up to you, if you are saying to yourself that you cannot manage your house, you need a stranger to manage it for you, it is up to you. He did not say more than that. What the Yoruba of those days were virtually saying to themselves was we cannot manage our home.

It is just like the UK saying, get a German to come and rule us because Theresa May is not doing well. I don’t think that would be acceptable to an Englishman.

That is not tribalism, it is you saying hold on to your turf, and I will hold on to my turf; if you call that tribalism, we take it.

What does the defeat of the APC in the Osun West Senate contest mean to you?

I am from Osun. We have been badly treated; we have not been governed properly by the governor.

Sometimes, I shudder and ask could this be deliberate? Could this be intentional? This is because I happened to know the governor and knew him growing up as a child.

I also knew him in Alimosho, nice young man and he rose up to be a commissioner in Lagos State. But are you now telling me that a man who served as commissioner for works in Lagos for eight years will not know the rudiments of running a government? Will such a person be in charge of a state and refuse to conduct local government elections? Will such a person be in charge of a state and refuse to appoint commissioners? Is that not even a constitutional aberration? For somebody to be a governor and refuse to appoint commissioners, what is the difference between being a dictator and being a democrat? A democratically elected governor who refuses to appoint commissioners, is he not a sole administrator? That is a dictator, whatever name you call it. So, what could have made this man to think that that is the best way to run Osun State?

Of course, when you sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind. For almost eight years he has been sowing the wind and now, he must reap the whirlwind. I am sure that he is not surprised that he is losing.

Are you telling me that you don’t need commissioners to make inputs into what you do? It is unbelievable!

It beats my imagination. He is the lord of the manor, no commissioner, no person to ask him questions, nobody to make inputs and so he wakes up one day and says, I want to build an international airport!

Under normal circumstances, who did the quantity surveying? There should have been a lot of underground work before you say you want to build an international airport and commit several millions which are all gone into the drain now.

Why?

There is no airport there. I have the picture of the airport; there is only one dilapidated building standing there.

Then you wake up one day and say you want to build an interdenominational something? Have you had of government building churches? It is because he is alone, he is thinking for himself. He is thinking for himself and talking to himself. He is sowing the wind, and he is reaping the whirlwind.

How does this affect the 2018 governorship election?

He will lose(He meant Aregbesola’s candidate as he is in his second tenure).

So you think the APC will lose?

If he doesn’t lose, I will be shocked. No salaries paid, pensioners are not paid, you go and buy a helicopter for Osun State, and nobody sees the helicopter, except occasionally when you want to go from Oshogbo to Ipetu-Ijesha. By road, it is less than one hour, and you are taking a helicopter there? So, why do we need a helicopter for? What is the size of Osun State in any case?

Have you heard about the educational system in Osun State? You have heard about the opon-imo, not one single one available anymore and we spent billions on it.

All the students in Osun State must wear the same uniform. It is unfair, completely unfair, totally unfair. It is not right. I think he is not being fair to Tinubu. He has done great damage to the man.

I feel sorry for Tinubu, and I am sure he believed in him, and I don’t know what will be going on in the mind of Tinubu now. He fought hard to get him there and at a point in time, during the struggle, he gave Aregbesola his bullet proof vehicle to use just to protect him. What then can a leader do?

And now see what he is getting. Remember when they were about to do the last general elections, Tinubu had to physically go there just to rescue him. So, would they have expected him to have gone to campaign for him for the Osun West senatorial bye-election?

Or would you have expected Bisi Akande to go and campaign for him? So they left him to his own and now he can see himself. He cannot win. There is no way he can go about it. Teachers are not paid, pensioners are not paid, no roads, nothing! Let him point to one thing! He has been trying to build one bridge at Gbongban.

It is unfortunate, very unfortunate, very unfortunate.

What is the way out for Nigeria given the call for restructuring?

We don’t have a choice, and I hope that common choice will prevail. We all know that things are not right, we all know unless we are pretending. We have all been sitting on this fossil oil from the Niger Delta; time is running out on it, development is running out on it. Volvo, one of the biggest car manufacturing companies in the world will soon stop manufacturing cars using fossil oil.

Very soon, the price of crude oil will be $15 or so. Let us go by what we used to have. Let us learn how to work. Even the Holy Bible says you reap out of your sweat. Let us also work, let us begin to tell our children that they need to work. Let us institutionalise the dignity of labour; it is not here anymore.

Take all these things away from the exclusive list apart from Foreign Affairs, Defence, Immigration, Citizenship.

Give police to each region; we used to have it before. Do you know that each region used to have its own police?

Do you remember that when Nigeria was being amalgamated that the North insisted that it be put in the document; the right to secession and self-determination. But those were the things that Ironsi removed through the Unification Decree of 1966. That is where the problem started. Western Nigeria had its own Constitution; the East had its own, the North had its own. As a matter of fact, Western Nigeria had its own Agent-General in London and the house being used by Nigeria in London now was owned by Western Nigeria. We were competing. The first television station in Africa was from Western Nigeria. But now, we cannot build railways just because it is in the exclusive list.



http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/feel-sorry-tinubu-aregbesola-damaged-olaitan/

I feel sorry for Tinubu, Aregbesola has damaged him – Olaitan


…How Zik provoked Yoruba NCNC MPs to defect to AG •Says APC wasn’t prepared for governance
…Catholic Schools: The legal trick Jakande used to defeat Okogie

By Emmanuel Aziken, Political Editor

Hon. Oladipo Olaitan, the National Financial Secretary of Afenifere, the apex Yoruba socio-cultural body was at the inception of the Fourth Republic, the leader of the Alliance for Democracy in the House of Representatives, a prime position that gave him opportunity into the affairs of the nation at that time.

Before then, the lawyer turned politician and property tycoon had served Governor Lateef Jakande in Lagos State in various capacities between 1979 and 1983 including as Political Adviser, Security Adviser and Legal Adviser.

In this interview he gives the Yoruba perspective of the crisis that prompted the mass defection of NCNC members to the AG on the floor of the Western House of Assembly in 1951, why the Yoruba are standing with the Igbo against the expulsion threat by the Arewa Youths, why AD members stood with President Olusegun Obasanjo against alleged conspiracies weaved by his deputy.

The Osun born politician also ventilates his position on the pace and pattern of governance in his home state with a damning prediction on the prospects of the incumbent governor of the state, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola.

Excerpts:

What prompted your career choice in law and politics?

When I was growing up, there was this practise of some officials going to waylay farmers on their way from farm, and they would round them up and take them to the D.O’s (District Officer’s) office for the offence that they had not paid their taxes.

It was horrible. Some of them (illiterates) would have their tax papers, but the officials would not even give them the opportunity of showing their tax papers. They would take them to the D.O.’s office, collect some money from them and then release them.

I was growing up, and I didn’t like it, and I was looking for a way I could do something about it. That gave me the idea of wanting to be a lawyer, so I could be able to help these people.

Growing up, I saw Zik campaigning; I saw Awolowo campaigning. In fact, Awolowo used to stay in my father’s house in Ikare each time he came to Ikare. So, I got close to them and used to watch them during their campaigns. So, I loved it.

