grafikii:
Lol he died in hands of a native doctor (sincerenigerian) his last words '' don't let my legacy(lies) die on nairaland''

Afam4eva: Sincere9gerian and Beaf are to PDP what Gbawe and ekoile are to ACN. They're all guilty of the same crime and that crime is "PROPAGANDA".

after residents ignored several warning notices by the state government urging them to vacate the acquired land which was said to be captured under the state master-plan for the construction of a modern housing scheme

If they have genuine certificate of ownership before the acquisition by the government, they will be duly compensated.

This is the place where perhaps the Nigerian dream is best expressed. This is where all our possibilities lie. Everything is possible in Lagos”

EFCC Re-arraigns Chimaroke Nnamani For Embezzling N4.5 billion

For the third time in six years the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has re-arraigned the former governor of Enugu State, Chimaroke Nnamani before a Federal High Court in Lagos over money laundering charges.

Mr. Nnamani, who was first arraigned before Justice Tijani Abubakar, was re-arraigned before Justice Mohammed Yinusa on a 105-count charge of money laundering and economic crime to the tune of about N4.5 billion.

The case which highlights some of the challenges faced by the anti-graft agency in the prosecution of its cases was first re-assigned to Justice Charles Archibong following the transfer of Justice Abubakar (now of the Appeal Court) out of the Lagos division of the Federal High Court.

But the case was again re-assigned to the current judge (Justice Yinusa) after Justice Archibong (now retired) was also transferred out of the Lagos division of the court.

Others docked alongside the ex-governor are his ex-aide, Sunday Anyaogu and six firms linked to them. The firms are: Rainbownet Nigeria Ltd, Hillgate Nigeria Ltd, Cosmos FM, Capital City Automobile Nigeria Ltd, Renaissance University Teaching Hospital and Mea Mater Elizabeth High School.

After the charges were read to them, the accused persons pleaded not guilty, while their lawyer, Ricky Tarfa (SAN) applied that his clients should be allowed to continue to enjoy the previous bail already granted them by the former trial judge.

The request was not opposed by EFCC’s lawyer, Kelvin Uzozie, who instead asked for a trial date.

Justice Yinusa, in a short ruling, ordered that the accused persons should continue with the former bail. He then fixed the 28th of May for trial.

Stealing from excess crude

According to the charge, Mr. Nnamani was said to have conspired with other accused persons to launder various statutory allocations of some local government areas of Enugu State. The local governments are: Aninri, Enugu South, Agwu, Igbo Etiti and Isi Uzor

For instance, in count nine, Mr. Nnamani allegedly stole N1.4 billion from the Excess Crude Oil Funds allocated to local governments in the state.

Besides, the former governor, through the help of one Chinero Nwigwe, who is now at large, fraudulently transferred millions of dollars of Enugu State funds to his personal accounts in the United States of America.

The offences were allegedly committed while Mr. Nnamani held sway as governor of the Coal City state between 1999 and 2007.

He later represented his Senatorial District at the Senate after serving as governor, but lost when he re-contested for the legislative seat in 2011.

Fisherman.com:
dat same eastherners are d ppl dat are known to be eyes openers in d whole africa including lagos.GOD forbid may Yoruba person open igboman eyes.

Special Adviser on Security Matter, Patrick Akinduro assured them that he would make their grievances known to the governor.

While appreciating their peaceful conduct which he advised them to maintain, the governor security aide said, the authority would get back to them latest next Monday.

Afam4eva: WE have to suffer in order to enjoy later. If they can't cope they should go back to the village.

FreeGlobe: when will you clowns stop rubbing this mentally challenged Fashola propagandas on our faces. Its a talk and talk. No finished work. Only a mad man would take a man who said Lagos is better than UK seriously.

phildon: I'm too busy to do that. Can u just come n lick my ass to death?

phildon: I'm waiting for u to come n kill me

bappahman: GEJ's visit to Borno and Yobe States slated for Thursday 7th March has been aborted due to negative security reports.”

babyosisi: LOL
If na Fashola the white man visited,Eko Ile and other Fashola's disciples would have been all over it and it would make front page
Oyibo visited TA orji and so what?
How does it put food on anyone's table?

phildon: Must u quote d whole speech to prove that u are a clown?

thelastPope:

What exactly have you said? I said show me one tangible thing Buhari did with over 200 billion! Haba, is that too hard to find? The guy is a corrupt idiota. That is why he can come out to give Abacha a clean bill. Birds of the same feather!

