₦airaland Forum

The words of a junkie and a vagabond. Nobody takes him serious any longer.

Wailers will keep wailing but when the matter is proved and the action justified they will be put to shame.

We hear. They can simply release him, follow the said due process and rearrest him.

….. says amnesty programme has been a success story

As the amnesty programme winds up next year,the presidency has said President Muhammadu Buhari has delivered his promise on the Niger Delta by ensuring the completion and sustainability of key programmes.

According to the Special adviser on Niger Delta to the President and coordinator of the Presidential amnesty programme, Brig Gen Paul Boroh, the programme has been a success story as it has transformed militants to electrical engineers, marine engineers etc.

He spoke during the presentation of a refurbished 200kva 11/415kv transformer and demonstration by the four best graduates from the just concluded Presidential Niger Delta Amnesty Programme on Electric Power Transformer Repair and Maintenance in Port Harcourt by Brainbox Matrix Services Limited.

Boroh said;First, I appreciate the President for sustaining this Programme because if not for his giving us the go ahead to continue your training the capacity of the ex-agitators, it would have been difficult for us to achieve this great feat today.

“You can imagine a group of persons who have transformed from militancy to be electrical engineers, obviously I’m very proud of it because it has been a success story. And my appreciation goes to Mr. President who in his determination and commitment in stabilizing the Niger Delta region through human capacity development as well as infrastructural development.

“In this case is two in one, the ex-agitators, 23 of them have developed their human capacity in terms of skills acquisition in transformer maintenance and establishment. This has transformed these persons to who they were to the present as well as the refurbishment of transformer which will now supply power to the environment where it is deployed.

Asked how how realistic is the projection that the programme will end next year, Boroh explained that the exit strategy of the presidential amnesty programme, has the connotation of adequate requirements to ensure continuity adding that the president has bought into the development of region through sustaining the programme.

According to him,this is linked to President Buhari ‘s promises during the campaigns when he said he was committed to ensuring the Niger Delta is stable during his administration and this came to manifestation during the flag off on the Ogoni clean up.

“He also ensured that in this year’s budget the rail line running from Lagos to Calabar was included in the budget. All these will create room for job creation and infrastructural development of the region.

” Only two days ago (Wednesday), He set up an executive committee on stoppage of gas flaring in the Niger Delta, this will translate to high level of job creation and infrastructural development of the region.

“The president also ensured that the pilot trainees in Jordan completed their Programme and ensured the development of human capacity development of the ex-agitators in agriculture which will ensure job, wealth creation as well as food security. The amnesty office has been mandated to use the bio-resource center in Odi, Oyo, Cross River, all these are to demonstration Mr. President’s interest to revamp the region.

On agitation in the Niger Delta, he said ;For those still in the creeks, this is a challenge, is an opening, a wider platform for the, to emulate and embrace so that their capacity will also be developed, instead of wasting the human resource elements in them. This means opportunities are open to them whether they are agitators or not.

http://leadership.ng/news/553580/pmb-has-delivered-his-promise-on-niger-delta-presidency

Wonders shall never end! The victims seemed to be amazed though.

Thanks for the lesson. May Allah reward you.

saintkel:
Well I won't meddle much on dis since its based on some peoples religion but one thing is certain, it seems religion only favours d men not d women over dia in d north. My opinion though

MOPAN claims that this happened before the law was introduced. Ali Nuhu has apologized for this even at that. She herself has apologized for such acts twice in the past.

saintkel:
When we go see ur pix now?

When u convert to Islam.

One of Africa’s richest men Aliko Dangote has disclosed that even though he was the one who suggested the sale of national assets as a means through which Nigeria could fight the current recession, he is not interested in buying NLNG or any other national asset.

He said this in an interview with Thisday stating that even if the assets were offered to him on credit he still wouldn’t buy them.

Dangote said; “Why did I suggest that we should sell some of the assets? I know the touchy one is the NLNG. I want to make it categorically clear that even if the government is selling NLNG on credit, I am not interested in buying.

“I don’t have any interest in NLNG and I will not buy it. It is not a business that I want to invest in. It is a mature business; that is what people don’t understand. You see, we should have invested heavily in all these Brass LNG, Olokola LNG, etc, when former President Olusegun Obasanjo started work on the projects, but we missed the opportunity.

“Today, you have massive LNG projects that have been done by Qatar, Australia and the United States is also exporting. But right now, all the gas that we have is even in the ground.