These people could impact upon human beings around them, so I grew up with wanting to either be a lawyer or a politician. To the glory of God, I qualified as a lawyer at London University in 1970. I was called to the bar in 1971.

Remember, it was a military regime at that time. I stumbled at a meeting in Jakande’s house; one of those underground meetings that they were holding in those days. I sat at the back, and they were discussing how to have party cards, and the question was, ‘how do we number the party cards, say Agege, Ikorodu, Ikeja?’ They couldn’t figure it out, and I put up my hand and said why don’t we do it this way? Let’s put alphabets before the numbers say, Agege – A1234, then B to Ikeja. That sounded novel to Jakande who I had never met before then.

So when we finished the meeting, he called me and asked if that was my first time of coming to the meeting and I said yes. He then enquired about my profession, and I told him I was a lawyer, and he said ‘come to these meetings regularly,’ and that was how I met Jakande and ended up being Special Adviser on Political Affairs in 1979.

He believed so much in me. I was special adviser on political affairs, and anytime there was trouble anywhere in government, I was assigned there; I was put in the Governor’s Office. We had a running battle with Bishop Okogie in those days because we were taking schools off the missionaries. Okogie refused and took us to court on the basis that the Constitution allows him to impart knowledge.

Each time we went to court, he won, and we lost based on the claim that he was imparting knowledge and that he could not be denied that right. I walked to the governor’s office one day and said we don’t have to fight about this and told him that the law gives us the right to give rules and regulations for establishing new schools. Okay, Okogie follow the Constitution, establish schools, but you have to take the rules for establishing schools from us. If you want to establish schools in Lagos State, you must have a standard Olympic Swimming Pool, you must have a standard football pitch and that until you fulfilled these requirements you could not establish a school and that was how we defeated Okogie.

Jakande couldn’t believe it, and that was how I was moved from being political adviser to legal adviser and we were shut out of power in 1983. After 1983 we went into our private businesses until 1992 when Abiola came around. I was very, close to Abiola.

In 1993, I contested for the Senate in Lagos here with Tinubu, Odi Onikosi of blessed memory and Dominic. Tinubu was just coming into politics at that time.

On the day of that election, we were all filed up, you know it was Option A4. Sarunmi was the person we knew as nobody knew Tinubu then, so Sarumi stood in front. Sarumi was the head of their group then known as Primrose.

It started to rain so heavily that the electoral officers asked us to go home, but to our chagrin, some people came back, and they were counted, and the rest is history, and that is how Tinubu emerged as a senator, and we all left it. That is when also Bucknor-Akerele also emerged with four votes at the Island.

We all went home until 1999 when AD (Alliance for Democracy) came. When the AD came, I, by the grace of God won the election to the House of Representatives under Afenifere.

Afenifere was the rallying point for all of us, but no sooner than we all won the election, everybody started to have peculiar interests. Idiosyncrasies of each person started to play out, and then some people were either with Tinubu or with Afenifere. I stayed with Afenifere and will never bite the finger that fed me. I have nothing against Tinubu, absolutely nothing, but I just could not…it was difficult for me to understand that I would abandon my old ship and join another person.

That was how the little difference emerged, and we were carrying on and carrying on, but in the party we knew ourselves. You were either for Tinubu or main Afenifere, and I was known to be main Afenifere. Of course, he who pays the piper dictates the tune. Tinubu being the governor, he would say he is the leader of the party and had the presence of those he says believed in him and by his own calculation, I could not have believed in him if I would still stay in Afenifere.

Naturally, when people were to be returned, I was not returned because I did not belong. And up till today, I thank God that I am the National Financial Secretary of Afenifere and if my race gives me a particular position to hold for them, I will believe that I am holding it in trust for them. Like when I was in the National Assembly I saw myself as leading the Yoruba Race in the National Assembly.

I did, it wasn’t easy, but I did it.

Do you see the Yoruba Race as endangered under the current dispensation?

We have always been endangered from time immemorial. Even Luggard didn’t like us from amalgamation. They didn’t hide it because when the colonialists came, with tremendous respect to the minorities, they saw three of us – they knew the Hausa very well, and they didn’t hide it, and in some of their declassified documents, they wrote that they were uneducated and could be pushed around, so they had no problem with them.

The Yoruba were educated and were asking why are you doing so so and so to us, why are you not doing this, so they didn’t particularly like us; so we have been an endangered specie from the beginning. That is us; we stand up for what we believe.

Up till now?

Yes. Up till now. There was a clarion call from Arewa Youths saying that the Igbo should quit the North from 1st of October and immediately, Afenifere said to them that if you ask the Igbo to leave, you are asking us to leave.

But they didn’t ask the Yoruba to leave?

That is us.

But the Yoruba joined the North to fight the Igbo in the civil war?

That is very unfair. We did not join the Hausa to fight the Igbo.

What happened?

What happened was this, when Ojukwu decided to leave, Awolowo went to Ojukwu, took all the risk and said ‘my brother don’t do this, let’s stay in this country and restructure it. What they may be doing to you may not be fair, it is not that we are happy about it ourselves, but let’s stay in there and sort it out. That is how the question of Aburi came about. So we now went to Aburi to try and sort it out. The soldiers of East origin would go to the East, soldiers of Western origin would go to the West, and soldiers of Northern origin would go to the North. We came back.

It was Gowon who reneged. When Gowon reneged, Awolowo again went and met Ojukwu and said, we don’t need to fight a war, but Ojukwu said his mind was made up. At first, Awolowo played this card and said, (to Gowon) look, if you by act of omission or commission you make Ojukwu to leave, then we will leave. What he was saying was that if you force them out, you treat them as low people, then we will say you are saying it to us as well. This thing has to be mutually agreed.

Till today we don’t consider the Igbo wanting to leave as treasonable because that is the essence of democracy – self determination.

But Awolowo was understood to have said that if the Igbo left that the Yoruba would also leave!

Yes, by an act of omission or commission, that if you force them out and that you must do everything to encourage them to stay. Ojukwu has the right to self-determination.

Between 1967 and now what has changed that the Yoruba are now partnering the Igbo?

We have always been.

Not always?

Give me an example.

Afenifere is saying that if Nigeria were to break into a war that the Yoruba will not join the North unlike what you did in 1967?

You got it wrong again. We did not join the North; we were in Nigeria.

Ok, will you stay in Nigeria to fight the Igbo?

No

What has changed?

Nothing has changed besides the question of self-determination. You see, this amalgamation, we were nations brought together, and you cannot force us to be together. We can talk about it to stay together, but you cannot force us to stay together. We hold that as sacrosanct.

If the Igbo decide to leave as they are saying and we are persuading them not to, and I am a member of the Southern Leaders Forum, and our decision is that we must try and salvage this nation but on the basis of justice and fair play.

What do you consider justice and fair play?

For those of us who were born before 1966, we remember that Western Nigeria had its Constitution, the North had its own Constitution, and the East had its own Constitution.

We developed at our own rate and pace, there was heavy competition between the trio, and that is simply what we are talking about. Let’s go back to what Ironsi took away from us. It was Ironsi who messed this up. It was Ironsi who suspended that Constitution and all we are asking is, go back to that Constitution. Let us go back to what Ironsi took away from us!

