₦airaland Forum

PDP is a nothern party & the position of national chairman will eventually go to the north.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3216627/Koran-Birmingham-thought-oldest-world-predate-Prophet-Muhammad-scholars-say.html

HOW DID IT GET TO BIRMINGHAM?

The ancient pages were found bound alongside those of a younger copy of the Koran from the seventh century AD.

It is thought they had been put together because the Hijazi script on the parchment was similar.

They had been collected during the 1920s by a Chaldean priest called Alphonse Mingana who put together a huge collection of documents from the Middle East.

His expeditions to the Middle East were sponsored by Edward Cadbury, from the chocolate dynasty.

A special library was built at Selly Oak Colleges in Birmingham, a group of colleges set up by a group of Quakers led by George Cadbury.

When the colleges were merged with the University of Birmingham in the 1990s, the collection was brought under the care of the Cadbury Research Library at the university.

The fragments of the Koran then lay undiscovered until they were sent for radio carbon dating at the University of Oxford.


http://national.deseretnews.com/article/5711/is-the-worlds-oldest-quran-older-than-muhammad.html

A former Works Minister under the Jonathan administration may be recalled to refund hundreds of millions of Naira of public funds, which he and his family members allegedly wasted under the guise of attending official trips while in office. Already, federal auditors looking into the books of the ministry, have discovered shocking details of how the minister siphoned millions of Naira in the name of sending top officials of the ministry abroad for official functions.

The checks have also unearthed how the minister signed and collected millions of Naira for what auditors describe as ‘ghost’ representatives of the Works Ministry. In a particular case, the said minister had smuggled the names of his wife and her sister into the official delegation of the ministry for a women’s leadership training programme in Dubai, United Arab Emirate and caused the ministry to pay for the full cost of their week-long stay in that country.

Details of the expenditure, which Vanguard obtained yesterday, indicated that the ministry paid of N6.5 million to the delegation that included the minister’s wife, her sister and three female officials. Apart from smuggling his wife and sister’s names into the official delegation, the minister also designated his wife and sister as the leader and deputy leader of the delegation to Dubai and approved Business Class tickets for them, while the three other delegates from the ministry sat in Economy.

While the minister’s wife was paid N1,475,023, her sister received N1,474,023 for the trip, which lasted from December 5 to 10, 2011.

Ticket money

Each of them spent N496,023 for the business class ticket, while each of the three other official delegate paid N250,000 for their economy class tickets. In approving the names of the delegates, the minister used the initials of his wife and sister’s names apparently to conceal their identities, but the account and audit personnel wrote the two names in full at the point of preparing the voucher and paying them, thereby exposing the politician.

In another trip, which the minister said he attended in Paris, France that same year, he requested for N20.2 million as ‘supplementary allowance’ for four ‘additional stakeholders’ to join him on the trip but did not disclose who they were even though the money was withdrawn from the ministry’s account.

The minister had written to the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, asking him to approve money for the additional stakeholders who were to participate in the World Infrastructure Summit in Paris and the approval was granted him within a day. The four undisclosed stakeholders got N4,057,220 for estacode, N5,433,400 for flight tickets and spent N10.8 million on participation fees for the one week stay in Paris.

However, auditors are angry that the names of the beneficiaries were not disclosed and would want the former minister to account for the huge amount, which he approved. A source in the ministry told Vanguard that the auditors would soon invite the former minister to account for the money, but did not say when he was likely to be summoned.

The discovery is coming at a time the former ministers have written to President Buhari, asking him not to label them as corrupt, since they did their best for the country. The former ministers also asked Buhari to give them due respect and credit for what they did well for the country during their tenure instead of vilification.


http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/09/auditors-probe-ex-ministers-travelling-allowance/

Any idea who was the Works Minister?

At least with all these early round of appointments, nobody can say that Tinubu is influencing PMB.

PMB is a man who likes to make his own decisions.

PDP & APC are just the same...nothing to differentiate between the two parties as a result of multiple party-crossovers...

Anyway, let's wait & see what APC can offer.

