₦airaland Forum

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Yar’Adua to attend Jumat service
(c) NEXT March 26, 2010 01:52AM


Politicians of the ruling People’s Democratic Party (PDP) have expressed anxiety over plans by loyalists to ailing President Umaru Yar’Adua to bring him to the Friday Jumat service today.

Party officials said it is disturbing that this is coming three days before the Senate begins the screening of ministerial nominees on Monday. They also question the choice of a religious occasion for Mr. Yar’Adua’s re-emergence in public.

One source said, “if the President would be coming out four months after his absence, it ought not to be at a religious event because that will send the wrong signal.”

Mr. Yar’Adua, a Muslim from Kastina State participated in the weekly Jumat service at the National Mosque located at the Central business district in Abuja until his illness kept him from public view.

The ailing President was flown out of the country on the 23rd of November 2009 to Saudi Arabia for a heart condition and has since been out of public view.

Last week, two national dailies claimed that plans were afoot for the ailing president to make a public outing this week.

Top presidency and PDP officials confirmed to NEXT last night, that the planned outing has being fixed for today’s Friday prayers.

“The idea is to achieve maximum political impact and a religious approval” a PDP official said last night.

The PDP chairman; Vincent Ogbulafor, the speaker; Dimeji Bankole and a few other officials were in a closed-door meeting regarding the development, and the mood at the meeting, a knowledgeable source told NEXT, was “celebratory and bubbling.”

The National Assembly, on the 9th of February, 2010 declared the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan as the Acting President based on the ‘Doctrine of Necessity’ because the ailing president failed to hand over the reins of power to his vice before his departure as recommend by the constitution.

After much outcry and protest from civil societies and series of litigations on the lacuna in the nation’s presidency, the ailing president was sneaked into the country in the early hours of 26th of February, 2010, days after his Vice was declared the Acting President

The Acting President dissolved the Cabinet of ministers appointed by the ailing President last week and had just sent a list of Ministerial nominees to the Senate for screening. Mr Yar’Adua’s return to public life could cause uncertainty in the polity.

Yaradua returns to work next week – Associates – Daily Trust
March 22, 2010 by Bunmi Awolusi

The on-going scramble for positions in a soon to be reconstituted Federal cabinet could shortly hit a brick wall because President Umaru Yar?adua intends to resume duties in his office next week, a top source close to the ailing president told Daily Trust yesterday. However, another family source separately told Daily Trust that Yar?adua will be fit to resume work by the end of next month.


According to the top sources, Yar?adua intends to make a national radio and television broadcast to signal his resumption of work as early as Monday or Wednesday next week. They said Yar?adua may not write a letter to the National Assembly intimating it of his return because he did not transmit a letter before he proceeded on medical vacation, even though his spokesman later said Yar?adua recognised Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as the Acting President.

Both sources said Yar?adua has made much progress physically since his return to the country late last month, and that his remaining medical problem now is speech-related. The sources said the ailing president now walks around the house and also around the garden, where there are many birds and animals.

They said Yar?adua brought a speech therapist with him from the Saudi Arabian hospital and the doctor has been working since then to improve his speech. Both sources said he has made progress in his speech. One of the sources told Daily Trust that Yar?adua?s return to the country last month was ?premature,? and that he was brought back before he finished his therapy ?for political reasons.?

[url]http://nigerianbulletin.com/summary-plus-news/yar%E2%80%99adua-returns-to-work-next-week-associates-daily-trust/22032010/14459/[/url]

Militants detonate two bombs outside amnesty talks

Stocks

* Passers-by injured, no reports of serious casualties

* Threat of more attacks on oil industry

* Potential setback for Acting President Jonathan

(Adds details throughout)

By Segun Owen

WARRI, Nigeria, March 15 (Reuters) - Nigerian militants detonated at least two car bombs outside a government building in the southern oil city of Warri on Monday where talks were being held about implementing an amnesty programme.

The attacks, claimed by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) militant group, are a major setback for Acting President Goodluck Jonathan as his government also tries to calm ethnic tensions in the centre of the country.

Jonathan has made reviving an amnesty programme and restoring peace in the Niger Delta, the heartland of Africa's biggest oil and gas industry, a top priority since he took over as acting leader in the absence of the nation's sick president.

The first vehicle exploded on an expressway several hundred metres from Delta State Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan's compound, the second at the gates of the building, just minutes after an emailed bomb threat from MEND.

Witnesses said around six passers-by were wounded. There were no reports of any deaths.

"Two bombs exploded on the Government House expressway, one about 400 metres from Government House where the meeting was taking place, and another about 100 metres from the building," Tunde Forsythe, a government official who was just outside at the time of the explosions, told Reuters.

Several hundred police officers and soldiers in armoured vehicles cordoned off Government House as cars burned on the expressway outside. Security was also tightened around the nearby offices of U.S. energy giant Chevron (CVX.N).

MEND said the explosions were meant to "announce our continued presence" and warned of renewed attacks against the oil industry in the coming days, threatening firms such as French energy giant Total (TOTF.PA) which have so far largely avoided significant strikes on their infrastructure.

Officials from states around the Niger Delta were meeting in Warri to discuss implementing the terms of an amnesty programme launched last year by President Umaru Yar'Adua, under which thousands of gunmen agreed to lay down their weapons.

The programme was the most concerted effort yet to end years of unrest which have prevented the OPEC member from producing much above two-thirds of its 3 million barrels per day (bpd) oil capacity, costing it around $1 billion a month in lost revenue.

But the amnesty started to stall after Yar'Adua left for three months of medical treatment in Saudi Arabia last November. He returned to Nigeria last month but remains too sick to govern and the programme has made little concrete progress.