Why should the North agree to that given its electoral advantages in federal constituencies?

Why should I not lock my door and not allow a thief to come in and take my things? Tell me! Why should they continue to ride roughshod on me and I continue to be happy? We are saying no. In truth and indeed, nobody wants to be at a disadvantage anyone in this equation. North was growing at its own rate and used to have groundnut pyramids in those days and what is stopping them from continuing? Because of oil?


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/feel-sorry-tinubu-aregbesola-damaged-olaitan/

Prosecute OAU ex-VCs, ASUU tells EFCC



The Academic Staff Union of Universities and the Senior Staff Association of Nigerian Universities at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, have called on the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission to prosecute two past vice chancellors of the university, Prof. Mike Faborode and Prof. Bamitale Omole, over alleged financial mismanagement.

The Chairman of ASUU, OAU branch, Dr. Niyi Sunmonu, and the SSANU chairman, Mr. Ademola Oketunde, said this in separate interviews with our correspondent in Osogbo on Saturday.



The ASUU chairman said the union was not against the prosecution of the former Acting Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Anthony Elujoba, but that the union frowned at selective prosecution of those accused of corruption.

He noted that the union, workers and students of the university were surprised that while the EFCC was quick to act on the petition written against Elujoba, the agency had not acted on petitions written against Omole.

Sunmonu said, “What we are saying is that there should be no selective prosecution, all alleged financial mismanagement should be investigated and those found culpable should be brought to book.

“About two weeks ago, one of the committees of the House of Representatives came to the campus and discovered that N4.603bn was missing from the personnel account of the university. It was alleged that the money was missing between 2008 and 2012; this covers the period when Faborode and Omole were vice chancellors.

“We are not interested in selective prosecution; all those accused should be prosecuted and anybody found guilty should be brought to book. There shouldn’t be any sacred cow. This will send signal to us as workers or anyone aspiring to be a VC that there can’t be an infraction and you will go scot-free.”

The SSANU chairman added that the union and the Non-Academic Staff Union had petitions against Omole and the bursar of the university, Mrs. Aderonke Akeredolu, before the EFCC but the agency had not acted on them.

While exonerating Elujoba, who is standing trail on alleged stealing, the SSANU boss stated that Elujoba paid the money he was accused of disbursing to workers of the university when there was no governing council in place.

According to Sunmonu, the council has since given an approval for the payment which exonerated the former acting vice chancellor of any offence due to the autonomy which he said universities enjoyed.

Oketunde alleged that petitions against Omole submitted to the Ibadan office of the EFCC were being suppressed because of his relations working at the agency.

He vowed that the union would write a reminder on the petitions and if nothing was done would seek the intervention of the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Ibrahim Magu.


http://punchng.com/prosecute-oau-ex-vcs-ASUU-tells-efcc/

Suspension: I’m going nowhere, embattled NHIS boss, Usman dares Health Minister


…damns memos by Osinbajo, HoS for probe of fraud allegations against him By Soni Daniel, Northern Region Editor

The crisis rocking the National Health Insurance Scheme, NHIS, has taken a new dimension, as the Executive Secretary of the federal government-owned agency, Prof Usman Yusuf, has rejected the suspension order slammed on him by the Minister of Health, Prof Isaac Adewole.

Yusuf Usman Yusuf, a professor of Paediatrics, who came on board the scheme last year, was given a marching order by Adewole, a professor of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, to proceed on suspension for three months following mounting petitions against alleged fraudulent practices and nepotism by concerned groups.

The letter suspending Yusuf, who hails from the same state as President Muhammadu Buhari, was given to him on July 6, 2017, directing him to go on three months suspension to pave the way for an independent probe of the mountains of petitions against him.

In the three paragraph letter entitled “Suspension from Office” and addressed to Prof Yusuf , Adewole said, “I refer to the series of petitions against you which were forwarded for your comments. “I am to draw your attention to your response which has been considered unsatisfactory. I have therefore, directed the setting up of an investigative committee on the various allegations against you. “Consequently, you are directed to proceed on three months suspension with immediate effect to pave way for an uninterrupted investigation, in accordance with Public Service Rule.

“Meanwhile, you are hereby directed to handover to the next most senior General Manager in the Agency,” the suspension letter said. However, in a daring tone, never seen in the history of the public service, Prof Yusuf fired back at the Health Minister on July 12, telling him to his face that he could not proceed on the suspension as the minister lacks the power to sanction him.

Yusuf pointedly told Adewole that it was only the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, who appointed him, that could remove him from office, which has tenure of five years in the first instance and another five, if renewed. The embattled NHIS ES advanced five reasons why Adewole could not suspend him and why he would not leave his office to anyone else. Yusuf said, “By virtue of the NHIS Act particularly section 4 and 8 thereof, my appointment and removal from office whether by way of suspension or otherwise is at the instance of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“Except removed from office by the president under circumstances specified in the NHIS Act, my appointment is for a period of five years subject to further term of the same period at the discretion of the president. “Although by virtue of section 47 of the NHIS Act, you are empowered to give directives of a general nature to the Governing Council of the Scheme and in the absence of the Council, you have Presidential mandate to exercise the powers and functions of the council, but since the powers and functions of the Council do not include discipline, suspension or removal of the Executive Secretary of the Scheme from office, the directive in your letter under reference cannot find comfort under the said section or presidential mandate; and “The letter of suspension is not in accordance with Public Service Rules as no prima facie case has been established against me in respect of the petition referred to in the letter.

The mere fact that there are pending petitions against a public officer which is yet to be substantiated does not constitute a ground for suspension under the Public Service Rules. Otherwise, with over 18,000 petitions pending against public office holders before the EFCC and ICPC as at the end of June 2017, the total number of public officers who would have been on suspension by now including Honourable Ministers is left to be imagined.

“As you are aware, the petitions referred to in your letter are currently being investigated by the ICPC which is yet to submit its report. In view of the criminal nature of most of the allegations in the petitions, security/investigative agencies like ICPC are the appropriate agencies for investigation contemplated in your letter; not a Ministerial Committee. I have cooperated fully with the investigations so far and will continue to do so.”

Copies of the letter were sent to the Acting President, Senate President, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Katsina Governor, Attorney General of the Federation, Director of DSS, Head of Service of the Federation, the Chairman of the EFCC and the Chairman of the ICPC.

Vanguard gathered that the decision to suspend the embattled NHIS ES followed two memos given to him by the Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo and the Head of Service of the Federation, Mrs. Winifred Oyo-Ita, directing him to investigate two allegations of criminal diversion of NHIS cash running into billions by the ES and cronies sent in by United Youths Alliance against Corruption and Dr. Tunde Ladele.

In the two petitions sighted by Saturday Vanguard, the two groups had called on the Acting President to cause the EFCC and the ICPC to investigate the high level of corruption and nepotism promoted by Prof Yusuf in the NHIS, which had caused the Federal Government billions of Naira and stifled the growth of health insurance as a result.