FORMER military administrator of Kaduna State Colonel Hamid Ibrahim Alli is being touted as the next chairman of the Economic and Financial crimes Commission (EFCC) after current chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde was implicated in a N1Trn fraud sources in the All Progressives Congress (APC) have revealed

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, Ibrahim Lamorde, will on Wednesday appear before the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions over an allegation that he criminally diverted over N1 trillion recovered from corrupt individuals and groups by the anti-graft agency

The fraud allegedly perpetrated by Larmode was said to have dated back to his days as the Director of Operations of the EFCC between 2003 and 2007, as well as an acting Chairman of the commission between June 2007 and May 2008, when the then chairman of the anti-graft agency, Nuhu Ribadu, was away for a course at the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies, Kuru, Jos.

Col Alli, 60, who is originally from, Kano State, was the Kaduna State military governor between August 1996 and August 1998 during the Sani Abacha regime. Currently the chief of staff to President Muhammadu Buhari, Col Alli later became the secretary of the Arewa Consultative Forum after retiring from the Nigerian Army.

Blue-blooded, Col Alli was a die-hard IBB boy who is reputed to have said he would follow General Ibrahim Babangida to war blindfolded. However, after Babangida annulled the June 12 1993 elections, they fell out, with him telling his principal that he was wrong, pointing out that Abiola should be sworn-in as president even if he was the devil.
Rumour has it that Col Alli would have been executed by General Abacha if not for the fact that he was blue-blood. He left the army and government unceremoniously without money or scandal and according to reports, he is into poultry farming and still drives a 504 Peugeot saloon car.

Apparently, Colonel Ali is currently undergoing State Security Service screening in preparation for his appointment. According to insiders, immediately there were feelers that he will emerge the next EFCC chairman, corrupt politicians went into panic, with some of them returning stolen funds.

President Buhari has made the fight against corruption the centrepiece of his policies and as such, whoever he appoints as EFCC chairman will be a key figure in his government. Whoever is EFCC chairman will be responsible for recovering the billions of missing dollars said to have disappeared from Nigeria’s oil earnings

http://breakingnews.ng/index.php/2015/08/25/former-military-administrator-of-kaduna-to-replace-lamorde-as-efcc-boss/

Latest News.......

Evolution says where there’s a want, nature will provide what’s needed. Really? In Natural Theology, Dr. William Paley writes: ‘To keep the eye moist and clean—which qualities are necessary to its brightness and its use—a wash is constantly supplied by a secretion for the purpose; and the superfluous brine is conveyed to the nose through a perforation in the bone as large as a goose quill. When the fluid has entered the nose, it spreads itself upon the inside of the nostril and is evaporated by the current of warm air which in the course of respiration is continually passing over it…It’s easily perceived that the eye must want moisture; but could the “want” of the eye generate the gland which produces the tear, or bore the hole by which it’s discharged—a hole through bone?

Let the evolutionist tell us who bored the hole…and laid a water pipe through it for the dispersion of tears.’ When it encounters darkness, your eye’s ability to see increases one hundred thousand times. The finest camera ever made doesn’t even come close! And what’s more, your eye will find the object it wants to see, and focus on it automatically by elongating or compressing itself. Both eyes moving in tandem must adopt different angles in order to fix themselves on what’s to be seen.

Evolution tells us when the eye got ready to create itself, it had forethought for its own protection and built a bony ridge of the brow, which provided a nose on which to position the glasses many of us need. Then it provided a shutter to protect itself from foreign objects. Perhaps it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation! What do you think?

Why the ceremony just to get a road contruction started, why can't the ceremony be done after the contruction have been completed?

Espirit de corps...2 ex-soldiers helping themselves.

Actual fact remains, PMB have to keep OBJ busy, or else the old man will start to drip like a leaking tap...

I think FFK should just keep quiet for now, his relevancy in this new dispensation is next to zero!!!

The short-pigmy like man from NK will soon press the self-destruct button if the war should actually go ahead!!

A former Minister of Aviation, Femi Fani-Kayode, says Nigerians are under a spell.