“Even Mozambique has a massive amount of gas and also Tanzania, and they are nearer to the markets than we are. So, if somebody is even going to invest in LNG, he would go to those areas and invest there and not here in Nigeria, because the investment here daunting. So my own suggestion is that even if we must sell, it doesn’t have to be 100 per cent of our interest in NLNG.”

“People are just saying it is better to go and borrow, but I don’t know where they are coming from. You see, with borrowing, if I have issues with my business today, the bankers who would lend me the money would want to see me doing something first to see how the business can survive. There would be conditionalities. But if you are not shedding weight, how do you expect somebody to help you with funding? You have to start first by trying to shed weight and showing the person (lender) who wants to help you with the assets you want to sell”.
http://www.herald.ng/even-national-assets-offered-credit-will-not-buy-dangote/#FIY7C6ZvsfHmsEER.99

Oil rich Saudi Arabia and the birthplace of Islam shifted to the western Gregorian calendar on Sunday, bringing the oil-rich kingdom in line with many of its energy customers. The Islamic lunar calendar is actually 15 days shorter than the 365-day solar year which will actually save the kingdom money by cutting salary days for many public servants. The kingdom has been using the Islamic calendar since it was founded in 1932, Al Arabiya local news reported.

https://breaking.com.ng/nigeria/saudi-arabia-dumps-islamic-calendar/

Last week, Yahoo! revealed that information from at least 500 million Yahoo accounts was stolen from the company in 2014. The theft may have included names, email addresses, telephone numbers, dates of birth, and in some cases, encrypted or unencrypted security questions and answers.

WHEN?: Happened in 2014. Information made public on Thursday, September 22, 2016.

WHO IS IMPACTED?: Yahoo! users.

WHAT DO YOU NEED TO DO?
If you operate a Yahoo! account, you are advised to take the following steps:
· Immediately change your Yahoo! Password.
· Immediately change your Yahoo! Security questions and answers.
. Change your password regularly.
. Avoid using cyclical password or password based on your bio data.

Security begins with you!

saintandsinnerz:
Hmm, it's a shame that this man is still incarcerated without being convicted. This is one of the reasons why I don't take any civil society group and Human Rights association serious. Why are they still holding him without trial? Do we have judiciary in this country? Why are people so silent about this? How can we allow a tyrant to erode our constitution? If Dasuki committed any of the crimes he is being accused of, he should be tried in a competent court and if found guilty, then the appropriate punishment should be meted out. Holding him without trial is a gross violation of his fundamental rights no matter the angle you're looking at it. After people will expect a fugitive like Tompolo submit himself for a useless kangaroo trial. It's disheartening that our judiciary which supposed to be the last hope of the oppressed, is now an instrument of oppression itself. They have allowed the executive to annex them.

Are you from Mars or are you being partisan or outright mischievous? Thousands of Nigerians are languishing in jail for years awaiting trial over petty offenses and you are saying this. Squandering that defence money led to the death of over 25 thousand people and rendered over 3 million people homeless and internally displaced. Human right my foot.

The Nigerian Army has said an officer and 3 soldiers were killed in an explosion after running into an Improvised Explosive Device and ambush by Boko Haram militants in Borno state.

A statement from Army spokesman, Colonel Sani Usman, early Monday morning said troops of Operation Lafiya Dole on administrative patrol from Maiduguri encountered the explosive device and ambush between Miyanti and Dareljamal, Borno State.

He said the ambush was cleared and 3 Boko Haram militants were killed by the troops. They also recovered a Machine Gun, one AK-47 Rifle and some quantity of ammunition.

He added that: “Unfortunately, we lost an officer and 3 soldiers, while 16 soldiers and 3 Civilian JTF sustained injuries during the encounter. Similarly, 2 vehicles that entered the IED were badly damaged.”

He said the wounded have since been evacuated and are in stable condition.

http://www.dailytrust.com.ng/news/general/4-soldiers-killed-16-injured-in-boko-haram-bomb-attack/163896.html#y1rYqPj7ukOKd3Qj.99

Ikebastronomanatomicology. Lol.

IT is no longer news that Whatsapp, the world’s most popular messaging application will not be available on the BlackBerry platform come 2017. What might be news however, especially to the Facebook owned company, is that many Nigerian BlackBerry faithful say they will choose the Canadian mobile brand over Whatsapp.

Although BlackBerry might have lost face all over the world, it is still a dearly beloved brand in the world’s most populous black nation for a variety of reasons. The easy-to-use physical keyboard associated with many of the older blackberry models is one of them. Although Android and Apple devices have relegated the physical QWERTY to the middle ages, it is still a feature loved by many Nigerians.