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/07/suspension-im-going-nowhere-embattled-nhis-boss-usman-dares-health-minister/

wellmax:
Trash. Who the f**k are you, do you know who I am? Common bigmanism syndrome in Nigeria. Look, I don't mind sharing my full identity on this forum.
You asked why past VCs have not been investigated. Let me lecture you, EFCC mainly acts on verifiable petitions written to it's office. There is one against prof Elujoba, they have acted. I trust and believe prof will clear his name. If you or anyone has petition against other past VCs or any person(s), kindly write to EFCC. You don't sit in idle and scream "what of so so and so" . That would be childish.

It is a verifiable fact that the less cerebral one is the more the person insults others. I have made no claim as to who I am. This is your second post where you have shown lack of capacity to present your point of view without including insults. That is the forte of immature minds.
I am more concerned about social justice than the childish adventure you are embarking upon. For your information I am quite acquainted with Omole more than you may know and I don't really know Elujoba. I have no dog in this fight!

wellmax:
If you have any petition against any former Oau VC, why not submit to EFCC? Jobless youth

You must take me for one of the children on this forum. I will not bother to insult you in return. I am content with my discussion with those who have something meaningful to say. You have no idea who I am. But by your post I know where your type is headed. Have an eventful trip.

Edum13656:
what's that disgusting thing.

Haven't you seen honey before? I guess you only buy processed honey. Well, maybe it is because of the packaging. If he had placed the content in a white transparent plastic maybe...

proffemi:
Dotng, don't resort to this weak defense.
This is a university that works primarily on Committee system (even if the committees can often be tele-guided), not some Sicilian enclave.
We should not be quick to rubbish people's reputations.

Fine, we believe (as I did for a time) that Omole and co were guilty of all manners of illegalities. God so good, we got an opportunity to set up task forces (populated primarily by staunch anti-Omole people) run by members of Senate. They have unfettered access to all the records. At the end of the day, the "evidence" they come up with in every case of note is shaky, or easily refuted.

I have to ask: at what point do we accept that perhaps the malfeasance was not as much as we thought?? I believe that you, as a person, would like to keep your reputation. How would you feel if people ran roughshod over it? Would the excuse that you did not do well in office be sufficient to justify people rubbishing a name you spent your entire career building?

Imagine this was you, man!

I appreciate your response. At least it helped to clarify some issues.

proffemi:
But you are smart enough to know that this is not true na.
Elujoba got around a dozen task forces to pore though the University's records for weeks, with unfettered access to everything. Their reports should have been the smoking gun evidence we needed to confirm the malfeasance. And yet, one by one, the allegations in the reports were nullified (in many cases, with documentary evidence).

In other words, if the evidence existed, nothing whatsoever stopped it from coming out!

We all know how the system works. Mafia bosses are rarely jailed for the vices they commit through others. A number of them are jailed for being in possession of money that they did not pay taxes on. Those that know where the bodies are buried have disappeared or are part of those that will influence the probe or have exploited the weakness of the system to cover their tracks. Usually, those who are caught are those who are not smart.

proffemi:
Elujoba and the unions had access to the university's records for over a year. Where is the irrefutable evidence of the malfeasance of the past administration? I for one waited gleefully for such, until it became obvious that we were just partaking in the baseless smearing of the reputations of others. Before you talk, do you realize that many of the innuendos against Omole and co centered on cash advances? Why don't you find out how Saint Elujoba and co funded the last convocation?

Why do we have some many case of corruption in this country and no body has been brought to justice? I posit that a number of this corrupt people have been able to cover their tracks by spreading the loot. The lack of growth and development in the midst of the plenty is a sure indication of the overwhelming impact of corruption. Yet nobody is jailed except the nobodies. If this is no corrected it will lead to an uprising. This is likely the reason Jerry Rawlings killed all the former leaders in Ghana. I am not advocating such but there is a law of cause and effect.

proffemi:
He joined the unions in smearing the names and reputations of his predecessors, but is it not strange that till today, there is no case against any of them, even though Elujoba and his people had access to all university records for over a year??

Yes, there is no case against them. Just as there has not been any case against, IBB, Atiku, Goodluck and Patience Jonathan. But does that mean that they did not steal or that their is no political will to prosecute them?

wellmax:
Osey the law, Mr know it all.
Does that even sound logical to you.
Even if, let anyone accused of anything go and clear his name. I have nothing against Prof Elujoba, but Nigerians must learn to stop defending others blindly. Let the man go and clear himself.

He is already in court and will defend himself. It is because of people like you who do not know facts of case and how it is being twisted that we are having a repeat of the Yaradua era. The previous Vice Chancellors stole the University blind and the EFCC did not prosecute them because they were on the side of power. The person that brought sanity to the institution and saw to the well-being of the workers is now being prosecuted. You will not comment on such imbalance in administration of justice but you deem it fit to accuse people of defending him blindly. The people who are on ground in Ile-Ife are well acquainted with the case and do not need the court of law to tell them what they already know. It is a clear case of of perversion of justice when the EFCC will arraign someone for paying staff salaries and collecting furniture allowance while those who looted the university blind are walking freely.

Magu’s confirmation controversy: Sagay, others knock AGF, El-Rufai says Magu’ll remain EFCC chairman



The Chairman, Presidential Advisory Committee Against Corruption, Prof. Itse Sagay (SAN), has said going by the constitution, any minister, who openly disagrees with Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, risks being sacked for insubordination.



Sagay said this in a statement on Thursday.

The PACAC chairman therefore berated the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Abubakar Malami (SAN), for taking a separate stance from Osinbajo over the refusal of the Senate to confirm the acting Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Magu.

A few hours after Malami had said Osinbajo did not consult the Federal Executive Council before saying the executive did not need Senate confirmation for Magu to function, Buhari’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, described the acting President’s comment as a ‘‘personal opinion.’’

Malami, who is also the Minister of Justice, had, while briefing State House correspondents after the weekly FEC meeting on Wednesday, said Osinbajo’s statement that Magu did not need Senate confirmation was a personal opinion and not that of the body of ministers.

However, Sagay said Malami was out of order because the constitution stated clearly that the opinion or decision of the President or acting President was final and could not be questioned by any minister.

Also, the Centre for Anti-Corruption and Open Leadership believed those opposing the acting President could be saboteurs in the Presidency while a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Norrison Quakers, pointed out that a situation where officials of government disagree with the head of that government was dangerous.

Sagay explained that any minister, who openly disagreed with the President or the acting President, deserved to be sacked going by Section 5(1) of the 1999 Constitution, which states that executive powers of the Federation shall be vested in the President, not in the Executive Council of the Federation.

He argued that ministers and the FEC had no executive authority outside what was granted them by the President or Acting President.

The PACAC chairman, a senior advocate of Nigeria, added, “The Executive Council of the Federation, also known as FEC, cannot have views that are separate or different from those of the President, or where applicable, the Acting President; otherwise, that will constitute gross insubordination and misconduct that can lead to dismissal.

“Therefore, the slant being given to the statement of the Attorney General of the Federation, namely; that the Executive Council of the Federation is entitled to meet in order to express an opinion or view on a matter on which the President or Acting President has already expressed his views or opinions is wrong, misleading and totally unconstitutional.”

Also, the CACOL feared that there could be saboteurs in the Presidency, who were not comfortable with the fight against corruption and who would want Magu removed.