He, therefore, called for a drastic and far-reaching change across the country.

Fani-Kayode, in a Facebook post titled, “When cometh our deliverer?” said Nigeria had been underdeveloped for too long due to bad leadership and a dormant citizenry.


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He, therefore, argued that it was time for Nigerians to wake up.

The former minister, who served as the spokesperson for former President Goodluck Jonathan’s presidential campaign, said Nigeria needed a hero who could turn things around just as Oliver Cromwell did in England in 1653 shortly after the British Civil War when he sacked the Rump parliament and seized power.

Fani-Kayode said Cromwell, who was the Lord Protector of England, Scotland and Ireland, paid the ultimate price so that England could become a great country.

He noted that not only did Cromwell defeat the Royal Army of King Charles I in various battles and win the Civil War, “but he also apprehended the king, arrested him, brought him to justice before the courts of law and had him executed.”

This was the first time an English monarch was ever tried in court and sentenced to death.

Fani-Kayode said it was with such zeal that Nigeria needed to treat its corrupt leaders.

He said, “I look at Nigeria today and the behaviour of our collective overlords reminds me very much of the behaviour of the pre-Cromwellian “Rump Parliament’’ in England. Can anyone be in any doubt that it is time for us to speak those same words that Oliver Cromwell spoke to the English Parliament on April 20th, 1653 to our leaders here in Nigeria?

“Who will go forth courageously and speak truth to tyranny in the power of the Lord. When will God raise our own deliverer?

“Where is our own Oliver Cromwell or our own biblical Jehu? Where is our Elijah? When will the Jezebels that rule our land be thrown down from the balcony and when will the dogs eat their flesh and drink their blood?

“When will our Ahab be slaughtered in battle? When will the Nigerian people say ‘enough is enough’ and demand the change that they so desperately crave?

“When will they wake up from their accursed slumber and wipe away the faecal mess with which they have been stained, smothered, blinded, deafened and silenced?

“When will the spell that has been placed upon them be finally broken? When will they be free from this unwholesome bondage and be rid of their godless fears?

“When will their shackles be finally broken and when will they see, feel, hear and live again? When, O when, will our people be free and when will they become the pride of Africa that they were destined to be?”

Fani-Kayode, who served as Minister of Tourism under former President Olusegun Obasanjo, said the country continued to be ruled by charlatans while those who deserved to rule had been denied the opportunity.

He said Nigeria had remained stagnant because of its religious views. He said instead of facing the problems, Nigerians preferred to run to church or mosques for solutions.

He added, “In the Nigerian context, the question is this – when will our great stars emerge and when will Nigeria’s time to shine on the world stage come?

“When will the words of Oliver Cromwell find relevance in our space and when will the Lord answer our prayer and deliver us from the evil that plagues our land.”least a unicameral one?

Copyright PUNCH.
All rights reserved. This material, and other digital content on this website, may not be reproduced, published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed in whole or in part without prior express written permission from PUNCH.

Contact: editor@punchng.com

http://www.punchng.com/politics/nigerians-are-in-bondage-says-fani-kayode/

Unfortunately this is the truth.
Saraki the owner of Kwara state have spoken, it's now left to the people of Kwara to decide who they want as their governor.
If this guy should be governor, it will just be an extension of Bukola Saraki's tenure.

But will Tinubu and the APC party in Kwara state approve of this?

I like the comment about "PMB soaking his koboko inside kerosene".

In my opinion, I think according to PMB, Fayose's case is very 'small fry' indeed, it's only a matter of time.

Maj Gen T.Y Bruatai, is a tall soldier man

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnRbXn4-Yis

A 92-year-old woman is no longer allowed to worship at the church where she was a member for more than 50 years because she was not tithing.

Josephine King said that was the reason she was kicked out of Bainbridge's First African Baptist Church. Her family members said they hope the situation will bring change to churches across the nation.

“Josephine King is no longer considered a member of the First African Baptist Church of Bainbridge, Georgia,” read Gerald Simmons, as he skimmed over the letter addressed to his aunt.