COUNTRY REPORT
[size=14pt]NIGERIA[/size]
[size=16pt]Development: PTF - shining in the gloom[/size]
The Petroleum Trust Fund, headed by former President, Gen. Buhari, has confounded all its critics. As a development agency, it has succeeded spectacularly where all others failed. Pini Jason has the details.

The one silver lining to emerge from the current heavy economic cloud must be the performance of the Petroleum (Special) Trust Fund (PTF). In October 1994, General Sani Abacha hiked the pump price of petrol from N3.25 to N11 per litre, promising, with Decree 25, to set up a Petroleum Trust Fund to distribute the gains from the increase on social and infrasturctural projects. The board of the fund, headed by former Head of State, Major-General Muhammadu Buhari, was eventually inaugurated on March 21, 1995.

The Fund began with an initial capital of about N60bn in 1996. Its all encompassing mandate includes the rehabilitation of roads and waterways, educational and health institutions, providing textbooks and stationary, procuring essential drugs and vaccines, providing water supply systems, reviving crumbling agricultural sectors, connecting outlying areas to the national electricity grid, extending railways and telecommunications and ensuring consistent food supply.

The huge budget and all-embracing mandate earned PTF some criticisms. Some dubbed it "the alternative government," accusing it of duplicating the responsibilities of other existing government agencies. There was for instance an initial conflict about who should be tarring which road, between PTF and the Federal Ministry of Works and Housing.

Yet, for once, other Nigerians began to hope that here was an agency that took its work seriously. The question was: could it carry out its entire mandate, or even a part of it? Everyone waited to see what would happen.

Initially PTF awarded contracts for the rehabilitation of 12,000km of federal highways (including drainages) nationwide, and between 25-100km of urban road in major cities such as Gusau, Benin, Funtua, Zaria, Enugu, Kaduna, Aba, Lagos, Lokoja, and Port Harcourt. A N27.3bn contract was awarded for road rehabilitation in the first quarter of 1996. The sum of N1.328bn was awarded to 53 pharmaceutical companies for the supply of drugs, while the importation of vaccines cost N229.9m. As at December 31, 1997, funds available to PTF stood at N115.1bn.

One thing even the most uncharitable critic of PTF will admit is that it has evolved a new way of doing things. This is true to its mission statement which is 'to establish and operate an open, modest and efficient organisation for the purpose of achieving the honest and timely execution of carefully designed socio-economic projects.'

Right from its inception, the Head of State directed the fund to operate a lean bureaucracy. It depends therefore largely on consultants supervised by Afri-Projects Consortium, the management consultant to PTF. This policy has created jobs and boosted the confidence of Nigerian professionals such as architects, engineers and quantity surveyors.

In many other ways, PTF has thrown a lifeline to dying sectors of the economy. Most of Nigeria's pharmaceutical companies were failing, and the foreign multinationals were divesting. But through its drugs procurement programme, PTF has turned the balance sheet of most of them into profit. Equipment and car leasing companies are also benefitting from the multiplier effects of PTF operations.

Banks and insurance companies have also benefited. Nigeria has a history of contractors collecting mobilisation (advance) fees and not carrying out the contract. But not with PTF. Every advance payment up to N10m must be guaranteed by a PTF-approved bank, while other advance payments are covered by performance bonds issued by similarly approved insurance companies. This method, apart from increasing solvency through cash deposits, has created business for banks and insurance companies.

One of the insurance companies that has benefited from PTF as a provider of performance bonds is The United Nigeria Insurance Company (UNIC), a composite insurance company which provides both life and non-life insurance. The total assets of UNIC stood at N979m while it grossed premium income of N916m and settled claims of N263m in 1996. With a staff of 552 spread all over its nationwide branch network, UNIC is today one of the leading insurance company in Nigeria.

Another company that has done good business with PTF is IPWA plc, formerly International Paints (West Africa) Ltd. IPWA is today one of the biggest and most diversified paint manufacturers in Nigeria. The company product range spans automotive paints, building paints, industrial coatings and marine coatings. Others are packaging coatings, protective coatings and wood finishes.

Most PTF contractors, specialist advisers and consultants lease and use computers, fax machines, printers and photocopiers. This has provided a new market for computer companies like Leading Edge Ltd., headed by Mr Tony Edoro, the managing director. Leading Edge is foremost in cloning computers with parts from diverse companies such as US Micro-Generation, IBM Direct, Merisel and Gateway. According to Mr Edoro, a widely experienced computer systems engineer, the advent of PTF has been good for Leading Edge. The company's turnover has grown from N50m in 1995 to well over N100m in 1997.