The CACOL Director, Debo Adeniran, said, “Some of those ministers appointed by President Buhari are those who will not support him to fight corruption hands down. There are several executives in the Presidency who will be sabotaging the bids of the President and the acting President.

“We know that the ascendancy of this administration to power rests on its readiness to fight corruption. The EFCC chairman has been able to demonstrate courage, standing eyeball-to-eyeball with people who feel they are larger than life.’’

In his reaction, another SAN, Mr. Norrison Quakers, said the development was not healthy for the polity as it portrayed the Federal Government as a house divided against itself.

Quakers stated, “Quite frankly speaking, this is not healthy for the polity; it strikes at the heart of our constitutional democracy.

‘‘Therefore, if he (acting President) expressed any opinion, it should not be seen as a personal opinion.

“This development portrays the Federal Government as a house divided against itself.”

Quakers, who recalled that even before Buhari proceeded on his medical vacation in the United Kingdom, he had, through his spokesman, stated that Magu would continue to act as the EFCC chairman.

He explained that Osinbajo’s position was not at variance with Buhari’s position.

He added, “As the Chief Law Officer of the nation, the AGF is not expected to toe any political line on any issues but to state the position of the law.

‘‘It is not healthy for a member of the Federal Executive Council to speak against the acting President, to say that what the acting President said was his personal opinion.”

However, a Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Dele Adeogun, said the differences between the executive and the legislature over Magu’s position should be subjected to judicial interpretation rather than for the legislature to say it would no longer screen any appointee sent to it by the executive.

Presidency to retain Magu as EFCC chair, says el-Rufai

Meanwhile, the Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir el-Rufai, on Thursday, declared that the Presidency had decided that it would retain Magu as the head of the EFCC.

El-Rufai, who represented Osinbajo at the inauguration of the Kaduna office of the EFCC, noted that as long as the President Buhari – led administration lasted, Magu would not be removed.

“I had a discussion with the President (Buhari) on the Magu issue. He said he has every confidence in the work that the commission, led by Magu, is doing, and as long as he (Buhari) is President, you (Magu) remain the chairman of the EFCC.

“For those who believe that Magu is their nightmares, he will remain there for the next two years. I spoke with the Acting President last night (Wednesday) and he affirmed what the President said,” el-Rufai said.

He added that he had recovered over N500m without making any noise from past government officials and contractors in the state, stating that the corrupt officials would be handed over to the commission for prosecution.

Magu, in his address at the event, called for the establishment of ‘special’ prisons for corrupt Nigerians at the Sambisa Forest, said to be the stronghold of the terror sect, Boko Haram, in the past.

He said this would be possible if only the judiciary would cooperate with the commission.

Magu said, “We want to call for the establishment of a prison in Sambisa Forest in order to keep away corrupt people from our midst.’’

FEC didn’t disown Osinbajo, says Malami

But the AGF, on Thursday night, alleged that his statement that Osinbajo’s comment on Magu was not the position of FEC, was distorted.

Malami said in a statement posted on the Facebok page of Aso Rock Villa on Thursday that he did not say that FEC disowned Osinbajo as reported.

He stated, “All matters relating to presidential appointments and nominations are strictly a matter for the Presidency to handle. They are not for the Federal Executive Council, and are therefore not discussed at FEC level. This was the point I made yesterday at the press briefing, and which was unfortunately distorted by the media.”


http://punchng.com/sagay-others-knock-agf-el-rufai-says-magull-remain-efcc-chairman/

maverickdude:
Drop ur username

You haven't added @neofruit to your group. I am also interested in the ebook group.
Thanks.