The letter, signed by Senior Pastor Derrick Mike, stated that Ms. King "has shown non-support" towards the church in the areas of "constant and consistent financial and physical participation." "She was stunned. She was disappointed. She was shocked," said Simmons.

He said Ms. King was considered sick and a shut-in for several months, which was the reason for her lack of attendance. He also said his aunt had gone above and beyond in the past to financially support the church.

"You shouldn't chase the individuals down," said Simmons. "You shouldn't do that. If that's the case, you're money hungry."
Simmons also noted that his aunt isn't the first person to receive a letter of removal for not tithing, and hopes her story will shed some light on the policy.

"You have to have money to make these churches run, but it's not about money,” Simmons said. "It's about God. You have to put God first."
Several requests for comment from the church were made, but no responses by officials or other members were given.

http://www.kfvs12.com/story/29762845/92-year-old-woman-kicked-out-of-church-for-not-tithing

starlingslimnet:
Do you understand that is in the glorious land? You see I understand where you are coming from,but you and I know that 90% of people at that convention are babes in Christ whose heart are set on prosperity.If the pastor had said "Because I have Christ I am richer than everybody" it will have helped them to understand his words.But I know as well as you know that,that, has done more harm to the hearts of the hearer. His speech does not edify spiritually it edify materialism.

Read it over again....it encourages Laziness and immortalize pastors.

Nicely explained; why aren't our Pastors follow the example of how they should discharge their high calling in the ministry as stated in Paul's letter to Timothy.

In 2 Timothy 4:1-5 (NIV)

"In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I give you this charge: 2 Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3 For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 5 But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry".

This inter-house war between Sahara Reporters and Saraki is very intriguing, may the best fighter win.

I think APC as a party have got other means to nail Saraki should they wish to, but they are just bidding their time.

BTW, where did the Senate President got his 'Abubarkar' name from since it's not on his BC?

Nigeria earned at least $11.8 billion as dividends from the Nigerian Liquefied Natural Gas Company, and not $5.6 billion as claimed by former Nigerian governments led by the People’s Democratic Party, PREMIUM TIMES can confirm today.

The figure covers remittances due to have been paid to the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, which holds 49 per cent shareholding in the NLNG, on behalf of Nigeria.

The remaining equities are held by Dutch firm, Shell, and its Italian counterpart, Eni/Agip.

After weeks of being rebuffed by different government agencies and the NLNG, over requests for the details of the remittances to Nigeria, PREMIUM TIMES arrived at the figure based on an analysis of payments to Agip, exclusively sourced by the paper.

The investigations showed that the Federal Government, through the NNPC, earned $11.8 billion (about N2.5 trillion) as dividends from NLNG between 2004 and 2014.

Pioneer Status

The NLNG operated for at least 10 years under a controversial tax freedom holiday, called the pioneer status, which was granted by the Nigerian government. The incentive is usually given pioneer investors in new sectors of the economy to encourage more investments. In the case of NLNG, it was to trigger investment in gas.

Even with the tax relief, the government and other shareholders drew dividends from NLNG during the period, but the Nigerian authorities refused to provide details of how much was paid from 2004, under the Olusegun Obasanjo administration.

Controversy over the money started in June when the Nigerian Extractive Industry Transparency Initiative, NEITI, announced that it had uncovered that the NNPC failed to remit $11.6 billion paid by the NLNG.

NEITI urged President Muhammadu Buhari to recover the money.

In response, the NNPC spokesperson, Ohi Alegbe, said the matter had already been referred to the Inter-Ministerial Task Team (IMTT) for reconcilia­tion and resolution.

“At the last meeting of IMTT, it was resolved that the Minister of Petroleum, Chairman of NEITI, Execu­tive Secretary of NEITI and the Group Managing Direc­tor of NNPC should meet on the issue of NLNG dividends and report back to IMTT.

“Unfortunately, that meet­ing has not held. However, another meeting of IMTT is coming up next week and the issue will be taken up from there. NEITI, as a member of IMTT, is aware of the ongo­ing efforts to reconcile and resolve the issue of NLNG dividend remittance,” Mr. Alegbe said in a statement June 10.