Apart from energising several sectors of the economy, PTF is also setting the pace in another direction. In the words of Mr Salihijo Ahmad, of Afri-Projects Consortium, the twin objectives of PTF are to "rehabilitate infrastructures and reorientate the people." This the fund does through its insistence on transparency even though some critics still accuse it of lopsidedness in project execution and selection of consultants and contractors.

In a country dogged by lack of transparency, PTF is the first, and perhaps the only public institution in Nigeria to publish its annual accounts. Last year, when he presented the annual report and accounts of 1996, Gen. Buhari promised to present the 1997 accounts before the end of the first quarter of 1998. He fulfilled that promise.

The 1997 account of PTF shows that it disbursed N24.3bn on roads, N21.2bn on security, N7.8bn on health, and N3bn on other projects. Other disbursements include N2.2bn on water supply, N936m on food supply and N476m on education. It realised a total of N1.049bn from various investment activities.

Reviewing the success story of PTF, Gen. Buhari said: "We have consolidated our execution of the take-off projects for the previous year and increased our intervention within the sectors. There is no doubt that the years ahead will witness even more intervention, as reports of some of the studies commissioned are received and project execution commenced."

The fund has embarked on community education to sensitise and enlighten communities of its activities. The idea is to bring recipients closer to the objectives of the fund, so that they can participate in project identification and selection as well as eventual PTF projects in their areas.

One aspect of the overall project that the public has raised an eyebrow over is the Armed Forces PTF. According to Gen. Buhari, PTF is under instruction to allocate 20% of its funds to the armed forces, and another 1% to the Federal Capital Territory. The allocation to the Armed Forces is probably a continuation of a practice that started during Gen. Babangida's time when he used to allocate excess revenue from the projected price of crude directly to the commanding officers. But what worries critics of PTF is that the military is not accountable to anyone regarding its utilisation of funds. Moreover, critics question the wisdom of allocating such a huge chunk to the military (who also usually takes the lion's share of the budget) over and above food supply, education and health. Apart from roads, the allocation to all other sectors does not add up to the Armed Forces PTF allocation.

Nobody knows how long PTF, a purely intensive intervention agency, will last or whether there will be a place for such an agency under a democratic set up. That decision, Gen. Buhari said, will be up to Nigerians. For now his preoccupation is to rehabilitate infrastructure and reorientate the people towards a new, effective and efficient way of executing uninflated contracts without kickbacks and without consuming mobilisation fees. Said Gen. Buhari to PTF contractors: "If you perform well, you get a hand shake. If you perform badly, you get a handcuff."

Culled fro: New African Journal (June 1998)
http://www.africasia.com/archive/na/98_06/abcr0604.htm

thelastPope:

Are you sure you are up to 20 years old? What nonsense questions is this? Why was the PTF setup? What did they claim they used the PTF money for? Up till today, we cannot point to one tangible project in the country that PTF accomplished. This was the same idiota that sabotaged the Lagos rail project!

Burger01:
@Garri, you lack manners....

thelastPope:

You guys keep repeating this foolish statement. Who needs anyone to tell us Nigeria's problems? We need patriots and solutions providers not town criers and whining nicompoops with long lamentations called speeches! What has Buhari ever done for Nigeria? What has he ever contributed to our progress? He was PTF chairman for 5 good years and squandered billions. Why couldn't he get almajiris off the streets? He is talking trash to oyibos that don't want us to do well so they can continue to oppress us! He has become a kind of curse to us. He truncated our democracy and set us back like 30 years. Now the accursed man is being used by the devil again as a tool of retrogression! He has no conscience! He is a wicked soul.

ifihearam: was expecting the ediot to mention boko haram and address the issue but he never did and this is the man some goons are clamouring for to lead abi? Useless ggoat.

christophem1: Na WA o! Mtcheeeew.....If Buhari na my father, wallahi make eim no just say eim won come House again! NO BE THE WHITE PEOPLE WEY ENSLAVE OUR DEVELOPMENT BE THAT? EIM GO DEY GIVE DEM PROGRESS REPORT?
Instead of Him to stand As a patriotic elder statemann to work peacefully for the development of the country either in Power or not but eim just want the Power at all cost... THIS IS War Against Indiscipline WAI

joeyfire: Buhari is a devil. So na now the man sabi say things dey wrong with the system because no be dem dey aso rock. He's complaining that small bayelsa receives the same allocation as lagos, why didn't he use yobe or gombe as example, after all how many people dey those places.

Boazizzy08: @garri, in as much as we need God's intervention to be saved from the NPF, other security agencies like the military and the sss still gives us hope.

Itohen:

Na TRUE yarn be dat oooooo, but however it is a very dangerous development, that citizens can no longer entrust the force saddled with the responsibility for the security and safety of live and property