Another point to note is the price factor. As a result of the BlackBerry boom in Nigeria few years ago, the country’s major networks designed special services for subscribers who used the brand. The average customers internet needs can be met with a one-off payment of N1000 a month. This feature, unavailable on other platforms makes the use of data more expensive on other Smartphones.

Caterer, Princess Nwadinobi is attracted to the blackberry brand for this very reason. “I don’t really like the fact that Whatsapp is leaving BlackBerry. With a cheap subscription fee, I can browse easily every month on my BlackBerry unlike other phone brands that will cost me more. I think I’ll still stick to my BlackBerry because I can talk and do business with my customers through the BlackBerry messenger and Facebook messenger.

Although device lovers, Nigerians are feeling the crunch of a dwindling economy, with the dollar rising faster against the naira like a cup of Ijebu garri in cold water. For millions of blackberry users across the country, getting a new device simply to accommodate an app might not be top priority.

Mr. Sanmi Mosiko for example, a student at Kogi state University is more interested using his finances to further his education. He told Glamtech: “I won’t get a new phone even when I can no longer use Whatsapp on my BlackBerry. I’d rather do without the app.”

There are still a few who might leave BlackBerry for Whatsapp. School teacher, Miss Amarachi Williams told Glamtech that she would have to get herself a new phone that makes use of the app because whatsapp is important to her.

Be that as it may, it is unlikely that you’ll find a BlackBerry shelf when you go to a dealer in brand new devices-at least not in the Lagos metropolis. But that doesn’t mean that BBs are no longer sold in Nigeria. Just like with almost everything ‘Tokunbo’, the second-hand mobile market here is a thriving one, and Blackberries are still a major part of that market. Nigerians are still using Blackberries every day and that’s unlikely to change overnight or even in the next three months when Whatsapp will say goodbye to Blackberry.
http://www.informationng.com/2016/09/blackberry-xit-why-whatsapp-may-lose-many-nigerian-subscribers.html

It seems like everyone who could've weighed in this debate already has -- even the Pope got in on the action. But Pele, the soccer legend who is regularly in the "best ever" conversation along with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo has made his choice in the matter.

"Cristiano Ronaldo is a great goalscorer, but Messi is the best," Pele said, according to Sport.

Well, that's pretty definitive as it is, but Pele went onto say that Messi has been the "most consistent player" of the past 10 to 15 years, and he does more than just score goals.

"You could mention others, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who's a great goalscorer -- he reminds me of Ronaldo," Pele said. "In the end, Ronaldo scores goals and you see Messi giving assists and creating play, as well as scoring.

"In terms of being a complete player, there's no doubt that Messi is the best."

Up until the Messi vs. Ronaldo debate took center stage, Pele was widely considered by many to be the best player in the history of soccer, along with Diego Maradona. With Pele weighing in and giving the nod to the Argentina and Barcelona man, that is certainly a big plus for the Messi column.

The votes for Messi have been piling up, with Ronaldinho and Jose Mourinho also recently weighing in and picking Messi. The Pope picked Messi, too.
http://www.foxsports.com/soccer/story/pele-wades-into-leo-messi-vs-cristiano-ronaldo-debate-092016

A former Minister of National Guidance, Alhaji Yusuf Maitama Sule, has called for a ban on public officers convicted of looting public funds from participating in partisan politics and holding public office.

He told the News Agency of Nigeria in Kano on Sunday that the ban should be backed by law passed by the National Assembly.

“This (the ban) will be possible when there is a law to back it and we hope the law will be enacted soon to support the idea,” he said.

He explained that the fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) by public officers was now the beginning of wisdom.

“EFCC has done extremely well in the discharge of its responsibilities so far, as there are a lot of recovered looted funds now.

“But the biggest challenge for EFCC is that it can investigate but it does not have the power to spend money and utilise it for other purposes.”

Maitama Sule, who is also a former Permanent Representative of Nigeria to the United Nations, also called for a law to enable the government to utilise the recovered looted funds to improve the living standard of Nigerians.

He said there was the need revitalise the education, agriculture and power sectors in order to give the nation’s moribund industries a new lease of life using the recovered funds.

The elder statesman commended President Muhammadu Buhari for tackling insurgency, especially in the North-East.

“We have to thank God Almighty for the peace that has since been restored in the country and we will continue to pray for its sustenance.

“No meaningful development can be achieved in any country without peace and even the ‘most diehard cynics” know that President Buhari has done well in terms of restoration of peace in the country,” he said.

He urged Nigerians to continue to support the government in its determination to restore sanity in the country.