He did not confirm or deny the amount in question.

By July, nearly a month later, the new federal government said it was disbursing $2.1 billion out of the NLNG funds to cash-strapped state governments to enable them clear backlogs of salaries owed workers.

The distribution was the first time in Nigeria’s history. It is the first time that funds from NLNG would be shared between the federal and state governments.

The ruling All Progressives Congress accused the previous PDP government of diverting past remittances, an allegation denied by the PDP.

APC spokesperson, Lai Mohammed, said over $4 billion of the NLNG money was outstanding.

In its response on July 12, the PDP said the party’s previous administrations –from Obasanjo to Goodluck Jonathan— deserved praise than rebuke for saving the LNG funds for the new government.

The party’s spokesperson, Olisa Metuh, said since NLNG had been on a “10-year tax haven” (he probably meant tax holiday) until 2014, “successive governments, right from President Olusegun Obasanjo never shared nor tampered with the cumulative dividends over the years”.

He said as of May 29, when Mr. Jonathan left office, the NLNG dividend stood at a cumulative $5.6billion and “not a single cent was ever taken from the funds”.

Denials

Repeated attempts by PREMIUM TIMES to confirm that figure were rebuffed by all the relevant government agencies.

The Corporate Communications manager of NLNG, Tony Okonedo, said releasing the details to PREMIUM TIMES would amount to a breach of confidentiality.

“Any details on the dividends we (NLNG) paid to government, the best place to go is NNPC that received it. For us, we are very clear on what we paid,” he said.

The NNPC told PREMIUM TIMES that the corporation did not have any information on dividend payments by NLNG.

“Your best bet for such information would be NLNG, which made the payment,” Mr. Alegbe said.

Neither the NLNG nor the NNPC was forthcoming with information on their annual report and financial statements.

The ministry of finance and office of the accountant general also refused to provide details.

Eni to the rescue

Regardless, PREMIUM TIMES sourced Eni’s financial filings, and confirmed that the company received billions of dollars as its due of dividend since 2004.

Eni owns 10.4 percent of NLNG, while Nigeria holds 49 percent stake.

A review of Eni’s consolidated financial statements showed that the company received €2.319 billion ($2.5 billion) as total dividends billion between 2004 and 2014.

Eni received €72 million in 2004; €33 million in 2005, €56 million in 2006; and €131 million in 2007.

The company also earned €453 million in 2008; €101 million in 2009; €188 million in 2010; €483 million in 2011; €331 million for 2012; €224 million in 2013, and €247 million in 2014.

At 49 per cent, Nigeria’s dividend climbed to $11.8 billion. That is about N2.5 trillion.

The figure tallies with the $11.6 billion reported in the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) 2009-2012 Audit Report. The little difference might be as a result of fluctuating exchange rate.

Still, there is a discrepancy as previous reports show that the NLNG had announced in 2014 that it paid a total $13 billion as dividend to the government.

The firm’s managing director, Babs Omotowa, stated this when the company celebrated its 3,000th LNG export cargo in Abuja, in March.

He said Nigeria now owned $14 billion of assets on Bonny Island; $13 billion in dividends, another $11 billion earned in feed gas sales revenue, over $10 billion expenditure in local economy on goods, services and salaries of thousands of staff employed.


http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/187929-investigation-nigeria-earned-11-8bn-from-lng-not-5-6bn-claimed-by-pdp-jonathan-govt.html

El-rufai, a very focused governor indeed.

The Kaduna State Government on Thursday announced its decision to commence implementation of the Treasury Single Account (TSA) framework by September 1.

As part of the process of attaining this goal, all banks that maintain the accounts of the government have been put on notice to close them and remit the balances to the Central Bank of Nigeria which will host the state’s TSA.

A statement by Samuel Aruwan, the Special Assistant, Media and Publicity, disclosed that the governor, Nasir El-Rufai, gave the directives at a meeting with officials of all banks holding the state government’s many revenue and expenditure accounts. The meeting was also attended by the Kaduna State Branch Controller of the CBN.