justice2100:
The reason I have not joined the fear mongering
The New Education Curriculum: Distinguishing Rumours from Facts~~~
~~~In 2010, former President Goodluck Jonathan convened a National Summit on Education. The Summit unanimously agreed that the Nigerian basic education curriculum is unwieldy, about 20 subjects at the time, and recommended a reduction in the number of subjects offered at the basic level of education.
~~~In 2012, the Federal Government approved a curriculum reform aimed at rationalizing the subjects offering in public schools in line with global practices and standards and the Nigerian Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC) was mandated to effect that.
~~~In 2014, NERDC came up with a 9-year curriculum with the subjects arranged into groups, producing a maximum of 12 subjects at the lower basic (primary 1-3), 9 subjects at the middle basic (primary 4-6) and 10 subjects at the upper basic (JS 1-3).
a) For primary 1-3: the subjects are: English Studies, Mathematics, Nigerian Languages, Basic Science and Technology, Religion and National Values, Cultural and Creative Arts, and Arabic Language.
b) For Primary 4-6 add (a) plus Pre-vocational studies.
c) For JSS 1-3, add (b) plus Business Studies and French Language.
NOTE: English, Mathematics, French language, Arabic Language, and Business Studies (at the upper basic) are the only subjects that stand on their own. All the remaining 17 subjects in the Curriculum have been respectively listed under various subject groupings: Religion and National Values, Nigerian Languages, Basic Science and Technology, Pre-Vocational Subjects, and Cultural and Creative Arts.
~~~2015 was the year slated for the implementation of the reform across the nation.
NOTE: While all the other subjects are core, Arabic Language at all levels is OPTIONAL.
NOTE: All the above (from conceptualization to formulation of the policy) happened under Goodluck Jonathan, immediate past President, Nyesom Wike, then Minister of Education, and Prof. Godswill Obioma, the former NERDC Executive Secretary.
~~~In 2016, in the spirit of continuity of government’s policies and programmes, the current Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu gave directives as appropriate for the implementation of the reform.
Now let us look at the bone of contention, which is related to the teaching of CRS and Islamic Studies. Under the reform, as noted above, five subjects have been grouped under Religious Studies and National Values.
These are:
A) CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS STUDIES (CRS)
B) CIVIC EDUCATION
C) ISLAMIC STUDIES
D) SECURITY EDUCATION AND
E) SOCIAL STUDIES
The Christian Religious Studies (CRS) under the Curriculum has three themes, namely:
(i) God and His Creation
(ii) God’s Call and
(iii) Keeping God in our Relationships
Also, Islamic Studies has three themes:
(i) Qur’an
(ii) Tawhid and Fiqh and
(iii) Sirah and Tahdhid
NOTE: CRS and IRS are offered alternatively as a student is not allowed to offer both.
QUESTIONS:
a) Where did the CAN leadership and its otherwise discerning fellow travellers now threatening brimstone and fire get their idea that Christian Religious Studies was removed from the school curriculum and that Islamic Studies is being foisted on the country?
b) Why should religious leaders engage in beating the drums of war on such matters as curriculum review and playing bad politics with our educational system?
c) Are there no better ways of engagement, even when we have misgivings about a government policy? What purpose is all this overheating the polity supposed to serve?
Pls let us be careful what they use us to spread around in the name of politics. Even Jesus doesn't support spread of falsehood
Past Yakub Jonah

If you have read through the text book on Religion and National Values, you would understand their agitation. Obviously, you have not. You are still on the surface of the matter.
A child of Christian parents will be in possession of a book on Religion and National Values where after studying CRS will on his own read from the next section of the book on Islamic Studies where it says that you are TO DISOBEY HIS PARENTS if they don't allow him to convert to Islam and also everything Christians hold dear about Jesus Christ is bastardized and watered-down and you expect the parents to allow such to stand? There is no how an attack on Christian foundation will be allowed. Those who made this proposal are simply crazy.

Women Absorb And Retain DNA From Every Man They Have Sex With

Women retain and carry living DNA from every man with whom they have sexual intercourse, according to a new study by the University of Seattle and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

The study, which discovered the startling information by accident, was originally trying to determine if women who have been pregnant with a son might be more predisposed to certain neurological diseases that occur more frequently in males.

But as the scientists picked apart the female brain, the study began to veer wildly off course. As it turns out, the female brain is even more mysterious than we previously thought.

The study found that female brains often harbor “male microchimerism“, or in other words, the presence of male DNA that originated from another individual, and are genetically distinct from the cells that make up the rest of the woman.

According to the study: “63% of the females (37 of 59) tested harbored male microchimerism in the brain. Male microchimerism was present in multiple brain regions.”

So 63% of women carry male DNA cells that live in their brains. Obviously the researchers wanted to know where the male DNA came from.

Anyone care to guess? From the women’s fathers? No. Your father’s DNA combines with your mother’s to create your unique DNA. So where else could it come from?

Through the study the researchers assumed that the most likely answer was that all male DNA found living in the female brain came from a male pregnancy. That was the safe, politically correct assumption. But these researchers were living in denial.

Because when they autopsied the brains of women who had never even been pregnant, let alone with a male child, they STILL found male DNA cells prevalent in the female brain.

At this point the scientists didn’t know what the hell was going on. Confused, they did their best to hide the evidence until they could understand and explain it. They buried it in numerous sub studies and articles, but if you sift through them all you will find the damning statement, the one line that gives the game away and explains exactly where these male DNA cells come from.

What are they so afraid of?

“CONCLUSIONS: Male microchimerism was not infrequent in women without sons. Besides known pregnancies, other possible sources of male microchimerism include unrecognized spontaneous abortion, vanished male twin, an older brother transferred by the maternal circulation, or SEXUAL INTERCOURSE. Male microchimerism was significantly more frequent and levels were higher in women with induced abortion than in women with other pregnancy histories. Further studies are needed to determine specific origins of male microchimerism in women.“

So according to the scientists, the possible sources of the male DNA cells living in the women’s brains are:

1. an abortion the woman didn’t know about
2. a male twin that vanished
3. an older brother transferred by the maternal circulation
4. sexual intercourse

Considering the fact that 63% of women have male DNA cells residing in the recesses of their brain, which of the above possibilities do you think is the most likely origin of the male DNA?

The first three options apply to a very small percentage of women. They couldn’t possibly account for the 63% figure. The fourth option? It’s rather more common.

The answer is 4. Sex.

This has very important ramifications for women. Every male you absorb spermatazoa from becomes a living part of you for life. The women autopsied in this study were elderly. Some had been carrying the living male DNA inside them for well over 50 years.

Sperm is alive. It is living cells. When it is injected into you it swims and swims until it crashes headlong into a wall, and then it attaches and burrows into your flesh. If it’s in your mouth it swims and climbs into your nasal passages, inner ear, and behind your eyes. Then it digs in. It enters your blood stream and collects in your brain and spine.

Like something out of a scifi movie, it becomes a part of you and you can’t get rid of it.

We are only now beginning to understand the full power and ramifications of sexual intercourse.




http://yournewswire.com/women-dna-man-sex/

All have sinned. The problem of Nigeria is greed. Everyone wants to be in charge.

maverickdude:
Too late baby,telegram already have my heart
Telegram is just bae

kindly add @neofruit to your groups

Liemuhammed:
deop ur username

kindly add @neofruit

maverickdude:
Too late baby,telegram already have my heart
Telegram is just bae

I have the Telegram app but I have never used it. Can you introduce me to file sharing groups I can join?

maverickdude:
Too late baby,telegram already have my heart
Telegram is just bae

I have the Telegram app but I have never used it. Can you introduce me to file sharing groups I can join?

Igbo quit notice: I have the support of my elders, Yerima replies Falana

The Co-Convener of the Coalition of Northern Groups and leader of Arewa Consultative Youth Forum, Shettima Yerima, has accused human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, of living in the past, following the latter’s statement implying that the former should not be taken seriously.

Falana had on Thursday at a news conference in Abuja described Yerima as a “Lagos man.”



“The man who gave quit notice (to Igbo living in the North) does not live in the North. He lives in Lagos. I am saying this: Shettima Yerima lives in Lagos. He is a Lagos man. So, to live in Lagos and be giving quit notice is not the answer,” he had said.

Reacting to the human rights lawyer’s statement on Friday night, Yerima told SUNDAY PUNCH that Falana was only seeking cheap publicity.

“The Shettima Falana knows in Lagos is not the same person in the North. I challenge him to come to Kaduna and ask about who I am. And I challenge him to go to Ekiti to contest a local government seat. I am for and with the North. I am not a coward. I am protecting the interests of my people and I get support from my elders. Falana is living in the past. I spend more time in the North than in Lagos.