NAN

http://punchng.com/maitama-sule-wants-looters-banned-public-office-politics/

Quite useful tips. Recommended for front page.

To whom it may concern

Vomm:
Meaning?
Lalastica pls summarise that thing

Reading culture?

obailala:
Information dissemination in this country is horribly faulty. I'm curious to know why this story was not reported by any single Nigerian newspaper or reputable media organisation, except on the facebook Timeline of AIT. Not even the AIT website conveys this story and since the uproar was raised yesterday, not a single person, not even the facebook handler of AIT nor the government has come up to clarify this.

And the haters are vomiting their venom? Assuming without conceding that he was released for chibok girls is it not the same Nigerians that are clamoring for a swap for the girls. Boko Haram should demand for Nnamdi Kanu instead.

Rubbish! This is a futile attempt by a foot soldier of the corrupt and unpatriotic lot that nearly destroyed this country. This country is being rescued and some fool is writing nonsense.

You know in your head that you should be inured to corruption stories by now. Since the defeat of President Goodluck Jonathan in the election of March 28, 2015 and the change of government that was consummated on May 29, 2015, you have been inundated with a staple of scandals that confirm he ran Nigeria like a kleptocracy. You have seen a glut of evidence that proves that "corruption is not stealing" was not a gaffe but a directive principle of state policy. You have read of countless, jaw-dropping plunders in the order of billions of naira, of loot packed in septic tanks, and of some salted away in offshore tax havens.


But you are shocked by this umpteenth scandal, notheless. You are appalled – in spite of yourself – by reports that former first lady, Patience Jonathan, has gone to court to lay claim to ownership of $15 million deposit in four bank accounts frozen by the EFCC. She is standing on the premise of her constitutional right to "own property" to assert that the curious accounts opened and maintained in the name of the houseboys of her former domestic aide were hers, in actual sense. And she is demanding 200 million naira in damages for the anti-graft agency's infringement on her convenient money laundering scheme!

And, while you are trying your level best to process this obscenity without compromising your sanity, a corrective arrives to complicate matters: The EFCC has found a fresh $5 million in another Patience bank account. Which means that the balance of her deposits in the Nigeria banking system, as we know it today, stands at $20 million –‘only’!

You remind yourself that you know the Patience in question. She has never been, at any time, a household name in the Nigerian business environment or elsewhere. The highest position she ever attained in her almost non-existent civil service career was permanent secretary. Bayelsa State Governor Seriake Dickson gave her a ludicrous ghost worker appointment for the sake of his own political survival. Beyond that, she was nothing more than the wife of a man who became president by a stroke of fate.

So you find yourself wondering how she managed to earn $20 million. Has she been paying her taxes? What investment yielded her such abundant profit? Where might one locate a trail of sweat or handprints of labor or any in-demand product or service that could account for her Olympian dollar heap?

It turns out that the companies Patience used to launder money were fairy tale entities. They had no earthly address, no staffer, no robot. The firms did not exist. She conjured $20 million out of nothingness – by sheer magic!

Patience Jonathan's $20 million is the stuff of occult fortune. It is not anything like the quotidian case of personal enrichment at the expense of the Nigerian treasury. It’s something more mysterious, more ambitious, more audacious: it's a money ritual!

Money ritual is a fabled protocol for getting rich in an alternate world where avarice answers to mysticism. It’s a grand Faustian exchange of one’s soul for mammon. It entails a series of sacrifices whose nature is known only to the cult of initiates.

Patience couldn't have gotten $20 million from anything except a voodoo mint. She had to be printing dollars by herself to come about that amount. In a real world where money flows in the direction of value, it’s impossible to imagine that she could have amassed tens of millions of dollars without producing or offering anything of relative significance.

Her so-called $20 million balance, mind you, is not a picture of the total leafage on her money trees. It’s only a pruned remainder. Patience had been cutting off many branches since the Nigerian electorate evicted her husband and her Aso Rock.

An affidavit deposed on her behalf by her aide, Sammie Somiari, said Patience discovered she could no longer access her accounts overseas. She was abroad on medical treatment. It was at the time she needed to access her accounts most that they had been frozen.

This goes to show she had been disappearing money from those accounts up until when they were frozen. EFCC placed a No Debit Order on the four accounts on 7th July, 2016. The fourteen months between May 29, 2015 and July 7, 2016 is an ample period for her to significantly reduce her lodgments to a pittance. And given the demonstrable zeal with which the Buhari presidency has pursued the probe and prosecution of figures that served in her husband’s administration, common sense would have suggested to her to empty her loaded, smoking gun as fast as possible.