THREAT OF FURTHER ATTACKS

The governors of Edo and Abia states, along with representatives from Cross Rivers state and other officials had been meeting with Uduaghan when the attacks took place to discuss amnesty pledges including development for the region and stipends and re-training for ex-militants.

"There was a huge explosion , Every one of us started running helter skelter," said one state government official shortly after the first blast, asking not to be named.

Government delegations from two of the main oil-producing states -- Bayelsa and Rivers -- were approaching the venue at the time of the attack but turned back, witnesses said.

MEND said in a statement it planted three explosive devices which would be detonated remotely in response to comments from Uduaghan in the local media that MEND was "a media creation".

"The deceit of endless dialogue and conferences will no longer be tolerated. The lands of the people of the Niger Delta were stolen by the oil companies and northern Nigeria with the stroke of a pen," MEND said in its emailed statement.

"In the coming days we will carry out a number of attacks against installations and oil companies across the Niger Delta and will spread out to companies such as Total (TOTF.PA) which have been spared in the past," it said.

Activists said there had been complaints for months that an amnesty committee led by Defence Minister Godwin Abbe was not involving local communities and ex-militants closely enough and that Monday's meeting had only been for government officials.

"They are not doing things at the right place and the right time. Programmes are very delayed," said Jonjon Oyeinfe, ex-leader of the Ijaw Youth Council ethnic rights group who has been involved in negotiations with government for years.

"What people need now is how the programme can be implemented on a practical level, not people sitting together jaw-jawing (talking) -- what else do they want to discuss?"

Attacks largely claimed by MEND between 2006 and 2009 crippled Nigeria's oil output, helping push world energy prices to record highs near $150 a barrel in 2008 and allowing Angola to overtake it as Africa's biggest oil producer.

Nigerian crude is popular with U.S. and European refiners as it is easily processed into fuel products, meaning disruption to supplies can have a significant market impact. Monday's explosions did not immediately affect oil prices. (For more Reuters Africa coverage and to have your say on the top issues, visit: af.reuters.com/ ) (Additional reporting Austin Ekeinde in Port Harcourt, Yinka Ibukun and Tume Ahemba in Lagos, Felix Onuah in Abuja; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Dominic Evans)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE62E0WH20100315?type=marketsNews

Prof Wole Soyinka is the first black Nobel laureate ! nuf said!

Does that tatamout to good leadership/ogernement? Nobel laureate in Literacture!

Over 500 Christian residents mowed down with matchetes by fulani herdsmen in Jos

[url][/url]http://www.pointblanknews.com/os3012.html

Over 500 residents of Dogo Hawa village in Jos, were massacred in the early hours of Sunday morning by Fulani herdsmen .

This attack came despite the curfew by the state sequel to the mass attack that occurred few weeks ago in various crannies of Jos.

Pointblanknews.com learnt that the herdsmen who sneaked into the village during the wee hours of Sunday, shot sporadically into the air before launching the attack.

According to our source, after the sporadic shooting, the scared and curious residents ran out of their homes only to be mowed with machete wielding Fulani killers. They then went from house to house torching the homes as they rampaged.

Pointblanknews.com learnt that most of those killed were women and children.

The curious question making the rounds is, how did these killers beat the security cordon occasioned by the curfew.

Acting president, Goodluck Jonathan, has already put chiefs on red alert.

Called from NEXT (Tue 9th March, 2010)[url][/url]http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/National/5537814-146/four_heart_experts_arrive_for_yaradua.csp

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By Elor Nkereuwem

Four heart specialists from Saudi Arabia have arrived in the country as the health of the ailing president, Umaru Yar'Adua, deteriorated at the weekend, authoritative sources close to the Yar'Adua family said in Abuja yesterday.

"The president is facing new health complications needing a fresh set of foreign medical experts to be rushed into Nigeria," said the sources who added that the experts arrived over the weekend to service the critically ill president who hasn't been seen in public since November, 2009.

The medical doctors, who came into the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, by an EgyptAir flight on Saturday, were promptly cleared on the orders of the chief security officer to the president, Yusuf Tilde. Immigration officers, who spoke to NEXT in confidence, confirmed this.

"We were aware of the movement but we offered no clearance to the doctors," a source said.

It is believed that this step may not be unconnected to news making the rounds that Mr. Yar'Adua may be moved out of Nigeria following the malfunction of a set of life support equipment shipped into Nigeria in preparation for his return to the country after his 90 day medical vacation in Saudi Arabia.

Turai's struggles

Meanwhile, the wife of the president, Turai Yar'Adua, is grappling with the realities of the changes in the Presidency. The official residence of the president in the state house, which used to be a beehive of activity, is now ‘like a ghost town', sources in the Presidency revealed.

Domestic aides told NEXT that there has also been a clamp down on domestic activities in the home of the president. It appears that most of the duties have now been outsourced.

"Even the meals are now brought in from outside," our source said. "The cooks are now idle."

This is not going down well Mrs. Yar'Adua, who has complained in many quarters of betrayal and abandonment. Apparently distraught, she spoke to some family associates of the betrayal of former friends, including some former presidents, while accusing the Nigerian media of trying to drive her to a state of delirium with their reports.

"See all the bad things that they are now writing about us and about me," she complained to a family friend. "Is it fair? Do these people know God? We leave them to God and their conscience."

The health status of the president continues to be shrouded in secrecy as Acting President Goodluck Jonathan and other members of the Executive Council of the Federation have still not been granted access to the president who is believed to be confined to an Intensive Care Unit within the state house.

Last week, Godswill Akpabio, the governor of Akwa Ibom, while speaking on behalf of the Governors' Forum, had claimed that the ailing president was ‘recuperating', even though he showed no evidence to support his claims or any indication that any of the governors had seen the critically ill president since he was rushed out of Nigeria almost four months ago.