“And, when did it become a crime that a northerner cannot issue a statement in the North though he stays in Lagos? I am a Nigerian. Shouldn’t Falana be castigating the man who said he hates Nigerians and doesn’t want his people to remain a part of Nigeria? I am in touch with my people. I have followers; does Falana have supporters? How many times has he contested elections in Ekiti State and lost? Despite his level of intelligence he hasn’t won an election in his state. Leading your people is not about propaganda and noise-making; it is about facing reality.”

The activist added that he had the support of northern elders in issuing a quit notice to the Igbo living in the North, noting that it is not a threat.

Urging Falana to focus more on the main issue, Yerima said, “As I speak to you now I am in Kaduna. Is there a law that says being a Nigerian I cannot do so? While he’s busy pursuing personal interests, I am defending my people against the insults and blackmail of one Igbo called Nnamdi Kanu and his co-travellers. What has Falana done about the insults IPOB heaped on the Yoruba? He is seeking cheap publicity.

“I challenge him to come and see how I am living as a king in Kaduna – I am being celebrated. I am here to defend the integrity of my people. Does he consider Nnamdi Kanu a foreigner – someone who has lived for many years abroad? I have my roots in Zaria and I go home regularly. When last did Falana visit his home in Ekiti?”


http://punchng.com/igbo-quit-notice-i-have-the-support-of-my-elders-yerima-replies-falana/

Corruption: Osinbajo’s indictment of our churches


“Every time that we come to church, we are told about giving. But we need to talk far more about honesty”

-Acting President Yemi Osinbajo, speaking on Father’s Day, June 18, 2017.

Theodore Roosevelt, a former president of the United States, it was, who referred to his office in the White House as ‘bully pulpit’. He meant by it, an elevated or excellent position from which to set a moral agenda, canvass a point of view or whip the nation into a frenzy of sorts over a desirable course of action. In different degrees and with varying skills and effectiveness, presidents around the globe have sought to unleash the instructional and inspirational capacities of their offices and auspices. In Nigeria, the wide ranging possibility of presidential rhetoric has been vastly underexpressed, with most of our leaders staying monotonously glued to speeches written by their aides, which they read indifferently to bored audiences. Given this backdrop, it is refreshing to have Acting President Osinbajo, quoted in the opening section, speak out, now and then, with urgency and conviction on burning issues that define the Nigerian Condition. To be sure, some of his opinions, such as his recent unitarist, somewhat rigid position on Nigerian federalism, are debatable, but he is to be thanked for bringing to bear on his office, the resourcefulness of a vibrant “bully pulpit.”

Osinbajo went on record on Sunday as calling on our churches, and impliedly, organised religion, to enlist their formidable influence on the behalf of the anti-corruption struggle, rather than descend into arenas of fundraising, which major on giving, while remaining blissfully indifferent to questionable sources of wealth. On a broader note, churches often come under withering criticisms by believers and agnostics alike. It was only a few years ago, since top flight British historian, David Storkey, dismissed the Catholic Church as “irredeemably corrupt from top to bottom”, stirring a hornet’s nest. From the top of the church hierarchy, Pope Francis, earlier this year, admitted that the Catholic Church harboured “streams of corruption”, featuring sexual abuse of minors by church officials, gay lobbies, among other moral howlers.

Back here in Nigeria, a former president, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo, in April, lambasted the churches for accepting gifts “from just anybody without asking questions”. One way of understanding Osinbajo and Obasanjo’s indictment of our multiplying churches and other religious centres, is to picture notorious kidnap baron Chukwudumebi Onwuamadike, aka Evans, who claimed enigmatically to deploy Psalm 23 for “protection”, entering a church, and in response to a sermon on giving, strolls majestically upfront, to announce a donation of N10m, drawn, of course, from the proceeds of his murderous escapades. The church roars in applause, while the pastor rejoins with thunderous supplication for divine protection for the kidnap kingpin. This is obviously an extreme illustration; but it helps to underline the ethical no man’s land in which the church or better still some churches have dragged themselves. Someone may ask, how is the church to know whether the giver of a humongous tithe or an offering is an out and out criminal or somebody engaged in honest work? It must be admitted that there are no quick fixes, but there is a world of difference between not caring to ask any question at all, and exercising a conscience based on rudimentary intelligence which can finger the morally decrepit. What the French call pavement radio (trattoir) which traffics in reliable gossip and whisperings about people’s sources of wealth may be deployed, to screen big time donors, and in this age of lucrative whistle-blowing, even report on them. Doctrinally, the upsurge of a gospel of predestination, salvation by grace, material prosperity, and instant or miraculous upgrades, has come to predominate in our religion, and to shape the attitudes and behaviours of both priests and the laity. Consider too that the emphasis tends to be on individual success and splendid consumptive habits rather than impluses towards the church becoming the social conscience of a nation morally adrift. What we have, therefore, is Christianity without Christ and the Islamic religion without Mohammed.

Another way in which the church and other religions can take to heart Osinbajo’s admonition is to rediscover the ethical and moral glues which bind together and make real the fundamental truths and founding visions of the Holy Books. Christianity and much of organised religion have become little more than the opium of the reprobate and the salve of disturbed consciences. An anecdote told to this writer by a colleague will make the point clear. A couple of years back, my colleague was studying for a postgraduate degree in Wales in the United Kingdom. According to him, a revival had broken out, attended by a harvest of souls and miracles. Consequently, the crime rate in the town dropped dramatically after the revival, making the job of the police and local authorities far easier than it had been. By contrast however, everyone knows that the tremendous increase in religious observances in Nigeria is not matched by corresponding advances in sobriety, godly living, and neighbourhood ethics. Even when we allow for the fact that the ethics of a downturn may be situational, and related to the exigencies of survival in distressing circumstances, it is still difficult to explain Nigeria’s descent into a moral abyss, side by side with the explosion in churches and organised religion. Put in other words, the desperate poverty of an increasing share of the nation’s population creates its own ethics and a rising percentage of those who make a living in the nook and cranny of a poorly governed, poorly policed society.

Another dimension to the moral decay in our churches is the fact that the Nigerian state has politicised and elevated religion beyond its constitutional ambit. Partly because an underperforming state has weak legitimacy, it turns to religion for support and borrowed authority. So, our government sponsors religious pilgrimages, establishes churches and mosques, welcomes pastors and imams to state houses, organises and pays for prayer chains to procure favourable election outcomes, and distributes largesse to pastors and imams. A former president of the Christian Association of Nigeria became an elite body guard to one of our former presidents, with predictable consequences. An amoral state has bred an amoral, if not immoral religion in its own image. That apart, there must be a linkage between the moral dissolution in our leadership, and the moral torpor prevalent in our churches, given that religious institutions are very much rooted in the societies of which they are a part.

That is another way of saying that Osinbajo’s reformist gospel will sound truer if the Nigerian state, in keeping with its constitutional description as a secular one, will not only hands off religion but will stop manipulating it for political purposes. A related issue concerns the need for churches and other religions to return to the ethic of hard work as a route to success, in a setting where so much unearned wealth is afoot. The link between laziness and criminality is too clear to require elaboration. Our churches and state officials may wish to take this aspect of the problem along, in the search for reformed religion.

http://punchng.com/corruption-osinbajos-indictment-of-our-churches/amp/

CAN demands return to old curriculum on religious knowledge


The Christian Association of Nigeria, CAN, yesterday, demanded a return to the old curriculum on religious knowledge, saying Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu, was bent on imposing Islamic hegemony through the new curriculum being spearheaded by the Federal Ministry of Education. Christian Religious Knowledge CAN President, Rev Samson Ayokunle, in a statement, yesterday, challenged the Federal Ministry of Education to publish the new curriculum on Christian Religious Knowledge, CRK, even as he claimed that the new curriculum, which has taken off in Kwara State, does not have provision for CRK.

While accusing the Minister of Education of imposing Muslims as heads of all federal boards in his ministry, the national president of CAN strongly rebuffed insinuations that the umbrella body of Christians in the country was crying wolf where there was none. He said: “If the two religious studies are being taught separately, why is the agency stating that “efforts are in top gear to print the Christian Religious Knowledge and Islamic Studies curriculum separately in order to maintain their characteristics and distinctiveness. “These statements underscore our position that the subjects were merged before. Do we need to run away from underscoring the importance of these two subjects, which focus on teaching the fear of God, love for others and so on at a time when our nation is facing the challenge of violence and breakup? “If the new curriculum is treating the two religious subjects separately as being claimed, why do we have a satanic topic in the Civic Education like ‘IS JESUS THE SON OF GOD’? Or is the Acting President, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, who disclosed to CAN leadership that this was in the curriculum he earlier saw, lying too?