There is no way to make sense of the phenomenon of a Patience Jonathan boasting $20 million as part of her net worth. More so, you cannot understand the surpassing stupidity of her public declaration that she is the owner of an amount of money she is absolutely incapable of earning legitimately. Her coming out of the closet as an amazon of money laundering is as outrageous as it is stupefying.

The Patience Jonathan that Nigerians know cannot make a clean $1 million except through a lottery. She has won none. Her claim to ownership of $20 million she obviously stole from the Nigerian treasury is the salt of a lie on the wound of a heist. Her preposterous possessiveness resembles the spectacle of a thief pleading that the stolen goods that represent the collective wealth of an entire neighborhood belongs to him!

It’s clear that keeping those millions of dollars for too long gave Patience a false sense of ownership. Possession is nine-tenths of the law. But, the truth is that the number of years she has had the spoils doesn’t make her the rightful owner. Neither does it make her less a thief. If anything, every new day she kept the stolen goods made her a more impenitent thief!

And talking of repentance, Patience is impervious to it. Even a close shave with prison has not transformed her covetous core. In 2006, during her husband's term as governor of Bayelsa state, EFCC caught her twice trying to launder money.

First time, Patience tried to launder 104 million naira through her ‘business associate’, a certain Nancy Ebere. Ms. Ebere implicated Patience in a sworn affidavit.

Second time, Patience was intercepted at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport while trying to smuggle out a baggage of $12.5 million cash.

She escaped prosecution on the two occasions. She was allowed to go home and sin some more. Obasanjo had, before then, decided to make her meek-looking husband the running mate of Governor Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. So he declined to authorize EFCC to expose the wife of the future vice president as a kleptomaniac!

The free pass gave Patience the impression that she was above the law. She could steal without fear of any repercussion. If she was caught, she would not do the time. She would be set free to relearn the art of stealing and escaping with the booty!

An excursion into the land of the dead also proved insufficient to educate Patience on the vanity of life. By her own telling, she once fell sick and had to be rushed to a German hospital. Her condition was bad and it so worsened she ‘died’ for one week. It took 13 surgeries in a world class health facility to bring her back to life.

At a thanksgiving service in Aso Villa chapel, Patience testified that her aides stole her jewelries and personal effects because they thought she would come back in a coffin. She said she owes her survival to divine mercy. God gave her a second chance. And in appreciation of that grace, she would be a better human being. She would serve the society. She would help humanity.

We now know that vow she made in a place of worship were empty words. She didn’t become born again. She continued in her money laundering habit.

During her husband’s re-election campaign, Patience fought like her life depended on her extended stay in the presidency. She was more desperate and aggressive than her spouse. She militarized her home state of Rivers. She asked her husband’s supporters to stone members of the opposition. She called her husband’s main rival "brain dead."

Now, we know why. She was fighting to protect her bloated bank accounts. If her husband had won, she wouldn't have had any reason to fear she might be found out and disgraced. She would have had four more years... to launder more taxpayer money.

Patience thought a big deal of being the first lady. After her husband became president upon the death of Yar’Adua, she began to contend with Yar’Adua’s widow, Turai, over a parcel of land. She had to announce her apotheosis with a land grab!

Patience was intoxicated by privilege. She pushed back criticisms of her pride and power show. A frustrated then-governor Babatunde Fashola complained several times about an unelected official’s penchant for forcing a proper lockdown on the biggest city in Nigeria each time she came to Lagos. The lady refused to make her visits less painful. Instead, she called for a constitutional amendment so that the names of she and wives of other political office holders will be officially entitled to enjoy their own perks and "retire with benefits" like "our husbands."

The amendment she asked for did not happen. So, she seized the initiative. She awarded herself no less than $20 million dollars in retirement benefits!

What’s saddening in this matter is not she stole from the Nigerian people. Very few Nigerians can hold on to their integrity in the face of the temptation to steal "government money."

What makes this case very grievous is that Patience is insisting on her right to squander all the money she has stolen. She says she has a right to ‘own property.’ She implies that the Nigerian people have no right…not even to the right to reclaim what is left of her loot!

Patience Jonathan once requested Nigerians to call her by the new name of “Mama Peace.” Her concept of 'peace' is totally divorced from justice. She wants to be left alone. Her definition of ‘peace’ is a state of respect for her 'right' to consume millions of dollars of Nigerian taxpayer money!

By Emmanuel Uchenna Ugwu
https://secure.saharareporters.com/2016/09/12/patience-jonathan-her-money-ritual-and-her-meaning-peace-emmanuel-uchenna-ugwu