Mr. El-Rufai, according to the statement, explained that after the establishment of the TSA, the state government would open specified sub-accounts with the CBN and the commercial banks.

The banks present assured the governor that within five working days of receiving the formal instructions from the state government, they would close the accounts and remit the balances to the TSA.

While thanking the banks for their continued support, the governor assured them that a future session would be held to explain to the banks how the new TSA and the sub-accounts will work.

The statement also disclosed that selected revenue-holding accounts are excluded from the directive.

The government will publish needed Treasury Circulars and other instructions to give effect to these decisions.

http://www.premiumtimesng.com/regional/nwest/187926-kaduna-adopts-treasury-single-account-asks-banks-to-close-other-govt-accounts.html

I thought our able-ex-minister of aviation stellar oduah, said that there will be a national carrier before the end of 2014, where is the national carrier now?
PDP govt are known to be the loudest noise makers.

All our politicians are living in Abuja, they care less about their local constituencies.
Too bad that they are so inconsiderate.

When will those politicians who hijacked our 'collective wealth' be arrested and paraded for us all to pelt with rotten tomatoes?

Good job by the police force, there is no excuse for anyone to be involved in nefarious activities.

A new party will have to be formed from the carcass of PDP.

The story behind Nigeria's domestic movie industry, the second biggest producer of films in the world.

Filmmaker: Abba Makama
Despite having only 14 cinemas in a country of 170 million people, Nigeria's film industry, dubbed "Nollywood", churns out as many as 50 films a week, sometimes for as little as $10,000 a piece. Many are released straight to DVD and sold cheaply on the streets.
When it comes to sheer volume, the $5bn film industry makes more films than the US and is only rivalled by India, the world's biggest movie industry.
Unlike other countries where they waited until there was an NGO to donate money or there was a cultural exchange programme from another country to give them money. Nollywood made something out of nothing. We created entertainment, out of nothing.
Femi Odugbemi, Nigerian filmmaker
So, how did Nigerian films become so popular?
Nollywood tries to answer that question and more with those who know the industry best - Nigeria's filmmakers, actors and actresses, directors, producers and film critics.
All of them come up with different reasons for the secret behind the popularity of Nigeria's low-budget, self-styled movie industry: originality; "stories that people can relate to"; plots that satisfiy a cultural fascination with African "magic"; and films that draw from "that African thing about us - which is that we love to tell stories."
Nollywood also tries to pin down the origins of the industry - including the contributions of the founders of Nigerian film, Hubert Ogunde and Adeyemi Afolayan (also known as Ade Love) and their 1970s travelling cinema; to the collapse of the film industry and its rebirth as Nollywood in the mid-1990s, based on cheap VHS technology; and the part played by the 1992 film Living in Bondage, which established this new Nigerian way of making films.

"From the ashes of that rose a film industry that was not as technical as that colonial one, but it had a more sustainable platform that involved selling DVDs and going straight to video and gathering your friends and telling your story and putting it on tape and making money out of it," explains director Obi Emeloyne.
Weaving in the rich footage of the young industry's most-watched and game-changing movies, this Al Jazeera World film explores an explosive and vibrant industry that produces movies that are popular not just in Nigeria but also across the continent, and its culture and its key players.

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2015/07/nollywood-150719092553566.html

The US Immigration Officers are one of the most rudest bunch of people I have come across in my life, I fully appreciate the fact that their jobs can very stressful, but a little nicer personality will go a long way.

I have been to the US many times & still get frisks thoroughly everytime, in most cases for hours, so I'm used to their rants.

OP, pls next time you travel to any country have all necessary and only important docs with you. If you're a professional, have some information relating to your jobs e.g. a valid contact number i.e. your immediate boss in case they want to contact your office.

Stay close to your intended reasons for travelling and in all seriousness, don't try to joke or be funny at all, just answer all questions clearly and concisely - Keep It Short & Simple - (KISS).

A very staright to the point article for Metuh's bed time reading!

All the money can counted in foreign currencies in dollars -
Huge money meant for the development of the armed forces.