“The agency claims no student will be forced to register for a religion against his/her wish. That is not true. In Kwara State, for example, the discriminatory curriculum has begun and Christian students who refused to register for it already had their bodies lacerated with cane. We have the names of the victims and their schools with us, including the text message from the parents of such students who were beaten. “Chairman of CAN in Delta State has also called to complain that students are calling him to say that their teachers are saying that they will no longer be doing CRK as a subject again. Who is deceiving whom? “As far as CAN is concerned, the curriculum is a time-bomb, obnoxious, divisive and ungodly and its implementation must be stopped until all the grey areas are addressed. Like we told the Acting President, its introduction is an ill-wind that blows nobody any good for so many reasons.” “If we are going to do pilgrimage together as a nation, there must be fair play, mutual respect for one another and justice which can be brought about by different arms of government.

We demand for justice from the government on this matter very quickly. “We request for a return to the curriculum we were using before this dangerous one which did not produce insurgents or a wrongly indoctrinated Nigerians. It was the students that came from a school system where morning devotion was removed that are behind the insurgency and kidnappings that are happening now and then. “Those of us who passed through the former system where we all did devotion in the morning and in the afternoon at closing in our schools lived together peacefully irrespective of our religions.

The government must stop the operation of this new curriculum. It did not come out of a forward looking research but a backward one. A stitch in time saves nine. “We caution the Federal Government against the use of propaganda in addressing this sensitive issue because the unity of the country is at stake. We are not crying wolves where none exists. “We are disappointed hearing the Minister of Education, Mallam Adamu Adamu claiming that CAN was believing a piece of misinformation received from the social media. “To say the least, that is a misleading statement from a Minister who is not only trying to Islamise the ministry with all the appointments he has made but denying the reality of discrimination policy under his watch. “We counsel Adamu to reconcile his position with the spokesperson of his ministry who agreed that both CRK, IRK and Civic Education had been merged to become one subject before denying the reality.”

Read more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2017/06/can-demands-return-to-old-curriculum-on-religious-knowledge/

Kidnapping: Police deploy 600 men, 90 vans in Abuja-Kaduna road


Godwin Isenyo, Kaduna

Following the renewed activities of kidnappers on the Abuja-Kaduna highway, the authorities of the Nigeria Police on Wednesday announced the deployment of 600 personnel to patrol the route.

This was aimed at fishing out the kidnappers who had made the highway a no go area for travellers.



The Deputy Inspector General of Police in charge of Operations, Habila Joshak, who inaugurated the initiative at Rijana, Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State, said it was in continuation of the Operation Maximum Safety launched last year.

He said the operation comprises 500 regular police officers and men as well as 100 intelligence officers that would take charge of the highway.

Also, Joshak said 60 vehicles would be patrolling the Abuja-Kaduna highway while the remaining 30 vehicles would patrol the Kaduna-Zaria/Kano highway.

The DIG, while addressing officers and men drawn from different commands across the country, urged them to ensure that the dreaded highway was made safe for motorists.

He said the force would not let Nigerians down in the task of flushing out kidnappers in the country, charging them not to allow the activities of kidnappers to persist on the highway.

Joshak said, “I want to assure Nigerians that we will not have any situation that will overwhelm us. We will be robust in our actions. We will not only be on the highway but Nigerians will see our actions. We have done it before. There will be no more kidnapping on this road again. We have done it before. We will do it again.”

The 600 officers and men of the force were deployed from Abuja, Kaduna, Katsina, Jjigawa, Akwanga, Lafia, Zaria, Minna, Challawa, Port Harcourt and Makurdi.




http://punchng.com/kidnapping-police-deploy-600-men-90-vans-in-abuja-kaduna-road/

Zuckerberg meets founder of Nigerian secret Facebook group, Lola Omolola

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, on Tuesday received Nigeria’s Lola Omolola, founder of a secret Facebook group called Female in Nigeria.

FIN was founded in 2015 by Omolola, a movement of women focused on building compassion and providing support for one another, with the goal of having up to 1000 members in the group.

However, the group exceeded its target as it recently hit one million members.



According to Zuckerberg’s Facebook page on Tuesday, he will be meeting with Lola and a few hundred of other top Facebook group admins in Chicago later in the month for the first ever Facebook Communities Summit.

“Over the past few weeks, I’ve been meeting group admins across the country that are building meaningful communities on Facebook and will be at the summit.

“Two years ago, she founded a secret Facebook group called Female IN, or FIN,’’ Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said FIN is “a no-judgment space where more than a million women come to talk about everything from marriage and sex to health issues and work problems’’

“It is helping to end the culture of silence that exists for women in some parts of the world.’’

He said for the past decade, Facebook had been focused on making the world more open and connected.

The Facebook founder expressed the willingness of the platform to continue to connect persons, adding that there was the need to do much more by bringing people closer together and build common understanding.

“One of the best ways to do that is by helping people build community, both in the physical world and online.

“I have written and talked about these themes throughout this year, especially in my community letter in February and at Harvard Commencement in May.

“The Chicago summit will be the next chapter and we’ll discuss more of what we’re building to empower community leaders to bring the world closer.

“I’m looking forward to meeting more admins like Lola and talking about how we can help them do even more to build community.

“I’ll share more info on the summit as we get closer, and I’ll stream the event live from my profile later this month.’’



http://punchng.com/zuckerberg-meets-founder-of-nigerian-secret-facebook-group-lola-omolola/

FAAN bans luggage screening at MMIA departure hall

Published June 7, 2017

Maureen Ihua-Maduenyi

The Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria says checking of travellers luggage will no longer be done at the departure hall of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos.

The Managing Director, FAAN, Mr. Saleh Dunoma, said this was part of the plan to ensure the implementation of the Executive Order recently issued by the Acting President Yemi Osinbajo.



Dunoma made this known after a meeting with all the participating agencies at the airport on Tuesday.

“The Executive Order does not give room for pre-checks on luggage. All checks should be done in designated areas. Luggage should not be checked at the departure hall,” he said.

Dunoma added that there would be no compromise with the procedures and that whatever security procedure or security checks the agency would adopt would not be compromised.

He said, “We have to meet the deadline set by the Executive Order. There are strategies in line with the order, but the concerned agencies need to meet regularly to ensure that these strategies are adhered to and improved.

“Concentration is on the Lagos airport because it is the key airport due to its size, complexity and passenger traffic. If we get it right in Lagos, we will get it right in other airports. Once we do that, I believe all the other airports will be easy for us.”

Dunoma stated that the participating agencies, including the Nigeria Police, Department of State Security, Quarantine Services, National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, Nigeria Immigration Services, Nigeria Customs Services and FAAN Aviation Security, among others, would implement the directive successfully.

“All participating agencies are ready to key into this big committee set up for the implementation. Everybody is contributing positively. From all indications, all hands are on deck to make sure the Executive Order is implemented successfully. FAAN does not envisage any problem at all, and it is fully committed to give all participating agencies its full support to close any obstacle that may arise,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority has directed all aviation safety inspectors to monitor the level of compliance with the Executive Order at the airports, in addition to their statutory oversight responsibilities.

According to the agency, the directive given by the Director-General, NCAA, Capt. Muhtar Usman, is enshrined in the Nigerian Civil Aviation Regulations, 2015 (Nig.CARs 2015).

The NCAA said it had also put in place adequate measures to ensure full and sustained compliance with the Executive Orders at the airports.

The regulatory agency said in a statement signed by its General Manager, Public Relations, Mr. Sam Adurogboye, that all aviation parastatals under the Federal Ministry of Aviation, including the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria, Nigerian Airspace Management Agency, Nigeria Meteorological Agency and Accident Investigation Bureau, had since commenced compliance with the orders.



http://punchng.com/faan-bans-luggage-screening-at-mmia-departure-hall/

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